Friday, January 25, 2008
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Steyn v. The Canadian Human Rights Commission
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Posted by:
Hugh Hewitt at
8:09 AM
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I got an update from Mark Steyn about the continuing attempt to intimidate him. Is there no one with half a brain on the Canadian Human Rights Commission who sees what fools this prosecution makes of them? The beginning of the exchange:
HH: Give us an update on your travails with the Canadian Human Rights Commission, Mark Steyn.
MS: Well, you know, this is, of course, immensely dreary from my point of view. I’m kind of modestly encouraged by the fact that almost all the commentary has been pro-Steyn. Or not exactly pro-Steyn, but they’ve tended to take the line, well, Mark Steyn may be an appalling, misguided, idiotic, racist buffoon. But on the hand, we still believe in free speech. And I think the plaintiffs have actually been a little rattled at the overwhelming support, and in fact, opposition, to the case they’re bringing. And they’ve been reduced, they keep changing their argument. Their argument now is that my insult of the Human Rights Commission process, I don’t believe that any court in Canada should have the right to decide whether any Canadians, whether free-born Canadian citizens are entitled to read my column. I was asked whether I wanted to get off the hook, and I said no. I wanted to take the hook and shove it up the collective butt of the Canadian thought police. And I was, and this was perhaps excessively magnificently robust.
HH: (laughing)
MS: But it was widely quoted in The Economist, and around the world, in fact, and The Australian. And so I’m obliged to stick by it now, and I mean it. And so the plaintiffs have taken the new line, that Mark Steyn’s attack on the Canadian Human Rights Commission is in fact an attack on all Canadians. So they’re defense is evolving in interesting ways.
HH: Oh, it is splendidly magnificently robust, and I hope you play the line out like tuna fishing or something, that they get the hook in and they swim against the current for a few hours.
MS: (laughing)
HH: Oh, they should be cutting the line as quickly as they can at this point.
MS: Yeah, I think they would like to. I’ve…I don’t normally pester government officials, but I wrote to the minister of justice a couple of days ago, and he seems in no hurry to respond to me, so I think the government recognizes that to a certain extent, this is something that the Human Right Commission’s not going to come well out of it, and quite rightly so. The lamps are going out on liberty all over the free world, and Americans should understand and value their 1st Amendment. And they should be very concerned that the free expression is not quite so easy, never mind in Europe, but even just north of the 48th parallel.
Read the whole thing. If the fools at the CHRC allow this to go forward, the media tsunami that will build around Steyn will be enormous. There's got to be a way for the Commission to quickly dismiss the idiotic attempt to silence Steyn.
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Im a Canadian and am glad to report there are various ones in the media rising up to defend Mark Steyn...and I hope their tribe does increase. Toronto Sun journalist Salim Mansur wrote an article today entitled "Sapping Freedom An Inside Job?" where he comments on the dangers of the Canadian Islamic Congress. There's actually another case as well of one being prosecuted by the CHRC a publisher Ezra Levant who had the courage to print the Danish cartoons.
A couple of Muslim imans filed protests accusing him of spreading hate, for as you know we have here in Canada the slippery slope hate crime legislation. The name of the game here is really if you can't take them out and hang them what takes place is something just near as bad.....destroy them financially making them pay thousands of dollars in legal bills to defend themselves. Peter Worthington of the Toronto Sun indicates he sent him a sizable financial contribution and encourages others to do the same.
Concerning the Levant case one of the imams went to the police three times demanding they arrest him, and they refused. He had to ask the enforcers of human rights once. Once thing I hope many will understand however is that these commissions were set up and created more so by the past liberal governments our Liberal party I might compare to your democrats. We now have a Conservative minoritiy government but its strength is limited.....it actually would be a welcome thing I believe even from our federal conservative government the more noise internationally that can be made concerning the Steyn and Levant cases......
it would grant the conservatives the political capital to sweep the house of these unjust commissions. Unfortunately at the present time I don't believe that they have that.
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Shove a sock in his mouth. He is an obnoxious boor. |
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leverage his eerie ability to be 100% wrong in his forecasts.
If he loudly predicts he'll lose the case perhaps the space-time continuum will warp and and cause the board to acquit. |
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Personally, I find him to be obnoxious, a preening, pretentious, reactionary boor. However, what is far, far worse than a preening, pretentious, reactionary bor is government censorship of said person.
The actions of the Canadian HRC are, or should be, unthinkable in a free society. I hope Steyn sticks it to them. |
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have a 100% "conviction" rate. Over the last several decades they have found the accused party guilty in every case. Talk about a kangaroo court. If you were on the one of those boards and had that kind of historical performance would you even think about letting someone off, regardless of how you appear to the rest of the world? |
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True reason to hate McCain/Feingold. I heard Medved saying "do you honestly feel political speech and funding are too little?" but thats not the point, the first and second must be defended at all costs, loss of either paves the way for totalitarianism down the line.
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What is scary is it is not jack booted thugs coming to get you (at least not yet), but a gloomly grey bureaucracy grinding slow and especially fine. |
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Mark Steyn,
You are aware, of course, that not only has President Bush been eviscerating the liberties of US citizens, he is also at the center of, he's the mastermind, don't you know, behind Canadians having their rightful liberties diluted, Eh?
I know because I heard the code words of liberals on this very site inferring same.
Yeah, we conservatives here-----we listen to right wing talk radio for the explicit purpose of hearing and stealing ideas from Liberals. That is because we have no thoughts of our own. But you knew this already, Eh? I heard this myself just below on Hugh's posting, "the truth about talk radio". And this is what those Libs are implying, Eh? |
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From Today's pice by Pat Buchanan:
In 2004, the voters of Arizona, by 56 percent to 44 percent, enacted Proposition 200, requiring proof of citizenship before an individual may vote or receive state benefits. Forty-six percent of Hispanics voted for Prop. 200, giving the lie to those who say Hispanics support the illegal invasion of their country. Over 190,000 Arizonans petitioned to put Prop. 200 on the ballot. As it simply required proof of citizenship before receiving the benefits and privileges of citizenship, who could oppose it? Answer: the entire GOP congressional delegation, led by Sen. John McCain. This is the same John McCain who battled the border fence and colluded with Teddy Kennedy on the amnesty bill rejected by Congress last year after a national uproar. Bottom line: If the presidential race is between Hillary and Amnesty John, the border security battle is over and lost. |
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