Mordechai speaks
I find it odd that the only post you deem appropriate to make here is NOT one condemning neo-Nazi bigots or their fellow travellers…no no not you….better to try and find some reason to attack Warren Kinsella. You are a hypocrite Jay. from my comments
Mordechai is a regular and respected commentor here at my blog. He is foursquare in support of the CJC, Israel, S. 13 and the Lying Jackal. I have a good deal of respect for him even when I disagree with the angle of his spin.
The post he is referring to suggests that the Lying Jackal is, well, a liar. Which he has been and no doubt will be. And, depending on what construction you put on his testimony in Court, may have been while under oath. Unless he was lying in his emails to Kevin Steel.
Anyhoo, Mordechai chastens me for failing to condemn neo-Nazis rather than noting the Jackal’s apparent economy with the truth before the Court.
Given the overall tenor of this blog, it’s generally pro-Zionist, pro-Israel, pro-Jewish and anti-Fascist outlook, our man Mordechai seems to be tilting at windmills which have long since ceased turning.
But, to make it easy for Mort, a couple of facts: this blog has taken a pro-free speech position regardless of the views of the people being persecuted. This blog, for example, has been consistently pro-gay marriage while defending the right of crazed Christians to demand a war on gays. As much as I disagree with the positions taken by Catholic Insight – and believe me I do – I am adamant that they should have the right to publish their wrongheaded positions without governmental interference. And get this, Mordechai, I don’t have to agree with a position to defend the right of people to proclaim it.
I have taken the position that the Lying Jackal is a liar. Why? Well, because he lied about me (and I note he has updated and changed but not corrected his top ten list.(I have the screen shot.)) And he lies on a continuing basis in defence of s. 13 and the people who would enforce it. Being called a neo-Nazi supporter by this dweeb is a sort of “smear of honour”.
So, when the Lying Jackal gets up in Court and tells another story about his involvement with Grant Bristow, the founder of the neo-Nazi Heritage Front, I am hardly likely to condemn Agent Bristow and the party he founded. Rather I am inclined to ask how deep the Jackal’s involvement with Bristow went?
How come our fearless Nazi hunter never mentions Grant Bristow in the first edition of The Web of Hate? How come the Lying Jackal pretends that he had no idea who Bristow was when, in evidence he has admitted that he filed a criminal complaint against the man?
So far the Lying Jackal has had at least three postions on Bristow: 1) He had no idea who he was, 2) He didn’t know who Grant Bristow was until the second edition of Web of Hate, 3) He knew exactly who Grant Bristow was – having filed a criminal complaint against him – but decided not to mention this fact in his book because he didn’t want to become part of the story. #3 was under oath so it has to be true.
I’m just wondering, Mordechai, were I could have fit my longstanding condemnation of neo-Nazis under this tissue of lies. Help would be appreciated.
January 23rd, 2009 at 4:34 am
A timeline here would help, Jay. Did WK hear of GB between the first and second editions? Did he bring a criminal complaint after that?
But let me get general instead of personal. Who are the inevitable poster children of the new Free Speech movement? Why, neo-Nazis. Marc Lemire. Ian Verner Macdonald. Now the Usual Suspects are flocking to defend Dutch neo-Nazi Geert Wilders.
The first time, chance. The second time, coincidence. The third time, well, we have a pattern here, folks.
If you are simply an unwitting part of this, Jay, you should get out while there’s still time to protect your reputation. Seriously.
January 23rd, 2009 at 4:48 am
The Lying Jackal believes his own lies.
January 23rd, 2009 at 8:09 am
I actually find your response to Mordechai quite telling. Clearly, his post upset you. However I do understand the point you are trying to make about Kinsella (how I hate this name-calling business feels more like childish nonsense than adult discussion-lying jackal indeed ) and will look forward to how the Court deals with it.
However, I have read much about MacDonald and Christie. These are not nice people. I suggest you read Dr. Stanley Barrett’s “Is God a Racist” or Julian Sher’s “White Knights” to get a full view of Mr. MacDonald. On Christie and his relationship with Zundel, Keegstra, Malcolm Ross and Paul Fromm you may want to read Professor Alan Davies” book “Anti-Semitism in Canada”, Stephen Mertl’s book “Keegstra” and David Bercuson’s book, “A Trust Betrayed: The Keegstra Affair”.
You seem very pre-occupied proving any thesis you may have against people like Kinsella who fight racism and anti-Semitism (even though you may not like their tactics surely you believe Neo-Nazis and their fellow travelers are not conducive to a harmonious Canada), while doing little reading or research on the real bad guys.
I will soon, I hope, look forward to seeing your thoughts on the illustrious Mr. Christie featured surely as prominently as your views on Mr. Kinsella.
January 23rd, 2009 at 8:25 am
“Being called a neo-Nazi supporter by this dweeb is a sort of “smear of honour”.”
You’re a nobody in the Canadian Blogosphere unless Warren is lying about you in his Top 10 List…
January 23rd, 2009 at 11:23 am
Better watch it Jay. You don’t want the cracker hating cracker Dawg to call you a racist. I think he’s a very close second to the Jackal when throwing that word around.
January 23rd, 2009 at 12:12 pm
To be fair, your use of “crazed Christians” fails to record your condemnation of the crazed of all faiths in this respect.
January 23rd, 2009 at 12:29 pm
Dawg –
Are you seriously suggesting that if Jay defends the right of racists to free speech then he is supporting racism? By that logic, the ACLU would be Nazis.
As for getting in bed with people – your blind devotion to section 13 makes you (objectively) a supporter of Elmasry and other Muslim anti-semites. After all, they are the “poster children” for you and all the other ‘progressive censors’.
And how is Wilders a neo-Nazi? If anything, the Muslim radicals he is fighting fit that description with their eliminationist anti-semitism. But then you don’t care about racism unless it’s perpetrated by white Christians, do you?
January 23rd, 2009 at 1:15 pm
Craig:
Your ignorance is surpassed only by your ignorance.
It appears that the only free speech the Speech Warriors find worthy of defending is hate speech by neo-Nazis. Beaumont. Lemire. And even when it’s neo-Nazis trying to suppress speech (as in the case of Warren Kinsella and the nuisance suit against him), the support still goes to the neo-Nazis.
There’s a pattern here.
Campus groups supporting atheism and the Palestinian cause have been shut down over the past few months. Not a peep from these vociferous defenders of free speech.
Some speech is more equal than others. It’s all Nazis, all the time.
I have no “blind devotion” to s 13. Put up or shut up.
Finally, Wilders has proposed an alliance with Vlams Belang in the European Parliament. You need to do a little homework, my boy.
January 23rd, 2009 at 1:48 pm
Dawg, the Rev. Boisson and Catholic Insight as well as that cartoonist in Halifax and some chap named Steyn and another named Levant might be evidence that the CHRC and the assorted provincial HRCs go after non-Nazi free speech. And speechers rise to defend them.
January 23rd, 2009 at 2:24 pm
Dawg’s comments though are being puposely misconstrued. Ezra and his knuckledraggers (you may soon be of that bunch Jay) ALSO support neo-Nazis. Pretty simple really. Your wilful blindness has put you squarely in the camp of those who have emerged from the Nazis of old. Hell of a place to be Jay. So when a neo-Nazi supporter like Ian Verner MacDonald sues Kinsella because he didnt like what Kinsella said about him who do you rush to target with your venom? The victim, Kinsella who is being harassed for his speech or the neo-Nazi harassing him? A rhetorical question and the answer is shameful.
January 23rd, 2009 at 2:25 pm
Dawg –
You are the ignorant one. It defies logic to say, as you do, that defending the free speech rights of x group is tantamount to supporting x’s ideas.
As for hypocrisy, if the shoe fits wear it. You and other progressive censors NEVER condemn Islamic anti-semitism. In fact, you support the right of the Dutch government to limit criticism of Islam. And you wet your pants with joy whenever your hero Warman drags some loser neo-Nazi before the CHRC.
By contrast, us free speechers support the rights of all to expression – Lemire, Steyn, Boisson, the cartoonist at the Herald, Father Velk, nutty university students who want to eliminate Israel, etc.
BTW, I am still waiting for you to denounce the Jew-hatred on display in Toronto and Montreal earlier this month. You were crying like a little baby when Jay suggested you were on the side of the anti-semites. But maybe your silence on this issue speaks volumes. As they say, put up or shut up.
January 23rd, 2009 at 2:34 pm
Mordechai: I am an agnostic on the question of MacDonald as I really know nothing about him. I would note that, as a general rule, it is a pointless waste of time suing for libel about matters which are a mix of fact and opinion.
I also note than you are apparently incapable of understanding the difference between supporting a person’s right to speak and supporting what they say. If you can’t figure that rather clear distinction out, Mordechai, the rest of this blog will fly right over your head.
January 23rd, 2009 at 2:49 pm
One more thing, Dawg – as Jay pointed out, your claim about us ‘free speechers’ only defending neo-Nazis is just wrong (talk about needing to do research!). In fact, until Levant and Steyn were hit with ‘hate speech’ complaints, I didn’t even know who Marc Lemire was. And I certainly wasn’t defending his right to free speech, though I should have been.
January 23rd, 2009 at 3:01 pm
It’s fair to point out that the Speech Warriors have defended non-Nazis who are merely hateful—homophobes and Islamophobes. Point taken. Indeed, I’m on record as noting that utterances from Steyn and his ilk have not met the bar for a successful complaint under existing legislation, and I was proven right on several occasions. I have called for a screening mechanism that would weed these cases out at the get-go, as you know.
But I have not seen the Speech Warriors defend the speech of Queen’s University students pushing a progressive agenda, or the speech of Wilfrid Laurier students who wanted to organize a free-thinkers’ club, or the speech of pro-Palestinian UWO students who wanted funding for their club…
There’s selectivity going on. Come on, admit it.
Craig:
I don’t feel the need to respond to your stupid interrogation. My views of anti-Semitism are on record, and require no elaboration here.
January 23rd, 2009 at 3:21 pm
So:
Geert Wilders says he is trying to stop his country by being over run by an anti-semitic pagan cult that despises gays, loathes ‘degenerate’ modern culture and thinks women belong barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen.
That makes Geert Wilders…
A neo-Nazi.
Oh, right: because he’s the white guy.
Got it.
January 23rd, 2009 at 3:43 pm
Dawg, explain to me how the state interfered with the Queen’s students or the Wilfred Laurier free thinkers or the pro-Pali UWO students? Were they brought before Commissions with judicial powers? Were they subject to fines or lifetime prohibitions?
January 23rd, 2009 at 4:00 pm
Hey, this is weird, huh:
Liberal Gay Dude Who Actually Lived There Sticks Up for ‘Neo Nazi’ Geert Wilders For Some Reason
http://www.city-journal.org/2009/eon0122bb.html
January 23rd, 2009 at 4:07 pm
Jay:
This is what drives me crazy about you guys. When the state oppresses people (in your view), you’ll go to the wall to fight it. But when that oppression is privatized, you’ll defend it. Personally, I don’t give a damn whether a cop (state actor) or a civilian (private actor) kicks me in the nads. It hurts just as much.
I see Kathy has wandered over to inject race into the discussion, while quoting her latest hero/victim with considerable accuracy and thereby helping to make my case. Indeed, Wilders talks precisely like that. “They” (in this case Muslims) are evil, overrunning our country, breeding like rabbits, whatever. Now Wilders wants to hook up with Vlams Belang. Yup, in my book that makes him a neo-Nazi. Deal with it.
January 23rd, 2009 at 4:12 pm
Dawg, there is a rather large difference between the threat posed to rights by the state and that posed by some university student council.
On the subject of Geert Wilders it is worth your time to read the Bruce Bawer piece Kathy links to.
January 23rd, 2009 at 4:13 pm
Dawg –
So let me get this straight. You want to limit free speech rights via section 13. In other words, you are in favour of censorship (and, in the case of Wilders, what are in effect blasphemy laws). Yet you are upset that us free speech supporting neo-Nazis have been insufficiently vigilant about defending the free speech rights of groups that agree with you!
I know I am “stupid,” but I am having trouble following your logic here.
On the other hand, you won’t devote even one blog post to condemning the growing Islamic anti-semitism in Canada and Europe.
What a hypocrite.
January 23rd, 2009 at 4:53 pm
I don’t judge Wilders by what columnists write, but by his own actions.
If your first statement is so, then I’m a little surprised at the reaction by Speech Warriors to perceived campus injustices against (for example) “pro-lifers.” I guess it depends on whose ox is being gored.
January 23rd, 2009 at 5:18 pm
Dawg declares Muslims a race, still pretends to be smart.
January 23rd, 2009 at 5:26 pm
I realize lefties don’t care much for facts and the “truth”, but what part of these two statements:
are provably incorrect?
PS: I don’t think all muslims are evil. I do think Islam is an evil ideology. (for why, see above)
There were “good communists” and “good Nazis” too, like Schindler. The exceptions that prove the rule.
But if you’re ok with sticking up for violent homophobic jew-haters, well, that just makes you a mainstream “progressive”. Congrats.
January 23rd, 2009 at 6:02 pm
“You’re a nobody in the Canadian Blogosphere unless Warren is lying about you in his Top 10 List…”
Tied for # number 3 out of about 18 on his top 10 lists.
I’m a Nazi because I basically support the same issues that Mackenzie King did who fought the Nazi’s.
January 23rd, 2009 at 7:00 pm
Oh, where to begin…..
No, just because you oppose a law that affects primarily neo-nazis doesn’t mean you’re a neo-nazi sympathizer. On the other hand, ignoring the fact that we’re talking about a small number of cases, most of which involve neo-nazis and suggesting that s. 13 is a general chill on free speech is, frankly, idiotic.
Censorship involves prior restraint of speech. To use the term to condemn legal provisions that provide for consequences on certain forms of speech post-facto is to render it meaningless. Section 13 is no more a form of censorship than libel law; the fact that one law is enforced by a tribunal and the other by a court is a distinction without a differnce.
I don’t like fundamentalist Islam any more than I like fundamentalist Christians or Jews (or Hindus, Buddhists…). But I don’t buy the argument, promulgated by bigots from Shaidle to Spencer, that Islam is a monolithic mass of 1.2 billion people all scheming to turn us into slaves to Allah.
Speaking of Five Feet of White Trash, when she describes “by being over run by an anti-semitic pagan cult that despises gays, loathes ‘degenerate’ modern culture and thinks women belong barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen” is she referring to Catholic Church? I mean, if the shoes fits…
Bruce Bawer begins his piece by quoting from a press release issued by Wilders’ party. Not a good beginning. and it doesn’t get any better from there.
January 23rd, 2009 at 7:14 pm
Would you all be insulted if I suggested this all makes about as much sense as a discourse on the principles associated with free speech and the law of hate speech as those games of Battling Tops back in elementary school. Not that I care but remove your own insults and ideological hugging and your cut and paste catch phrases from your comments and see if, in what remains, you have any point that you might accept yourself let alone your opposite might be persuaded by.
How the hell do any of you expect to advance an argument if you can’t achieve that?
Note: don’t bother. I don’t care except that Jay’s place deserves better.
January 23rd, 2009 at 8:07 pm
True west –
I hesitate to get into this with you again, but here goes . . .
Is it really “idiotic” to think that section 13 would not been on the mind of a Canadian editor who wanted to do a story on, say, honour killings? I agree that there would be no prior restraint. And I also agree that a complaint based on a factually sound article might be dismissed. But I submit that for most print journalists, the time, hassle and expense (even if it were in the low five figures) would simply not be worth it, irrespective of the merit of the story. As such, section 13 law, with its subjective standard of harm, and its biased adjudication, is de facto a form of censorship. Just ask Catholic Insight.
As well, you give the HRCs credit for being “reasonable” and dropping some recent cases. I would argue that they did so only because of the pressure put on them by Canadians who believe in free speech (everyone from the lowliest bloggers to the editorial board of Canada’s most liberal paper).
Finally, if hate speech laws are necessary, then surely you should be calling for a section 13 complaint (if not a criminal code charge) against the vile anti-semitics who marched through the streets of Montreal and Toronto this month. On second thought, never mind. I am sure that little Richie Warman is working on it.
January 23rd, 2009 at 8:23 pm
Muslims aren’t a race; but the category “Muslim” is a placeholder for race. As proof, note that Shaidle refers to Wilders’ race, when the notion of race hadn’t even been raised. Clearly she is opposing his “white” status to those of…well, the folks who breed like rabbits. Let’s not play games here.
My one point, perhaps lost in the confusion, is this: the Speech Warriors are not without an agenda, and the agenda reveals itself in their inconsistency. I don’t object, by the way, to political agendas, but I dislike seeing them cloaked in pretensions to universal principle.
The same folks who want unfettered rights to freedom of expression for neo-Nazis are demanding state action against Hamas supporters at public demonstrations. I say, screw ‘em both, and drop the same hammer. And then save a little energy for left-wing professors being chased off university campuses by David Horowitz, and Daniel Pipes’ snitch brigade. Or, alternatively, admit that the speech that you most want to protect is right-wing, even extreme right-wing, speech, and make a more honest case for your position.
January 23rd, 2009 at 8:24 pm
“status to that of…well”
January 23rd, 2009 at 10:06 pm
> I don’t like fundamentalist Islam any more than I like fundamentalist Christians or Jews (or Hindus, Buddhists…)
Actually, fundamentalist Buddhists are pretty much indistinguishable from weekend Buddhists. You never even see the really radical ones.
January 23rd, 2009 at 10:52 pm
Craig,
Have you spent even five minutes in a newsroom? Worked with an editor? Talked to a reporter about getting stories into the paper or onto the air? If you had, you’d realize that the speech provisions of human rights codes are not even on the radar screen. The bar is set so high that, unless you’re hiring a race-baiting bigot as a star columnist, they have no impact of the press.
Now, if you want to see an editor break a sweat, if you want to see blue pencils flying, file a critical piece about someone rich and litigious – Conrad Black, the Reichmanns. While writing critical stories about short-tempered minorities carries certain risks—ask Kim Bolan, who gets death threats from Sikhs – they don’t generally result in years of expensive litigation, like rich guy libel suits do. And editors hate years of expensive litigation more than almost anything.
So, no, I don’t agree that there is a chilling effect or that stories on honour killings would get spiked or that these sections amount to de facto censorship. In your hypothetical world perhaps, but in the real world, not a chance.
As for the notion that HRCs – or more to the point HRTs – have modified their application of the law because folks like Levant and Jay are having juvenile hissy-fits and that, but for the blogosphere, they’d been fitting Steyn and Ken Whyte for the stocks, that is even more idiotic. Anyone even remotely familiar with human rights law and the operation of human rights tribunals predicted the eventual outcome correctly as soon as the Macleans/Western Standard complaint became public. Only the ignorant and the dishonest thought these things would ever go anywhere.
Finally, while there may have been a few anti-semites in the anti-Israel demos of recent week, human rights law does not govern public protests, nor was it intended to. Nor do I feel obliged to battle racism and bigotry wherever it raises its ugly head and certainly not on your instruction. I’m not interested in using s. 13 or its equivalents. I do, however, think that there are valid reasons for having such a provision, reasons that have been deliberately ignored or distorted by dishonest polemicists who are so eager to take a swing at muslims that they’re willing to give nazis free rein.
January 23rd, 2009 at 11:23 pm
Dawg – Those you mock as ‘Speech Warriors’ have consistently defended free speech rights for everyone, right wing or left, religious or secular. In fact, I challenge you to name me one prominent critic of section 13 in the conservative-libertarian blogosphere who only defends extreme right wing speech. Our host certainly does not fit your description, nor does Brock, Daimnation, Steyn, BCL, et.al.
You, on the other hand, cheer your hero Warman on as he drags obscure neo-Nazis before the CHRC, yet you are indifferent to anti-semitism when practiced by Muslims. If you want to find inconsistency on this question you need to look a bit closer to home.
Simple question: if you are in favour of section 13, then why are you not calling for it to be used against Hamas supporters who march with placards helpfully informing us that Hitler didn’t finish the job? And why don’t you denounce the sentiments of the protestors? Funny that you had time to blog about Warman’s most recent libel trial but not to defend Canada’s jews. Speaks volumes, that.
As for left wing professors being chased off campuses by Pipes and Horowitz, don’t make me laugh. Left-wingers are hardly an endangered species in the modern university. And that applies double for Middle Eastern Studies’ departments.
January 23rd, 2009 at 11:57 pm
Five Feet of Failure asked the question:
what part of these two statements:
“an anti-semitic pagan cult that despises gays, loathes ‘degenerate’ modern culture and thinks women belong barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen
evil, overrunning our country, breeding like rabbits
are provably incorrect?
This explains so much. Apparently, if you’re a right wing polemicist, you have no obligation to offer evidence or even worry if what you write is true. All you have to do it spew forth and then finish with the flourish “What part of this is provably incorrect.”
I can see how it might work in the right-wing blogosphere, where they prefer talking points to facts. Wonder how it works as a defence in a libel suit?
January 24th, 2009 at 12:18 am
tw – Wow, I didn’t realize that you are able to read the minds of Canadian editors, let alone our human rights commissioners, with such certainty.
Nevertheless, I hope you’ll forgive me for being sceptical of your Olympian certainties (delivered with your usual leaden sarcasm). I don’t know what you do for a living, but I doubt that you know much about either of these professions. After all, what self-respecting journalist or jurist would be trolling around on blogs, hiding under a pseudonym?
But by all means continue to defend section 13. Us free speechers will give you and dawgie and the jackal a call when it’s finally off the statute books.
January 24th, 2009 at 7:08 am
Craig,
I’ve worked for editors and reporters for years.I don’t have to read their minds because I’m speaking from experience; while libel chill is very real, Section 13 chill is a figment of your imagination.
As for the sterling record of speech warriors, I note that your fellow libertarians have happily supported the use of private actions and criminal law to supress speech. For example, one of your number has defended Can-West trademark lawsuit against a printer who produced a Vancouver Sun parody pointing out the company’s pro-Israel bias. Ezra has suggested applying the Broken Windows approach to law enforcement to anti-Israel rallies, including charging people for waving “criminal flags”. And of course, there’s libel law, which Levant uses to silence former employees. (It’s only a SLAPP suit when he’s a defendant, it seems.)
January 24th, 2009 at 4:28 pm
TW -
Unlike you, I don’t support criminalizing signs and placards. And I am in favour of liberalizing libel law (which is increasingly being used by those radical Muslims you are so concerned to protect from ‘hate’).
Nor is Ezra a libertarian, as anyone who knows about Canadian politics could have told you.
And as for your alleged experience in journalism, I’ll reserve judgment until you grow up and post under your own name. You know who I am and who Jay is and who Kathy is. Yet you fling your insults at us while cowering behind a pseudonym. Nice.
January 24th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Don’t hold your breath professor. And stop whining. Unlike you and jay and five feet of useless bigotry, I’m not trying to make a name for myself in the blogsphere. I live only the combox. And your judgment, reserved or otherwise, is of little concern to me. Anonymous I started and anonymous I’ll stay.
BTW, if I ever cower, I’ll drop you a line. So far, seems that what I’m doing being a pseudonym is mostly correcting the misinformation you and yours have scattered here and there on this issue.
You may now return to your snit.
January 24th, 2009 at 7:30 pm
Delightfully, tw, I can’t imagine any reason less appealing than “making a name for myself in the blogosphere”. I blog for sheer fun and, from time to time, to learn something. For example, just today I learned that Dr. Dawg has written a very learned article of very great interest on the rights of the dead…who knew?
I am half tempted to put up a post on the vexed question of libel law. I am not a fan.
Meanwhile, I have no doubt that the mere existence of s. 13 has a chilling effect on which stories are proposed and which stories are assigned. It serves to prepare and shape the battlefield of ideas by, from the go, excluding matters which may, conceivably, open a publication up to complaint. Which, I suspect, is a good deal of the intention behind the statute. Otherwise it would not have been drafted so vaguely.
Craig, you make an excellent point with respect to Ezra – he is not now nor ever has been a libertarian. He is a partisan, annoyed, Tory who has happened to have run into the full force of tribunal anti-hate speech law and its supporters. And his reaction, which I applaud, has been very much on the lines of a fully paid up member of the Tory establishment (with a bit of a backbone thrown in.) It is a parallel argument to the libertarian one with respect to free speech but it lets him demand that the “real haters” be denied the right to fly the flags of terrorist organizations at their parades. I have a good deal of sympathy with that position but still think that flying the Viet Cong flag at a 1967 peace rally is and should be protected speech. It is not until a particular person actually says “Kill the Jews” that I see any room for legal intervention.
January 24th, 2009 at 8:10 pm
Jay,
You may have no doubt about the chilling effect of s. 13 and its various analogs. But you have no proof that it chills anything other than the race-baiting and fag-bashing that has been prosecuted to date. T
As for your reasons for blogging, I’m sure they are many and varied. I doubt, however, that establshing Jay Currie as a brand is not one of them.
I look forward to your thoughts on libel law.
January 24th, 2009 at 9:36 pm
tw, I have always wondered what “race-baiting” actually means. Genuine question. I have heard it used but have never been able to determine a) what it would mean to bait a race, b) why one would want to do so, c) why it is a bad thing (which, from context, it appears it is.)
January 24th, 2009 at 11:43 pm
Jay,
There are these things called dictionaries. I recommend them highly. Try looking there.
January 24th, 2009 at 11:54 pm
” . . . you have no proof that it chills anything other than the race-baiting and fag-bashing that has been prosecuted to date.”
What about Father Velk and Catholic Insight magazine?
January 24th, 2009 at 11:56 pm
Isn’t the good Father accused of fag bashing…
January 25th, 2009 at 12:07 am
I’ve heard of those dictionary things as well as Wikipedia where I found this:
“Race baiting is an act of using racially derisive language, actions or other forms of communication, to anger, intimidate or incite a person or groups of people, or to make those persons behave in ways that are inimical to their personal or group interests.”
But I am still at a bit of a lose. Would it be “race baiting” to suggest that immigrants have an annoying tendency to shoot people? Or that Islamists tend to treat their daughters as chattels. Or that Asians tend to out perform native Canadians on science tests? Is the recognition of difference race baiting? And, in particular, is opposition to Sharia law about race?
The dictionary – or the Wiki entry – is rather unclear on the practical application of the concept.
January 25th, 2009 at 5:58 am
I have no idea who Craig is. I suspect most people don’t, given that it’s a first name and not exactly an uncommon one. This being the case, it’s a bit rich accusing someone else of hiding behind a mask.
Jay, I’m an immigrant, and I’ve never shot anyone in my life, even accidentally. Islamists aren’t a race, as the annoying Kathy Shaidle keeps pointing out, but as you have just demonstrated, it’s a hell of a place-holder. Asians aren’t a race either, strictly speaking. And differences in lifeways tend to get quickly over-generalized. I haven’t eaten back-bacon in years, don’t wear long underwear, I drink Corona and wear a bomber jacket, but I’m just as Canadian as you are. I think.
tw is pointing to successful HRT complaints, which, as the good Professor Moon has pointed out in a recent report, could have been successfully prosecuted under the Criminal Code as well.
January 25th, 2009 at 6:12 am
“Would it be “race baiting” to suggest that immigrants have an annoying tendency to shoot people”
Only if you raise the uncomfortable fact that when its in Toronto, then everyone knows there’s an 80% chance its a certain Caribbean country whose alumnus are involved…
January 25th, 2009 at 11:04 am
Dawg,
Craig is Craig Yirush (freq. misspelled as Yurish), which is how he identifies himself when he posts items at the Shotgun (but, curiously, not when he comments here or there). He’s an assistant professor in the history department at UCLA. Like Levant, he is an alumnus of the Fraser Institue, where he co-authored a paper with Owen Lippert, who you may recall as the Tory staffer who took the bullet for plagarizing John Howard’s speech on Iraq.
Ain’t Google grand?
January 25th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
Tw – Thanks for the impromptu episode of this is your life. I signed up to the google-comments thingy years ago and haven’t bothered to change it. But as you found out, it’s not hard to identify me. You, however, not so much.
As for dawg – Still waiting for your list of Canadian bloggers who are only in the free speech game to defend neo-Nazis. As I said, not true of Currie, Brock, Steyn, Daimnation, and many others, including the guys who run the Shotgun.
January 25th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
Shoot. I didn’t know where to start. Thanks, tw. An assistant prof, who can’t even spell Father de Valk’s name right? Who makes claims like this: Those you mock as ‘Speech Warriors’ have consistently defended free speech rights for everyone, right wing or left, religious or secular, but who provides not a single example of any of the Usual Suspects defending progressive expression under fire? And who evades my point about the hounding pf progressive professors by Horowitz and Daniel Pipes’ snitch network?
Such pristine intellectual honesty! UCLA used to be a good school, I heard.
PS: I appeared on a panel with Owen Lippert many years back. Soft-spoken, pleasant enough, at least in person.
January 25th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
Dawg – So let me get this straight – you are in favour of section 13. That is, you are in favour of limiting the free speech rights of Canadians by the subjective standard of “likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt.” Yet you feel free to accuse our host and others of being insufficiently supportive of the speech rights of persons with whom you happen to agree.
What hypocrisy.
And please give me one example of a “progressive” prof hounded out of a job by Horowitz and Pipes.
PS - So sorry that I wrote Velk for Valk. Clearly, that disqualifies me from commenting on such weighty matters. Unlike you, however, I support the good Father’s right to say what he damn well pleases. It’s called freedom, something you so-called progressives no longer seem to care about (unless, of course, the hate speech in question comes from Hamas supporters, then you go strangely silent).
January 25th, 2009 at 7:45 pm
Craig,
Having shown yourself incapable of even the simplest legal reasoning or being able to distinguish voluntary proceeding and mandatory one, you now step up and declare that the phrase “likely to…” results in a subjective standard that is, somehow, impermissible at law. Never mind that the phrase appears in 400 federal statutes or regulations and a similar number of statutes in each provinces. Never mind that courts have had no difficulty in applying this standard – basically, the balance of probabilities test – in any variety of settings.
As for Father Valk I suggest that you don’t support the good Father’s right say what he damn well pleases. If, for example, he said that the employees of the UCLA history department fiddled with little girls, stole from blind people or couldn’t be trusted with money, you might take a different view. Faced with those words, you might look to the state – in the form of the courts – for some remedy.
January 26th, 2009 at 7:33 am
My views of Section 13 and similar provisions in other jurisdictions do not amount to blind support. Even Ezra Levant recognizes that:
http://ezralevant.com/2008/04/turning-enemies-into-friends.html
Moving on, where were Pipes and Horowitz when Norman Finkelstein was denied tenure at dePaul?
Well, Horowitz, at least, is on the record:
http://drdawgsblawg.blogspot.com/2007/06/of-right-mind-part-deux.html
More examples of odd silences here:
http://drdawgsblawg.blogspot.com/2007/10/tutu-much-for-st-thomas-university.html
As for the misspelling of de Valk, it simply indicated to me that you aren’t really all that familiar with the case—it was just a cheap talking point.
January 26th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
Dawg –
My point is that you accuse the opponents of section 13 of being motivated by sympathy for the Marc Lemire’s of this word, which is hardly fair. I think most of us would rather not have to defend such people (indeed, I didn’t even know about Lemire or Steacy or Warman’s little racket until Steyn and Levant got involved). But in order to defend my right to speech, I have to defend the right of others to say things I may find disagreeable, even repulsive. At least since Mill, this has been the liberal position.
Conversely, I think that if you really believe we need section 13 and its provincial equivalents, then you should be calling for Islamic radicals to face the same legal consequences as Valk and Boisson and Lemire. After all, there’s lots of hate speech at the CIC and in radical Mosques and in print (case in point, the cleric that Point de Bascule complained about).
As for academics, I don’t think they should be immune from outside criticism. And if Horowitz and Pipes want to accuse certain academics of being biased, so what? As for Finkelstein, I don’t think his work is scholarly and thus I can see an academic case for denying him tenure. But maybe you have a different view and can enlighten me. More generally, there is a pronounced left-wing bias on the faculties of most universities in the western world. Believe me, I know. As a result, being targeted by Pipes and Horowitz is unlikely to lead to dismissal. I am certainly unaware of any case where it has.
January 26th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
Not motivated by sympathy, necessarily, but demonstrably unmotivated when progressives’ free expression is under the gun. I provided several examples of silence in my third link, above.
One law for all, I say, so if anyone on these street demos or elsewhere is violating the hate speech provisions of the various HRAs, someone should put in a complaint and due process should be followed.
On Finkelstein, I do indeed have a different view. You might want to follow some of the links I provided. Even defending him has its academic risks. Don’t mess with Dershowitz.
You like those snitch lines that Pipes set up? Do I smell a malodorous whiff of inconsistency here? What of Professor Douglas Giles, fired from Roosevelt University in Chicago in November 2005, or Professor Juan Cole, of the University of Michigan, denied a Middle East Studies position at Yale? What of Professor Joseph Massad, harassed and persecuted at Columbia University? What of archaeologist Nadia Abu El-Haj? What about David Graeber, booted out of Yale?
Not a fricken peep from you lot at best, support for the decisions at worst.
That’s what I’ve been getting at. Your (plural) hidden agendas and your rank hypocrisy.
January 26th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
Sorry, I’d forgotten this bit:
http://pointdebasculecanada.ca/spip.php?article682
Do we have evidence that the CHRC has upheld complaints about equivalent forms of offensive speech in the case of non-Muslims? In other words, that they produced conflicting readings of Taylor?
January 26th, 2009 at 11:03 pm
First, I find the idea that Middle Eastern Studies departments are embattled by pro-Israeli forces implausible. My sense is that you won’t find many Zionists among the tenured faculty at the elite schools, nor even a principled defense of Israel, but you will find a lot of pretty robust Palestinian nationalism.
And what is wrong with (especially at public universities) the trustees or the students or the alumni or the public at least knowing what is going on in the classrooms? You talk about snitch lines; but every quarter, my classes are observed; and the students evaluate me. What if I was in there every week just making stuff up, or distorting the historical record in some way?
I’ve met Juan Cole and he didn’t look like he was all that persecuted as he passed me his blackberry across the dinner table. But serioulsly, if Yale (a private school) doesn’t want to give him a job, I don’t think it’s a free speech issue. He’s a smart guy, but very polemical (the perils of blogging) and the position he was offered (if I remember correctly) was partly administrative.
As for the other cases, I don’t anything about them, and, frankly, don’t have the time right now to investigate. The 18th century beckons.
As for the CHRC - wouldn’t every case that Warman has brought (succesfully) against some white supremacist group be the equivalent of the Point de Bascule complaint which was rejected. Or am I missing something?
January 27th, 2009 at 4:13 am
The 18th century beckons.
Heh.
To evaluate CHRC decisions re Taylor I’d have to do a lot of comparative work that I presently have no time for. But I did begin the task of looking at Point de Bascule’s point-by-point complaint. Like many (Levant comes to mind), he inflates his case, and there is considerable distortion of what was actually written by the Imam. At some point I might get around to completing what I must admit is a boring task.
I’m not prepared to believe that the CHRC has an Islamist bias. I might be so prepared if there were an equivalent case involving another religion that someone could point to. (Boissoin was in a different jurisdiction.) It might be that religious are getting more slack than neo_Nazis before the Commission, but I’m admittedly speculating.
January 27th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
I agree; it’s an empirical question. And I haven’t had the time to read the imam’s writings, though my guess would be that anything written by wahabbi Muslims would constitute hate speech against one or more prohibited groups.
As you know, I would rather see section 13 gone. But if it stays, there can’t be a double standard at the commission, either neo-Nazis facing more complaints than religious groups, or Christians more than Muslims.
As you say, a task for another time.
January 29th, 2009 at 9:43 am
Press release from the Chinese Canadian Conservative Association:
Senior Ignatieff Liberal’s “cat meat” comment offends the Chinese community
Chinese Canadian Conservative Association calls on Liberal leader to fire Senior Liberal strategist Warren Kinsella
Toronto – Alex Yuan, chair of the Chinese Canadian Conservative Association called on Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff to distance himself from the comments made by senior Liberal strategist Warren Kinsella. In a recent blog posting Kinsella likened the meat found in Chinese cuisine to cat meat.
“Back in the Big Owe for a couple weeks, so what better way to kick things off than with some BBQ cat and rice at the Yang Sheng, hangout of our youth? Yay!”
Kinsella repeated the offensive comment in a video posting on his website.
“Our community is deeply concerned with Mr. Kinsella’s comments. Kinsella repeats the most vulgar and offensive stereotypes by associating the meat served by Chinese restaurants to cat meat. He has hurt the feelings of the Chinese people and disrespected the Chinese culture,” continued Yuan.
“This is not the first instance of such intolerant remarks by Mr. Kinsella therefore we call upon Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff to fire Mr. Kinsella as his senior strategist and apologize to the community.”
Mr. Kinsella was forced to apologize for another intolerant blog posting in 2007. In the 2007, he wrote a post suggesting that Progressive Conservative MPP Lisa MacLeod would rather bake cookies than run for office.
For more information please contact:
Tom Pang, CCCA Director
416-447-0446
January 29th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
Well Mordi – you, Gus and Dawg kinda add credence to the theory of Dan Gardner:
http://tinyurl.com/d9ze3b
D.Dawg does however have the fortitude to show up for other guest appearances and explain himself.