Saturday, October 04, 2008

ANOTHER Purloined Speech?!

Let's be clear. Plagiarism is infingement of copyright and it is illegal. That's why university students get expelled for doing it. That's why political careers are done in when politicians do it. When someone writes something or says something, they own it. Unless they specifically put it in the public domain, it is illegal and immoral for someone else to rip it off.

In 2002, Mike Harris said:

"Thinking about things from a new and different perspective is never easy. It takes courage, conviction and the strength to know that in taking a new and innovative course, you are making change for the better. ... Genuine leaders are the ones who do the right thing."

A couple of months later, Stephen Harper said:

"Thinking about things from a new and different perspective is not about reading the polls and having focus group tests. It is never easy because it takes courage, conviction and the strength to know that taking a new and innovative course is going to make change for the better. Genuine leaders are the ones who do the right thing."

Harper is trying to slough this off, but plagiarism is a big deal. You cannot use someone else's words without giving them credit.

Not long after Harper stole these few lines, he ripped off much of a speech by Australian prime minister John Howard.

There's a pattern here. How many more plagiarized speeches are we going to discover in Harper's closet?

For more information about plagiarism, see this.

2 comments:

Bert said...

Yappa ?. Don't gleefully rub your hands about finding another speech that Stephen Harper plagerized. You only have to look at your glorious "leader", Stephan Dion:
http://stevejanke.com/archives/274965.php

Have a look at Steve's analysis, if you dare.

Yappa said...

Hi Bert,

I checked out your source. Dion repeated some facts that had been written as a resource and that were supposed to be used in just that way. Harper plagiarized soaring rhetoric and policy stances. He also used his plagiarized words in editorials that he published in the National Post, Toronto Star, Ottawa Citizen and Wall Street Journal.

See link.