Free Speech and Liberty Symposium: Dec 7 — Ottawa
CANADIAN CENTRE FOR POLICY STUDIES
Free Speech and Liberty Symposium
December 7 – Ottawa, Ontario
Join us in Ottawa December 7 as we survey Canada’s historic commitment to individual liberty and how current government practices conflict with that proud tradition. Learn how, by suppressing free speech, human rights laws are actually undermining human rights in Canada and abroad. Examine the prospects for reversing the tide and learn from the experts what you can do to help.
Speakers include:
Brian Lee Crowley – President of the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies and author of the new book Fearful Symmetry: The Fall and Rise of Canadas Founding Values
Barbara Kay – National Post columnist
Peter Stockland – Former editor of the Montreal Gazette and currently Executive Director of the Centre for Cultural Renewal
Karen Selick – Senior Counsel at the Canadian Constitution Foundation
Joseph C. Ben-Ami – President of the Canadian Centre for Policy Studies
Bjorn Larsen – President of the International Free Press Society
John Robson – Radio commentator and Ottawa Citizen columnist
Richard Bastien – Director of the National Capital chapter of the Catholic Civil Rights League and member of the board of CIVITAS
Gerry Nicholls – Former Senior Executive with the National Citizens Coalition and publisher of LibertasPost.ca
and many more dinstiguished panelists – including MPs and policy-makers…
November 4th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
Sounds like a fine echo-chamber.
But what bothers me is the name of the outfit, a direct steal from the progressive Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
Coinky-dinky? Not likely. A shameless rip-off.
November 4th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
“Joseph C. Ben-Ami – President of the Canadian Centre for Policy Studies”
Ben-Ami is a longtime B’Nai Brith man, one of the three hardline anti-free speech organizations (CJC and SWC being the others, all Jewish) without whom there would be no HRCs, no section 318, and no phoney Nazi hysteria. Chutzpah does not begin to convey the idea of him or any other Professional Jew, as Ezra calls them, lecturing “gentiles”, as they discourteously refer to us, on free speech.
A number of the other panelists are Jewish too, and those who aren’t are members of the media who silently condoned the HRC racket and other oppressive anti-freedom measures for decades.
The optics are horrible – our anti-free speech oppressors are now going to lecture us on free speech? That’s laughable. Save your money and time and read anything you can by Lemire, or Fromm, or any other real free speecher, not these phoney bastards.
Besides, aren’t you in favour of hate speech laws? Why yes, yes you are, in fact you supported Ahenakew’s conviction – not many people did. And it’s not irrelevant that many of the excesses of Warman and Co. took place while morons like you were spazzing out over gay marriage. Speaking of which, the people of Maine just voted to repeal their gay marriage law imposed on them by the radical gay lobby. Out of 31 states that have put it to a vote, the people in all 31 voted it down. But they’re all bigots, at least according to you, right Jay?
November 4th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
Wow Authentic, you managed to out-crazy Dawg! No mean feat that.
November 4th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
I’m with you Arnie: Wow.
That would, by the way, be s. 13. I was against the criminal proceedings against Ahenakew.
I am personally in favour of the government getting out of the marriage business altogether; but if they are going to issue licences they have no right to deny those licences on gender grounds. People who disagree with gay marriage are not bigots, rather they operate under a misapprehension as to the proper role of government.
I’d be delighted if Joseph C. Ben-Ami was a member of B’Nai Brith as he might be able to talk some sense into them.
November 4th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Didn’t J-Ben sign the Free Speech petition that IJV is running?
November 4th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
Turns out there is a second event in Ottawa on the same day a Pub version, definitely easier on the pocket book for some:
Title of the event
The conservative movement at a crossroads: Lessons from the past, directions for the future
Looking back on the last six years, looking ahead for next six.
Four speakers reflect on the past, present and future of the conservative movement in Canada.
– Name of sponsoring organization
Société MacDonald-Cartier Society
Panel speakers and short bio: – Gerry Nicholls
Former Senior Executive with the National Citizens Coalition and publisher of LibertasPost.ca) – John Robson
Radio commentator and Ottawa Citizen columnist – Joseph C. Ben-Ami
President of the Canadian Centre for Policy Studies – Don Lenihan Ph.D.
Vice President, Engagement – Public Policy Forum
Moderator – Waller R. Newell, Ph.D.
Professor of Political Science and Philosophy and co-director of the Centre for Liberal Education and Public Affairs at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada
– Time and location
December 7 2009, 6 to 9pm
Parliament Pub, 101 Sparks St (There is also an entrance on Wellington St)
– Ticket price and what it will include
$10 regular tickets – includes appetizers
$8.50 student tickets – includes appetizers
November 4th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
I adore B. Kay I’d love to attend, wrong end of the country alas.
November 4th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
Authentic, I suggest you Google Joseph C. Ben-Ami to find out where he stands on s. 13(1), in particular, and free speech, in general.
In fact, I think you better spend some time Googling all of the speakers.
I’m afraid you are a little confused. Maybe it’s that name thing.
PS - Don’t worry Dawg, I would never get the two mixed up. More important, have you got your ticket?
November 5th, 2009 at 9:40 pm
Ben-Ami worked with B’nai Brith for only a few years long after the laws of which your guys are complaining were passed, and if you took the trouble to become even mildly informed you’d know that organization’s position on this issue has been gradually changing for the better, no doubt in large part due to his influence when he was there. You may want to read an op-ed he wrote on the subject of free speech at http://josephbenami.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=16&Itemid=34
Ben-Ami was also a senior advisor to the Randy Hillier campaign for the leadership of the Ontario PC Party as well as his chief speechwriter. Hillier, in case you didn’t know, was the one pushing for the abolition of the Ontario Human Rights Commission and Tribunals.
Ben-Ami has always been a passionate defender of free speech and liberty, but even if he wasn’t in the past, so what? Can’t a person change their mind or does learning from one’s mistakes make one a hypocrite? I suppose in the small minds of some, the answer to that question is – sadly – yes.
As for learning anything from Lemire and Fromm and their ilk, believe me, there are no lessons with these two clowns other than the obvious – stupid people aren’t any less stupid just because they have the right to be. All you have to do is read some of the comments above and you’ll know what I mean.
Finally, you should know that I am a supporter of the Canadian Centre for Policy Studies. You should check their website http://www.policystudies.ca. It is a solid, independent conservative organization. The Centre for Policy Alternatives is the polar opposite.
November 6th, 2009 at 7:02 am
Well said Steve.
November 6th, 2009 at 11:57 am
Steve, you wrote:
As for learning anything from Lemire and Fromm and their ilk, believe me, there are no lessons with these two clowns other than the obvious – stupid people aren’t any less stupid just because they have the right to be.
Clowns ? Stupid ?
See here, after a 6 year joust with blundering human rights bureaucracy, Marc Lemire stands damned for online publication of an article on AIDs read by a Complainant and several others – before being withdrawn.
During the same period, his persecutors are revealed by Lemire’s diligence as intellects drunk with power.
Paul Fromm was bounced from teaching English, even to ESL adults, due holding ideological beliefs repellent to his professional colleagues, and expressing same to the like-minded.
He, like John Profumo before him, then devoted his time to defending the disadvantaged against the drunk with power, and when standing up for Jessica Beaumont causes an astonished online audience to grasp that the true tosser of the tale is Lucy the teutonic tart.
Marc Lemire and Paul Fromm deserve the same respect you suggest is appropriate for Joseph C. Ben-Ami – moreso for their perspectives on the actual impact of human rights bureaucracy and public approbrium used against citizens belonging to groups detested for their beliefs.
November 6th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
Marc Lemire and Paul Fromm deserve the same respect you suggest is
appropriate for Joseph C. Ben-Ami – moreso for their perspectives on
the actual impact of human rights bureaucracy and public approbrium
used against citizens belonging to groups detested for their
beliefs.
Which pretty well sums up Maikeru’s politics.
Here’s a shot
of that poor martyr Paul Fromm with another poor mistreated free
speecher.
And here’s
one with a prominent Holocaust-denier, Lady Renouf.
Are some folks here now able to grasp what I was saying about the
“soft on neo-Nazism” approach taken by some Speech Warriors? Arguing
for free speech is one thing. Trying to rehabilitate brazen neo-Nazis
is something quite apart.
November 6th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
It’s a good point Dawg; but one which is rather more likely to apply to Fromm than Lemire. (Which you should know after your embarrassment over the Nikor sourced, Lying Jackal endorsed picture of some guy who was not Lemire standing beside Zundel.)
Here’s the thing, your drinking buddy and the crack investigative team at the CHRC filed their complaint against Lemire and they had nothing by way of Nazi – neo or otherwise – material in that complaint. I don’t think it is so much an attempt to rehabilitate Lemire as wiping the mud off him sprayed by your pals. Is he a choirboy? I have no idea. But I see a fair bit of daylight between what I know of his positions and what I know of Fromm’s.
By analogy, it would be like saying you and Harry Abrams are cut from the same cloth.
And, of course, the ritual smear of “soft on neo-Nazism” is simply nonsense. I despise neo-Nazis as much for their pig ignorance as for what passes as their “positions”. But I am well aware that even neo-Nazis have, or should have, the right to free expression and the right not to be harassed by government or freelance censors. (A point, which in the context of critics of Israel, you seem more than willing to embrace.)
November 6th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
Dawg, folks I am soft on give you a hard on.
November 6th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
Jay:
I rooted out some early comments by Lemire over at my place, posted before he got careful. And you know this very well, because you commented on that post:
http://drdawgsblawg.blogspot.com/2009/10/on-neo-nazis-and-speech-warriors.html
However, you do like to draw fine distinctions (e.g., between “white supremacist” and “neo-Nazi). In my opinion, though, Lemire has covered all the bases. Pretty hard to tease and parse his comments into some other shape.
Nizkor is a pretty rock-solid site with a good reputation. They erred about the photograph, I compounded the error—that happens—then retracted and apologized. The comments, however, surely stand.
Not that I want to hijack this thread, but seeing Paul Fromm disingenuously described as a martyr for free speech sort of got to me.
November 6th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
Perhaps you should have passed this material along to Lucy and the Stooges at the CHRC when they were framing their complaint against Lemire. But, wait, would any of the comments you cite in your post have met the Taylor standard?
I suspect, Dawg, that Lemire may, himself, have written some pretty ill considered things. While he certainly should either repudiate those things or wear them, his targeting by the CHRC and Lucy was ridiculous and abusive – at least on the grounds advanced in the complaint.
And that drives back to the inherent danger of s. 13. It is so badly drafted and has so few defences that it can be used to punish individuals whose views are not acceptable to others. We saw that with Harry’s 2007 complaint against some lefty anti-Israel types. Using s. 13 as his lever he forced those people to take down what I think you and I would agree are legitimate political expressions (even if we profoundly disagree as to the merits of their content.)
The huge problem with s. 13 – especially when it is used by an agendized zealot in a program of “Maximum Disruption” – is that individuals can be targeted and prosecuted on purely political grounds.
You don’t like Lemire’s politics, from what I have seen I am not a fan either (but I would have to see rather more to come to a reasoned conclusion); but the difference between us is that I think that up to the point where a person incites violence they should have the unfettered right to speak guaranteed in the Charter.
In particular, people with unpopular views – whether it is anti-Islamic immigration, the elimination of the State of Israel or some bizarre allegiance to the “narrative” in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion or Michael Moore’s oeuvre – should not be harassed by the government at the behest of their political opponents.
November 6th, 2009 at 8:26 pm
Dawg, you said:
I rooted out some early comments by Lemire over at my place, posted before he got careful.
I rooted through the Nizkor link you rooted out – fascinating stuff !
The main attractions – Ken McVey and Marc Lemire, two of Canada’s enduring internet heavyweights, have a go over the issue of Marc Lemire’s header tagline, itself based upon a Bill Dunphy news report that a militant Jewish group had phoned him claiming responsibility for arson which damaged the home/fortress of Ernst Zundel.
Most other commenters are pretty much usernet quality – cyber-kidney punches and cheap shots – that much hasn’t changed even with all the technical improvements.
I particularly enjoyed this exchange:
Ken McVey writes:
Thank you for raising the issue of funding again, Mr. Lemire. The last time that was done here, I received donations from all over the world; these donations were sufficient to provide the internet link for an entire year… with any luck at all, you might be able to claim responsibility for keeping me on the net for another year – nice gesture.
Marc Lemire responds:
...thanks to you I have gotten quite alot of new prospects to our Internet Mailing service, and we have also received a nice amount of Donations to keep Canada’s most controversial BBS going. So I guess we help each other.
November 7th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
We can learn a lot from considering the historical attitude of most Canadians to China, Cuba and formerly communist states in eastern Europe.
In general, the attitude has been positive, or at least the criticism has been quite muted.
Would I then be within my rights to call most Canadian leftists, media people, academics, etc, “despicable neo-communists?”
Because if various people cited above are “despicable neo-Nazis” and Nazism is morally equivalent to communism, which seems true if you consider the total numbers of people killed, the total suppression of individual liberty, then it would make no difference from a moral or ethical point of view if we were talking about neo-Nazis or neo-communists.
Yet I have never heard the term “neo-communist” used because our left wing politicians and talking heads are careful to distance themselves from an outright endorsement of “communism” as such. They like all the individual parts, but they don’t like the label.
Which is about the same as some people we could name on the far right with respect to Nazism.
My approach is, extremists of both right and left converge on the same model, totalitarian control of all public expression and discourse. People might get there from either the democratic left or right, but once there, they are in the same place. The only reason Hitler and Stalin went to war, in the final analysis, was because they disagreed on who should be in control of Europe, not the details of how it would be controlled. They also disagreed in all likelihood on who should be liquidated, but not on the scale of that liquidation.
If there is one thing we should all remember in Canada, it is that we have had a national blind spot for over half a century concerning the considerable moral guilt of communism, and our country’s historic ambivalence to that guilt due to moral relativism.
Everything we think self-righteously about “the Nazis” or “the fascists” applies with equal validity to the former Soviet Union, China, and indeed, Cuba, and until these states renounce communism and undergo a transition to democratic freedom, they will remain unworthy of any support from us. I think people on the left realize this at some level, but it is much easier to go witch hunting for a few rather weak and ineffectual neo-Nazis, than to clean one’s own house and reform the whole culture of political correctness in Canada. To be realistic, we have only just barely begun to scratch the surface of that project.
November 8th, 2009 at 8:47 am
The Third Reich was a police state, in which the word of the Fuhrer was absolute, dissent from the regime was not permitted, loyalty to the state was to supersede all other loyalties, children were encouraged to turn informant against their own parents, and the secret police were everywhere.
To apply the term “Nazi”, with or without the prefix “neo” to anyone today, who does not wish to create a system like that horrible regime in their own country in the present day, is an act of utter depravity and moral irresponsibility. This is especially true, when the person being labeled a Nazi, is someone who has fought for freedom for decades, as has Paul Fromm. Dr. Dawg thinks he has made some sort of significant point by posting a picture of Fromm next to David Duke. Big deal. Does David Duke wish to establish a police state in the USA, under the rule of one man with absolute power, against whom dissent is forbidden? Does he wish to establish concentration camps and secret police? The last I checked, Duke does not want any of these things. It is both disingenuous and dishonest to suggest otherwise just because Duke was a Klan leader in his youth, and considers himself an advocate for white people today. It is even worse to imply that someone like Paul Fromm, who has supported freedom and opposed intrusive government all his life, is secretly yearning for a police state, because he had his picture taken with Duke.
November 8th, 2009 at 11:41 am
And the apologists continue to crawl out of the woodwork.
Next we should be hearing from the former Don Andrews associate who posts frequently at FreeDo.
November 8th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
Well, for that matter, was Nathaniel Bedford Forest a Nazi? Was Robert E. Lee a Nazi? Or his fellow Virginian George Washington?
I do not believe it is useful to equate the race issues, past or present, of the United States with Nazism. The Nazi notion of Aryan supremacy does not make the two equivalent. Should Margaret Sanger be properly considered a Nazi on the basis of her acceptance of eugenics? Mr. Neal is correct. This is not a useful equivalence.
November 8th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
Dawg, I was able to grasp from < this comment of yours that even the Canadian Armed Forces give you a woody. :
Subject: Re: Another Nazi in the Canadian Armed Forces
Date: Sun, 20 Aug 95 05:38:49 GMT
> John Baglow (ai433@FreeNet.Carleton.CA) wrote:
> Maybe a better Subject line might read …
>
> Non-Nazi Discovered In Canadian Armed Forced!
Then, you were merely a yelping puppy piddling off the paper.
Now, you’re akin to one of those old dogs who wanders over to a guest and starts humping their leg.
November 8th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
Nicholas writes ” Mr. Neal is correct. This is not a useful equivalence.” Indeed. It is important to keep in mind why terms like “Nazi” and “neo-Nazi” are frequently thrown around by certain kinds of people. These terms are valued on the Left, not because they denote a specific ideology derived from Hitler and his associates or a desire to reshape society based on the model of the Third Reich, but because they create associations in people’s minds between Hitler and his Reich and the people to whom these labels are being applied. These people could be basically libertarian in their politics and call for nothing more radical on the racial front than an end to affirmative action, an end to laws prohibiting private acts of discrimination, and a halt to mass immigration. The application of the label “neo-Nazi” provides nobody with accurate information about what these people think. Instead, it provides inaccurate information, and creates a mental aversion to these people so as to stop us from actually seeking out their own words to see for themselves whether these people support internment camps, genocide, a police state, and anything else that deserves the label “Nazi” or not. Thus, the person using the label “neo-Nazi” is able to make their opinion on race and race-related issues, the only legitimate view in society, without directly saying “no other views tolerated”. It is dishonest, disgusting, contemptible, and down-right rotten.
November 8th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
And you, Maikeru,are a Nazi. That’s abundantly clear by now. Why do you cowards never have the guts to admit what you are?
I urge readers to follow the thread at FreeDo. That place is quite the nest.
Jay, I hope you’re paying attention.
November 8th, 2009 at 8:59 pm
Hmmm, Dawg. That is a rather fulsome allegation to make. And one which I would prefer not to see on my blog without chapter and verse as well as some actual evidence. Nizkor/Lemire usenet pissing matches from 1995 may be of passing interest but they are largely unhelpful in actual conversations about people’s current political positions. And that is especially true when you are accusing a person who is not mentioned in those materials of being a Nazi.
I realize that the conversation is liable to go on these tangents. I would prefer that people commenting here refrain from the straight smear. I am happy with invective and insult – I think both keep the pot boiling. But calling someone a Nazi tends to lead to litigation in very short order. That is not the point on this blog at least.
November 8th, 2009 at 10:08 pm
Not a problem Jay. Dawg is still grieving, and I unwittingly touched a raw nerve.
It’s that or rabies.
In either case, he reveals only his own shallow prejudice and ignorance.
November 9th, 2009 at 6:35 am
Jay, my apologies.
When I saw a number of commenters disingenuously defending Paul Fromm (and David Duke!), and remembered that you had to call Maikeru to heel for an anti-Semitic slur a while back, I permitted myself to speak too plainly.
By all means, let the parsing continue.
Holocaust-denial? Hell, no, we just don’t believe six million Jews were killed. David Duke? That KKK stuff was just the exuberance of youth. Paul Fromm? A former English teacher fighting for freedom. (Never mind those photos—those folks are just looking for a photo-op with him.)
Nick Griffin names his pigs “Anne” and “Frank?” What a wacky sense of humour that guy has! The Turner Diaries? A send-up of leftist paranoia.
At some point I envision old Adolf himself hotly defended by this lot:
“Hitler a Nazi? Come on, where’s your evidence? Sure, some of the people around him might have been Nazis, but not Adolf! He was a vegetarian, for crying out loud! He liked to paint! He was a patriot with concerns about immigration and multiculturalism, just like us. Nazi, schmazi.”
Have at it, guys. I was born at night, but not last night.
November 9th, 2009 at 7:54 am
I don’t recall Maikeru talking about how much he wanted a police state, governed by a dictator with a private army of thugs, that would take away all our rights and freedoms, forbid dissent, spy on our private conversations, urge us to turn against our loved ones, and start interning people in camps on the basis of their ethnicity. I don’t recall Maikeru urging Aryans to get rid of the sick, the elderly, the handicapped, and to weed out all other imperfections in the Aryan race so that Aryans may come out on top in their Darwinian struggle for survival against their eternal enemy the Jews, a struggle in which it is destroy or be destroyed. Perhaps I missed where Maikeru said that. That is the sort of thing that I would have expected him to have said if it were “abundantly clear” that he were a “Nazi”. But perhaps “abundantly clear” means something different to someone who thinks that words like “neo-Nazi” can be “parsed” out of existence. That is, after all, what we over at FD have been accused of doing by the one who now accuses Maikeru of being a Hitler supporter. “Parsing” a word, of course, makes its meaning and potential use in a sentence, precise. The only person who would fear that a word was being parsed “out of existence” would be someone whose use of the word depends entirely upon its being imprecise. Someone, for example, who was using it to unfairly associate his opponents with ideas and behaviors that were not their own.
November 9th, 2009 at 9:10 am
Neal:
I can’t figure out if you’re being disingenuous or plain ignorant.
Neo-nazis gave up the cult of the leader after the assassination of
George Lincoln Rockwell. Since then, it’s been “leaderless
resistance,” as anyone tracking the National Alliance and half a dozen
other hate groups knows very well. It’s the main thesis of The
Turner Diaries, a book you might have heard of.
During that time we’ve seen the rise of Holocaust revisionism. We’ve
seen stupid neo-Nazis strutting about with swastikas and pictures of
Hitler. We’ve seen smart ones adopt the rhetoric of opposition to
multiculturalism and (non-white) immigration, and push genetic
racialism. This plays better in Peoria.
So do calls for less government, more freedom of expression and so on.
Obviously not everyone who supports these things is a neo-Nazi—far
from it. But neo-Nazis know a good zero-sum game when they see one.
Less restriction, more freedom to organize, promulgate, advocate their
hateful point of view.
I’ll say this just once more: anyone who defends Paul Fromm as a mere
“free speecher” is either naive or dangerous. It’s like referring to
Hitler as a “vegetarian.”
The prevarication in this thread, as supposed “conservatives” scramble
to defend people like Fromm (our host himself knows much better than
that), is instructive. I can’t recall the mask slipping quite so
freely or so often in some time.
As for parsing, your definition is entirely correct, but pushed too
far it makes distinctions without differences. “I did not have
sex with that woman” is a modern example. So is, “Not a
neo-Nazi, merely a white supremacist,” or, “Not a Holocaust-denier,
but gas chambers didn’t exist,” or “Not a racist, but Blacks have
relatively low IQs.”
At least stand up for the politics you-all believe in. It’s the
pretense that irritates the hell out of me. And I let that irritation
take me too far last evening, for which Jay once again has my
apologies.
November 9th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Dawg you said:
When I saw a number of commenters disingenuously defending Paul Fromm (and David Duke!), and remembered that you had to call Maikeru to heel for an anti-Semitic slur a while back, I permitted myself to speak too plainly.
and
At least stand up for the politics you-all believe in. It’s the
pretense that irritates the hell out of me. And I let that irritation
take me too far last evening, for which Jay once again has my
apologies.
Dawg, I rather enjoy reading your comments when you drop your pretense of civility, and allow your deep-seated bigotry to ooze to the surface
You consider ‘bagel’ an ‘anti-semitic slur’, and Harry Abrams considers it a racist remark, but then Harry sez you’re an anti-semite, and hence racist – much like me, according to you.
Yet you and I are at polar opposites with regard to Israel, which places me in Harry’s Zionist camp (if not tent) on that subject.
As well, and unlike yourself, I’ve always had an abiding respect for Canada’s Armed Forces, and the personnel who serve therein, and lament that our government debased same when they disbanded the Canadian Airborne Regiment.
When one considers the quick response that regiment provided in coming to Canada’s defense during the FLQ crisis, one feels helpless against another such attack.
You have provided in your above comments the perfect example of why there is a need for a Symposium in Canada to confront folks such as yourself, who piously denounce ‘bagel’, blindeye ‘hamas hamas Jews to the gas’, casually undermine and cast others into a ‘Web of Hate’, and desire to suppress free speech in Canada which doesn’t conform to your own hatreds and prejudice.
November 9th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
Good points maikeru. But I’d prefer you checked “bagel” at the door. It is unnecessary.
November 9th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
our government debased same when they disbanded the Canadian Airborne Regiment.
Infiltrated by neo-Nazis of the declared sort. A group that once held a mess dinner in honour of Marc Lepine.
I can see why they’re heroes of yours.
November 9th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
My bad: forgot links and references:
http://www.nytimes.com/1993/05/17/world/canada-investigates-reported-ties-of-rightist-militants-and-military.html
“Soldier Confirms Airborne Held Massacre Party,” Ottawa Citizen, November 9, 1995, A3.
Pugliese, David, “Almost 20% of ‘85 Airborne Unit Had Police Record, Report Found.” Ottawa Citizen, October 4, 1995, A4.
November 9th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
Dawg, that Mar 1995 nytimes article you linked to states:
The CBC said that a former Airborne soldier gives paramilitary training to recruits of the Heritage Front, a neo-Nazi organization based in Toronto,
and
The Heritage Front is headed by Wolfgang Droege, 43, who has spent time in jail in the United States for trafficking in drugs and for an attempt to overthrow the Government of the Caribbean island of Dominica. He boasted in an interview with CBC last week that as many as two dozen members of the Canadian military had joined his organization.
Of course, in 1993, neither the NYTimes nor the always-politically neutral CBC had no way of knowing that the Heritage Front was a CSIS sting operation from the get-go – a ‘false flag’ threat used in that example to facilitate derogation of the Canadian Airborne Regiment.
At the time, such propaganda was useful to dispel public outrage against disbanding a regiment which had served Canada honourably, even under abysmal leadership, inconsistent directives and movement of service personnel within Canada from west to east to satisfy political imperatives.
And it is your sort who make that possible through blunt stupidity and evil innuendo beforehand, and pure malice after all is revealed in time.
Tell me – the perps who killed the Somali – were they white supremacists ?
November 10th, 2009 at 7:45 am
Dr. Dawg wrote “So do calls for less government, more freedom of expression and so on.
Obviously not everyone who supports these things is a neo-Nazi—far
from it.”
Would “obviously not everyone who eats hamburgers and steak is a vegan-far from it” be a meaningful sentence? Most people would say no, because the characteristic of “eating hamburgers and steaks” precludes someone from belonging to the category of “vegan”. Likewise, positions such as “less government” and “free expression” preclude someone from belonging to the category of “Nazi”.
Of course, I could be misreading you. You could, by “these things” be referring to your remarks in the preceding paragraph about “the rhetoric of opposition to
multiculturalism and (non-white) immigration”, in which case by saying that not everybody who supports these things, i.e., such rhetoric and the positions expressed thereby, is a neo-Nazi, you have in fact, argued my point for me.
What is the “essence” of “Nazism”? I would argue that both Nazi racial doctrine and anti-Semitism on the one hand, and support for a totalitarian police state on the other, are essential to the meaning of Nazism. Do not mistake me. I am not saying that apart from support for absolute power for the state, Nazi views on race and the Jews are acceptable. They are not. However, I would make the further argument that Nazi racial doctrine was a particularly violent racial doctrine, that included a bit more than “I think our people are the best, hooray for us”. Nazi racial doctrine portrayed the world as a Darwinian struggle for survival between the races, in which the Aryan was destined to either win, by eliminating or ruling everyone else, or be destroyed, a struggle in which the Aryan’s perpetual enemy was the Jew. It is not difficult to see how that racial doctrine, combined with the mechanics of absolute state power, resulted in the atrocities it did. It would be most irresponsible, however, to accuse everyone who is outspokenly “pro-white” as holding to such a violent view of race and the world, just as it would be irresponsible to accuse everyone who has some negative opinion or another about Jews of holding to the kind of antisemitism that played out in Auschwitz-Birkenau and Treblinka. If we did that, the following sentence would actually make sense:
“In World War II, Sir Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Nazi leaders of Great Britain and the United States, met with Joseph Stalin to discuss their plans for the war against Germany and Japan”.
November 15th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
I believe that white supremacists have burrowed deep into the free speech coalition, and that they really have only their own agenda at heart, rather than being truly concerned about the wider issues that confront us in this day and age of political correctness.
Sure, there’s an element of an overdue correction of the relentless bashing and demonization of the white male, particularly the Christian white male.
That in itself is no excuse for trying to use the resources of a free speech coalition to advance more extremist positions that are really (when push comes to shove) fascist in their orientation.
There is nothing to be gained in Canada from booting out the communist elite only to replace it with a new fascist elite.
I have gone as far as suggesting that some of the leading figures in the free speech coalition have gone well off course recently in their constant adulation of Marc Lemire, something which naturally draws attention among our various elitist critics because of documented associations between Lemire and white supremacist groups and notably Ernst Zundel.
It’s a case of “don’t shoot the messenger,” but too late now, this messenger has already been shot. For drawing attention to this flaw in collective strategy, I have been kicked out of Free Dominion.
Despite that, I will take a “love the sinner, hate the sin” approach and soldier on … but don’t believe anything you read or hear about me being some kind of sell-out looking to make friends in high places. That is so ridiculous that I may die laughing before I die up in the Gulag after my sentencing comes through.
Get a grip would be my fundamental response to such hyperbolic charges.
My dislike for fascists has always equalled my dislike for communists. I came into the internet age with that set of values, and never tried to disguise it or water it down. Calling communist inspired activities like the opinion-policing CHRC system a form of fascism may make people feel better because everyone knows the go-to bogey-man in our culture is the evil Nazi, but we lose a lot of moral clarity and focus when we confuse forms—and communism has a much different modus operandi than fascism.
Fascism appeals to the lowest common denominator of racist self-glorification. The fascist masses will go on to victory because of that racial superiority, so goes the mantra, and anyone who opposes becomes a non-person. Communism, on the other hand, appeals to the concept that an elite knows better than you do, how you should live, and what you should think or do. This is naturally opposed by the self-reliant classes who form most of the more successful business, agricultural and industrial enterpreneurial groups in a society, which is why communism tends to kill itself off through enforced mediocrity. Fascism, on the other hand, retains enough sense of natural selection to know the wisdom of rewarding excellence, as long as excellence does not question the right of the leaders to lead.
As Lili R found out, when you start to question, then your excellence turns into a thing of the past in a big hurry. There is nothing a fascist likes less than insubordination—for he or she holds all others to be his or her natural inferior. Otherwise, how could there be a viable concept of racial superiority? The race is defined essentially as “people lucky enough to be just like me.”
Communists will take anyone who shows up—if they bring a gun, so much the better.