Cherniak misses the point…again
Ultimately, that has to be the logical conclusion of Kate’s argument. It doesn’t really matter what a person says about others on the basis of race, so long as that person takes no state action on the basis of such views. It is why she has no problem defending the indefensible like Mark Lamire; he hasn’t actually done anything other than speak words, so she is willing to work with him. jason cherniak
Not that Kate needs a defence against morons like Cherniak but, for a moment, consider what the silly boy/man is saying. First, that Kate is “willing to work with” Lemire. No, Kate, like me, wants to see the CHRC shut out of the licensing of speech. Lemire is one case, Levant is another, Steyn is another; all turn on the question of whether the Human Rights Commissions in Canada should have anything to do with the regulation of speech.
However, Cherniak is quite right in stating that, for me (and I suspect Kate), it does not matter a whit what people says about others on the basis of race. Want to call Arabs pre-Enlightenment scum, be my guest, want to call Jews (who are hardly a race) money grubbers or imperialists or whatever, fine. Want to call we Scots-Irish genocidal bastards, go right ahead. What you do when you do that sort of thing is make yourself look like a bigoted idiot. Which, so far as I am concerned is just fine.
More to the point, it is not and should not be any business of the state’s.
What Kate points out in her piece is that it was not until the Nazis took over the state that they were able to bring their horrid dreams to reality. Which is why people like me, and I rather think Kate, are so entirely suspicious of the state in all its forms. We want a small, relatively powerless state powerfully constrained by law. We want a state which will not imagine itself as the custodian of our thoughts or our speech.
Because, Jason, we have learned the lesson of the Third Reich and of the liar Warren Kinsella’s favorite political philosopher, Lenin – when the state is powerful enough to attempt to command our thoughts or our speech, our freedom is in grave jeopardy. Your boy Pierre recognized that and we have the Charter to, if only the SCC would let it, protect us against the do-gooding loonies of the state.
March 25th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
Sorry to disillusion the race baiting witch hunters but most of the time what they call “bigotry” and “hate crime” is nothing more than people expressing revulsion with an individual’s abhorrent personality defects.
For instance Cheriak and ilk’s morbid presumption of moral superiority.
I freely admit to being a personality bigot…I have a special hatred for presumptuous A-holes…and dogmatic leftbots and uncivil apologist cults seem to produce most of the rankest puckered sphincters out there.
March 25th, 2008 at 8:49 pm
Your point that state power is scary is a valid one. But sometimes it’s a necessary evil; simply tossing out state power might have unintended consequences down the road – both good and bad.
While I do support, in most cases, a libertarian solution, there are certain times when a powerful state is needed, and the apparatus must be maintained. Citizens’ vigilance is always necessary.
According to an apocryphal story: during the early days of the U.S., Congress wanted a statutory limit on the number of standing troops. General Washington was reportedly heard to mutter something to the effect that he hoped Congress could enforce a similar restriction on the British.
Note that I’m just arguing with Kate’s point, not with the CHRC stuff.
March 25th, 2008 at 11:10 pm
It’s as I said in an interview a few weeks ago – where the liberal/left and conservatives differ can be boiled down to two things:
What conservatives ask of their government:
1. Leave me alone.
2. Keep the barbarians from the gates.
What liberals ask of their government:
1. What have you done for me lately?
2. With the exception of conservatives, there is no such thing as a barbarian.
March 25th, 2008 at 11:35 pm
Cherniak’s not missing the point, Jay. From what I can see – tying Stephen Taylor, the Blogging Tories, and hopefully the CPC itself into this – he’s intentionally missing it in order to gain some partisan advantage.
It’s all SO predictable for the uber-partisan (of whatever political stripe) but especially for the large-L Liberal for whom all pursuits are subservient to the true goal of winning power.
March 26th, 2008 at 12:11 am
Jason’s just playing partisan politics, like he always does. What makes him a Liberal is that he’s willing to do it with his own right to free speech.
I commented to him that there’s a Conservative government in Ottawa right now, its within their power to appoint the Church Lady as head of the CHRC and start in on the financial destruction of people like…Jason Cherniak!
Conservatives, using the power of the state to ruin their enemies just like the Liberals have been doing the last ten years. Think the MSM would cover that better than they’re covering Mark Lemire the Nazi?
March 26th, 2008 at 2:10 am
It’s no coincidence the Right to Own Property and the Right to Own and Bear Firearms were not included in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The former was in the (Conservative) Canadian Bill of Rights and the latter was in both the English Bill of Rights (for Protestants) and the American Bill of Rights (Second Amendment) for everyone.
Why would a statist government like that of Pierre Trudeau not want individuals to be able to appeal to the courts on issues of real property and self-defence? Because both involve individual rights and the Liberals were (and are) obsessed with collective rights.
Human Rights Commissions are part of this obsession and as such should be stricken from our political life and swept into the nearest landfill site.
March 26th, 2008 at 3:22 am
I have to laugh at Cherniak. He reminds me of my 17 year-old daughter’s boyfriends. So full of hormones they don’t know what to think or how to do it with any finesse. They’ve got where to look down pat but that’s about it.
Something important keeps pressing them onward, even if they never see any satisfaction. They just have to stay in the game no matter how stupid they look.
March 27th, 2008 at 7:51 am
The moment the state can regulate free speech – even hateful speech – the state has removed from its citizenry the best weapon it has to protect itself from the state’s tyranny.
Unless, of course, they also have the right to bear arms. Which, here in Canada, we don’t. So all we can do is speak up…. Or at least, in the past that was true…
Re: Kate’s comment…
Well, ethnically, I AM a barbarian….and I do espouse to libretarian views (I suppose)...so where does that leave me???? Now everyone wants to ‘keep me from their gates’
Perhaps I ought to form an ‘Babarian-anti-defamation-league’ – and let our French cousins, the Vandals in, too: just imagine the ‘stuff out there’ we could claim might ‘potentially expose us to negative stereotyping’! We’d clean up!
Yeah, I’d have to be pretty ‘annoyed’ to stoop THAT low…but I’m sure there’s money in it! I mean, look at Warman!