Your sons say, “Daddy, I want to be pathetically correct when I grow up.”

Our sons say,
“Father, I want to be a Wal-martyr when I blow up”

Great line from your poet terrorist for tonight:

POETENCY & APOETASY: THE WAL-MARTYR: DEDICATED TO BARBARA HALL & JENNIFER LYNCH

Frank Frank

Somehow along the way I got on the mailing list for B'nai Brith Canada, the Jewish human rights organization (which actually began its history as a masonic-type Jewish fraternal organization, something like the Knights of Columbus).

The word on the street among those of us fighting the thought policing of the Canadian "human rights" commissions is that B'nai Brith, while having been a frequent intervenor and occasional complainant before Canada's human rights commissions, are not as censorious in their general outlook as the Canadian Jewish Congress. While B'nai Brith won't break with its past and come out against the "human rights" commissions now that Jews and somewhat jewish writers are being targeted by Islamist fatwas via the hrcs, they have come out against the supposed misjudgments that have allowed the fatwas to be heard by the hrcs, because they still hope to use the hrcs to protect Jews in Canada.

There are, however, apparently voices within B'nai Brith opposed to the hrcs, realizing that the old game whereby "hate speech" prosecutions were basically reserved for antisemites can no longer be sustained.

Anyway, today via the mailiing list comes news that Frank Dimant, Executive Vice President (basically B'nai Brith's executive head) has started a new blog, Frankly Speaking

‘Frankly Speaking’, we believe it is about time that the pressing issues of concern to Canada’s Jewish community were addressed head on. No more nuanced meaning disguised under the banner of political correctness. ‘Frank’ talk is what you will come to expect as a regular visitor to the blog.

Frank Dimant is one of Canadian Jewry’s senior leaders. He can always be counted on to tell the truth as he sees it. He will communicate what many of you are thinking, but often reluctant to say out loud.

Now that is something I'd like to read!

Most of the mailing is a cry for us to join together in fighting "online hate". There is no indication that our tools should be other than fighting back with the truth (especially about Israel), at sites like Youtube and Facebook.

So I checked out Frank's blog:

...The protestations on the lack of human rights in Arab countries are so muted that you cannot even hear them. The lack of rights granted to homosexuals and lesbians in Muslim countries brings absolutely no protest from Canadian human rights organizations. The torture of citizens in Arab lands is not an issue for academia. Child labour is simply not on the agenda. The stoning of men and women on charges of adultery barely raises an eyebrow. The right of Hindus to pray in their temples is not a matter of public concern. The list can go on indefinitely.

The dual standard of judging the Jewish nation and the Islamic world is so blatantly biased that it cries out for justice. Sadly, today, the international human rights bodies and human rights organizations, including the United Nations, are controlled by the very entities that promote hatred against the Jewish people and their ancestral homeland.

Sadly, we as a worldwide Jewish community, together with our friends and allies - and we do have friends - have failed to take the initiative. Instead of being on the offensive, we fall back on classical defense lines. We list the Nobel Prize winners that the Jewish people have produced, we list the universities that exist and flourish in Israel, we speak about the human rights of Arab citizens in Israel in stark contrast to the lack of rights they would have in neighboring Arab countries, but these defenses fall on deaf ears.

We have done ourselves and our friends a disservice. We have not launched an offensive to fend off the Islamists. We have not focused our attention on the tragic wars being promoted by Islamists whose ultimate aim is to impose Islamic rule throughout the world. We have not exposed in consistent or systemic fashion the depths of anti-Jewish hatred being taught to young children in the Arab/Muslim world, nor have we done nearly enough to highlight the threat of Ahmadinijad and Iran to the civilized community of nations.

It is high time that we begin a pro-active campaign of exposing our enemies for who and what they are and the threat they pose not only to our survival, but indeed to the very fundamental survival of western civilization as we know it.

The rights of women to dress in the fashion they so choose, to drive cars and be educated, which are so elementary to us and yet a rarity in the Muslim world, the rights of Christians not to be intimidated by Islamic rulers, the rights of Buddhists to have their shrines remain intact, and the rights of the Baha’i to practice their faith, are all basic human rights that are denied by the Islamist forces.

If the so-called politically correct human rights organizations refuse to address these issues, we must not be silent when such injustices are committed and when they risk being superimposed on western civilization. It is time for us to shatter the silence and step into the void. ‘Frankly Speaking’, it is long overdue.

Frankly Speaking » Blog Archive » Drowning in Political Correctness

Now I have always wanted to join a real human rights organization, i.e. one that talked something like this. If Frank can only come to the conclusion that the Canadian "human rights" commissions, in having acquired the right to police our freedom of expression, and in first having gone after marginal antisemites with the heavy hand of the state, has now led to an environment in which the fear of a "hate speech" prosecution by "the hrc" is now being felt more widely by many Canadian writers, especially writers who might write like Frank, then I might consider switching from the mailing to the membership list.

In the meantime, and knowing that B'nai Brith does not support the prosecution of Mark Steyn by the HRCs, but knowing that what Frank Dimant has written here is not much different from the kind of things Steyn writes, how will the frank blogger envision a future in which the HRCs should and can only police the "right" kind of "hate" mongers? I mean, for a man who is aware of the antisemitic, anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Western corruption that has crept into the entire complex of the "human rights" world view, from the UN down, how can he expect the "human rights" agents of the Canadian state not also to be so influenced by the inherent antisemitism in the politically-correct world view of the victimary left?

And more generally, how could he ever imagine a body set up to police "hate speech" that was not either just a way to fine the most marginal nutters, at considerable expense to the taxpayer who would otherwise never hear of these lost losers, or a way to make, through its choice of prosecutions, one politically-correct worldview the officially protected world view of the Canadian state and "democracy", at the expense of others? The mere existence of a "hate speech" law is either a way for the righteous to become more disturbingly righteous by allowing them to scapegoat and punish the pathetic and inconsequential, or, when such a law is applied to silence figures with any significant audience, a way to chill all kinds of dissident opinion that should be heard in a free and democratic society, if we believe that allowing people to air their resentments - resentment being something so fundamental and inescapable to the human condition - is usually a much better way to mediate and defer resentment than is the stateist attempt to try and silence the "hate".

Let's see if frank Frank will contest the point. Let's see if he really believes that a free and open society with real human rights is always the best way to protect Jews and free people generally?

What is a human right in today's British Columbia?

Compare and Contrast:

1)

A program to remove panhandlers and homeless people from streets and parks amounts to "systemic discrimination," says a complaint filed Thursday with the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal.

The complaint, put forward by the Pivot Legal Society, the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users Society (Vandu) and the United Native Nations Society, takes aim at the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association's Downtown Ambassadors Program.

The program employs ambassadors to patrol parts of downtown, dispensing information to tourists and trying to deter petty crime, vandalism and aggressive panhandling.

The complaint says the ambassadors order people who are sitting or sleeping on the street to move along, prevent persons from searching for recyclables in garbage cans, identify people as undesirables, take pictures of them and tell them they are not allowed in certain areas of the downtown.

That amounts to harassment and discrimination against the homeless and the poor in Vancouver, it says.

The complainants ask for $20 in damages for every person affected by the Ambassadors' conduct, to a maximum of 1,000 people.

2)

The city's police department has unveiled a safety program for restaurants in the hope it will deter gangsters from frequenting their establishments.

Modelled after the successful Bar Watch program, Restaurant Watch encourages staff to call police if they spot someone who fits the criteria of a gangster, gang associate, drug trafficker or violent person.

Police officers then take on the responsibility of deciding if the suspicious person should be removed from the restaurant.
[...]
Police said uniform and plainclothes officers will also do periodic walk-throughs of the 40 restaurants.

"We're not going to tolerate violence from these criminals," VPD superintendent Warren Lemcke said in a news release. "They're not welcome in our city."

AND:

The B.C. Civil Liberties Association dismissed the program as "bloody odd," with the easy potential to threaten the rights of restaurant patrons. Micheal Vonn, BCCLA policy director, wondered how restaurant staff will be able to tell people with gang-like appearances are actual gangsters with violent tendencies.

"It certainly raises a very serious question about what these people look like. On the basis of what possible criteria do you determine someone has a 'propensity for violence'?

"This is a very different thing than saying someone is causing a disturbance, which is always a justification for seeking police involvement," Ms. Vonn said.

"It is completely bizarre to assume there is some kind of behavioural or appearance profile that is going to effectively make this work. The slippery-slope notion would be how long before we say, 'We're going to scan your ID before you come into a restaurant.' "

Supt. Lemcke said that he is mindful of civil-liberties issues and that he and his officers would act within the law.

Restaurants have always been free to call police, but Restaurant Watch is being touted as a more visible and organized alliance between police and restaurants.

Ian Tostenson, president of the British Columbia Restaurant and Foodservices Association, said the effort will take the guesswork out of calling police on gang issues.

"If the restaurant is somewhat uncertain and not quite sure and detect something but they are not feeling good about it, it puts the onus on the Vancouver Police Department to make that determination. That's really key to this program," Mr. Tostenson said.

So... if you use drugs, and generally look pathetic, are you more likely to be seen as having your "human rights" violated than if you are a gang member making good money from dealing drugs?

It might seem so. This would suggest that "human rights" have become in good part a question of our capacity to feel guilt for those being claimed as victims.

Guilt is an irrational, potentially delusional, form of "thought" because even where guilt may be appropriate, we are not able to reflect rationally on our feelings of guilt when we are feeling guilty. We have to snap out of the feeling first to truly judge our feeling of guilt and, when necessary, to decide on any appropriate course to redeem our guilt.

But in today's society, we are more and more encouraged to dwell in and use our feelings of guilt as a true guide to reality. Pathetic looking dumpster diver, or barely cogent addict panhandling and making tourists feel guilty and scared? at what point along the way were his human rights violated? Expensively-dressed and obnoxious young men with an expensive sports cars eating steaks? when are we going to stop them and let the rest of us live in peace?

Resentment, you see, is the flip side of guilt and equally delusional: you can't think rationally about whatever you resent, at the time when you are feeling resentful.

Because guilt and resentment are delusional states of being we should always struggle against thinking about "human rights" claims when under their influence. We can't avoid seeing the scenes that make (some of) us feel guilty or resentful. But we must attempt to view and judge them from within the framework of a larger discipline of real thinking that does not allow our so-called "emotions" to rule.

Because if we reduce "human rights" to mean whatever makes a successful claim on victim status, whatever makes us feel guilty, we likely make victim status more and more desirable and create a positive need for it. Then, on the one hand, we may well become cynical towards any victim claim because we have become aware that it's a way to game the system (are we now to think people who look like gangsters have a right to eat in restaurants???) and are less able to identify genuine human rights victims. Or, on the other hand, we may become so enamored of victimary thinking that we fall in love with the heavy hand of the state (I'm taking you to the Human Rights Tribunal, you nasty business owner, you) as part of some Utopian dream of overcoming "victimization". This, of course, only has the unintended effect of creating a whole new kind of victim of the heavy-handed state. In Vancouver, it seems the povertarians and workplace victimologists are always looking for ways to use moral blackmail, a kind of extortion, on the business owners and taxpayers.

"Human Rights" needs to mean guaranteeing the freedom of any and all to access and play out their lives on our various public stages, when they agree to play by the rules that maximize freedom for all. To do this, we need to avoid giving some the power to manipulate the scenes that we "play" out (the more they are manipulated, the less free we are to play them out), by giving them the power to appeal to our guilt and resentment, which is ultimately an appeal to enforce a form of closure on our freedom. Those who think of human rights in terms of equality of outcome and not equal rights and opportunities under law, are people who will restrict all freedoms, because any freedom when exercised will have the effect of making differences among people. And social differences even when part of a rational economy that attempts to maximize wealth and exchange can make us feel guilty and resentful.

We should only care about keeping these differences in constant circulation and exchange, that people may have the chance to work their or their family's way out of a bad situation. We should not try to eliminate differences in some Utopia where no scene will make us feel guilty or resentful. Utopia can't be done, and the attempt only makes things worse. It creates a dependent class, people willing to play their part in "guilting" and blackmailing the successful. And no system can do that for long and remain free and successful.

Of course, for all I know, maybe the Downtown Ambassadors are doing something wrong in respect to the homeless and the addicts. It would be nice to have a real court of law with real rules of evidence where such claims could be played out. But in our victimary culture, I'm not likely to take the word of povertarians or the British Columbia "Human Rights" Tribunal for it. And that's the problem. Civil suits with respect for our legacy of Common Law and torts don't seem to be in fashion among lawyers for "victims".

Nor can we be sure that the police understand "human rights" either.

Worth a read

Michael Ross, at the National Post, neatly exposes the farce of the "human rights" world view whose members, obsessed with finding Nazis in lonely basement computer rooms and modern state bureaucracies, but not among the massed resentments of the "post-colonial" world, has allowed left-liberal opinion to ignore the greatest threats to human rights on full public parade from "Bangladesh to Marrakech". Nowhere than among public Jews is the farce so great.

It is all very strange: What has actually emerged from this pathetic state of affairs is that the CJC [Canadian Jewish Congress] and the Islamists find themselves in bed together, both defending their "human rights" and playing the victim's role.

When claiming attention and position in public becomes predicated on claiming an unquestionable victim status, on being the "jew" to someone else's "nazi", we lose our critical ability to differentiate between the cause of victimary politicians, and the cause of real victims and of freedom.
(HT: Blazing Cat Fur)