Steven P. BarrettKANGAROO COURTS RUN ROUGHSHOD OVER (ALL) WRITER'S RIGHTS! (LINK)
July 16th 2008 00:33
Steven Barrett
I'd better be awfully careful how I write this one, seeing I've already started a firestorm with a previous post that would for surely land me in a European pokey. Nevertheless, this issue should concern everybody who takes his or her freedom of expression seriously.
Canada, like many developed nations has its network of provincial and federal "human rights commissions" (HRC). We have them in the United States, too. By and large, most of the HRCs in this country are primarily concerned with making sure everybody gets a fair shake by eradicating obvious practices of discrimination. I went before such a board in Amherst, MA on behalf of my wife's fellow food service workers ("Lunch Ladies") in the town's school system. It was an entirely informal and informational gathering affair with nary a moment of tension.
Sadly, this situation isn't uniform throughout either the U.S. and especially not Canada. Why, in South Philly, home of the legendary fictional boxing champ, Rocky Balboa and the birthplace of the "Philly Cheese Steak" -- Joe Vento the third-generation Italian American propietor of Geno's the premier Cheese Steak restaurant in this once overwhelmingly Italian neighborhood was written up and talked down to by the for posting a sign instructing all his patrons to speak English. They were never denied service, but he'd have "Cheez Whiz" substituted for real cheese to make a point. At least he's asking people to speak English instead of ordering in South Philly. Joe Vento beat both City Hall and the state.
Really Long Link
Really Long Link
Take a look at those two blogs, one by Michelle Malkin and the other by "Youngphillypolitics"and see what you think.
An English-speaking business owner would be so lucky only to get harrassed by City Hall and unsuccessfully wri tten up (by Pennsylvania's Human RIghts' Commish, Rue Landau.)
A much larger and scarier issue has arisen in Canada surrounding a book America Alone written by Canadian ex-pat Mark Steyn (now living in New Hampshire - oh well, nobody's perfect.) According Canadian Douglas Farrow's article "Kangaroo Canada" appearing in the Aug/September issue of First Things magazine:
[QUOTE]Mark Steyn is the author of the bestselling America Alone, a witty tirade against the decline of the West, a portion of which appeared in the Canadian magazine Maclean’s. Ezra Levant was the publisher of a journal called the Western Standard, which in 2006 reprinted cartoons depicting Muhammad from a Danish newspaper. Steyn and Levant have now been hauled before Canada’s human rights commissions to answer to charges of hate speech. [/QUOTE]
Undoubtedly, these two men really upset a lot, and I mean a lot of applecarts. They must be on every Mosque's and faculty senate's "most wanted" bulletin boards, much like what we see in Post Offices, because their plight and plot only begins to thicken from here.
Lovers of free expression -- grab your seatbelts and hang on for dear life or hard-saved fortune because it really starts to get much worse:
This next statement ought to have every writer who posts on a blog any story or comments that might raise the eye-brows of the high-brows (well, actually low-brows who fashion themselves quite the opposite) sitting at the edge of his or her seat, especially American writers, be they bloggers or writers in other mediums.
Oh Canada, I watch my back for thee ...
HRCs In Session!
I'd better be awfully careful how I write this one, seeing I've already started a firestorm with a previous post that would for surely land me in a European pokey. Nevertheless, this issue should concern everybody who takes his or her freedom of expression seriously.
Canada, like many developed nations has its network of provincial and federal "human rights commissions" (HRC). We have them in the United States, too. By and large, most of the HRCs in this country are primarily concerned with making sure everybody gets a fair shake by eradicating obvious practices of discrimination. I went before such a board in Amherst, MA on behalf of my wife's fellow food service workers ("Lunch Ladies") in the town's school system. It was an entirely informal and informational gathering affair with nary a moment of tension.
Sadly, this situation isn't uniform throughout either the U.S. and especially not Canada. Why, in South Philly, home of the legendary fictional boxing champ, Rocky Balboa and the birthplace of the "Philly Cheese Steak" -- Joe Vento the third-generation Italian American propietor of Geno's the premier Cheese Steak restaurant in this once overwhelmingly Italian neighborhood was written up and talked down to by the for posting a sign instructing all his patrons to speak English. They were never denied service, but he'd have "Cheez Whiz" substituted for real cheese to make a point. At least he's asking people to speak English instead of ordering in South Philly. Joe Vento beat both City Hall and the state.
Really Long Link
Really Long Link
Take a look at those two blogs, one by Michelle Malkin and the other by "Youngphillypolitics"and see what you think.
Sign at Geno's
An English-speaking business owner would be so lucky only to get harrassed by City Hall and unsuccessfully wri tten up (by Pennsylvania's Human RIghts' Commish, Rue Landau.)
A much larger and scarier issue has arisen in Canada surrounding a book America Alone written by Canadian ex-pat Mark Steyn (now living in New Hampshire - oh well, nobody's perfect.) According Canadian Douglas Farrow's article "Kangaroo Canada" appearing in the Aug/September issue of First Things magazine:
[QUOTE]Mark Steyn is the author of the bestselling America Alone, a witty tirade against the decline of the West, a portion of which appeared in the Canadian magazine Maclean’s. Ezra Levant was the publisher of a journal called the Western Standard, which in 2006 reprinted cartoons depicting Muhammad from a Danish newspaper. Steyn and Levant have now been hauled before Canada’s human rights commissions to answer to charges of hate speech. [/QUOTE]
Undoubtedly, these two men really upset a lot, and I mean a lot of applecarts. They must be on every Mosque's and faculty senate's "most wanted" bulletin boards, much like what we see in Post Offices, because their plight and plot only begins to thicken from here.
These commissions (HRCs, for short) were set up in the 1960s and 1970s with the aim of combating discrimination on a practical level. In recent times, however, they have transmogrified into mechanisms for enforcing politically correct ideologies and silencing dissent. “It never occurred to us,” remarks Alan Borovoy, one of the originators of the HRCs, “that this instrument, which we intended to deal with discrimination in housing, employment and the provision of goods and services, would be used to muzzle the expression of opinion.”
Lovers of free expression -- grab your seatbelts and hang on for dear life or hard-saved fortune because it really starts to get much worse:
These quasi-judicial bodies are staffed by political appointees who have neither the qualifications nor the independence of regular judges. Their ad hoc procedures provide no firm rules for evidence; bigoted comments, posted by strangers to websites in foreign jurisdictions, have been judged admissible, for example. No actual proof of harm is required in order to obtain a conviction. Investigations and deliberations are driven by far-reaching, utopian mandates to “reduce discrimination and promote social change.”
The growing train of hate-speech prosecutions might have been derailed as long ago as 1990, when an appeal brought Section 13 under review by the Supreme Court in Taylor v. Canada. The court found, however, that the Charter’s guarantee of freedom of expression “is not unduly impaired.” Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Dickson opined that, “as long as human rights tribunals continue to be well aware of the purpose” of Section 13, “there is little danger that subjective opinion as to offensiveness will supplant the proper meaning of the section.”
The growing train of hate-speech prosecutions might have been derailed as long ago as 1990, when an appeal brought Section 13 under review by the Supreme Court in Taylor v. Canada. The court found, however, that the Charter’s guarantee of freedom of expression “is not unduly impaired.” Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Dickson opined that, “as long as human rights tribunals continue to be well aware of the purpose” of Section 13, “there is little danger that subjective opinion as to offensiveness will supplant the proper meaning of the section.”
This next statement ought to have every writer who posts on a blog any story or comments that might raise the eye-brows of the high-brows (well, actually low-brows who fashion themselves quite the opposite) sitting at the edge of his or her seat, especially American writers, be they bloggers or writers in other mediums.
Asked under oath what value he attached to freedom of speech, Dean Steacy, a CHRC investigator, replied: “Freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don’t give it any value.” American onlookers might be forgiven for turning aside with a shrug, but they would do well to consider a remark by the irrepressible Ezra Levant: What happens in Canada today often happens in the United States tomorrow. We’re like a political laboratory for bad experiments.”
How Canada became such a laboratory is an interesting question. But a more important question is how the whole idea of rights has been transformed into a cover for monstrosities like the HRCs—for an intellectual, moral, and juridical violence that has turned rights into the enemy, rather than the friend, of basic human freedoms. That question has an answer too long to attempt here. Even to raise it, however, is to bump up against a curious fact: The mainstream media, for the most part, has turned a blind eye to this violence, even where it threatens (as in the Levant and Steyn cases) the freedom of the press.
The explanation for that, I think, lies in the myth that the concept of human rights is entirely a modern invention—and an invention that defines the morality of our own secular age. The thought that the very foundations of our morality should prove so flimsy is more than we can bear. Are we not the great generation of rights? The truth is, of course, that authentic human rights discourse belongs to a tradition that the West has now largely abandoned, and that what passes for that discourse today is something else.
The threat that this something else poses can scarcely be overestimated. Those in Canada who think repealing Section 13 will solve the problem are mistaken (though that would be a good first step); likewise those in America who think it will be enough if the creation of HRCs, which some states are considering, is prevented. A society with a bad conscience, we may be sure, will always find ways to police speech and pursue thought crimes.
How Canada became such a laboratory is an interesting question. But a more important question is how the whole idea of rights has been transformed into a cover for monstrosities like the HRCs—for an intellectual, moral, and juridical violence that has turned rights into the enemy, rather than the friend, of basic human freedoms. That question has an answer too long to attempt here. Even to raise it, however, is to bump up against a curious fact: The mainstream media, for the most part, has turned a blind eye to this violence, even where it threatens (as in the Levant and Steyn cases) the freedom of the press.
The explanation for that, I think, lies in the myth that the concept of human rights is entirely a modern invention—and an invention that defines the morality of our own secular age. The thought that the very foundations of our morality should prove so flimsy is more than we can bear. Are we not the great generation of rights? The truth is, of course, that authentic human rights discourse belongs to a tradition that the West has now largely abandoned, and that what passes for that discourse today is something else.
The threat that this something else poses can scarcely be overestimated. Those in Canada who think repealing Section 13 will solve the problem are mistaken (though that would be a good first step); likewise those in America who think it will be enough if the creation of HRCs, which some states are considering, is prevented. A society with a bad conscience, we may be sure, will always find ways to police speech and pursue thought crimes.
Oh Canada, I watch my back for thee ...
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Comment by S.L.
The Political Brief
It makes me very angry that the people who have come here (some illegally and some for nefarious purposes) can start squalling about the very freedoms that they hate. And for any part of our own government to allow them to remove that for which we stand... it's just unconscionable!