Liberal Fascists fight back against free speech and real human rights: Write or call your MP this weekend or Monday morning!

After reading countless blogs and newspaper opinion pieces from all kinds of decent Canadians, condemning the Canadian Human Rights Commissions for going after Mark Steyn, Ezra Levant, and others exercising their right to free political speech; after reading about the corruption of all due legal processes at the Canadian Human Rights Commission, including, most shockingly, its enabling of investigators who publish hate speech on white racialist web sites all the better to make a case against these web sites for hate speech; after reading of how Liberal MP Keith Martin was going to introduce a motion in the House of Commons calling for a small reform to the Canadian Human Rights Act, removing one of the sections most offensive to free speech in Canada; I was at first shocked, and then reminded of the fanatically religious evil that freedom lovers are up against today, when I read the following headline in the Globe and Mail. 'White pride' website hails Victoria MP as hero. None of the above-mentioned concerns was given any coverage in this story. No, instead, it seems the mainstream media are willing to reduce this all to another question of human rights under attack by White Supremacists and their naive aiders and abettors.

The Canadian Press story, a more complete version of which appears here, by Joan Bryden is discussed by Ezra Levant:

Joan Bryden, Canadian Press's house Liberal, followed Kinsella's memo to the letter. She wrote that wire service's first story on the subject -- not about my interrogation, or about Maclean's, or the YouTube/undernews phenomenon, etc. Her focus was the reddest red herring Kinsella she could find: that, besides 5,000 blogs, dozens of columnists across the political spectrum and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association support Martin's amendment, a no-name white supremacist does too.

"The cases of Levant and Maclean's writer Mark Steyn have sparked much furious debate," wrote Bryden. Well, not enough of a debate for her to write about, though as a journalist her trade depends on freedom of speech. But when she could smear Martin's initiative by a tenuous association, well, that's a newspeg and a headline.

What will the Liberals do?

Bryden quotes a spokesman from Stephane Dion's office as saying the obvious. "This is not the position of the Liberal Party of Canada or the Liberal caucus or Mr. Dion," said spokeswoman Leslie Swartman. Of course not; it was a private member's motion.

But then Swartman went further: "We support the Canadian Human Rights Act and will not entertain changes to it such as this." That may or may not be true; I doubt the Liberal caucus or shadow cabinet has considered the matter. But even if it's true, it could also be said of 95% of private members' business. Bryden herself opines that Swartman's comments "suggested Martin will be asked to withdraw it."

That could be the suggestion. Or it could be Kinsella's Bryden's own troublemaking spin. Martin is clearly digging in -- he's seen the blogs and the wall-to-wall editorials on the one side and, uh, Kinsella on the other side, and he's done the political math. What will Stephane Dion's math be? Will he really risk losing yet another member of his caucus over a private member's motion, something designed to allow MPs to vent ideas outside the lines of their party? Kinsella wants a fight, for his own purposes. Does Dion? Does he want another mini civil war in the Liberal Party to fill the news for a week, as it did so devastatingly last November? And what will he do if other Liberals vote for Martin's motion? Kinsella's a "Kick-Ass" bomb-thrower. But does he know how to hold together a party, demoralized by opposition status, still split along leadership faultlines? Uh, no

What now?

Kinsella's excitement has sped things up. Bryden managed to find someone else to quote before MPs deserted for the weekend: a freshmen NDP MP says he's against the motion. Over the weekend, other MPs and staff will probably chew over the subject, and maybe even do some fact-finding on their own -- and these days, that usually means using Google. It's my guess that by Monday, there will be a lot more MPs with opinions on Martin's motion, and they, too, might see the incredibly disproportionate support for his amendment, across the ideological spectrum. I predict -- though it is a prediction fused with hope -- that next week MPs and even cabinet ministers weigh in on the subject, and that Martin's little private member's motion turns into something much bigger: the first honest, open debate on the Canadian Human Righs Act, well, ever.

Note that, other than Jason Kenney's skirmishing, no Conservatives have commented publicly on this matter. I think that must end next week, if only because the MSM now smells a partisan (or at least intra-Liberal) fight. Thanks to Martin, Kinsella and Bryden, the issue is now firmly associated with a visible minority Liberal MP whose human rights credentials are impeccable. What a perfect political setting for the Conservatives to enter the fray -- calmly, thoughtfully, as followers of Martin and not radical leaders, in a bi-partisan display of their true commitment to human rights: the fundamental human rights of freedom of thought, expression, religion and the press. Next week will be interesting.

Some of Levant's commenters are not so optimistic:

I wish I could agree with you Ezra, but my sense is, from what I've gathered from people I've been chatting up around The Hill, that the Conservative's really don't want to touch this issue with a fifty-thousand foot poll right now.

They maybe onside with you, and onside with us as a whole, but they're piss scared that with them running at 5 points behind the Liberal's in the polls, that this could easily be spun the wrong way in a clearly unsupportive media.

It wouldn't surprise me if the Toronto Star's headline sometime next week is: "RACIST GROUPS PRAISE ATTACK ON HUMAN RIGHTS LAWS".

If the Conservative's jump into the fray, that headline will rather be written: "RACIST GROUPS PRAISE CONSERVATIVE ATTEMPTS TO KILL HUMAN RIGHTS LEGISLATION".

Then of course, you'll have the additional gratuitous nonsense from the Liberals. I can already see it: "First you interfere with the AECL, and now you're interfering with Human Rights Tribunals!".

The Liberal's, lead by Scott Reid, Cherniak and company, will go out of their way to paint this as an alliance between Nazi groups and the Conservatives (we're already seeing that happening) and more Conservative interference in independent government bodies.

This whole thing could backfire huge.

I think we've already established where most of the media stands on this issue.
Mike Brock | Homepage | 02.02.08 - 2:40 am | #

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CBC radio news is going apoplectic on the story, and SERIOUSLY spinning it.

No mention of you, Steyn or Macleans, no mention of the hrcs at all, but they sure like talking about "white supremacists".

IOW, no surprises at all from the CBC.
djb | 02.02.08 - 7:11 am | #

In other words, It seems the MSM is gearing up to tell anyone who will listen that the many thousands of Canadians who have been expressing outrage in the blogs and newspapers of the lands are, knowingly or not, all in league with white supremacist neo-nazis. For daring to speak out against officialdom's take on "human rights" in the name of real human rights, we are to be plastered with the tired slander, evoking, but not explaining or validating, the fundamental revelation of the religion of White Guilt, i.e. Auschwitz. We've seen it all before a thousand times. The attempt by the left-liberal elite to avoid or end debate by using emotional name-calling, invoking false moral equivalences, refusing empirical distinctions or real and important differences, instead of facing up to the real issues in play. Keith Martin has put his name on the line in an attempt to have a real open public debate in this country. Now it's time to put yours on the line too. Now is the time to send an email or phone your MP, as well as the Prime Minister's Office. We have to let them know that there are a lot of people out there who really care about this issue.

Take a look at what MP Keith Martin wants to remove from the law, Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act:

Hate messages

13. (1) It is a discriminatory practice for a person or a group of persons acting in concert to communicate telephonically or to cause to be so communicated, repeatedly, in whole or in part by means of the facilities of a telecommunication undertaking within the legislative authority of Parliament, any matter that is likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt by reason of the fact that that person or those persons are identifiable on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination.

Interpretation
(2) For greater certainty, subsection (1) applies in respect of a matter that is communicated by means of a computer or a group of interconnected or related computers, including the Internet, or any similar means of communication, but does not apply in respect of a matter that is communicated in whole or in part by means of the facilities of a broadcasting undertaking.

Interpretation
(3) For the purposes of this section, no owner or operator of a telecommunication undertaking communicates or causes to be communicated any matter described in subsection (1) by reason only that the facilities of a telecommunication undertaking owned or operated by that person are used by other persons for the transmission of that matter.

R.S., 1985, c. H-6, s. 13; 2001, c. 41, s. 88.

Now check out the definition of "discrimination" in the first part of the Act:

Prohibited grounds of discrimination

3. (1) For all purposes of this Act, the prohibited grounds of discrimination are race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, family status, disability and conviction for which a pardon has been granted

In other words, it is illegal in this country to expose a person to "hatred" or "contempt" for pretty much any reason you could imagine. Do you really want a small class of mutually-accrediting officials deciding what intellectual differentiation you make in discussing religion, or sexuality, or family life, or culture, is or is not discriminatory and likely to expose someone to "contempt"? Do you want the law dealing in such subjective terms, and thus able to create thought crimes, as they already have in their very selective applications? Do you really believe such a law can be applied without bringing our traditional ideals of a universally-applied rule of law into contempt? Can any group of "judges" not be corrupted by a need to become politically correct in order to know whom a citizen may criticize on the internet - say "white nationalists" or conservative Christians - and whom one cannot, e.g. certain Muslim organizations or values.

We have entered in this country a time of public insanity brought about by the dominant religion of our postmodern culture: a cult of non-discrimination, the Utopian belief that human beings can somehow share a political space without having to fight for or defend anything, without having any commonly validated, or even permitted, ideas about what is good and what evil, what forms of culture are superior to others, what is a mark of freedom and what of oppression, what is a more or less rational or productive resentment and what is delusional and destructive. Because to have any such ideas you have to be willing to discriminate against someone or some form of religion. You have to take a stand and be willing to deny the Utopian fantasy of a world without conflict. But this fantasy cannot ever come true; holding on to it can only erode the existing order and its means for rational negotiation of our differences in free-speaking and decentralized arenas. The fantasy can only either lead us back into a tribal jungle where people have to join gangs for protection and fight each other without the rule of law to help defer conflict; or, it can only lead us into some kind of totalitarian order where no one, save the officially-accredited Joan Brydens of the world, dare voice their opinion. I mean, there simply haven't been any other kinds of reports on the current "Human Rights" scandal in the Globe and Mail and many other Canadian papers.

We write about these themes often here. If you need more discussion or links, read this blog's archives for the last few weeks. But for me, now is not the time to try and recapitulate all the arguments. As the story quoted at the top of this post suggests, this is the weekend when politicians in Ottawa have to decide what position they're going to take on Keith Martin's motion, at least tentatively. SO, now is the time to get in contact with your MP and let the politicians know how you feel about the cult of non-discrimination. I will only leave you with one more link, to a video which is a very compelling and funny, not too complicated look at how our liberal culture has fallen into the Utopian nonsense of a cult of non-discrimination:


Technorati Tags: Joan Bryden, liberal fascism, free speech, Canadian Human Rights Act, Keith Martin, Ezra Levant, Warren Kinsella, Liberal Party of Canada