Ezra and a moment of revelation into the "human rights" cult

Ezra Levant recounts his debate with Ian Fine, Senior Counsel for the Canadian Human Rights Association:

...At another point in the debate, I tried to show the absurdity of banning any hateful words through a law that doesn't permit legal defences like truth, fair comment or even common sense. I pointed out that Fine himself had given an interview with the National Post in which he read out a bigoted remark, namely: "a n*gger will try to kill you just for a slice of pizza or a piece of chicken ... By Aryan standards, negroes are dangerous animals".

Fine read that to show the kind of hate the CHRC wants to fight. But that explanation, which is reasonable, is not a legal defence. I jokingly said to Fine that, since he uttered a comment that is "likely" to expose someone to "hatred or contempt", I should file a section 13 complaint against him. I said it unseriously -- I was pointing out the ridiculously arbitrary and overreaching nature of the law. But -- and I'll want to check this again on CPAC -- he actually looked ashen when I said it, as if he agreed with me that he had broken the law, and was ashamed of it.

I think in that moment, I glimpsed what made Ian Fine tick: he has drunk the anti-hate industry's Kool Aid without a drop of skepticism. I think he genuinely thought, just for a moment, that I was serious when I said he was a bad man for having said the word n*gger, even in the context of anti-racism. I think he's been immersed in a groupthink environment, with zealots, where diversity of opinion, let alone criticism, is non-existent. I think he genuinely believes that his little anti-hate squad is saving Canada from turning into an Arctic version of Rwanda.

I think that's why he froze up when I pressed him on Richard Warman's online bigotry -- it just didn't compute for him; it doesn't make sense in his unified theory of the world. I think it's why he's in denial about the hacking charges. I think it's why he was silent when I pointed out that, without Warman's serial complaints, section 13 would fall into disuse -- surely a sign that Canada is not beset with the problems for which he offers himself as the solution.

I think it's a bit of a cult over there, and for thirty years no-one has dared to question them -- and the past four months has been terrible.

I'm not the only one to call the CHRC's self-image and world view "bizarre" -- Joseph Brean of the National Post used that exact same word in his story about Fine's first attempt to explain the CHRC's behaviour. In that interview, as in today's debate, Fine simply asserts that his critics are armed with "misinformation". Mere assertions don't pass for arguments, though -- except, of course, in the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, which has given Fine a 100% conviction rate. I think Fine's wiring overheats when he is presented with dissonant information.

There was a stunning moment at the end of the debate. It caused groans in the audience, and both Martin and I quickly jotted it down to make sure we got it right: one journalist in the audience asked Fine not just to give the "official" line, but to tell the crowd what he personally thought about section 13 and other censorship. His answer: "there can't be enough laws against hate."

If Ian Fine had his way, section 13 wouldn't be abolished. It wouldn't even be maintained. It would be expanded. He said he wouldn't rest until there was "no hate" left.

Wow -- legislating an end to hate. Why not legislate an end to war, hunger and broken hearts, while you're at it?

That's nutty utopianism. Which is fine for old Marxists in universities. But it doesn't work so well when it's married to the power of the state -- the power to exact large fines, to issue lifetime publication bans and gag orders, and to grind respondents through years of abusive hearings.

It's shocking how blind people can become by dint of their need for Utopian promises. They should pass a law against human self-hatred, to institutionalize fully the tail chasing these "human rights" dogs are all about. Then we will have to love ourselves for what we are: fallen resentful beings who can't get back up by trying to outlaw our nature. To overcome our resentments we have to know what we are and work through them honestly, and sometimes publicly (some things we can only see and learn through interaction with and honest feedback from others), without help of fanciful legal prohibitions.

Imagine if Ian Fine actually had to go out and debate, lead, and teach, in face of hatred, instead of just going out and trying to round up the haters for prosecution. By Ezra's account, it seems he'd not be capable of doing the job. In becoming part of the CHRC mindset, he's trying to take a short cut, the easy way out of this world and into a Utopia that can only be imagined, not realized here on earth. The rest of Canada should not kid themselves into faith in legal magic, however widely it is practiced in this fallen and deluded world. Canadians should learn to go out and do the job the bureaucrats won't and can't do.

To covenant or not to be...

Sometimes, you'd rather just sit at home and look at pictures from one of your favorite artists. Sometimes you'd rather you had invested everything in gold, now at a thousand dollars an ounce, forgetting that we inevitably need also rely on our fellow man and put our faith in shared national covenants if we are to live in anything other than a tyranny of big men and ideologies. The price of gold keeps going up as the world loses faith in the inter-national leadership of the American covenant.

And here one finds the Covenant Zone bloggers, meeting each Thursday in the atrium of the central branch of the Vancouver Public Library, 7-9 pm, in front of Blenz Coffee, wearing blue scarves. Here we are in a city that is probably home to more gold promoters per capita than any other North American city enjoying the steady fruits of the civilizing covenants of our forebears.

How much longer can we keep our faith in something other than the preciousness of certain metals? I had the odd experience this week of touring the Vancouver Gift Show with a woman who couldn't commit to buying any of the many costume jewelry on display, because it all is sure to tarnish upon lengthy contact with human skin. To give such a gift would be to lose face, when one has sisters-in-law who expect more.

If gold holds value, it is only because someone is willing to trade for it because some covenant somewhere must always be renewed through exchange. But the more we learn this lesson, the less value gold will hold, which is no knock on those who hold gold that we may hold on to something...

But such is the way of all covenants, all signs we share in order to keep order and peace in our society: nothing human lasts forever but must be continually, actively, renewed. To succeed is simply to renew the challenge to our shared faith as we further develop the signs of our shared faith and ask others to sign on. Only in failure, or in faith in violence, can one hope to find a sure, if deadly, thing. The culture of shared life is inherently uncertain, paradoxical.

I am continually amazed by the times in which we live, the revelations into the erosion of our national covenant. How can one not read Ezra Levant's tales of the erosion of the rule of law by Utopian hatemongererers (those who have the gall to believe they can defend human rights by abrogating, without the rule of law, the rights of those they deem to be hatemongerers - follow the links, and you shall see... it is one thing if a responsible, transparent, and duly elected leader goes to war, qualifying rights along the way; but when unaccountable bureaucrats do it, we need to go to war with them...)

But then I am not really amazed, bloggers are really only "amazed" as a literary device, because this kind of thing is inevitable; we know that erosion is the way of the world, that the first rule is that nothing human lasts forever. Those who cannot renew their sacred truths must give way to those who can.

I will never be able to tell exactly how this renewal can happen for those of us who want to avoid for Canadians a future in which the nation lies on the cusp of death and like the Jews of today, we must quickly now decide once again, and maybe for the last time, to be or not. When that event comes, it will not be completely predictable. When it comes to your neighborhood, one will either be ready or not. One will either have faith in a shared covenant, where every individual is to be protected by the universal rule of our law, or one will believe in the inevitability of brute force or Utopian imperial schemes, or appeasement of those who cry bloody murder to manipulate emotions, without the rule of law. There is the sword and there is love of individual hands and arms and heads that surpasses all love of any neatly divided up and ritualized way of life.

You don't need a plan if you have others who will act in the name of a covenant that is always just being born when the unpredictable time and place demands it. If you don't yet have those others, your plan to help them approach the light must begin in uncertain faith.

Today, I received a letter from Keith Martin, MP, entitled "Please keep fighting against Section 13":

Thank you for writing me to express your support for the motion I recently introduced (M-446) regarding section 13(1) of the Canadian Human Rights Act (CHRA). As a Member of Parliament, I am encouraged that my motion has brought more public attention to this issue and it is my hope that it will spur action within Parliament.

The Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) was created in the 1970s with laudable objectives. At that time, we still had a society marred by bigotry and ignorance. As a dark-skinned immigrant myself, I know from painful, personal experience what it feels like to be on the receiving end of those beliefs. The Commission was originally created with the noble intent to investigate when people were allegedly being discriminated against as they sought employment or housing. However, the poorly crafted section 13(1) of the CHRA, has enabled the Commission to move into an entirely different area - investigating, prosecuting and fining people who communicate anything that someone else takes offence to. In other words, if an individual feels offended by what somebody has written, they can go to the Commission, lodge a complaint and the Commission's lawyers will investigate the case at taxpayers' expense. Although the plaintiff pays nothing, the defendant must defend themselves with their own money, and if they are found guilty, they must pay fines out of their own pocket and can be subjected to lifetime bans on their ability to talk about certain issues.

In the three decades of the CHRC's existence, not a single defendant has been acquitted; not one. The Commission has a staggering 100% conviction rate. Interestingly, more than half of the complaints have been launched by just one person ¬- a former employee of the CHRC.

In our country, we already have laws that protect citizens against slander, libel, discrimination and hate crimes. Civil suits, which are adjudicated through the courts, are another recourse for people when these laws are violated. But the Commission is using section 13(1) to investigate and prosecute people who they deem to have offended somebody. The Commission incidentally is accountable neither to the Canadian public, nor Parliament. They have their own rules where the balance that exists in our courts between prosecutor, judge and jury do not exist.

Thankfully, we have the right in our country to be free of slander, discrimination and hate crimes. However, we do not have the right to not be offended. Independent commissions that prosecute people for writings that do not meet the test of being a hate crime, slander or libel, is a very slippery slope indeed. To fix the problem, section 13(1) should be either amended, or deleted entirely.

Once again, thank you for taking time to share your thoughts with me.

Sincerely,

Dr. Keith Martin, P.C., M.P.
Esquimalt - Juan de Fuca

It's time to join Keith Martin and Ezra Levant in fighting for the covenant that free individuals must share. If you can write a letter, Blazing Cat Fur notes that the Canadian "Human Rights" Commission is presently requesting your submission.

There are sick and wounded in our ranks this week, but some of us will be out again tonight, in the atrium of the library, 7-9 pm, in front of Blenz Coffee.

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 | #

------------

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

Three Cheers!

Before we get to the theme and links that have occupied my attention this last week (to be posted later today, I hope), just a reminder that Covenant Zone bloggers and friends meet every Thursday in the atrium of the central branch of the Vancouver Public Library, 7-9 pm, in front of Blenz Coffee. If you'd like, please join us in discussing the covenant we all must share if we are to guarantee each other's future in a free society.

This last Saturday marked the second anniversary of the first meeting of bloggers that soon led us to create Covenant Zone. At that first meeting, advertised by Dag as a chance for local bloggers to get together to discuss the (radical) Muslim and (Western) Gnostic problems, I met the tough-talking, but not particularly fearsome blogger in person. Unbeknownst to me, Dag had seeded the McDonald's restaurant with "friends", guys in need of a free meal, to act as security lest anyone come who had taken offense at Dag's postings on No Dhimmitude. There was no need for that. The only "bad" guy in sight was a leading organizer for the Liberal Party of Canada. And since that day, no one has seen the need to disrupt a weekly Covenant Zone meeting. We still live in a pretty free society, notwithstanding signs that this is eroding (we are free to be ignored as long as we don't want more public roles), signs which we like to talk about, and to which we now see a few people (even Liberals) reacting in positive ways.

In any case, nothing lasts forever if it is not renewed. No matter how free Canada is or has been, it still requires each of us to make a commitment in our daily lives and actions to work to protect each other's freedom, even when people do things with it which seem wrongheaded to us. Freedom today has to struggle against a culture that seems to value risk management above all else, a liberal managerial culture which wants to restrict risky actions that might have the effect of not only creating greater freedoms, but new differences and inequalities and resentments - life fully lived, in short. For too many of us, politics has come to mean a Utopian dream of overcoming politics through endless mediation by the therapeutic classes - a dream of bringing about some future without "discrimination" or inequalities or injustices. Such dreams can never be realized, given human nature, and they only really result in pressure to put the lid back on human resentments and conflicts, while we all wait naively for the day when the top blows off and things get really nasty. Much better, it seems to me, to embrace a political culture where we actively accept the inevitability and need for new signs and new differences as a mark of a freedom we can all share, a freedom for each individual to share in the signs by which we can gain a real sense of transcending the ever eroding past.

Millions of Canadians actively negotiating their differences in a million local covenant zones strikes me as a far better dream than a few great leaders and judges telling us what we can and cannot do to insure a country without "discrimination". Three cheers for Keith Martin, a Liberal who wants to protect our freedom to make light of Islam and Gnostics and Conservatives and homosexuals and Catholics, and whatever else we want to talk about, in the Covenant Zone.