Cherniak is not amused

Flea
#1. February 12th, 2008, at 2:21 AM.

Let’s say Kate’s pointed humour was the worst joke in the history of the world, mean-spirited and in bad taste. If all of this was true, it would still be true that the government is grilling a Jewish journalist and magazine editor for daring to print humorous cartoons - cartoons whose point was to mock an ideology bent on committing a new genocide against the Jewish people - and too many “progressives” think Ezra Levant deserves what he gets.

Anyone who thinks the former is worse than the latter has ceded any credibility. It is all very well to invoke the Holocaust when your actions are to deny due process to a Jewish journalist, condemn Israel at every turn and make any excuse for the people who work night and day toward a second Holocaust.

For shame.

Wonder Woman
#2. February 12th, 2008, at 4:35 AM.

I don’t know very much about defamation law, but it would seem to me that Kinsella’s comments in the email shown here…

http://no-libs.com/?p=2129

would constitute a smear against your character.

It might be nice to remind him that libel rules can go both ways.

zoot rune
#3. February 12th, 2008, at 4:40 AM.

Did you ever see a corny film called The Island of Dr. Moreau, featuring Marlon Brando near the end of his career? Like the book, it’s about a depraved doctor who creates animal/human creatures. The doctor has created a “mini-me” but he’s not comical like Verne Troyer, he’s kind of deformed and creepy.
Sorry for the long intro, but that film pretty much sums up cherniak and his mentor.

Richard Evans
#5. February 12th, 2008, at 5:23 AM.

AS a general rule I think that what happens in the blogosphere should stay in the blogosphere. Bloggers are pretty good about calling other bloggers when they are out of line. That, in my weird, libertarian, free speecher, view is how it should be an how I intend to keep it.

Cheers!

Wonder Woman
#6. February 12th, 2008, at 7:02 AM.

That is a good policy, Jay. I personally, feel the same way and would be the last person to resort to legal indemnification for harsh rhetoric…the point was really that Warren should be reminded turnabout is fair play, when he is so quick to jump on the litigious course.

Of course, Richard knows all about that…don’t you, cheeky?!

Blazingcatfur
#7. February 12th, 2008, at 8:01 AM.

Cherniak has the mind of a goldfish, every 15 seconds his memory is wiped clean.

dirk
#8. February 12th, 2008, at 10:24 AM.

JC said…”I am hoping that Kinsella learns something from his humiliation. For example, he might learn that calling people “bigots” or “crypto-Nazis” without a shred of proof can turn out badly”….

Talk about the kettle calling the pot black.
I have my disagreements with Kinsella but compared to SDA,well actually there is no comparison.
SDA is a nest of intolerant,spiteful,mean spirited,bigoted immaturity.
Indeed the fawning fans of SDA and Kate herself,are the ones in need of a lesson or two,in empathy,understanding,judge not least ye be judged,walk a few miles in the other guys shoes,then there are lesson in tolerance respect for the culture and traditions of others etc etc…
I notice you and other SDA fans have nothing to say when Kate posts intolerant racist remarks about First Nations peoples and their culture.
So please how can one talk SDA seriously or this post.
What’s good for the goose is good for the gander,at least be consistent in your advice at least practice what you preach.

Sholto Douglas
#9. February 12th, 2008, at 10:36 AM.

C’mon guys, that was pretty low taste, and a blunder to boot. It has given Kinsella a chance to grasp the moral high ground, territority to which he has no right. Even if it was not intended to mock the Holocaust, it can easily be portrayed as just that, which is precisely what he is doing.
Bad and dumb.

Peter
#11. February 12th, 2008, at 4:19 PM.

Jay, I’m having a very hard time with the notion that the appropriateness of Kate’s prank is to be judged against Kinsella’s actions or character. Let’s assume I agree with all you have to say about him. Why and how does that justify what she did? When did demonizing our adversaries release us from the rules of civil discourse?

The left has been doing this for years–justifying vulgarity and bigotry as righteousness on the basis that their enemies are so oppressive as to be undeserving of civility. Whiskey Fire made this point very directly just last week, touting the nobility of the word “f–k” in the cause of social justice. The Daily Kos is a sewer. I hate to say it, but libertarian blogs are falling into the same syndrome. dirk is right about SDA.

Maybe it is the dynamic of blogs and the Internet and the types they attract, but this is Canada, a country that so prizes decency as to be almost neurotic about it. When the American national anthem gets booed by hockey fans in Montreal, everybody feels shamed and it gets cheered in Ottawa the following week. Surely we aren’t naive enough to think that, for most folks, that has much to do with Americans.

DCardno
#12. February 13th, 2008, at 12:47 AM.

Peter - I think the whole point of Kate’s actions were to point out that Kinsella tries to exploit the Holocaust (and real anti-semitism) for his own ends. In this case, he was stooping to imply an endorsement of an untenable argument on the basis of a comment that ‘he could use as he wished’ a representation (obviously false, and certainly suspect - but that is not the issue) that a corespondent was a survivor of the holocaust. He was adding the implied moral authority of someone who had gone through the worst offense against humanity and human dignity in our history - to aid an argument that was initially based on sub-literate scrawls on a washroom wall. How else to make the point that Kinsella would appropriate that voice for his own ends, than to catch him in the act of doing just that?

Kathy Shaidle
#13. February 13th, 2008, at 1:01 AM.

Peter, that Canadian neurosis about “decency” is exactly what fuels the HRCs in the first place.

Those Montreal fans didn’t behave decently in the first place though, so I’m not sure how Ottawa fans’ retroactive decency proves anything.

And it IS the dynamic of blogs and the internet, which is exactly the point. When I’m blogging I’m no longer in Canada, I’m on the web, the last free speech frontier.

Anonymous
#14. February 13th, 2008, at 2:47 AM.

Kathy:

Well, the free speech frontier before that was the Old West. Government made no effort to regulate speech, but you were liable to get shot if you said the wrong thing. No anonymous blogging names and some very strong market forces at play. Ah, but you libertarians just ain’t as tough as you used to be.

It also, I think, has much to do letting ideology go so far as to take critical judgment right out of the reality of everyday life. But anyway, what I am hearing from defenders of this stuff is not just that government shouldn’t police what they say (I agree), but it is also protected speech citizen-to-citizen and nobody has the right to complain because it is all being said in the cause of fighting tyranny–nobody here but us Patrick Henrys. Nonsense. That’s like chanting: “Down with the Whore of Babylon!” outside the cathedral during confirmation class and then priding oneself on standing up for freedom of religion.

Now, if you want to make special rules for the Internet on the basis that it is some kind of special enchanted kingdom for the anonymously cantankerous, maybe. But take a look at what is said (and how it is said) many times over in a typical week at SDA about Muslims, Natives and a few others, usually anonymously. Do you believe we should all be free to chant that kind of stuff in public parks and hockey arenas without interference from public or private sources? You want police protection for that? Freedom medals?

Dcardno: I’m trying, but it’s still coming across as “He pissed in my garden, so I snuck in after dark and pissed twice as much in his”. Yuck, yuck.

Anonymous
#15. February 13th, 2008, at 3:19 AM.

Stop blaming Canada for your mediocrity, Shaidle.

Peter
#16. February 13th, 2008, at 3:42 AM.

Sorry, that first anon was me.

DCardno
#17. February 13th, 2008, at 4:06 AM.

Anonymous:
“but it is also protected speech citizen-to-citizen and nobody has the right to complain because it is all being said in the cause of fighting tyranny… (my emphasis)
Not quite - you have every right to complain - just don’t try to use the State to enforce your complaint. Since humour or taste is subjective, you are as entitled to an opinion as I am. For what it’s worth, as humour, Kate was in poor taste (granted, it wasn’t intended a humour - Kinsella calling it ‘joking about the holocaust’ is pure spin, and of course he knows it), but as a sting it was clever. I hope anyone offended by it can consider whether their offense should be triggered by Kate, or by Kinsella, who was so quick, and so determined to appropriate an enormous human tragedy for his own rhetorical ends.

I don’t see it so much as retaliatory pissing in the garden as trying to prove that someone visits a whorehouse - you have to go there, too.

MikeP
#18. February 13th, 2008, at 5:00 AM.

“I notice you and other SDA fans have nothing to say when Kate posts intolerant, racist remarks about First Nations peoples and their culture.”

Examples??

Peter
#19. February 13th, 2008, at 7:03 AM.

Dcardno:

“Not quite - you have every right to complain”

No, it isn’t quite that simple. I don’t just want to complain, I want to promote the notion that such speech is socially (not legally) unacceptable. I want people to ostracize Kate and her pals for their indecency and vulgarity. As I understand it, the libertarian position is that the state should not be regulating speech or a lot of other things. I agree. But many decent libertarians I have argued with emphasize the importance of “social sanctions” to police comminity cohesion, although it is never clear to me whether they mean the hatemongers should be blackballed at the country club or pummelled in the local park. But, tell me, if the state should keep totally out of this, will you defend me if I put sugar in Kate’s motorcycle tank?

Deaner
#21. February 13th, 2008, at 9:00 AM.

…will you defend me if I put sugar in Kate’s motorcycle tank?

Emphatically not. I would defend you if you wished to describe why she disgusts you, or why her actions were deplorable, vulgar, etc. I would continue that defense (although I might not agree with it) even if others thought that you were offensive or your arguments were in bad taste. Similarly, I would defend their right to advance their views.

TSowell Fan
#22. February 13th, 2008, at 8:55 PM.

intolerant (per Merriam-Webster):

“2 a: unwilling to grant equal freedom of expression especially in religious matters
b: unwilling to grant or share social, political, or professional rights”

In a country guaranteeing freedom of expression in its Charter of Rights and Freedoms, is it allowable for the citizens to discuss public policy questions such as the following?

1. Is it sensible to continue subsidizing about 1 million aboriginals at an annual cost of $10 billion dollars in public funds with little apparent benefit? Are there more effective ways to spend the money?

2. Given that some would claim that the above questions are inherently intolerant, is it allowable to discuss what, if anything, makes them intolerant? Assuming the politically-correct crowd would at least allow this second discussion, is it not likely that, in the course of that discussion, all of the same discussion points — as would have been addressed in the debate about the first questions — would be raised?

Bottom line: When it comes to public policy — how our elected representatives spend our money, there should be few, if any, limits on the scope of the discussion.