Context, from a member of the Lethbridge audience.
I have read the rhetorical question in articles published on Flanagan’s child porn remarks, “How Flanagan got onto the child pornography topic from the Indian Act, we’re not sure…” I hope after reading and viewing the above clips you will know now.
Defend Tom Flanagan? Good luck with that.
“He’s just misunderstood!”
LOL
Geez talk about a crash and burn. This one was epic. The question Flanagan was asked was so convoluted and downright nonsensical, I can only conclude it shorted out his brain circuits.
Hard to defend this one without saying he’s not too sharp on the uptake. Maybe his brain should be put on fog alert. We’ve all heard of the absent minded professor but this goes beyond that.
Wise and decent people, like PM Harper, distanced themselves a while ago. Pretty sure they knew the context…
I’ve actually sat through a Q&A session as the lone proponent of a position that 95% of the audience was opposed to, and have experienced the phenomenon that Flanagan was dealing with – rambling, hostile diatribes in the form of “questions”, under a moderator who was both clueless and impotent.
Mercifully, I had to deal with the nonsense for only a half hour, and the (animal rights) crowd was, if not more intelligent, at least a little more polite – and I’m decades younger than Flanagan.
Don’t ever second guess how you might choose your words at the end of two hours of such treatment, unless you’ve been there.
I guess he found out that arguing with fools brings one down to their level.
goes to show U, that it is important to get context, something I keep pointing out to lefties. But in here it is also an important leason, as many have jumped the shark, and even missed the “point”(quite a common occurance in here).
Thanx Kate for bringging this whole thing out in the open, as it is enlightening in more ways than one. One jackass threatened to leave your blog because of his/her changed opinion of U, were one could better feel that some of our posters would be the impetus for leaving! Yes some people are narrow minded enough to not consider and debate others opinions that differ from theirm own!
This is why Fruit Fly Guy is so particular about controlling his events, being hostile to any Sun Media presence, has his Qaddafi-esque babe patrol to escort him at an event – to avoid losing control of the event and therefore of how he is depicted. He wants his friends there and only his friends there.
Flanagan was obviously targeted, and successfully terminated, Alinsky style. The Left/Indian Grievance Industry showed up to riot. Flanagan was too timid/polite/whatever simply to walk out when it got out of control.
The Evil Party and the Stupid Party squared off, and guess who lost? One of the few conservative voices allowed a place in the culture/MSM, and now he’s gone. And he worked closely with Harper don’t you know, lather, rinse, repeat.
// It takes only a few seconds of carelessness to become a pariah in this era of recurring moral panics. //
Dan Gardner
// You really want a society where idle musing about a point of law can result in instant personal demolition? //
&
// should stick to safe study, like calling for extra-judicial assassinations. //
Both note the selective nature of rage. Gardner’s reference is to a previous Flanigan remark
Only people with undeveloped morals would feel the need to debate this particular ‘issue’.
‘Disgusting’ hits it pretty close.
The hypothetical scenario in the ‘context’ link is just more leftist bafflegab similar to the ‘who are we going to throw out of the lifeboat’ scenario. Such scenarios might be fun for playing at philosophy but don’t apply in real life.
Well, unless ones moral development is particularly stunted. Which is quite a common occurrence nowadays, necessitating these sorts of discussions. It’s a vicious circle…
“One jackass threatened to leave your blog…”
It’s why I have a comments section – so that anonymous jackasses reading my blog free of charge have a forum in which to declare their non-participation.
Heh, I guess kinda like avoiding ones productive potential to pay less taxes.
Using the context of child porn, consider the following incident…
When I was about 12 or thirteen years of age a friend of mine was involved in a police interview. The interview was about an investigation into a paedophile who was busy inviting young boys up into his apartment. I remember standing in a group with my friend who was arguing with several other boys. I had never seen these other boys before, but they were connected with the investigation.
When I joined the group my friend was arguing it was just dead wrong to go up into this paedophiles apartment. That was the sense of responsibility that had been instilled in him by his family and the community in which he lived.
The other boys argued that it was okay to go up into the apartment and that if they were quick enough they could steal money – which the pederast left lying around – and get out the door before anything happened. And they also added that they wouldn’t end up in trouble for theft because the paedophile couldn’t go to the police. I guess that was the sense of personal responsibility that had been instilled in them by their parents.
So my questions to all you anti-child porn types are:
Who are the victim(s) here and who are the ones perpetrating the crime(s)?
Do you feel that it is permissible to dismiss the law as a means of guiding your actions in life as long as a police officer isn’t standing next to you to enforce the law and offer guidance? Do you feel it is permissible to profit from breaking the law, or from others who are breaking the law, as long as you don’t get caught?
What sort of sexual behaviour do you offer your children as examples to live by?
Careful, don’t let your heads explode.
P.S. On a personal level, when I see some anti-child porn crusader in the paper on T.V. I always wonder if he isn’t just feeding his secret personal addiction because he gets to review all the material. Much like the paedophiles who become scout leaders, or B.B.C. producers of children’s programs. I think Flanagan’s actions are receiving some of this attention because it will raise questions and that frightens these people, along with their supporters. When you start turning over rocks, you get to see what lives underneath.
That and the fact that the MSM is on a crusade to destroy him.
Is it a coincidence one of the first ‘running to his defence’ happens to be a member of the Bohemian Club widely criticised for their possible connections to child sexual abuse?
“Barry Cooper, a colleague at the University of Calgary, says people need to debate taboo topics”
“Dr. Barry Cooper—a professor of political science at the University of Calgary and mentor of Stephen Harper—joined The Corbett Report yesterday to talk about free speech, Leo Strauss, and his membership in an elite secret society known as The Bohemian Club.”
“Bohemian Grove – Playground of the Pedophile Elite”.
Only people with undeveloped morals would feel the need to debate this particular ‘issue’.
Sliming people’s morals for not agreeing with you: not just for warmists!
Jason Hasting’s commentary and attached videos posted at Youtube are the gold you’ll never find in the mainstream media.
Thank you Jason for posting this.
As others have noted, Tom Flanagan was terminated Saul Alinsky style by the Left/Indain Industrial Complex.
BUT … he was also FAR too slow to sense that he was under attack, that this “audience” had HIM and all conservatives in their cross hairs, and he responded / reacted FAR TOO LONG like a gentleman. It was as if he brought a plastic toy light saber to a knife fight … a plastic toy ‘gun’ replica to a real gun fight.
Flanagan NEEDED to either:
a) depart, and let the loons devour each other; or
b) go all “Ann Coulter / Mark Levin” on those loathesome morons, giving them back verbally at least as good as he got for ahile and THEN depart.
He did not exit early, and he has NO practise or comfort going full nuclear on mob idiots out to kill his belief system, so his career is now dead.
The mob engaged in a battle of wits – a gang war – with an unarmed man (Tom Flanagn) who knew not how to fight such battles. Now, too late, he’s learned. Let ALL of us also learn how to respond / react to such leftist mob attacks like this one.
Hastings estimates there were 3-6X the normal number of attendees for Flanagan’s lecture. Was there also an elevated media presence?
Three reasons that conservatives are losing the battle for America, Hat Tip REB?
American Thinker Feb 24th Paul Masko.
Highlights the point we are willing to muzzle ourselves and concede the argument to the clowns who argue by screaming all opposition down.
Those who rant and holler and insinuate until we have to go back to work.
Flanagan has had a target on his back for years, all conservatives do.
What this pathetic public bowing and scraping to the Gods of political correctness shows, is we are willing to surrender the values that underpin civilization, when faced with screaming nitwits.
The conservative political leaders, are gutless gas bags, I often watch them with the sound of, as their words mean nought, their actions the only truth.
If we can not have rational discussion, due to knee-jerk hysterical reaction, we will have violence.
Shouting down reasonable inquiries,orchestrated mob intimidation at public meetings and using the complicit press to marginalize opposition does not remove that opposition.
When I find that no discussion is possible and my point of view is taboo. But my monetary contribution is mandatory.I get resentful.
Now I will acknowledge this, I am allergic to poverty.
Being inflicted with doses of involuntary poverty due to the actions of stupid people will cause a psychotic reaction in my family.
Tough for the stupid, but its hereditary.
The witch burning hysteria, public condemnation of the unclean are actions of insecure fools, Flanagan may have had some points of value to offer society, we will never know as his sacrilege allows the mob to stone the man and ignore the message.
On child molesters, the only wisdom I have seen was the thought offered up by a 60 minutes commentator years ago; “There is nothing about a pedophile , that 40 000 volts won’t fix”.
This era of emotive angst and instant inquisition by our media is an insult to our intelligence and we have been here before.
Burn the witch is great fun, until I convince the mob, that you be bewitching them.
Got to love the scapegoat game.
So did Pete Townshend ever get out of jail? If I understand correctly it is absolutely beyond debate that people who did what he did should be locked up, and anyone who even has any musings to the contrary need to be cast into the outer darkness.
To my knowledge, Pete Townshend never did go to jail. Perhaps someone better informed on the topic could summarize exactly what does happen when the cops periodically publish the list of people who were caught looking at the stuff. Is it only famous rock stars that don’t get locked up?
I ask because I don’t know. I suspect that few of them merely caught looking actually do get locked up, but I’d be interested in the actual answer.
Does anyone consider it at all odd that Pete Townshend can visit the Governor General awards banquet last year and yet Tom Flanagan is persona non grata for idle speculation on whether on not people like Townshend should be locked up?
This whole controversy is similar to the endless lawsuits filed against Rob Ford in Toronto for acting like a buffoon.
The media are gleeful, the leftist U of Calgary are happy, that they now have a stick to whack a prominent conservative.
The technique has been perfected in the US by the mainstream media as they attacked, one by one, each of the conservatives competing for the presidential nomination (Romney as a teenager giving an unwanted haircut and Romney transporting a dog on a vacation, Perry with the racist rock in the same vicinity as a campground he attended, Herman Cain’s working relationships with women, Rick Santorum’s stillborn baby, etc).
This is the same mainstream media that somehow missed Clinton’s oval office blowhobs and Edwards campaign adulterous sex romps and love child with his suffering wife at home, and of course with Obama the list goes on and on.
The shunning of Flanagan should have started when he publicly called for the assassination of Julien Assange. The fact that promoting murder resulted in a such a tepid response makes me wonder where our society is at. In any case, Flanagan thought he was the smartest man in the room, able to out argue a bunch of natives, and that’s likely the reason he didn’t leave when the meeting started going sideways. SO he out smarted himself. Serves him right.
Noting to add except this:
Are we still puzzled as to why the “conservatives” haven’t killed off the HRC/Section 13.
Do we not understand how impossible it would be to survive the howls that the CPC is “ok with” hate, racism.
Do we not understand that only a highly principled and articulate liberal could succeed in persuading the populace of the wisdom and morality of shutting them down.
Think of the pass Obama got on the security apparatus that surpasses anything Bush did; how much easier it was for him to intervene in the affairs of other nations which was alleged to be the cause of the 9/11 “chickens coming home to roost”.
‘…an elite secret society known as The Bohemian Club.”‘
Okay, I gotta ask. If it is “secret” how do you know about it?
Where was Flanagan when Catholic Bishop Raymond Lahey recently went to jail for possession of child pornography that he was caught bringing in from the United States?
As a point of law, there is this…
http://www.courts.gov.bc.ca/jdb-txt/sc/99/00/s99-0040.txt
Which reminds me…time to hit the tip jar here and at BCF. I may be a jackass but I’m not anonymous or cheap and free speech ain’t free…
Tell you where Old Tom erred.
As any old retired cop will assure you (and as most adult civillains suspect) chances are that if you search a child pornographer’s pad, in addition to finding downloaded crap from the internet, you’ll find incriminating photos of the creep with kids.
So, most of the population would agree with Flanagan’s position that “child pornographers should not necessarily go to jail” with the following proviso:
“…as long as they spend some time on the operating table”
Kevin Jaeger: I refer you to the experience of the Grey Lady, related by her in the previous thread.
Short version: liberal and socialist governments have ensured that very few men found to have committed unnatural acts with children ever answer for their crimes in any meaningful way. If a son or daughter is among his victims, as is often the case, not even his name will be made public, supposedly to protect the child’s reputation (as if the child were to blame for having been sired by a pervert).
If there was any actual evidence to suggest Mr. Flanagan had led a child astray, I would be the first in line, if I could, to tie a millstone around his neck and toss him into the St. Lawrence. We have judges and juries to determine these things. Mr. Flanagan’s enemies do not actually care whether he did anything wrong. They are convinced there is no God, and hence nothing is actually wrong and what a man may do is limited only by what his bank account and powerful friends will let him get away with. Recruiting children for sodomy is just peachy if you can pay their dams top dollar to shut their gobs or convince the human rights commission to sue them into the ground for daring to complain.
My favourite example: the Roman Church has been a nest of sodomites and pedophiles since the early middle ages. Nobody in a position to hold the Roman priesthood to account for betraying children got around to it until the very end of the 20th century. The abortion question had by then driven lay Catholics into conservative parties en masse, and official toleration of perversion meant the Roman Church had outlived its usefulness both as a shelter for sodomites and as a source of votes for liberal and socialist parties. It did, mind you, serve at last as a ready source of alimony and yacht payments for New York and Toronto lawyers.
Rest assured no Muslim pervert styling himself an imam and following his prophet’s example with little girls has anything to fear from Canadian justice, as long as his flock keep thrusting Grits and Dippers and Alberta Tories into office.
Jamie MacMaster, we are agreed that a pedophile’s place is not in prison. His place is in an unmarked grave in the place where his city sends their rubbish. Under no circumstances should a pervert defile holy ground with his presence even in death.
These attacks and set ups have one inevitable result.
The line will be drawn, sides picked and it’s on.
That is what the left is goading to. Picking a fight they know they will lose and claim moral superiority for being the victim again.
It’s a shame Mr. Flanagan can’t play that card back on them. From what I can see anyway.
Dick Slater – Tom wasn’t talking about molesters or producers of this filth. He was talking about people who got caught looking – like Pete Townshend did.
We occasionally hear of these sweeps where the cops produce a massive list of people caught looking at these pics, sometimes including prominent people like Townshend. To my knowledge few of them ever really go to jail, but I’m not sure. I think it’s very possible that the current state of our existing justice system actually agrees with Tom.
Well, you may be right about a pedophile, but the topic is not pedophiles – it’s chid pornography collectors.
And I merely brought up the connection between the two categories…and the fact that there may not be much of a distinction between a peeper and a predator.
My point is this: if and when someone comes up with a FOOLPROOF cure for muderers/perverts/violent criminals, I might be disposed to giving the alternatives to prison the time of day.
Hmm so the topic is pedophilia or kiddie porn? I thought it was about appropriate punishment for those who collect or view kiddie porn for thrill or pleasure. As Flanagan pointed out as a matter of academic interest he can subscribe to the NAMBLA publication and as a way of enforcing kiddie porn law, law enforcement individuals have to view kiddie porn so what is the appropriate punishment for those who ‘get off’ on viewing that kind of trash as opposed to those whose viewing of such trash as a matter of work or study?
Context people context.
At a recent hotel check-in, enquiring about cable, I informed the desk clerk: ‘I certainly hope the porn is disabled!’
‘No’, he said, ‘it’s regular people porn, you sick bastard!’ …(wth??)
Go figure! ;~)
“…law enforcement individuals have to view kiddie porn so what is the appropriate punishment for those who ‘get off’ on viewing that kind of trash as opposed to those whose viewing of such trash as a matter of work or study?”
Appropriate punishment for LE officials?
Oh, I don’t know….maybe the same punishment as those law enforcement officials get for taking possession of (a) stolen property, (b) illegal drugs, (c) proceeds of crime, etc…………..
Geeeeeezzzzzzzzzzz
Jamie MacMaster please go back and re-read what was written. The punishment being discussed is for those who ‘get off’ watching kiddie porn not those who have to watch it for work or study. Yes English is a funny language.
The guy says it’s okay to be a willing participant in the sexual abuse of children and you’re still trying to drum up sympathy for him?
No-one would watch such horror if they weren’t aroused by it; no-one would create such horror unless they were creating it for others who are aroused by it. Willing participant.
The fact that you’re defending him is a little…weird…
The fact that he cannot seem to leave this stuff alone including a digression about being on a mailing list for 2 years for a deviant publications suggests that he gets some kind of creepy pleasure just talking about this stuff. Dressing it up in “academia” or “freedom of speech” as a vehicle to talk about it and then get some kind of perverse thrill cannot be dismissed.
I am glad he was outed now and not in the middle of an election.
I would also like to thank the person or persons who outed this guy regardless of their politics.
“Yes English is a funny language.”
Apparently: “as opposed to”…..
Skip, that’s what was bothering me all along (as well as the obvious baiting that was orchestrated by a group that attended). Why oh why did Flanagan wade into this? Is he so insulated in his role as academic that he could not foresee how this would pan out? It’s as if he was irresistibly drawn to destruction.
I’m not drawing the same conclusions are you are about his personal involvement, but I can’t understand why someone who is supposedly so savvy could fall in that trap. I accept that in the kind of loud heckling atmosphere with a “question” that was so labyrinthine in structure that no-one actually understood the point, someone might, in an unwary and tired moment, get confused. BUT, it’s not the first time he has espoused those views. Is he a stupid man or an arrogant one? YET even if he is both stupid and arrogant, he should not be so vilified for opening a discussion on this or any topic. In turn, people could respond as freely as they choose in disagreement.
rita, being from the Stupid Party, he assumed that the Evil Party played by the time-honoured scholarly rules, i.e., that lecturers lecture and the audience listens, and that answering audience questions is treated as an intellectual exploration of ideas. The Evil Party played by Alinsky rules, i.e., the winner wins and the loser dies.
Conservatives/the Stupid Party need to learn that it is Big Boys’ Games, Big Boys’ Rules out there ALL THE TIME. There is only one rule in Big Boys’ Games, per the North Vietnamese, and that is to win, so f*** the Parliamentary Press Gallery bitching, we have to play to win ALL THE TIME.
The Libs/NDP/MSM (but I repeat myself) all bleat about how “vicious” and “attacking” the CPC is during elections. By which they mean the CPC has been distressingly “effective” in playing Big Boys’ Games with the LPC et al., at least during elections. Tim Hudak is still learning that lesson in ON; and apparently, Flanagan didn’t realize that Big Boys’ Games aren’t just played during elections. The crowd composition should have tipped him off about what to expect.
As David Mamet would say, APC, A Always B Be P Playing to Win all the f***ing time.
“…Tim Hudak is still learning that lesson in ON…”
Saw The Tiger being interviewed on TVO a few nights ago.
The interviewer led him down the garden path….then kicked him in the balls.
He got Tiger Tim going on a roll about the necessity of a public inquiry into how The Dildo’s put the screws to the taxpayers by his billion-buck cancellation of that gas fired power plant. The he hit him with the hay-maker: “But Mr, Hudak, before the last election I seem to remember TV footage of YOU standing in front of the plant site demanding its cancellation”.
Gulp, gulp – blink, blink.
And of course that should be ABP…sigh. Typing in haste, and no edit function here.
rita, if you ever get the chance to interact with one of these perfessers U’ll understand his stupidity, they don’t live in the real world, just as many of the commentors in here miss the point of this thread. They are so “caught up” in their own biASS that they are sounding like idiots, mostly religeous idiots. Those who can not debate a topic that they disagree (and/or find discusting)with are as foolish as ,those they denigrate!!!
Dick, every time you rail against the Church, you’re just desperately hiding the fact that you want to be a part of it. Give in to the fold, Dick. You know you want to.
Tom Flanagan shot himself in the foot for which he can take the blame. The very people shocked at his ill-thought-out pronouncement are the same sort who are oblivious to child abuse elsewhere.
Why would anyone other than an evil person enjoy watching this kind of muck? Well, evil. I am excluding those who wish to stop it and are investigating it, of course, so…
Moving on…
Kate’s sheeple on this board are funny. If Flanagan were Liberal or NDP, they’d be busy trying to smear their opponents with this tar brush. However, since Flanagan is a “Con intellectual” and one of Harpers “advisors” they try to divert attention away.
And the excuses are amusing…
That the questions were too convoluted and nonsensical Flanagan’s brain should have short circuited. Or that he wasn’t too quick on the update. But Flanagan is a “Con Inteleckshul”. He wrote the book for Harper.
Or that the questions were not “in context”. But this wasn’t the first time Flanagan stated this opinion. He has stated it before. And since Cons love to do similar things (and worse) to their opponents this excuse fall flat. It show’s them to be hypocrits.
On top of this we have That old election campaign…where Cons tried to smear Liberals as being with child pornographers. However, leading the charge on this was Vic Toews (person who knocked up his (underaged?) babysitter, and Flanagan, who’s opinion is now well known.
Is it any wonder Cons are do their best to divert attention? One of their conceits is that a persons history and associations colours what their actions mean now. What does Flanagan’s history with this opinion ( and Harper’s association with him) say about them?
In a Con world view, that is…
Kate’s sheeple on this board are funny. If Flanagan were Liberal or NDP, they’d be busy trying to smear their opponents with this tar brush. However, since Flanagan is a “Con intellectual” and one of Harpers “advisors” they try to divert attention away.
And the excuses are amusing…
That the questions were too convoluted and nonsensical Flanagan’s brain should have short circuited. Or that he wasn’t too quick on the update. But Flanagan is a “Con Inteleckshul”. He wrote the book for Harper.
Or that the questions were not “in context”. But this wasn’t the first time Flanagan stated this opinion. He has stated it before. And since Cons love to do similar things (and worse) to their opponents this excuse fall flat. It show’s them to be hypocrits.
On top of this we have That old election campaign…where Cons tried to smear Liberals as being with child pornographers. However, leading the charge on this was Vic Toews (person who knocked up his (underaged?) babysitter, and Flanagan, who’s opinion is now well known.
Is it any wonder Cons are do their best to divert attention? One of their conceits is that a persons history and associations colours what their actions mean now. What does Flanagan’s history with this opinion ( and Harper’s association with him) say about them?
In a Con world view, that is…