A paraphrase:
“It’s ok for me to make fun of evangelical Christians, but the rest of you: leave Muslims alone!”
89 Replies to “Shorter Warren Kinsella”
I agree that some actions will create fear, horror, and loathing in the observer. WK indicates and describes a few examples.
I also agree that, because of the above, we as Canadians get to place limits on our citizen’s freedom of expression.
The question is how and to what degree. EL did not cross that limit. Person’s who spraypaint “Death to Jews” on a school for children to find do violate that limit.
Where is the limit? How do we determine it?
Closed secret trials by faceless unaccountable women in suits is not a reasonable way in our free and open society.
Let’s get it out there and discuss it, and subject it to rules of evidence, and the right to face accusers, and all those things that make common law acceptable to us citizens.
Warren starts off talking about “Ezra Levant’s valiant struggle to defend those infamous anti-Islam cartoons…”
Why the dishonesty?
This is not about defending the cartoons. This is about defending the right to publish them… as well as defending the right to have opinions.
Kinsella is one big contradiction. He says that publishing the cartoons was “hateful”. How can he make that judgement? And isn’t that the crux of the matter? He is making a value judgement on what is in the heart of another person. That is what the “thought” police do. Why does he not make the same value judgement on the band “tit f-ck me jesus? Because it doesn’t offend him. But what if it offends someone else? I’m not sure what he is saying here and I don’t think he knows himself. Is he saying that the band is not being hateful toward Christians because it does not offend “him”?
This is an impossible situation. Kinsella doesn’t see that. To him its ok to put Levant through the inquisition because he, Kinsella, has made the judgement that publishing the cartoons was “hateful”. The band may very well have been hateful in choose their name. Shouldn’t they be put through an inquisition? Sorry Warren, you can’t have it both ways. But, isn’t that the way of the leftard?
Re: “hateful”
I’d add: Hate is a feeling, and feelings can’t be crimes.
Or shouldn’t be. Unless you’re a liberal…
Reading his rants, I can only say he suffers from serious cognitive dissonance. We rail against the dishonesty and racism of the Democratic campaign in the US- he sees hatred of blacks and women. We speak of the right to express oneselfin the face of a growing fascit threat, both from the Left and from islam- he sees a’struggle’ to defend the ‘infamous’ cartoons. We defend Mr. Levant- he sees hatred of Jews.
Psychiatric care. Go for it, wk. Your projection is getting out of hand.
Very nice rationalization. He claims proudly the title of “censor”, and I quite agree – censorship is a necessary thing. Unfortunately, that act of intellectual bravery seems to have exhausted him, because the rest of his whitewash is sophistic drivel. It is the arrogant, self-righteous, hypocritical spew of a deaf, blind monkey. If he could be but mute, this trinity of tolerance might not consistently demonstrate the qualities of a fool.
Otter! You genius bastard you! You’ve nailed it! Projection!
WARNOUT IS A CYLON!!!!!!
So Warren wrote a nice sounding piece but said absolutely nothing. On one hand he said that the cartoons were offensive to some pious muslims…but didnt say they should be banned, however it is implied.
Next he says that he, as an apparently devout catholic is not offended by a series of….well lets call them them provactive statements from “punk” bands. He acknowledges that others might be offended but that he isnt…..and the question is SOOOOOOOO? does that mean he agrees with the censorship of the cartoons in a muslim context but not in a christian context.
And his Barney explanation, which was great theatre by the way, is highly misleading. The cartoons apparently have no poliical context, false, but the Barney comment does, which is true.
So I agree with Warren’s comment that the Barney comment was fair game, applying his logic that the context matters then the publishing of the cartoons by Mr Levant (of which I am no fan by the way) is also fair game since it had an express political context and purpose as did the original publication of the cartoons in Europe. The challenge was to do something expressly to exercise free speech in the face of a challenge to the existing culture. Small point, remember the Europeans are the indigenous people of Europe, so you cant paint the melting pot or mosaic hue on Europe. Another hypothetical, would the Aboriginals have been justified in starving out the Europeans and pushing them back into the sea in the 1600’s and 1700’s….if not why not, if yes please explain how this applies if at all to modern Europe, papers due in a week…..
Now lets go onto Warrens turf. He claims that Tit Fuck Me Jesus doesnt offend him and therefore thats ok. I can imagine he would be suitably derogatory of anyone who claimed they were offended and wanted to take action against it. I mean he would lose all punk credibility, such as it is, if he didn’t heep derision on them.
So lets now assume there is a Toronto punk band called Pig Blood on Mohammed and they have a minor hit with Wiping My Ass With the Koran, oh and the album is self titled and the cover depicts Mohammed covered in Pig’s Blood…..
They are a Punk Band, doing waht Punk Bands do…..they are taken to the HRC because someone is offended, as is likely the case.
Does Warren
1) Write an article in the National Post and numerous articles on his blog on the issue defending the band and saying suitably derogatory things, as only Warren can, about the complainers
2) Write an article trying to explain why this offensive and Tit Fuck Me Jesus isnt, which should be interesting to see…..oh and call for everyone to get along and explain that while he isnt offended he thinks others have the right to be oh and a paragraph about his past glory taking down Stockwell Day.
3) Does he write an article explaining how Tit Fuck me Jesus is Punk but that Pig Blood on Mohammed are just skinheads and since he has been fighting Nazi’s since before you were born he is correct…all argument by assertion by the way.
4) Does he just try and ignore the issue and hope nobody asks him in a public forum about it and risk offending a constituency that might vote for Dalton McGuinty.
5) Make snide remarks on other blogs under psuedonyms from his office and contribute nothing to the discussion.
I am just asking……..
Being an atheist, I feel it is just fine to make fun of any person who bows down to any fairy tale. Couple that with the desire to blow one’s self up, hoping to pop 72 virgins, well, the humor writes itself.
WK is a hypocrite of the first order, and he can go f#$% himself.
I will insult any and all religions as I see fit.
hiding behind freedom of expression in order to willfully incite hatred towards muslims is what’s at issue here. hypocrites.
jeffy makes an appearance!
Yet another who projects. IF you really gave a damn, jeffy, you’d be railing against the hatred your kind aims at Christians on a daily basis.
Explain how there is a willful incitment of hatred against muslims?
None of the cartoons showed crusaders slaughtering muslims or had the words kill muslimes, or hate muslims…..once agian look at the context of the publication, both in Europe and North America….as well as look at the context of the reaction, the time lapse from the time of publication, its manufacture etc.
Can this issue be used to do that for sure….but it isnt the issue, you cant always choose who agrees with you, but that doesnt change the fact that the issue is real.
There are limits to free speech but this didnt cross those lines. I am concerned when people of good conscience choose to follow proscribed political trenches rather than see the issue for what it is, government overstepping its bounds and trampling on a cherished right in the name of ensuring the house stays quiet.
Ignore Jeffie – he’s a racist.
Kinsella’s argument is embarrassing.
He makes the flat assertion that the Mohammed cartoons are hateful and should be censored as a result.
He then makes a second assertion that the name of the band is hateful as well. But not only does he fail to call for censorship of the band’s name he instead publishes the name himself.
So Kinsella passes judgment on Levant (“guilty”) and then repeats the “crime” himself. Never mind how stupid the entire argument is… how the hell does he not see the irony of committing the “sin” in the very act of denouncing it?
Everyone who understands liberal politics knows why Mr. Kinsella has chosen to take this position. A majority of Muslims in Canada support Sharia Law and represent a significant voting block for the liberal party. The liberal party and all of its apparatchiks have no alternative but to look the other way. This is the politics that has kept the liberals in power and that Mr. Kinsella knows very well.
See, Jeff agrees with other lefties:
Certain feelings should be criminal.
When all of us were in high school, reading Brave New World and 1984, how many of us EVER imagined that the totalitarian mind set depicted and warned against in these classics books would one day be championed by…
the Left?
KINSELLA, THE NATION’S SELF APPOINTED “CENSOR”
Oh Kaye, Kate, Kate…why do you torture me so..why must I read the the demented sophistry of this pathological public wanker Kinsella?
In his latest spew however, he has hit 2 sore spots with me so here goes..fair comment seeing how he has assailed the public with his apologist pablum. (even though he has a displayed pathology of trying to silence fair comment and rebuttal)
1) Freedom of expression and the Levant case> as always Kinsella talks around the issue and offers a diversionary strawman instead of a intellectually honest argument…he can’t really as there is no defense for the thought crime tyranny the HRCs engage in these days….let’s deconstruct some of the larger untruths this rumourmonger spins;
“I believe that words and images have power. Words and images have the power to wound and hurt and, sometimes, persuade people to kill.”
>> This is pure sophistry of the highest order, people kill people, and words also have the power to defend, heal and persuade people to abandon violence just as easily…in a free and civil society it is not the government’s job to arbitrate in the free exchange of ideas…words also convey truth and lies and only free open public dicourse can determine which are which under peer group scrutiny. We do not need Kinsella’s dystopian ideal of having philosopher kings ban “words” from public discourse because the debate itself “offends” someone…that is an act of masochistic altruism which substitutes intellectual dishonesty for the truth.
There are NO provable damages in most HRC cases and in Ezra’s case there has been NO instance of muslims being “swarmed” abused or lynched because the cartoons were printed…the only evidence we saw of these images causing that kind of violence is from the unreasonable and uncivil acts of radical muslims rioting….I do not intend to devolve the level of free, open national debate to placate it’s lowest common denominator….a fringe element prone to violence.
2) Lastly, Ezra’s charges do not stem from any factual occurrence of damage being done to the plaintive by the publishing of a news worthy image…the HRC tribunal inquisitor has put on trial what Ezra was “THINKING” when he decided to publish….NOT the tangible effects of a crime.
As evident in the AHRC interview, they allege it is the thought that is the crime not any physical act. We do not have though crime star chambers in this nation and we never will as long as I suck air…as much as authoritarian apologists like Kinsella may want them, I defend his right to say so and to be wrong…I also defend the right to debate the issue…and that is what Kinsella and his HRC cronies are all about…partisan censors who want to shut down debate on political issues they can’t possibly defend in open public discourse.
Finally: A small diversion from Kinsella’s morality exhibitionism, we see one glimmer of truth and a toxic hypocrisy…he states:
“Firstly, let me say that I am a censor.”
Yes Warren you are…..and “reasonable” to a zealot like you is not reasonable to a rational person….we all make these censoring and discriminatory decisions all the time… I decide who I will and won’t associate with or what I read or hear…NOT YOU…and I certainly will not have you using the coercive force of the government to pass moral dictums on what you “feel” somebody may be thinking!!….so how moral is that? Just how moral is it ruining lives and obliterating ancient freedoms as a sanctimonious quidnunc?
Perhaps the Salem witch hunters could have used a lawyer to convict on hearsay and superstition of thoughts…Kinsella was their boy.
The rest of his spew is litted with similarly dishonest justifications such as how his duality is moral but Ezra’s isn’t and on and on…
As I say If it weren’t for Kate forcing me to read Kinsella’s anti-intellectual sophistry I might never expose myself to such toxins. 😉
His convoluted reasoning, hanging out there for all to see, is the result of the feelings of invincible moral superiority that many if not most liberals share. Free speech is fine for the high-minded, but not for those of us who are the great unwashed.
An unwise liberal-type lawyer whose thoughts run in the same vein would clearly enjoy seeing Levant disbarred for daring to speak up to the HRC.
why would anybody care what w.k. has to say? you just feed him when you post his drivel!
Stephen at January 15, 2008 8:59 AM
This is an amazing post. I hope WK reads it and comes back with his usual tripe.
I enjoy reading WK during election campaigns as I find he usually is bang on, finger on the pulse. Outside of that, purely delusional.
I like that comment I saw the other day on ThePolitic blog that mocked his band by calling it Poop from Purgatory.
Too funny!
I have only one response to those who argue that “words have the power to wound and kill”. Harry Potter was not a documentary.
Hey! Poop From Purgatory is a great name!
Thanks, fellas!
“I believe that words and images have power. Words and images have the power to wound and hurt and, sometimes, persuade people to kill.”WK
Obviously Kinsella misses Ezra’s strongest point.
The HRC and likewise WK will try to blame the cartoons for Islams violence.
Islam’s reign of terror began long before the printing press, and spread in spite of the press.
Ezra’s battle is not with Islam at this point…it is with the ‘thought police’ at the HRC.
Too deep for WK
Are we supposed to be impressed because he calls himself Catholic and is so ‘open minded’ that he is not offended by the repulsive name of a punk band?
royalist…WK needs to be exposed for the shallow media manipulater that he is.
This is the least we can do.
Let us see,
The guy states ….A couple of conservative bloggers – who claim they favor free speech …. it would appear that those who favor free speech are only those noted above. This character is really some sort of socialist moron, this is not an insult, it is an observation.
Apparently the free speech is conditional, as per your ideology.
The thing with free speech is that it will insult someone somewhere, every time it is applied. Perhaps Kinsella should be taken to the ‘star chamber’ of his own creation to answer his hatred toward those that value free speech as much as Islamists value their religion. Don’t bloody go on about free speech being a religion.
The would be illustration about the girls hockey team is nonsense, the girls play hockey. Who they are where they are from, what religion they do matters not, they play hockey. Seems, only one preoccupied with choosing who and what is racist will cook a soup like that.
Since the guy is a censor by his own admission, he can be dismissed as a useful idiot in his socialist cause.
….. words and images have power …. This is commonly known as communication, apparently it escapes the author. It will hurt someone who wants to be hurt, someone may even designate him/her self as a victim, as silly as it may sound, some like victimhood more than life itself. Victim, also is a powerful word, that can be effectively used in many and variety of instances to take those that you are uncomfortable with, to HRC and get some cash out of it.
I believe…… whatever, others not so much as believe different, they know different.
The bands name does not offend him. It for example offends me. Though there is nothing that I will do about it other than call it stupid, ignorant, hateful …….
A suggestion would be the Islamists do likewise.
Don’t blame Kate for posting this — it was me 🙂
Since Kinsella has a National Post column, presumably some people care about what he has to say.
I’ve told him myself: I quite enjoy it when he writes about his family; it can be quite touching and inspired.
But stuff like this is so…
It is clearly ridiculous to suggest showing the Mohammed cartoons incites hatred against Muslims. Nobody would hate Muslims by looking at cartoons. It certainly offends them, but that’s not the same thing as incitement to hate.
What does incite hatred of Muslims is when they try to limit our cherished freedoms.
What seems to be missing in all this is that LEVANT DIDNT DRAW THE CARTOON’S.They were DANISH cartoons that he reprinted in his newspaper.They were printed in a country with freedom of the press and freedom of expression.They were reprinted in a country where he THOUGHT that there was freedom of the press and freedom of expression.
I’ll admit I didn’t read the whole screed. I stopped when he talked about the children playing hockey. It’s all about the children playing hockey.
If we all play nice, say nice things, keep the idiots over there on the right quiet, it will be ok, oh, except for a plane full of women and kids killed from time to time when things get hot back home.
I will go to the barricades with Muslims if they are prevented in some way by the state from practicing their religion. I will protest and scream when the social engineers of the state try to re-engineer their families. I don’t want the state telling me how to worship or run my household.
But I will also go the barricades to support those who want to break sharia law and criticize islam or the prophet, or apostasize by joining another faith. My faith is ridiculed all the time. My uncle was pursued by mobs incited by the local priest in Jonquiere Quebec the year of my birth. They didn’t like what he said. On the streets. In Canada.
Kinsella lives in an imaginary world that really doesn’t exist. He wants to extend his imaginary world, no not extend, force others to live his imaginary world. Not criminal process of course, that would be mean. Cops with guns and things. Doesn’t look right. Administrative process. Human Rights Commissions, without lawyers, nice people trying to force people to get along. Somewhat like denying liquor licenses to people who don’t say the right things. Hmm. Look it up. It is illegal. In Canada.
Derek
Let me get this straight. The cartoons, which are rather benign, are offensive to him but a punk band in Toronto with a truly blasphemous name(and intent)are not offensive. How sad this creep has four kids that he propagates with his psuedo-intellectual drivel. Would sombody be willing to take this Toronto hate/punk band to a Human Rights Tribunal…my feelings are hurt…seriously!
It may be a challenge, given his obnoxious rants, but Kinsella really isn’t worth a pittance of our time.
Who is he really, beyond a condescending Liberal hack and self-appointed and sometimes designated shit disturber?
Kinsella should lose whatever pathetic job he has, he should be fined for spreading hate against Christians and any mention of Christians by him should be worth 5 years in the slammer.
Oh wait thats different theres different laws for Christians and socialists to promote ,… equality!
arg,
I just hope, that when the house of cards come crashing down, we will still be free enough to point out to Mr. Kinsella that he was on the wrong side from the beginning. I doubt by that point that even that much freedom will exist.
Great post Derek.
Can you explain the liquor license part? I don’t follow you?
The problem for progressives seems to be that they can’t separate the issue (free speech and free press) from the players (Ezra and the Muslim community). That is the reason for the contortionist style reasoning.
They are so anxious to attack their conservative rivals that they will allow Canadians basic rights to be trampled. For example, if they truly believed in free speech and free press then they would support the offensive speech of even those they do not agree with. Conversely, if they truly believed that religion is to be held above all criticism and debate then it would have to apply to all religions including Jewish and Christians.
Instead they try to rationalize it by adding all kinds of qualifiers and exemptions. I guess it’s easier than being honest.
Punk Rock is to music what wiping your ass with the Koran is to Islam.
It is the alleged music of angry children who will not grow up and learn to play real music. That would require talent and commitment.
Anyone with a thumb and a couple of fingers can be in a punk band.
Child-Kinsella goes to ‘band practice’. Is that where you practice your belligerent attitudes? because you certainly don’t need to practice playing that idiotic childish noise. Just get amps that go to eleven and stuff a cucumber in your pants.
“Tit fuck me Jesus” offends me and I am atheist. Child-Kinsella you are the tit who needs to be f**ked.
Everything about Warren Kinsella is passe.
The brave new world is here and it’s conservative.
Reality always is.
Isn’t Warren really just saying; a band named “T_T F__K me Jesus” is okay, but a band called “T_T F__K me Mohammed” is not?
It sure reads like that to me.
It took a moment to sink in, but I finally understand what WK is getting at … he’s brilliant really … an intellectual giant among us.
If uttering TRUTH offends a religion … then uttering truth is wrong and must be quashed by the state.
Warren must be stinging from the lastest polls that show despite the constant blather from CBCpravda the libs especially Borat Dion arent cutting it.
being excluded from the halls of power will have Kinsella in a Kiniption.
Christians put up with all sorts of stupid stuff such as the “Piss Christ”, Christ depicted with an erect penis, etc. yet most Christians don’t go around blowing stuff up because they are angered at the disrespect shown to whom they consider to be the Son of God.
Similarly, Jews put up with all sorts of nonsense espoused by skin head neo nazis. We don’t see Jews getting into pitched street battles with skinheads even though they are rightly offended.
Some rioting Muslims should get a thicker skin. Ezra Levant was correct in publishing the cartoons.
I believe the old saying: “Stick and stones may break my bones, but names can never hurt me.” are instructive in this regard.
Moreover, the whole controversy is so stupid as the so called Mohammed depicted is wearing what appears to be a Sikh turban!?! The cartoonist is clearly lampooning those who take their faith to violent extremes by denoting a stick of TNT in the turban.
For those who seriously consider their faith a ‘religion of peace’ the depiction unmistakably takes aim at the extremists who would use their faith as justification for clearly violent political aims.
I would think only the “hotheads”, who are already unstable, would be provoked.
The more mature people of an ostensible ‘religion of peace’ would shrug this off as the stupidity of the ignorant.
In this regard the HRC is completely off base. One does not promote a dialogue by shutting down dialogue.
Either the HRC values freedom of speech or it does not.
Free speech is exactly that, speech that costs nothing.
Next we will be banning social commentary songs like the one by Bruce Coburn which contained the lyrics “I wish I had a rocket launcher”.
Should the HRC launch an action against Bruce Coburn for incitement to violence. Now everyone is going down to the corner store to buy rocket propelled grendades (RPGs)?
The only good thing about these fundamentalists whack jobs and the idiot kinsella is that these nut jobs like to shit in their own back yard,meaning toronto will see the results of allowing these mongers to practice their screwed up sharia law first.One would hope that kinsella is within blast range.
William Hughes:
Spray painting “Death to the Jews” on a school IS NOT FREE SPEECH IT IS VANDALISM!
Sheesh!
A lot of thought going on here about WK. Just another thought to add to the list. WK’s blog has unearthed a great truth here, this “wannabe punk rocker” was once a mentor and advisor, (perhaps still is) to the Liberal party of Canada and we wonder why this country is in the state of decay that we find today. If WK and JCher. et al keep writing their blogs perhaps, just maybe, the ‘useful idiots’ that they have been leading for the last couple of decades will finally wake up and see that the “Emporer has no clothes”. Then we will see a country with a two party system, with the LIBS and DIPPERS in one corner where they belong, and we can hope that the CPC can keep them there for a long time.
Warren’s rants are simply a child-like striking-out because it is slowly sinking in that the decades, centuries even, power of the media thing is being torpedoed by the new media.
Hey guys, I will be bringing a doll to the set tomorrow — that will define the campaing coverage. AG, senate appointments to come. So run with it.
Hey guys, I will announce the kick off to the campaign tomorrow — they want faith based schools, we don’t. So run with it.
Don’t worry, Rueters and AP will drive the line(lie) so it will appear as common place values in all media.
Vandalism vs Hate
Slogans on a wall are vandalism.
However, if the spray painter puts up a slogan that says “Barney Loves You”, or perhaps some incomprehensible balloon text symbol, it arouses a feeling of resignation, or disgust, or perhaps head shaking as they reach for the paint to wipe it away. I cleaned some wierd mark off my garage door this summer and felt nothing but disgust and resentment about some people’s kids.
Spray painting that specific phrase states that there are people out there who want you dead. That your children aren’t safe, even in a school. It is a threat. That inspires fear for your safety. They were right here and they might come back, perhaps when the kids are there. I have never felt that way and never want to.
It is right that the law is more severe for the second offence than for the first. Free speech is not un-limited.
William
The “wise” lawyer and Kensalla and their partisans made hate crimes as “a legal remedy against egregiously discriminatory provocation and insult”
Of course, as a liberal creation, they get to define what constitutes a hate crime. And, surprise, surprise, it’s what their ideological enemies, those who are opposed to hate crimes, say.
Somehow, only right wingers and libertarians can do hate crime.
As a lawyer, I can only wonder that “ol’ wise-arse” lawyer http://wiselaw.blogspot.com/2008/01/ezras-law-levant-file.html does not find the process abhorent. Instead, he weighs in wuith personal invective towards Ezra.
BTW I enjoyed the ambivelance surrounding Chief Hackenaw’s (sp?) amongst the liberals; after all, as an aboriginal, he’s one of our guys. So now, he’s getting off, eventually, by saying the hateful thing he said was said in order to promote hate.
Did anyone, anywhere, after looking at the cartoons commit acts of hate or did most people just have a good chuckle over the humour ?
The only people who got wound up and exhibited hate were muslims around the world because they felt insulted . . well too frik’n bad. If ya can’t take joke it doesn’t mean you get to kill people. Not in this country.
The cartoons certainly did not get people to hate muslims, we were all too busy laughing to get angrty.
It was the muslims who got the hatred thing going on. They should be the ones in front of the AHRC Star Chambers.
wrt Warnout Kinsella et al .. he’s just a typical pea brained Liberal who believes he has a justifiable way to prove to a minority that they are being treated equally and fairly, which in Liberal PC speak means being granted special status and needing protection from the majority.
The plan is to suck up to them and get their votes.
Quite cynical actually.
Warren Kinsella is calling for the institution of Sharia Law?
Kinsella is tacitly agreeing that because under Sharia Law the “insult of the prophet” is punishable by death so he wouldn’t publish the cartoon, but insulting Jesus carries no such penalty so that means it is okay?
The pope imposes excommunication for those Catholics that severely break the rules – he doesn’t impose the death penalty (although I suppose it is the moral (not physical) equivalent).
I guess until the Catholics, Jews or whomever else get really serious and impose the death penalty for offences their religion doesn’t really need to be respected.
I agree that some actions will create fear, horror, and loathing in the observer. WK indicates and describes a few examples.
I also agree that, because of the above, we as Canadians get to place limits on our citizen’s freedom of expression.
The question is how and to what degree. EL did not cross that limit. Person’s who spraypaint “Death to Jews” on a school for children to find do violate that limit.
Where is the limit? How do we determine it?
Closed secret trials by faceless unaccountable women in suits is not a reasonable way in our free and open society.
Let’s get it out there and discuss it, and subject it to rules of evidence, and the right to face accusers, and all those things that make common law acceptable to us citizens.
Warren starts off talking about “Ezra Levant’s valiant struggle to defend those infamous anti-Islam cartoons…”
Why the dishonesty?
This is not about defending the cartoons. This is about defending the right to publish them… as well as defending the right to have opinions.
Kinsella is one big contradiction. He says that publishing the cartoons was “hateful”. How can he make that judgement? And isn’t that the crux of the matter? He is making a value judgement on what is in the heart of another person. That is what the “thought” police do. Why does he not make the same value judgement on the band “tit f-ck me jesus? Because it doesn’t offend him. But what if it offends someone else? I’m not sure what he is saying here and I don’t think he knows himself. Is he saying that the band is not being hateful toward Christians because it does not offend “him”?
This is an impossible situation. Kinsella doesn’t see that. To him its ok to put Levant through the inquisition because he, Kinsella, has made the judgement that publishing the cartoons was “hateful”. The band may very well have been hateful in choose their name. Shouldn’t they be put through an inquisition? Sorry Warren, you can’t have it both ways. But, isn’t that the way of the leftard?
Re: “hateful”
I’d add: Hate is a feeling, and feelings can’t be crimes.
Or shouldn’t be. Unless you’re a liberal…
Reading his rants, I can only say he suffers from serious cognitive dissonance. We rail against the dishonesty and racism of the Democratic campaign in the US- he sees hatred of blacks and women. We speak of the right to express oneselfin the face of a growing fascit threat, both from the Left and from islam- he sees a’struggle’ to defend the ‘infamous’ cartoons. We defend Mr. Levant- he sees hatred of Jews.
Psychiatric care. Go for it, wk. Your projection is getting out of hand.
Very nice rationalization. He claims proudly the title of “censor”, and I quite agree – censorship is a necessary thing. Unfortunately, that act of intellectual bravery seems to have exhausted him, because the rest of his whitewash is sophistic drivel. It is the arrogant, self-righteous, hypocritical spew of a deaf, blind monkey. If he could be but mute, this trinity of tolerance might not consistently demonstrate the qualities of a fool.
Otter! You genius bastard you! You’ve nailed it! Projection!
WARNOUT IS A CYLON!!!!!!
So Warren wrote a nice sounding piece but said absolutely nothing. On one hand he said that the cartoons were offensive to some pious muslims…but didnt say they should be banned, however it is implied.
Next he says that he, as an apparently devout catholic is not offended by a series of….well lets call them them provactive statements from “punk” bands. He acknowledges that others might be offended but that he isnt…..and the question is SOOOOOOOO? does that mean he agrees with the censorship of the cartoons in a muslim context but not in a christian context.
And his Barney explanation, which was great theatre by the way, is highly misleading. The cartoons apparently have no poliical context, false, but the Barney comment does, which is true.
So I agree with Warren’s comment that the Barney comment was fair game, applying his logic that the context matters then the publishing of the cartoons by Mr Levant (of which I am no fan by the way) is also fair game since it had an express political context and purpose as did the original publication of the cartoons in Europe. The challenge was to do something expressly to exercise free speech in the face of a challenge to the existing culture. Small point, remember the Europeans are the indigenous people of Europe, so you cant paint the melting pot or mosaic hue on Europe. Another hypothetical, would the Aboriginals have been justified in starving out the Europeans and pushing them back into the sea in the 1600’s and 1700’s….if not why not, if yes please explain how this applies if at all to modern Europe, papers due in a week…..
Now lets go onto Warrens turf. He claims that Tit Fuck Me Jesus doesnt offend him and therefore thats ok. I can imagine he would be suitably derogatory of anyone who claimed they were offended and wanted to take action against it. I mean he would lose all punk credibility, such as it is, if he didn’t heep derision on them.
So lets now assume there is a Toronto punk band called Pig Blood on Mohammed and they have a minor hit with Wiping My Ass With the Koran, oh and the album is self titled and the cover depicts Mohammed covered in Pig’s Blood…..
They are a Punk Band, doing waht Punk Bands do…..they are taken to the HRC because someone is offended, as is likely the case.
Does Warren
1) Write an article in the National Post and numerous articles on his blog on the issue defending the band and saying suitably derogatory things, as only Warren can, about the complainers
2) Write an article trying to explain why this offensive and Tit Fuck Me Jesus isnt, which should be interesting to see…..oh and call for everyone to get along and explain that while he isnt offended he thinks others have the right to be oh and a paragraph about his past glory taking down Stockwell Day.
3) Does he write an article explaining how Tit Fuck me Jesus is Punk but that Pig Blood on Mohammed are just skinheads and since he has been fighting Nazi’s since before you were born he is correct…all argument by assertion by the way.
4) Does he just try and ignore the issue and hope nobody asks him in a public forum about it and risk offending a constituency that might vote for Dalton McGuinty.
5) Make snide remarks on other blogs under psuedonyms from his office and contribute nothing to the discussion.
I am just asking……..
Being an atheist, I feel it is just fine to make fun of any person who bows down to any fairy tale. Couple that with the desire to blow one’s self up, hoping to pop 72 virgins, well, the humor writes itself.
WK is a hypocrite of the first order, and he can go f#$% himself.
I will insult any and all religions as I see fit.
hiding behind freedom of expression in order to willfully incite hatred towards muslims is what’s at issue here. hypocrites.
jeffy makes an appearance!
Yet another who projects. IF you really gave a damn, jeffy, you’d be railing against the hatred your kind aims at Christians on a daily basis.
Explain how there is a willful incitment of hatred against muslims?
None of the cartoons showed crusaders slaughtering muslims or had the words kill muslimes, or hate muslims…..once agian look at the context of the publication, both in Europe and North America….as well as look at the context of the reaction, the time lapse from the time of publication, its manufacture etc.
Can this issue be used to do that for sure….but it isnt the issue, you cant always choose who agrees with you, but that doesnt change the fact that the issue is real.
There are limits to free speech but this didnt cross those lines. I am concerned when people of good conscience choose to follow proscribed political trenches rather than see the issue for what it is, government overstepping its bounds and trampling on a cherished right in the name of ensuring the house stays quiet.
Ignore Jeffie – he’s a racist.
Kinsella’s argument is embarrassing.
He makes the flat assertion that the Mohammed cartoons are hateful and should be censored as a result.
He then makes a second assertion that the name of the band is hateful as well. But not only does he fail to call for censorship of the band’s name he instead publishes the name himself.
So Kinsella passes judgment on Levant (“guilty”) and then repeats the “crime” himself. Never mind how stupid the entire argument is… how the hell does he not see the irony of committing the “sin” in the very act of denouncing it?
Everyone who understands liberal politics knows why Mr. Kinsella has chosen to take this position. A majority of Muslims in Canada support Sharia Law and represent a significant voting block for the liberal party. The liberal party and all of its apparatchiks have no alternative but to look the other way. This is the politics that has kept the liberals in power and that Mr. Kinsella knows very well.
See, Jeff agrees with other lefties:
Certain feelings should be criminal.
When all of us were in high school, reading Brave New World and 1984, how many of us EVER imagined that the totalitarian mind set depicted and warned against in these classics books would one day be championed by…
the Left?
KINSELLA, THE NATION’S SELF APPOINTED “CENSOR”
Oh Kaye, Kate, Kate…why do you torture me so..why must I read the the demented sophistry of this pathological public wanker Kinsella?
In his latest spew however, he has hit 2 sore spots with me so here goes..fair comment seeing how he has assailed the public with his apologist pablum. (even though he has a displayed pathology of trying to silence fair comment and rebuttal)
1) Freedom of expression and the Levant case> as always Kinsella talks around the issue and offers a diversionary strawman instead of a intellectually honest argument…he can’t really as there is no defense for the thought crime tyranny the HRCs engage in these days….let’s deconstruct some of the larger untruths this rumourmonger spins;
“I believe that words and images have power. Words and images have the power to wound and hurt and, sometimes, persuade people to kill.”
>> This is pure sophistry of the highest order, people kill people, and words also have the power to defend, heal and persuade people to abandon violence just as easily…in a free and civil society it is not the government’s job to arbitrate in the free exchange of ideas…words also convey truth and lies and only free open public dicourse can determine which are which under peer group scrutiny. We do not need Kinsella’s dystopian ideal of having philosopher kings ban “words” from public discourse because the debate itself “offends” someone…that is an act of masochistic altruism which substitutes intellectual dishonesty for the truth.
There are NO provable damages in most HRC cases and in Ezra’s case there has been NO instance of muslims being “swarmed” abused or lynched because the cartoons were printed…the only evidence we saw of these images causing that kind of violence is from the unreasonable and uncivil acts of radical muslims rioting….I do not intend to devolve the level of free, open national debate to placate it’s lowest common denominator….a fringe element prone to violence.
2) Lastly, Ezra’s charges do not stem from any factual occurrence of damage being done to the plaintive by the publishing of a news worthy image…the HRC tribunal inquisitor has put on trial what Ezra was “THINKING” when he decided to publish….NOT the tangible effects of a crime.
As evident in the AHRC interview, they allege it is the thought that is the crime not any physical act. We do not have though crime star chambers in this nation and we never will as long as I suck air…as much as authoritarian apologists like Kinsella may want them, I defend his right to say so and to be wrong…I also defend the right to debate the issue…and that is what Kinsella and his HRC cronies are all about…partisan censors who want to shut down debate on political issues they can’t possibly defend in open public discourse.
Finally: A small diversion from Kinsella’s morality exhibitionism, we see one glimmer of truth and a toxic hypocrisy…he states:
“Firstly, let me say that I am a censor.”
Yes Warren you are…..and “reasonable” to a zealot like you is not reasonable to a rational person….we all make these censoring and discriminatory decisions all the time… I decide who I will and won’t associate with or what I read or hear…NOT YOU…and I certainly will not have you using the coercive force of the government to pass moral dictums on what you “feel” somebody may be thinking!!….so how moral is that? Just how moral is it ruining lives and obliterating ancient freedoms as a sanctimonious quidnunc?
Perhaps the Salem witch hunters could have used a lawyer to convict on hearsay and superstition of thoughts…Kinsella was their boy.
The rest of his spew is litted with similarly dishonest justifications such as how his duality is moral but Ezra’s isn’t and on and on…
As I say If it weren’t for Kate forcing me to read Kinsella’s anti-intellectual sophistry I might never expose myself to such toxins. 😉
His convoluted reasoning, hanging out there for all to see, is the result of the feelings of invincible moral superiority that many if not most liberals share. Free speech is fine for the high-minded, but not for those of us who are the great unwashed.
An unwise liberal-type lawyer whose thoughts run in the same vein would clearly enjoy seeing Levant disbarred for daring to speak up to the HRC.
why would anybody care what w.k. has to say? you just feed him when you post his drivel!
Stephen at January 15, 2008 8:59 AM
This is an amazing post. I hope WK reads it and comes back with his usual tripe.
I enjoy reading WK during election campaigns as I find he usually is bang on, finger on the pulse. Outside of that, purely delusional.
I like that comment I saw the other day on ThePolitic blog that mocked his band by calling it Poop from Purgatory.
Too funny!
I have only one response to those who argue that “words have the power to wound and kill”.
Harry Potter was not a documentary.
Hey! Poop From Purgatory is a great name!
Thanks, fellas!
“I believe that words and images have power. Words and images have the power to wound and hurt and, sometimes, persuade people to kill.”WK
Obviously Kinsella misses Ezra’s strongest point.
The HRC and likewise WK will try to blame the cartoons for Islams violence.
Islam’s reign of terror began long before the printing press, and spread in spite of the press.
Ezra’s battle is not with Islam at this point…it is with the ‘thought police’ at the HRC.
Too deep for WK
Are we supposed to be impressed because he calls himself Catholic and is so ‘open minded’ that he is not offended by the repulsive name of a punk band?
royalist…WK needs to be exposed for the shallow media manipulater that he is.
This is the least we can do.
Let us see,
The guy states ….A couple of conservative bloggers – who claim they favor free speech …. it would appear that those who favor free speech are only those noted above. This character is really some sort of socialist moron, this is not an insult, it is an observation.
Apparently the free speech is conditional, as per your ideology.
The thing with free speech is that it will insult someone somewhere, every time it is applied. Perhaps Kinsella should be taken to the ‘star chamber’ of his own creation to answer his hatred toward those that value free speech as much as Islamists value their religion. Don’t bloody go on about free speech being a religion.
The would be illustration about the girls hockey team is nonsense, the girls play hockey. Who they are where they are from, what religion they do matters not, they play hockey. Seems, only one preoccupied with choosing who and what is racist will cook a soup like that.
Since the guy is a censor by his own admission, he can be dismissed as a useful idiot in his socialist cause.
….. words and images have power …. This is commonly known as communication, apparently it escapes the author. It will hurt someone who wants to be hurt, someone may even designate him/her self as a victim, as silly as it may sound, some like victimhood more than life itself. Victim, also is a powerful word, that can be effectively used in many and variety of instances to take those that you are uncomfortable with, to HRC and get some cash out of it.
I believe…… whatever, others not so much as believe different, they know different.
The bands name does not offend him. It for example offends me. Though there is nothing that I will do about it other than call it stupid, ignorant, hateful …….
A suggestion would be the Islamists do likewise.
Don’t blame Kate for posting this — it was me 🙂
Since Kinsella has a National Post column, presumably some people care about what he has to say.
I’ve told him myself: I quite enjoy it when he writes about his family; it can be quite touching and inspired.
But stuff like this is so…
It is clearly ridiculous to suggest showing the Mohammed cartoons incites hatred against Muslims. Nobody would hate Muslims by looking at cartoons. It certainly offends them, but that’s not the same thing as incitement to hate.
What does incite hatred of Muslims is when they try to limit our cherished freedoms.
What seems to be missing in all this is that LEVANT DIDNT DRAW THE CARTOON’S.They were DANISH cartoons that he reprinted in his newspaper.They were printed in a country with freedom of the press and freedom of expression.They were reprinted in a country where he THOUGHT that there was freedom of the press and freedom of expression.
I’ll admit I didn’t read the whole screed. I stopped when he talked about the children playing hockey. It’s all about the children playing hockey.
If we all play nice, say nice things, keep the idiots over there on the right quiet, it will be ok, oh, except for a plane full of women and kids killed from time to time when things get hot back home.
I will go to the barricades with Muslims if they are prevented in some way by the state from practicing their religion. I will protest and scream when the social engineers of the state try to re-engineer their families. I don’t want the state telling me how to worship or run my household.
But I will also go the barricades to support those who want to break sharia law and criticize islam or the prophet, or apostasize by joining another faith. My faith is ridiculed all the time. My uncle was pursued by mobs incited by the local priest in Jonquiere Quebec the year of my birth. They didn’t like what he said. On the streets. In Canada.
Kinsella lives in an imaginary world that really doesn’t exist. He wants to extend his imaginary world, no not extend, force others to live his imaginary world. Not criminal process of course, that would be mean. Cops with guns and things. Doesn’t look right. Administrative process. Human Rights Commissions, without lawyers, nice people trying to force people to get along. Somewhat like denying liquor licenses to people who don’t say the right things. Hmm. Look it up. It is illegal. In Canada.
Derek
Let me get this straight. The cartoons, which are rather benign, are offensive to him but a punk band in Toronto with a truly blasphemous name(and intent)are not offensive. How sad this creep has four kids that he propagates with his psuedo-intellectual drivel. Would sombody be willing to take this Toronto hate/punk band to a Human Rights Tribunal…my feelings are hurt…seriously!
It may be a challenge, given his obnoxious rants, but Kinsella really isn’t worth a pittance of our time.
Who is he really, beyond a condescending Liberal hack and self-appointed and sometimes designated shit disturber?
Kinsella should lose whatever pathetic job he has, he should be fined for spreading hate against Christians and any mention of Christians by him should be worth 5 years in the slammer.
Oh wait thats different theres different laws for Christians and socialists to promote ,… equality!
arg,
I just hope, that when the house of cards come crashing down, we will still be free enough to point out to Mr. Kinsella that he was on the wrong side from the beginning. I doubt by that point that even that much freedom will exist.
Great post Derek.
Can you explain the liquor license part? I don’t follow you?
The problem for progressives seems to be that they can’t separate the issue (free speech and free press) from the players (Ezra and the Muslim community). That is the reason for the contortionist style reasoning.
They are so anxious to attack their conservative rivals that they will allow Canadians basic rights to be trampled. For example, if they truly believed in free speech and free press then they would support the offensive speech of even those they do not agree with. Conversely, if they truly believed that religion is to be held above all criticism and debate then it would have to apply to all religions including Jewish and Christians.
Instead they try to rationalize it by adding all kinds of qualifiers and exemptions. I guess it’s easier than being honest.
Punk Rock is to music what wiping your ass with the Koran is to Islam.
It is the alleged music of angry children who will not grow up and learn to play real music. That would require talent and commitment.
Anyone with a thumb and a couple of fingers can be in a punk band.
Child-Kinsella goes to ‘band practice’. Is that where you practice your belligerent attitudes? because you certainly don’t need to practice playing that idiotic childish noise. Just get amps that go to eleven and stuff a cucumber in your pants.
“Tit fuck me Jesus” offends me and I am atheist. Child-Kinsella you are the tit who needs to be f**ked.
Everything about Warren Kinsella is passe.
The brave new world is here and it’s conservative.
Reality always is.
Isn’t Warren really just saying; a band named “T_T F__K me Jesus” is okay, but a band called “T_T F__K me Mohammed” is not?
It sure reads like that to me.
It took a moment to sink in, but I finally understand what WK is getting at … he’s brilliant really … an intellectual giant among us.
If uttering TRUTH offends a religion … then uttering truth is wrong and must be quashed by the state.
Warren must be stinging from the lastest polls that show despite the constant blather from CBCpravda the libs especially Borat Dion arent cutting it.
being excluded from the halls of power will have Kinsella in a Kiniption.
Christians put up with all sorts of stupid stuff such as the “Piss Christ”, Christ depicted with an erect penis, etc. yet most Christians don’t go around blowing stuff up because they are angered at the disrespect shown to whom they consider to be the Son of God.
Similarly, Jews put up with all sorts of nonsense espoused by skin head neo nazis. We don’t see Jews getting into pitched street battles with skinheads even though they are rightly offended.
Some rioting Muslims should get a thicker skin. Ezra Levant was correct in publishing the cartoons.
I believe the old saying: “Stick and stones may break my bones, but names can never hurt me.” are instructive in this regard.
Moreover, the whole controversy is so stupid as the so called Mohammed depicted is wearing what appears to be a Sikh turban!?! The cartoonist is clearly lampooning those who take their faith to violent extremes by denoting a stick of TNT in the turban.
For those who seriously consider their faith a ‘religion of peace’ the depiction unmistakably takes aim at the extremists who would use their faith as justification for clearly violent political aims.
I would think only the “hotheads”, who are already unstable, would be provoked.
The more mature people of an ostensible ‘religion of peace’ would shrug this off as the stupidity of the ignorant.
In this regard the HRC is completely off base. One does not promote a dialogue by shutting down dialogue.
Either the HRC values freedom of speech or it does not.
Free speech is exactly that, speech that costs nothing.
Next we will be banning social commentary songs like the one by Bruce Coburn which contained the lyrics “I wish I had a rocket launcher”.
Should the HRC launch an action against Bruce Coburn for incitement to violence. Now everyone is going down to the corner store to buy rocket propelled grendades (RPGs)?
The only good thing about these fundamentalists whack jobs and the idiot kinsella is that these nut jobs like to shit in their own back yard,meaning toronto will see the results of allowing these mongers to practice their screwed up sharia law first.One would hope that kinsella is within blast range.
William Hughes:
Spray painting “Death to the Jews” on a school IS NOT FREE SPEECH IT IS VANDALISM!
Sheesh!
A lot of thought going on here about WK. Just another thought to add to the list. WK’s blog has unearthed a great truth here, this “wannabe punk rocker” was once a mentor and advisor, (perhaps still is) to the Liberal party of Canada and we wonder why this country is in the state of decay that we find today. If WK and JCher. et al keep writing their blogs perhaps, just maybe, the ‘useful idiots’ that they have been leading for the last couple of decades will finally wake up and see that the “Emporer has no clothes”. Then we will see a country with a two party system, with the LIBS and DIPPERS in one corner where they belong, and we can hope that the CPC can keep them there for a long time.
Looks like the readers of the Post dont much agree with Warrens righteous stance either. He gets taken down a notch or two rather nicely
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2008/01/14/warren-kinsella-and-people-wonder-why-i-don-t-have-comments-on-my-own-blog.aspx
Warren’s rants are simply a child-like striking-out because it is slowly sinking in that the decades, centuries even, power of the media thing is being torpedoed by the new media.
Hey guys, I will be bringing a doll to the set tomorrow — that will define the campaing coverage. AG, senate appointments to come. So run with it.
Hey guys, I will announce the kick off to the campaign tomorrow — they want faith based schools, we don’t. So run with it.
Don’t worry, Rueters and AP will drive the line(lie) so it will appear as common place values in all media.
Vandalism vs Hate
Slogans on a wall are vandalism.
However, if the spray painter puts up a slogan that says “Barney Loves You”, or perhaps some incomprehensible balloon text symbol, it arouses a feeling of resignation, or disgust, or perhaps head shaking as they reach for the paint to wipe it away. I cleaned some wierd mark off my garage door this summer and felt nothing but disgust and resentment about some people’s kids.
Spray painting that specific phrase states that there are people out there who want you dead. That your children aren’t safe, even in a school. It is a threat. That inspires fear for your safety. They were right here and they might come back, perhaps when the kids are there. I have never felt that way and never want to.
It is right that the law is more severe for the second offence than for the first. Free speech is not un-limited.
William
The “wise” lawyer and Kensalla and their partisans made hate crimes as “a legal remedy against egregiously discriminatory provocation and insult”
Of course, as a liberal creation, they get to define what constitutes a hate crime. And, surprise, surprise, it’s what their ideological enemies, those who are opposed to hate crimes, say.
Somehow, only right wingers and libertarians can do hate crime.
As a lawyer, I can only wonder that “ol’ wise-arse” lawyer http://wiselaw.blogspot.com/2008/01/ezras-law-levant-file.html does not find the process abhorent. Instead, he weighs in wuith personal invective towards Ezra.
BTW I enjoyed the ambivelance surrounding Chief Hackenaw’s (sp?) amongst the liberals; after all, as an aboriginal, he’s one of our guys. So now, he’s getting off, eventually, by saying the hateful thing he said was said in order to promote hate.
Did anyone, anywhere, after looking at the cartoons commit acts of hate or did most people just have a good chuckle over the humour ?
The only people who got wound up and exhibited hate were muslims around the world because they felt insulted . . well too frik’n bad. If ya can’t take joke it doesn’t mean you get to kill people. Not in this country.
The cartoons certainly did not get people to hate muslims, we were all too busy laughing to get angrty.
It was the muslims who got the hatred thing going on. They should be the ones in front of the AHRC Star Chambers.
wrt Warnout Kinsella et al .. he’s just a typical pea brained Liberal who believes he has a justifiable way to prove to a minority that they are being treated equally and fairly, which in Liberal PC speak means being granted special status and needing protection from the majority.
The plan is to suck up to them and get their votes.
Quite cynical actually.
Warren Kinsella is calling for the institution of Sharia Law?
Kinsella is tacitly agreeing that because under Sharia Law the “insult of the prophet” is punishable by death so he wouldn’t publish the cartoon, but insulting Jesus carries no such penalty so that means it is okay?
The pope imposes excommunication for those Catholics that severely break the rules – he doesn’t impose the death penalty (although I suppose it is the moral (not physical) equivalent).
I guess until the Catholics, Jews or whomever else get really serious and impose the death penalty for offences their religion doesn’t really need to be respected.