For the first time in recent editorial memory, the Toronto Star forgets that African Americans are disproportionately represented in the racist, draconian US prison system.
It must have been the glee.
h/t
Update: In the comments Andycanuck fact checks Gardner’s conservative bashing column – “A complete list of American conservatives who have made jokes about prison rape would fill this page. The latest is the son of the governor of Kansas, who is marketing a prison-based board game cleverly called Don’t Drop the Soap.”
Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebeliusis is past chair of the Democratic Governors Association and currently serves on their Executive Committee.
Isn’t this a form of classic “Newspeak”? Or are they just being “sensitive”? Or is it “the truth is a lie and a lie is the truth”?
I’m so confused!
there would be rioting in the streets if Omar Khadr were similarily depicted. but he is in isolation waiting for a cadre of lawyers to free him.
for the record of course mohammed condoned such behaviour
http://www.flex.com/~jai/satyamevajayate/heaven.html
Why don’t they just let Conrad teach them both how to speak French?
When a woman, minority, or homosexual gets raped we are told to believe this is a bad thing, in all cases.
When a white man man gets raped in prison society considers it hilarious, in all circumstances. It’s even funnier if he gets raped by a black man or hispanic.
The next time I read about a woman, or minority, or homosexual getting raped my sympathy will be limited, as is logical under the circumstances.
For every woman in federal prison in Canada there are FIFTY men. 200 women in total, in Canada, are in federal prison, out of 16.75 million women. No wonder women think prison rape is such a hoot.
“It’s safe to say that someone convicted of a similar crime in Europe or Canada would have gotten a light sentence – something along the lines of restitution, a fine, and a criminal record. He may not spend a day in prison.”
Obviously the Canadian and European legal systems are too lenient!
When did stealing $1.6 million dollars even if was from become ok in our society?
“The losses this inflicted on even major shareholders – rich folks, in other words – were pretty small”.
Did Conrad Black carefully choose his victims because of a sense of righteousness and sense of fair play? Thus the Liberal sentiment that he requires leniency and his punishment is too harsh. Amazing.
Truthfully, I wouldn’t give a damn if Black had been properly convicted. By that I mean that he wasn’t convicted in the U.S. of disobeying the order of a judge in Canada regarding removal/destruction of documents. Slight matter of jurisdiction, no?
Now, as to whether real criminals get raped, beaten, killed, etc., the more the better. Escape from New York was always one of my favorite movies.
A cartoon that trivializes the rape of an existing figure is going way past the line of reasonable discourse.
Blacks on Black coming to your porn vendor soon.
Beyond the pale. Unbelieveable that a major Canadian newspaper would make light of rape. Is that what ‘progressive’ thinking has evolved to?
Sorry $6.1 million corrected.
How long do you think anyone on this post would go to jail for stealing that amount of money?
You’d be singing “All along the Mississippi” in your dreams.
the Red Star isnt a major paper, and of course they hate Conrad with such a passion this is on their wish list.
That’s evidence of the sickness that pervades the Left. That Rotten Red Rag should be pulled off the shelves, they’ve gone beyond the bounds of decency in anyone’s books.
It’s so telling that Conservatives like Black are skewered relentlessly even when he’s been stripped of six years of freedom at the age of 63.
Perhaps if the cartoonist could envision what Black’s family were going through right now he might snap to reality, have some compassion.
Damned disgrace.
“Now, as to whether real criminals get raped, beaten, killed, etc., the more the better.”
That is garbage. If you want that to be the result, campaign to put that in the criminal code. Any condoning of crime within prison is obscene. Crime within prison is as unjust as crime anywhere else. Why even have trials if you know who the “real criminals are”? I’m sure you thought suicide by police scene in “And Justice for All” was a hoot.
That’s evidence of the sickness that pervades the Left. That Rotten Red Rag should be pulled off the shelves, they’ve gone beyond the bounds of decency in anyone’s books.
Isn’t the article also stating that prison rape jokes have, up until this point, been the domain of conservatives?
It’s so telling that Conservatives like Black are skewered relentlessly even when he’s been stripped of six years of freedom at the age of 63.
He’s a criminal. Why should we have sympathy for him?
Beg to differ, cal2 – in Canada, the Toronto Star is one of the handful of major papers, with the highest circulation in its market, which happens to be the biggest city in the country. Hate it if you must, but the Star is a major paper, which makes this even more idiotic.
Liz J>
“skewered relentlessly”
How fitting.
Another example of the craven hypocrisy of the immoral left. Maybe the Star cartoonist should spend a few months in a US prison to provide context for his next journalistic effort.
As always we have to consider the source, shake our head and grimace.
“Progressives” think this is funny, how do we know? Well who else would depict a prisoner with a Margaret Atwood tattoo on his arm?
The Liberal left has gone beyond plain bigotry and is exposing its vile hatred, if not murderous intentions.
Lets not forget what the Liberal MP from PEI recently publicly declared:
“Let’s get this Mulroney before the courts as soon as possible and hang him high,” Murphy yelled.
“We’ve got to get Mulroney. Put a noose on his head! Put a noose on his head!”
Here’s the comment I just attempted to post under Dan Gardner’s inane column at the Ottawa Citizen. We’ll see if it passes by the PC Censor and is allowed on the page. I’m betting it won’t be. Anybody care to give me odds? 🙂 :
“Instead of Mr. Gardner’s gratuitous insults to Americans for our purported love of prisoner rape jokes and “vicious American reactionaries”, perhaps the Canadian and European oh-so-enlightened may want to reflect on this: Their societies’ violent crime rates, under their “enlightened” Revolving Door Theory of Extremely Light Prison Sentencing are and have been for some time generally steadily increasing.
By contrast, in America, the Federal Govt and those States that have abandoned the Revolving Door philosophy and have implemented stern prison sentencing and parole guidelines for habitually violent felons have been and continue to experience steadily decreasing violent crime rates.
When an ever increasing number of the habitually violent class of criminal is sent to prison and kept there for long sentences, there are ever decreasing numbers of predators free to prey on society. It’s not rocket science to figure out this cause and effect logic. Even “enlightened” “progressives” ought to be able to do so.
Let’s go from the general to the instructively specific. In 2005, James Roszko murdered four RCMP officers. James Roszko had a long, extensive history of violent crime goign back to his teen years. Yet in 2002, the Canadian prison system paroled him from his (repeated sexual assault of a child) sentence after only 2 1/2 years in prison. So, he was free to continue his criminality and go to the pinnacle of his crime career-the murder of four RCMP officers.
Had Canada had a stern prison sentencing policy that put protecting Canada’s children from sexual predators as a higher priority than “enlightened” short prison sentences, justice would have been served and society would have been protected. Had Roszko received the appropriately stern decades-long sentence for his vile crime, the repeated sexual assaults on a child, today Roszko would still be in prison and those four RCMP officers would still be alive. “Enlightened” prison sentencing and parole policies share the with James Roszko the responsibility for the murder of those four RCMP officers.
A tangential but pertinent final thought: Roszko was forbidden by law and court order from possessing firearms. This is a classic example that criminals don’t observe gun control laws, only law-abiding citizens do. The $2 billion plus spent on the National Gun Registry would have far better served the Canadian people by being invested in more prisons to hold more truly dangerous criminals who are instead free and on Canada’s streets today.”
The targetting of “evil” Conservatives by the MSM continues. Whether it’s Brian Mulroney, Ezra Levant, Mark Steyn or Conrad Black, the MSM is only too happy to paint a bullseye on them and let them have it with both barrels. And there’s no evidence of media bias. Riii-iiight.
in the english speaking world the Red Star would rank what about 30th , it ranks about 80th overall with 600000 paying dupes.
http://blog.newspaperindex.com/2005/06/03/100-largest-newspaper-by-circulation
checked the Toronto Star on wiki as well, I see that they are openly liberal and own CTV(Tass)
Dehumanizing anyone is so horrible it should never be allowed.
Even in the most severe of punishments duhumanizing should not occur. (And I fully endorse the death penalty and water boarding.)
In fact, penalties have to be more severe if one wishes to avoid dehumanizing.
I remember an old British movie.. the captain orders 12 lashes for one of the sailors. Another sailor whispers to his friend, “Twelve lashes. You know what that means — a weak master.”
So one must not allow their own unwillingness to encourage stiff penalties to be replaced by dehumanizing behavior.
In my view the biggest thing that Canada has going for it that is better than the US is a small population. It is unfortunate that your government does not use this small population as an opportunity to create a wonderful society.
As your population grows, the ability to manage its needs becomes more difficult and more complex.
In the US it is said that we have one person incarcerated for every one hundred people. Trying to provide police services to 350 million people is an almost impossible job.
The famous Jungian psychologist M. Esther Harding who published in the Bollingen Series X talks about a case in some frozen northern clime where about a dozen people were trapped without food, warmth, or any of the essentials.
In these circumstances,some of them began to see each other as food.
And yet in the midst of the harshest conditions, there were still 2 or 3 people who would run out onto the ice and drag back a fallen comrade. They fought to retain some vestige of civilization and morality when the others were ready to kill a weakened member and devour them out of the necessity for survival.
Somehow the 2 or 3 managed even in these conditions to retain their humanity, and in the end finally even they fell to the ravening mob.
Viktor Frankel, in “Man’s Search for Meaning,” discusses how in the Nazi prision camps a few still managed to live as heroes and saints throughout the torture, death, and humiliation.
As conservatives we realize that there are no utopias. And we realize that even a fully conservative world does not offer a utopia. Just a better one.
Today our world has organized the expediency of financial gain and the fulfillment of personal power drives as the virtue of sucess.
Churches try to act as a counter-weight, but they do so inadequately. It would be nice if financial success and the fulfillment of ambitions were a delightful derivative of something more fundamental and ontologically connected.
I hope that everyone realizes that when the trolls start attempting to degrade Kate and Kathy and RightGirl and others by reducing them to biological sexual functions, they are attempting to dehumanize these wonderful women and then act as if their horrible denunciations are justified as virtue.
This is typical of the left.
Here is the Star’s response to our protesting letter yesterday…
Thank you for your email and for informing us about your objection to Theo Moudakis’ cartoon of March 3. Cartoonists reflect on the day’s events often utilizing bizarre twists and gross exaggeration. To be sure, it is not everyone’s cup of tea each day and sometimes a wrong chord is struck with some readers. We apologize if we have offended you and I will ensure your comments are shared with our editorial page editor.
Sincerely,
Joan Vander Doelen,
Public Editor Associate
[quote]It’s so telling that Conservatives like Black are skewered relentlessly even when he’s been stripped of six years of freedom at the age of 63.[/quote]
If the Canadian system had not trained & condoned Black to steal from share holders… My tax dollars would not have been used to put him where he belongs.. Its my tax dollars that feed & house him & his NEW Biker friends… “he is with his kind”… What consenting adults do in prison is not of anyones concern… what rape?
How can Canada condone theft of public money by civil servants or liberals, and yet claim to be ethically superior. The Biker & Canadian ethics may be one and the same.
They thought on this cartoon before they printed it. They made sure the rapist were two white guys as not to offend any minority. If Conrad were any other colour than white, they would never have advocated for him to be raped.
That is the left for you, hating the white man, and celebrating anytime they can kick him when he is down.
Peter D
“Isn’t the article also stating that prison rape jokes have, up until this point, been the domain of conservatives?”
I don’t think that is true but let’s assume it was for argument’s sake.
Does that now justify this type of commentary? Wait! I take that back.
Does that now justify this type of advocacy at the Star?
Sean @ 12.42pm says “Now, as to whether real criminals get raped, beaten, killed, etc., the more the better.”
You are a contemptuous and loathsome creature. Go away.
not to be a s**t disturber, but where in the cartoon does it say anything about prison rape? isn’t it a bit like kate’s photo of her VIN number. the lefties jumped all over that and we just said what? that’s not what we said. anyways, keep up the good work kate.
Writing about criminal justice and prisons over the last few years, I’ve found the old don’t-drop-the-soap punchline is a pretty reliable indicator of a person’s political leanings and nationality.
In general, Americans find prison rape a lot funnier than Canadians, and conservatives more than liberals. A complete list of American conservatives who have made jokes about prison rape would fill this page.
___________
I think many commenters above just proved Gardner’s hypothesis.
And they certainly did not make light of how some people were treated in Abu Grahib.
Is there an HRC case here?
Phillip G. Shaw @2.26pm said “…him & his NEW Biker friends… “he is with his kind”… What consenting adults do in prison is not of anyones concern… what rape?”
Another vile and loathsome being slithers forth. What is with you people?! Are you spawned on innuendo and sophistry? Are elementary concepts of justice completely opaque?
Ted,
“I think many commenters above just proved Gardner’s hypothesis.”
It would appear that Gardner isn’t familiar with the Star and its readers.
I’m glad he’s disgusted by it, but Gov. Kathleen Sebelius is a Democrat and not a Republican; so how can, “A complete list of American conservatives who have made jokes about prison rape would fill this page. The latest is the son of the governor of Kansas, who is marketing a prison-based board game cleverly called Don’t Drop the Soap”, be linked?
Gardiner seems uncomfortable with true justice 😉
Tenebris>
“Are elementary concepts of justice completely opaque?”
What judge or prosecutor on earth doesn’t know what really goes on in penal institutions when they pass sentence?
Obviously the hellish situations in prison are considered part of the sentence or each prisoner would be tied down or segregated from the others at all times………goes to show that prison really is a nasty place kids!
A white conservative businessman is allowed to be brutalized according to the Red Star.Can we expect any disgust coming from the likes Rosie DiMaio or Antonia Z?
Gosh, I must be a wicked, contemptuous, POS…I thought the cartoon was mildly amusing.
Having said that, it is the type of humour you mutter to your friends over a beer and have a little dark chuckle…not something you print in a national newspaper.
I think everyone here is responding with a bit too much outrage over this one, personally (channeling the Liberals, I guess). The cartoon was inappropriate and in poor taste, but fairly tame when you consider what passes for humour anymore. Hell, if Monty Python could do a skit 3o years ago about cannibalistic morticians, then a joke about prison rape is pretty tame.
The point to make about this cartoon is that they wouldn’t have run the same joke about Al Gore or Bill Clinton or Jean Chretian going to jail. They’re just airing their bias for all to see.
As for what happens to criminals behind bars, I would prefer criminals not inflict harm on one another and would prefer that their incarceration is such that they are prevented from doing so. I would prefer that they be put to labour to offset the cost of their incarceration and forced into educational classes to learn a trade or something. BUT, as per Sean, I am NOT going to shed too many tears for the guilty SOB’s. You don’t want the hardship that prison brings? Then, don’t do the crime. Boo, frickin’ hoo.
speaking of going to jail , how many weeks does it take the RCMP to investigate a couple of frozen children on a now very silent reserve.???
As disgusting and hypocritical as that cartoon is, it is better that we see, in full colour and all its shamefulness, the way these scum think. It says a lot more about Red Star and its readers than it does about the individuals who are the subject matter of the cartoon.
Sadly, though, this is not new knowledge for us, just a reminder.
Can you imagine the outrage from the left if it had have been two white guys taking dibs on raping a black man.
I’ll start by saying I’m not a Conrad Black fan. I’ve found his maneuvering through the corporations of Canada prior to his stewardship of the National Post marked for the most part with wreckage. That hurt a lot of people.
The chicanery for which he is presently imprisoned, I was never impressed with that as being a big deal. Seems like a put-up job, similar to Martha Stewart’s situation. Headline seeking prosecutors. But I’m willing to be proved wrong in my thinking.
Whatever. Really, its none of my business when you get right down to it. I didn’t own stock in any of his companies or lose a job in any of the ones he stripped and burned.
Do I think the rape-innuendo is funny? Yeah, like a heart attack. Like an old lady falling on the ice and breaking a hip. Laugh riot.
This is why I don’t read the Toronto (Red) Star. They do things like this all the time. Would I like to see a cartoon like this about the Lefty morons who run the Star? No. I’d like to see them the hell out of business and doing something else with their time.
I am with you Phantom, I think of him as an arrogant ass, but I did like his quick humor. No one deserves to be raped, and the left getting their jollies out of it makes me sick.
I re-read Gardners column and with the exception of one paragraph where he suggests Conservatives find such humour funnier than do Liberals (which, of course, cannot possibly be proven and is just a back-hand slap), his column denounces the cartoon and the “Liberals” who wrote it. Am I missing something or misreading the column or are many of you?
Re: Update: “Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebeliusis is past chair of the Democratic Governors Association”
LOL, counterpwnage.
Prison rape. A topic which is very relevant when you live in the prison capital of Canada. HIV and hep C are the real results of prison rape. I know what I am talking about. My wife(an RN) deals with the consequences of this despicable activity every day.
Once a young man has been violated and left diseased, the chance of him living a normal life after leaving prison is next to zero!
So, go ahead and make jokes, you f$%^ing idiots. Down here in prison country, it is no laughing matter!
Nice Eeyore, you have fun with Sean. The punishment is to be deprived of liberty, not to be infected with HepC or HIV or to be sodomized or subjected to other cruel and unusual punishment. If Knight 99 is correct that judges in Canada know and accept that such conditions are prevalent then I don’t see how incarceration is constitutional. Yes, crime will occur everywhere but it should never be condoned or accepted.
Who would want to live in such a depraved society? Sold a bushel of wheat into Montana, sentence is … torture accompanied by infection with disabling and deadly disease.
BTW, my remarks are aimed at both sides on this issue.
The red star, and any leftoid who thinks it is ok for “whitey” to be raped.
And any of my fellow “conservatives” who think it is ok for a young man to have his life shortened because he got caught growing some weed.
Grow up!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ivY2HK777Zg
“You are a contemptuous and loathsome creature. Go away.”
Ah, but at least I’m an honest one.