Watching people galvanize around the free speech issue brought up by the CHRC’s trampling of free speech in Canada I have been struck by the consensus which many bloggers have displayed. While we have no time for neo-Nazi action, we have a great deal of time for Canadian citizens right to speak. And we have no time at all for the slimeball tactics of the CHRC’s counsel, investigators or Tribunal.
The people responding to this - while they have been characterized as Concervatives - are, in fact, conservatives; more accurately classical liberals.
Now, I wonder if we might find agreement on other issues which the CPC is too scared to address.
anti-Kyoto
mass immigration
fiscal responsibility
pro-Israel
pro-Canadian Forces
anti-additional funding for bilingualism
anti-regulation
pro-small government
I suspect there are some metrics I’ve left out. The point being that we tend to be people willing to challenge the validity of the so called Canadian consensus.
And then I wondered how we might best influence the various political parties in the direction we would like to see the Canadian conversation actually go.
One thought I had would be to rate MPs - not parties - on their relative commitment to a set of goals. We would define the goals and then build a database of MP ratings.
It would take a bit of work to come up with the ratings and the metrics used to calculate the ratings. However, I suspect it would be entirely doable. Basically we would score - riding by riding - the candidates and members based on what they have actually said.
Call it “The League of Real Canadian Voters” and endorse candidates in every riding in Canada. Given the metrics I think are important a LRCV endorsement would likely be the kiss of death in TO and Vancouver. But, in the rest of the country it might be worth several hundred votes.
So, what do you think? Good idea, pernicious nonsense and the CPC will see us through? Do comment.
Written by jay on April 6th, 2008 with 28 comments.
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A federal judge in Maryland on Thursday ordered liens on the Westboro Baptist Church building and the Phelps-Chartered Law office.
If the case presided over by U.S. District Court Judge Richard D. Bennett is upheld by an appeals court, the church, at 3701 S.W. 12th, and the office building, at 1414 S.W. Topeka Blvd., could be obtained by the court and sold, with the proceeds being applied toward $5 million in damages Bennett imposed on church members for picketing a military funeral. topeka capital journal
Speed the Day!
Written by jay on April 6th, 2008 with 10 comments.
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It was the most bizarre moment in an unusual conference call with three senior CHRC staff, who had mustered for the beleaguered agency’s first public relations offensive, a calculated effort to rebut the “misinformation” that is turning some public opinion against them, and inspiring high-level demands that their powers be severely curtailed.
“The reality is we read the papers. We know about the current debate, we know the parameters, if you will,” Mr. Fine said. “If you think that we’re concerned, upset, from time to time discouraged with some of what we’ve been hearing and reading in the press, you’re right, we are. national post
Good.
The objective is the elimination of s.13 and the imposition of reasonable standards of Tribunal and investigative procedure on an out of control agency. It is to substitute a view which takes the primacy of free expression as the guiding principle and views any attempt to censor speech with the utmost suspicion.
The CHRC is scared enough to mount a “public relations offensive.” Good. Drawing them out into the open is vital.
And now the CHRC is, itself under investigation by the Privacy Commissioner for alledgedly wardriving a member of the public’s internet connection during a Jadeware “investigation”.
Update: Ezra dissects the CHRC public relations push at length. Here’s one pithy bit among many:
But I immediately thought — as I’m sure Brean did, and as I’m sure you do, dear reader — that when it comes to anonymous, typo-ridden bigotry sent over the Internet, there’s a pretty fair chance it was written by the CHRC’s own staff to suit their purposes. Again, three months ago even I wouldn’t have believed that — it just sounds too much like a black helicopter/tin foil hat conspiracy theory. But that was before I learned about the corruption of the CHRC, and how their operatives like Dean Steacy, Richard Warman and others go online and spew the filthiest venom under pseudonyms.
Written by jay on April 6th, 2008 with 4 comments.
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