Try your luck with this Skill Testing Question:
Since the Nazis imposed state censorship over speech they deemed offensive, and the Canadian Human Rights Commission imposes state censorship over speech they deem offensive, does this mean that those that use the CHRC to impose state censorship over speech they deem offensive are “Nazi sympathizers”?
Send in your answer and receive an entry in a draw for a free Canadian Human Rights Commission Reaction Figure!
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A perfect choice for the unsympathetic Jew on your Holiday gifting list, designed and recommended by Danish cartoon censorship advocates everywhere. |
Update – Ouch.
The rise of soggy-assed relativism has brought us to a point where putative spokespeople for parties and groups regularly insist on conflating, as if it’s a human right, completely different things. For example, the common-sense, obvious observation that it’s inappropriate for a journalist to collude with a political party to manipulate parliamentary proceedings which the reporter then reports on are regularly met with a sneering “Oh, so you’re saying that reporters shouldn’t ask questions…” and other such “arguments.” The lack of accountability to reason is betrayed by the apparent belief that reasonable interlocutors will be forced to say “touche”.
And now we’ve got Kinsella suggesting that someone who defends free speech is a hypocrite if he has ever taken legal action — and submitted the challenge to due process, not some kangaroo court — against the publication of false statements damaging to his reputation.
It’s apparent that Kinsella doesn’t know the difference between an argument and an assertion, or an argument and a cheapshot, and that he measures the cogency of whatever case he’s making by the amount of foam that builds up in the corner of his mouth when he’s making it.
Alas, it’s only other people who can see the foam, so he’s probably the only one who doesn’t understand that the National Post was doing him a favour when they wiped the spittle off their site.
“Some might say Ezra Levant is not fit to carry Richard Warman’s water bottle. I won’t.”
Well, as Me No Dhimmi pointed out, you did say it. And pretty much everyone says that Warren Kinsella is a craven, would-be tyrant who is prone to juvenile, self-destructive public meltdowns that he mistakes, remarkably and publicly, for personal victory and renown. In terms of convincingness, nothing Kinsella’s ever typed out in his life would come up to Ezra Levant’s proverbial ankles; is it even possible that Kinsella doesn’t understand that? You wouldn’t think so, and yet he goes and writes a piece like that. It’s like Joel Gray challenging Vladimir Klitchko to a fist fight. Go figure.
Not necessarily, but a similarly dangerous mind-set.
Can’t Warman get a job rather than file complaints? Tim Horton’s is almost always hiring.
The CHRC is an anachronism in its own time.
Talks like a National Socialist, acts like a National Socialist, therefore they must be SCHWEINEHUNDE!
Speaking as a descendant of the HUNS of course.
Cheers
Hans-Christian Georg Rupprecht BGS, PDP, CFP
Commander in Chief
Frankenstein Battalion
2nd Squadron: Ulanen-(Lancers) Regiment Großherzog Friedrich von Baden(Rheinisches) Nr.7(Saarbrucken)
Knecht Rupprecht Division
Hans Corps
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”
Ezra is precise in his assessment (as usual) and Kinsella is still in need of a Duhaime’s law dictionary (and I’ll throw in a free Hogg’s constitutional law) as he continues to confuse section 15 (2) minority racketeering as a human right.
As long as we are on the topic. Please go and sign the petition to help get rid of the HRC.
Petition
Should Mr.harper ever get a majority government, one of the first things we Conservatives MUST do is demand the dismantling of the HRC’s.
The only downside would be a lot of liberals looking for work.
Anachronism – “something or someone that is not in its correct historical or chronological time”
Unfortunately it is not anachronistic at all. Organizations like the CHRC have been around since the beginning of time, We just made the mistake of assuming that are fathers and grandfathers had killed them off for all time, when obviously they didn’t. Our sons and grandchildren will have to do battle with the forces of evil when they grow up, unless we can make sure they don’t have to.
What Kinsella thinks is very unimportant. He is irrelevant.
What Ezra Levant thinks is important. That is why his name is Levant. It figures.
Not only is he Levant … he is relevant.
I don’t know if we need to rid ourselves of the HR tribunal entierly, but it needs to be reformed and have it’s commission restricted to the purpose originally intended..which was to seek limited tort compensation for minorities who suffered a loss due to discrimination…like losing a job or being evicted because of your ethnicity…or being refused service because of race/religion/sex/age/ethnicity.
On;y bar certified lawyers on the tribunal and constitutional rules of evidence and defendant’s rights apply.
Limit compensation to $500 and any claim ordered by tribunal is open to counter claim in legitimate courts.
If there is deep resistance from HRC commission culture to these constitutional and rule of law changes….then we know the system is being abused for personal and political gains…then the system should be abolished and all these cases should go through a dedicated HR federal court.
What are the odds that Kinsella and Warman are “special” friends?
As usual Kinsella completely misses the point.
The main point in Levant’s article is that the human rights commissions are being used because the bar for either criminal or civil complaints was way too high. How does this compare to Levant’s use of the civil courts, where, as he says, “the CIC would have to hire its own lawyers, follow the rules of court and prove that it suffered real damages — and the newspapers would have truth and fair comment as defences”. Presumably that was what Levant either did or was prepared to do, and would have to live with the fall out of that.
I thank you for bringing attention to this, Kate.
The CHRC isn’t the first-and it won’t be the last- government flunky department whose chief function is a make-work program for LAWYERS!
(Can’t have these dipwads chasing ambulances like they do in the ‘States- right?
John West:
“What Kinsella thinks is very unimportant. He is irrelevant.”
What struck me about the argument Kinsella was making (that essentially Levant was a hypocrite because he once wanted to sue Stral for libel) is of course typical of Kinsella’s genetic disingenuous dialectics.
Challenging someone who slanders/libels in open legitimate court where all constitutional safeguards apply to defendant and claimant, is NOT equivalent to making speculative claims of hurt feelings in a tribunal which suspends the legal rights of a defendant and convicts withous burden of proof of intent or in the absence of provable damage…we see a day and night equivalency argument.
..but then I’ve noticed Kinsella becomes more vacant, distorted and intellectually dishonest in his opinion as his star wanes and.. as you say..he becomes more and more irrelevant to the political landscape.
Like a spoiled brat who has to tell bigger and bigger fibs to get attention.
Plus I think he’s worried Levant will take his job at the Post…so we may be seeing some focused rivalrous animosity…like where he says he actually “likes” Ezra…when a political windbag like Kinsella says he actually “likes” a person with opposing ideologies, chances are he doesn’t…actually, chances are pretty good he has a seething bitchy snit going with them 😉
Boooyah! I’m on it!
WLMR,
What’s that old saying “Keep your enemies close”?
Yes, and Osama believes there is only one God, and Christians believe there is only one God, and thus Christians are Osama sympathizers.
Crude semantics and pointless comparisons dont prove anything other than the idiocy of those who subscribe to them.
That was a compelling piece from Ezra. Interesting to know that in one case a divorce lawyer was able to overrule the Charter’s free speech component with an argument consisting of two pages of notes.
I wonder if the HRCs would hear a complaint from the Conservative Party. You see, the Suzuki Foundation has criticized the government for trying to block the Kyoto agreement. The Foundation says on their website that if Kyoto isn’t passed, future generations will be in great peril, at risk of disease, death and potentially the end of civilization as we know it.
Clearly, they are implying that the Conservatives would be complicit in the deaths of millions, perhaps billions, of people. If that doesn’t engender hate for the Party, I don’t know what does.
Would the HRC hear a complaint on that basis?
Kate, you asterisk link is broken, I believe.
“It may shock those who do not follow human rights law in Canada, but Maclean’s will probably lose.”
A quote from from the National Post editorial.
Really? If Maclean’s loses…. I can’t imagine the consequences.
This country has been hijacked.
Write, email, phone! This is a battle that cannot be lost…
The thought police will be coming for all of us because we think freely.
When the first hate speech was prosecuted,it set the stage for all that has followed.You aint seen nothin’ yet.
“Crude semantics and pointless comparisons dont prove anything other than the idiocy of those who subscribe to them.”
Absolutely. Remember that next time you read Kinsella refer to me as a “nazi sympathizer” because I criticize Richard Warman’s use of the CHRC as a lottery.
John West: What’s that old saying “Keep your enemies close”?
I think the saying is, “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”
Warren is purposely obtuse in attacking Levant for using THE COURTS to attempt to settle disputes when any moron (and I can only assume Warren isn’t a moron) can see that Ezra specifically refers to the much higher level of evidence necessary to prevail in court, as well as the personal financial burden on the claimant, in comparison to using HRCs to stifle free speech. He makes it clear that the courts are the place to seek remedy for libel or defamation, even hate speech. What Levant says is that it is utterly inappropriate to use HRCs to censor speech, that HRCs were never intended for that use, and that the much lower threshold of evidence coupled with the activist bent and lack of qualifications of tribunal members makes them a danger to free speech.
Kinsella takes great pride in taking on the neo-Nazi movement and I strongly agree that Nazi ideology is utterly repugnant. Where Kinsella and I (and I might add most of the great thinkers of history) disagree is in how to combat noxious thoughts and speech. Kinsella seems to think that outlawing nasty thoughts is the way to go and lauds Richard Warman for using HRCs to prosecute neo-Nazis. That position is dangerous, much more dangerous than some pathetic skinhead. The very idea that we can somehow deny free speech to one group because we vehemently disagree with them strongly implies that we can do the same to others. At what point will my thoughts be censored? Or yours? Or even Kinsella’s? Should I really trust Warren Kinsella, or some unqualified HRC member, or even the courts to draw the line as to what speech is acceptable? Absolutely not! Society must draw that line not through censorship but by engaging ideas we find repugnant, repudiating them, ridiculing them, and marginalizing them with better arguments. On this, I will stand with these great minds:
“Our whole constitutional heritage rebels at the thought of giving government the power to control men’s minds.” -Thurgood Marshall
“If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.” -George Washington
“Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.” -John Milton
“You have not converted a man because you have silenced him.” -John Morley
“To hear one voice clearly, we must have freedom to hear them all.” -Kerry Brock
“The first principle of a free society is an untrammeled flow of words in an open forum.” -Adlai E. Stevenson
“We are willing enough to praise freedom when she is safely tucked away in the past and cannot be a nuisance. In the present, amidst dangers whose outcome we cannot foresee, we get nervous about her, and admit censorship.” -Edward M. Forster
“I am opposed to any form of tyranny over the mind of man.” -Thomas Jefferson
Actually, and it might be trivial, but the skill testing question is a logical fallacy, called, if anyone is interested, The Fallacy of the Undistributed Middle (Term).
A comparison would be:
My cat likes to eat bones.
My dog likes to eat bones.
Therefore, my cat is a dog.
More to the point, the HRC has moved out of its original focus around employment and housing and has become a force of evil. I mean that; any system that arbitrarily, without accountability, presumes to restrict the speech of its population, is an enemy of those people.
I hear Warman works for the military and he has spent work time send out legal documents. Maybe this shyte needs to lose his job or at least be given a warning??
Heh. “Undisturbed middle.” funny ET.
Both Warman and Levant are Jewish. What I don’t get, what I absolutely don’t get, is why they don’t team up and go after “Jews, the sons of apes and pigs.” – Quran.
Rather, foundational Jewish organisations, such as the ACLU, would spend their money and time going after institutional Christianity, than the historical menace, yes, the sympatico Nazi menace of Islam.
It’s hard to fathom.
Freedom of speech is so important that we should make it illegal to advocate censorship!
Okay, the above makes no sense, but neither does censoring in the interests of human rights, nor favouring certain races or genders in the interests of equality.
In their fevered attempts to bring about social justice, the left now insists that black is white, and up is down, and animals are vegatables. So now socialists are fascists.
That man (sic) is panicking!
Some might say Ezra Levant is not fit to carry Richard Warman’s water bottle. I won’t.
YOU JUST DID.
I know both of these men, and I like them both.
NO YOU DON’T. YOU LIKE WARMAN.
It’s just that, in this case, Ezra isn’t as young as he used to be.
NOR IS WARREN. Nor is my 34 year daughter who was only 33 a year ago.
Like all old men, he’s forgotten that he now preaches against stuff he used to do – over and over and over.
OLDER than before, but OLD? I saw Ezra at a Fraser Institute do in Vancouver — looked like a kid!
Finally, he didn’t do THIS STUFF. Nothing remotely like this stuff.
And, who did the noble Warman donate those awards to anyway?
Actually, and it might be trivial, but the skill testing question is a logical fallacy, called, if anyone is interested, The Fallacy of the Undistributed Middle (Term).
A comparison would be:
My cat likes to eat bones.
My dog likes to eat bones.
Therefore, my cat is a dog.
Incorrect. Kate specifically used the term “sympathizer”
As such, your last statement should read:
“Therefore, my cat agrees with what the dog is doing.”
John West:
“WLMR,
What’s that old saying “Keep your enemies close”?”
Well in this case I’d advise Ezra to scrape the canine fecal matter off his boot heel left by his good “friend” and move on to better “friends” who don’t throw scats at you like a deranged spider monkey 😉
Went to buy a Christmas Cake at the local Sobey’s grocery store. They don’t sell Christmas Cake anymore they sell festive cake. Didn’t buy one.
PS. Don’t tell CHRC.
If he’s ever arrested for a serial killing spree, the neighbours won’t be saying, “But he was such a nice man”. Ugh.
Odd that The Daisy Group did not put out a press release announcing their new venture into the field of selling fatwa insurance.
Spin doctor, heal thyself.
Rat said:
“Where Kinsella and I (and I might add most of the great thinkers of history) disagree is in how to combat noxious thoughts and speech”
I’m unconvinced this is even the state’s business…in a truely free society, encouraged to discuss issues in inclusive public open discourse…the market place of ideas if you will, noxious ideas usually do not stand up to scrutiny by peer review and public ostracism and marginalization of their adherents usually ensues… even the more noxious ideas are defrayed by their incompatibility with our constitution and it’s unbiased rule of law.
We don’t need laws that restrict public discourse of noxious ideas…we need laws that encourage it.
Rat:
If you don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.
Noam Chomsky (!)
I’ve always liked this quote because it is the true litmus test. How many times have people claimed they support freedom of speech (who doesn’t?), only to then explain why censorship is necessary. And some people are truly bewildered by the idea that they should support the rights of people they detest.
Irwin said:
“Both Warman and Levant are Jewish.”
No Richard Warman is not Jewish
Neither is Eldon Warman…and if you want a real eye opener as to the nature of the CHRC and their uncertainty as to their constitutional limits read the judgement from the Warman vs Warman case they decided in absentia.
No, the HRC cannot seriously be compared to “Nazi sympathizers.”
It is certainly fair and accurate to say that by creating and using “thought crime” laws to silence critics and punish dissent, they have adopted a tactic which all totalitarian-minded nations or organizations eventually adopt. Fair-minded people of all political stripes should take note of this.
In my opinion, you have to have a pretty particular set of views to be a “Nazi sympathiser”, and I don’t think HRC has reached that level.
That aside, we would be fools not to fight them at every step.
I don’t understand why everyone is against the HRCs because we wouldnt be able to say what we are without the protection of our rights they provide.
I am embarassed to sometimes see that others that hold values like mine are so ignorant and stupid.
Pauli if you want to see ignorant and stupid, read an CHRC judgement before you come to this form with the naivity of a robot.
Know your subject before you speak.
rightwingpaulie – you seem to have it backassward. The HRC is NOT there to protect your and my right to free speech. It is there to make sure that your don’t exercise that right in any meaningful manner.
Human Rights Commissioners = Schutz Staffel
Heinrich Himmler would have made an excellent liberal appointee to the CHRC.
“Since the Nazis imposed state censorship over speech they deemed offensive, and the Canadian Human Rights Commission imposes state censorship over speech they deem offensive, does this mean that those that use the CHRC to impose state censorship over speech they deem offensive are “Nazi sympathizers”?
Whatacha macallit??
Nazi imposed state censorship over speech deemed offensive or
Canadian Human Rights Commission imposed state censorship over speech deemed offensive?
Unconscionable opportunity is thy name.
The Canadian “Human Rights” Commission are Nazis
The Nazis targeted one race
-> The CHRC targets only working-class Whites, whose beliefs they disagree with
The Nazis used unfair courts and tribunals while limiting any possible defence
-> Not a single person has ever won a case before the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (over 40 cases…)
The Nazis targeted the poor
-> 98% of victims the CHRC attacks are poor. 90.7% of victims are so poor they are not able to even hire a lawyer to represent them.
The Nazis used all means at their disposal to silence their opponents.
-> The CHRC shall “…try by persuasion, publicity or any other means that it considers appropriate to discourage and reduce discriminatory practices…” Section 27(h) – Canadian Human Rights Act
The Nazis used the Gestapo to attack political opponents
-> The CHRC has benefited from the Police raiding people’s homes for alleged “hate”. No criminal charges come but the CHRC uses the seized material against victims before the Tribunal
The Nazis would get people fired from their employment over their beliefs
-> A recent victim of the CHRC (Terry Tremaine) was fired from his position at the University of Sask. for his political beliefs.
The Nazis used Krystalnacht (Night of broken Glass) to attack their enemies
-> Paul Fromm, Canada’s largest defender of CHRC victims, had his house attacked by a crazed mob of radicals and is constantly physically attacked
Screw the Canadian Human Rights Commission!
http://www.freedomsite.org
.
Warren: I’m sure Full Comment deleted your post because it was a mess. It makes no sense! Ezra’s whole point is that the HRC’s subvert the rule of law. He’s never launched a human rights complaint in his life.
Believing in free speech does not conflict with believing in libel law. As Dennis Prager often says, the rape of a name can be worse than the rape of a body. There has to be recourse for the rape of a name.
Back at 7:08, WL Mac Redux suggested that the HRC “… needs to be reformed and have it’s [sic] commission restricted to the purpose originally intended..which was to seek limited tort compensation for minorities who suffered a loss due to discrimination…like losing a job or being evicted because of your ethnicity…or being refused service because of race/religion/sex/age/ethnicity.”
Actually, Mac, I think even this mandate is unjustified.
The purpose of any “rights” legislation (assuming there should be any such thing at all) should be to preclude the state acting in a prejudiced manner toward citizens. It should and indeed must not inhibit the actions of free citizens if those citizens are to be considered free at all.
If I am truly free, I am free to be a jerk, both in my words and my actions (short of genuinely criminal actions such as violence toward a person or property). A truly free store owner would be free to refuse service to blacks (to pick a random group) if he chooses to – and would be free to suffer the economic consequences of that decision. In this country, any store owner who did refuse to serve blacks because of their race would quickly find himself out of business since virtually everyone would shun him – the problem of bigotry in a civilized society is self-correcting.
And that self-correcting mechanism has nothing to do with government-imposed laws, much less these grotesque star chambers. It arises from the decency of a mature and moral citizenry.
But government by definition has no morality, nor can it suffer the pain of ostracism that the store owner can, so it is government that requires legal restraint. If these commissions dealt only with complaints against the state, they might have some justification. But the don’t/ They target ordinary citizens, and only selected ones at that, and that among other factors is what makes them such atrocities.
Shall we name the teddy Mohammed?
Doug: Excellent post. Exactly right: in a truly free society a private person/business would be able to refuse service to blacks, gays, etc. The right of association.
I had exactly this kind of exchange with a friend about those “we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone” signs that, as a libertarian, I find so breathtaking when I travel stateside but which he objects to for the standard reasons, e.g. Jim Crow laws, etc. I tried to explain that they were systemic state-enforced rules prohibiting forms of association (blacks being served in whites only establishment) which is an entirely differnet matter.
Man, so few people understand your point about self-correcting mechanism. My example: If as an employer I have a white and a black applicant, the black guy is the better candidate but I select the white, I haven’t denied the black the ability to get a job — just not a job at my shop. HOWEVER, I have also made a gift to my competitor and as you say my business will suffer from that specific decision as well as more generally when the knowledge of this kind of behaviour goes public — which it will. But as many posters have pointed out, these instances are so rare that the HRC, limited to them, would be out of business, ergo the creepy mission creep.
My interlocutor is a antisemite. In the exchange, I had him as the employer and told him that he should be free to not hire a Jew. Clever devil I am sometimes.
Gawd, how far we’ve strayed, what?
I am so sick of the totalitarians in the Human Rights Commissions in this country. They are radical lunatics and they are by far the worst offenders of human rights in Canada.