An Unnecessary Steyn On Silence And Nothingness
You know, we’re all having such a good time making fun of Jonah Goldberg’s last-minute term paper that it’s easy to forget that the greater world of right-wing inanity keeps on turning. For example, even as we all sit here chatting so amiably about Il Pantloadini’s belief that a desire to include something in one’s diet other than Chee-Tos, Brawndo and Oops! All Berries Cap’n Crunch is indicative of Nazism, there walks in the shadow of the Canadian timber a cur in human shape known as Mark Steyn.
Let’s see what the Lyme Disease is up to lately. Apparently, the Canadian Islamic Congress has filed a human rights complaint against him for no good reason than he’s the second most genocidal Québécois after Ernst Zündel:
The news of the “human rights” complaint over the Maclean’s excerpt of my book has been out there a week or so now, and I’ve had a lot of queries from folks seeking clarification of this and clarifications of that. I think the easiest way to answer them is to put the actual complaints out there. The Canadian Islamic Congress has sought relief from three bodies so far: the Canadian Human Rights Commission, the British Columbia Human Rights Commission and the Ontario Human Rights Commission. These are all in PDF form, so you can tell they’re the real deal.
Because who could possibly fake a PDF document? Only Dan Rather.
We’ll start with the shortest, just in case you’re in a motel in Mexico on a slow dial-up:
Here Mark shows his versatility, tossing in a completely irrelevant bit of beaner-bashing for those who think he’s only capable of being mindlessly racist against Arabs.
Either Dr Elmasry is making the same mistake as Jim Henley and attributing to me the words of Mullah Krekar, or he believes that it’s “Islamophobic” to quote accurately leading European Muslims.
Well, of course it isn’t! Just like it wouldn’t be Christianophobic of me to quote accurately leading American evangelicals:
* Expect confrontations that will be not only unpleasant but at times physically bloody. We will be living through one of the most tumultuous periods of human history. When it is over, I am convinced God’s people will emerge victorious. But no victory ever comes without a battle. (Pat Robertson)
* As we see the Day approaching there’s going to be a cleansing…there’s going to be a purging coming forth…and everyone that’s living under the immorality cover will be brought down, and God’s new breed will come forth. (Bob Jones)
* I want you to just let a wave of intolerance wash over you. I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good. (Randall Terry)
* After the Christian majority takes control, pluralism (i.e., multicultural-ism) will be seen as immoral and evil and the state will not permit anybody the right to practice evil. (Gary Potter)
* We were here first. You don’t take our shared common values and say they are biased and bigoted. We are the keepers of what is right and what is wrong. (Lou Sheldon)
Surely no one would find that to be Christian-bashing! Or if, for example, I presented some quotes from the Bible:
* If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers; Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth; Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him: But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. (Deuteronomy 13:6-9)
* Thus saith the LORD of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt. Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. (I Samuel 15:2-3)
* Cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood. (Jeremiah 48:10)
I could go on and on all night, and I’m sure Mark and his conservative friends would never, ever accuse me of taking quotes out of context, or showing bias, or Christian-bashing, because what he is really interested in is…fairness.
I’m just concerned to maintain a level playing field for all phobias, and the biggest obstacle to that are these cockamamie Human Rights Commissions which are an abomination to any free society.
You see, Mark Steyn is a humanitarian — a noble figure, in fact, a tireless defender of our freedoms. He simply wants to ensure that all irrational hatreds and prejudices are given an equal chance to thrive. That his is main area of concern, that there should be no hindrance to bigotry of any kind. But his dream that he will live in a nation where everyone can be misjudged for the color of their skin is being shattered by those enemies of freedom — those abominations — known as ‘human rights commissions’. Yes, in Steynderella’s Castle, the greatest threat to a free society is an agency which works to ensure that people’s civil rights are not being violated. What man can truly say he is imbued with liberty when some ne’er-do-well bureaucrat tries to prevent him from calling someone a sand-nigger? What human being can say with pride that he is a free man when some faceless paper-shuffling cretin won’t let him imprison someone on suspicion of worshiping the wrong god? And as long as the least of us is not applauded for comparing people of different religious or ethnic backgrounds to vermin, aren’t we all in prison?
Huge, huge thanks to all of you who gave to my cash-raisin’ drive to go to CPAC. Y’all went at it like Pam Atlas on a bottle of strawberry schnapps — I’m astonished that in just two days, you donated all but $200 of my goal to get to the Conservative Political Action Conference and make fun of John Bolton’s mustache, once again proving that this site has the best fucking readership on the web. I’m almost at my goal, and if any of you aren’t completely tapped out from the holidays, this will be my final push! Confirmed as appearing at this inhuman stupidity hoedown are Mike S. Adams, Newt Gingrich, Ben Shapiro, George Will, Emmett Tyrell, Doug Giles, Brent “Walter Peck” Bozell, Kevin McCullough, Tom DeLay, and yes, MARK NOONAN. Dudes, seriously, MARK FUCKING NOONAN is going to be there. Won’t you help me stand two feet away from the dumbest man on the planet? Remember, any $ I get over my travel expenses goes straight to the S,N! coffers, and at the very least, Gavin and Brad deserve a nice Christmas present — they’ve spent the last week voluntarily reading Liberal Fascism, so I’m sure they could use a new pair of souls. Thanks as always for your help.
d00d, i would send you some d’oh if i had any. but i don’t. think of me as one of the guys that downloaded your new album with bittorrent, but then got 7 of his friends to actually buy it.
except i don’t have any friends.
A few days ago I saw a defense of Steyn (and co-author Barbara Amiel, who must be writing again to earn some cash now that her husband Conrad Black is serving 6-1/2 years for robbing stockholders blind) in The Tyee (an otherwise left-liberal local rag), which shocked me because I thought Mark Steyn was largely unknown in Canada. Apparently he writes for MacLeans…something else I didn’t know because I don’t read that shitrag.
thanks, MLP, for picking this up and writing way better than me. Would have dne it myself, but the pantload-a-palooza has distracted me…
Oh yes, a humanitarian.
What else would you call a smarmy advocate of the Michelle Maglalang suck it up plan to ease the mortgage crisis?
Extra bonus humanitarian points for the unselfconscious contemporaneously juxtaposing reference to the story of Scrooge on his front page.
(Do us proud, Mister Sir.)
Have a piece of my soul, guys. Souls are like those Banach-Tarski paradox things where you can cut them into pieces and reassemble them and get more than you started with.
Share and enjoy!
Mark Steyn is so muscular and rigorous and so freedom loving in this relentless love of freedom that he must have been born, or at least been taught as a babe by the elders of the Nez Perce as they were murdered and put into slavery for the simple crime of not committing suicide first.
Yup.
OK hold on, I just learned that in Stainglish radical anti-humanism actually means “climate modelling”, so this fills in 3-across.
Don’t you worry that Ernst Zündel jokes are a total cliche?
You mean there are Zündelcats somewhere in the intertubes? MobiusKlein, you just described Slack, a bit of which I’m sending along.
Mister Pierce, they say a single hair from Bolton’s mustache will protect against Neocons. You have to pluck it at midnight, stuff your ears with wax and bring a black, barking dog. You tie the dog to Boltons’s ‘stache, then toss the bone. The dog yanks the ‘stache and dies because he hears Bolton’s shriek (actually a sarcastic assertion that your tough interview question came straight out of George Soros’s playbook), but you don’t because you stuffed your ears with wax.
Or you can just grab Mark Steyn’s beard, yank it and run away, which is a lot easier.
Or you can just grab Mark Steyn’s beard, yank it and run away,
EWWWWWW. And touch his pubes?!
In the headline:
Necessary.
not Neccesary.
need to fix that.
——-
Stat.
Rumor has it that Tancredo will officially drop out of the Republican presidential campaign later today (Thursday). Apparently hating Teh Illegals with the fire of a thousand Fortunate Sons is necessary, yet not sufficient, to garner the Repubs’ brass ring…
Or I could jest that having to stand next to Alan Keyes at the last debate so unnerved Tancredo that he’s no longer capable of the grueling denial of all reason and decency that is the current mode of vote-trolling in the Heartland, but that would make me no better than Mark “Rhymes with Whine, Not With Stain” Steyn.
I’m on a “slow dial up” to Paradise
OK, so he’s whining like crazy about this and playing the martyr when there aren’t going to be any significant consequences for him no matter what. And he’s a douchebag. But I still have trouble seeing this Human Rights Commission case as anything other than an impingement on free speech. The CIC is arguing not that he caused any real-world damage or incited violence, or even that anyone who committed a hate crime was found to have a copy of a Steyn column on their dashboard; their case really does seem to be “he’s an Islamaphobe.” It seems very counterproductive to deal with stupid ideas like this by taking them to court.
But I still have trouble seeing this Human Rights Commission case as anything other than an impingement on free speech.
I’m not sure about this myself. Instinctively, I don’t think that journalists or commentators (and I use that in the loosest possible sense in the case of meneer Steyn) should be taken to court for what they say, no matter how stupid. But there is a line between honest criticism and agent provocateur like comment, which the boy Steyn sails very close and probably crosses over the line in this article. You could argue that he sails close to it all the time, but this article is particularly insidious.
Steyn and his ilk spend a lot on energy fuming about Muslims that make false and provocative comments and calls for action against them. I’m not going to shed any tears about the old bigot being made to at least address some of his more odious comments.
Are you sure Mark Steyn is from Quebec? I like to think of him as from Ontario — after all he spells his name Mark not Marc.
PS sent you a few loonies. 🙂
Ah the everlasting lament of bigots everywhere…
Is it safe here now? I won’t be smacked w/ a stray Heidegger, will I? All the loose po-mos been rounded up? All the Strausses swept up? I hate it when those things get on my shoes.
Should you visit SteynOnline, be sure to visit “Arts & Culture.” From the “Song of the Week:”
Great stuff, from the Althousian first line to “warm & evocative” — of snow! I know every word association test I take, they say “warm,” I say “snow.”
How is Curlybeard’s love for show tunes going to help us outbreed the Swarthy Masses? Does he have another agenda? If that rock ‘n’ roll & dance music is all about stirring up hormones, shouldn’t he be pimpin’ that stuff? Or is his Islamophobia because he knows they’ll break his Judy Garland recotds?
Oh noes! A white male is being persecuted by the forces of islamofascismz! Quick! Pick up the DoughPhone and turn on the PantSignal!
Excuse my ignorance of Canadian law but I’m under the impression their free speech laws are not as stringent as the US’s.
“A few days ago I saw a defense of Steyn (and co-author Barbara Amiel, who must be writing again to earn some cash now that her husband Conrad Black is serving 6-1/2 years for robbing stockholders blind) in The Tyee (an otherwise left-liberal local rag)”
It was a good article. Anyone who wants some clear-cut and conscious examination of this stupid affair should have a look.
“Excuse my ignorance of Canadian law but I’m under the impression their free speech laws are not as stringent as the US’s.”
The Tyee actually adresses that and still finds trouble with the “case”. Steyn just haven’t done anything illegal, which is why he is instead subject to this strange court which is trying to become some sovereign threat to people who speak nasty.
I mean, the Saudis are famous for using claims of islamophobia, hate speech and intolerance to quash any people who have attacked the vile royalty of Saudi Arabia nad their attempts to spread their perverted form of Islam to young men in Europe and elsewhere. I don’t like this case one bit and I won’t have Steyn put under any inconvenience by this “court”.
If he was put under actual Canadian law I would sit here and hope he got put away for as long as possible. But now he isn’t under Canadian court and I can’t see any justice in him losing time and money.
Personally speaking, I can’t see any justice in him having time or money to begin with, Xel.
He should be standing behind the counter at Corn-Dog-On-Eh-Stick, Canada’s fourth-rated corn dog joint.
It may not be justice, but fuck if I’m going to cry for him having to look at some of the fucking people he’s antagonizing every damn day of every damn week of his life.
I notice Steyn links to Henley’s first post on the Maclean’s piece but neglects to link to his second, longer post, in which Henley elaborates on his argument.
Damn, thought you were talking about me for a minute. “The Tyree”…LOL….(I just had to trace that into the dirt on my post-ice-storm back window–Tyree/Spree’08).
Did anyone else just lose it the first time they heard Steyn actually speak? WTF is with that? I heard him first on the Atlas Shrugs Blog Talk Radio Show, so it was super-surreal.
Mr. L.P. said:
For example, even as we all sit here chatting so amiably about Il Pantloadini’s belief that a desire to include something in one’s diet other than Chee-Tos, Brawndo and Oops! All Berries Cap’n Crunch is indicative of Nazism, there walks in the shadow of the Canadian timber a cur in human shape known as Mark Steyn.
A joke, perhaps, but sadly not as fictional as one might think.
SQ — Mark was born in Ontario, but he lives in Quebec City (and Lyme, CT). He’s a real international pest.
I would have a lot more sympathy for Mark’s botheration at the hands of the CIC if I thought for a second he really gave a shit about free speech. Like most reactionaries, he’s quite happy to see anyone he disagrees with denied their own free speech; and his own defense of freedom has only ever been offered in response to the possibility that he might not be able to spew racist rhetoric about Muslims as much as he wants. This is a guy who in the past has attacked newspapers for printing stories he doesn’t like, who has been an outspoken advocate of Guantanamo Bay and illegal wiretaps, and who is a longtime defender of tight immigration restrictions. He doesn’t exactly have a history of defending freedom for other people — he just doesn’t want any infringement of his own right to say awful things about other people. He’s no different from the American frat-boy type who thinks it’s an intolerable imposition on his rights that he can’t walk around calling black people niggers.
Is the CIC suit against him frivolous? Does it impinge on his free speech? Is it meant as a political attack? Yeah, probably. But it’s hard for me to have much sympathy for him when he’s a pro-genocide culture-baiter whose defense of freedom stretches no farther than his fingertips. I mean, the fact that he calls organizations dedicated to protecting human rights the ultimate enemies of freedom really tells you all you need to know about the guy.
What strange court? It isn’t a court it’s a tribunal. Are these new? I was under the impression they’d been around for a while. Skimming through the article it seems the defense boils down to the Canadian HRTs aren’t suited to hear the case/make a ruling on this particular case because it involves expressing an opinion rather than an act (though one could argue that expressing an opinion is not an act).
Again, I’m unfamiliar with HRTs but I have heard plenty of people in the US argue that this or that body isn’t suited to rule on a particular matter … so why don’t we just drop the whole thing?
Wrong. That approach and does more harm in the long run. Suppose the HRT looked at the case and finds Stuyn did nothing wrong. Hurrah! Other people who express obnoxious opinions can continue on their merry way. The tribunal might even find that it isn’t appropriate for HRTs to hear such cases which creates a great defense for the next asshole who gets his kicks pissing people off.
The act of thinking is Thought revealing itself to the hereandnowness, what is called Present.
The ding-ansich is Present when it is at-hand.
/Nobody expects the Heidigger-ish Inquisition!
Time for the Airing of Grievance: Can you guys update to the effect that this is taking place in Canada and Canada doesn’t have the same Free Speech rights as the US?
I don’t know why, but people screeching about US rights as though they’re international (or apply to US citizens outside of the US) gives me a fucking headache.
“Are these new? I was under the impression they’d been around for a while.”
Ao what? Theses things just aren’t legit and are now trying to get a precedent for even more invasive manuevers.
“Skimming through the article it seems the defense boils down to the Canadian HRTs aren’t suited to hear the case/make a ruling on this particular case because it involves expressing an opinion”
I think it was more about a court trying to argue that it can decide on its own what sort of speech makes hostile acts against one group more likely and what does not. If Steyn had called for illegal actions taken against muslims specifically actual Canadian courts would’ve been on him instead. Rather we have this tool – currently wielded by a less-than-amicable Islamist council – trying to draw a completely arbitrary line and get Stain in trouble for suddenly standing behind it.
I think the guy is the height of obtuse obloquy but I tend to look at the Kantian law of universalizing in these cases and I see that if a guy I really loathe can get nailed over something like this then so can a lot of people, maybe even me.
That old quote about “I didn’t say anything because I am not an X, then they came for me and no one was left to speak for me” really applies here. We need to show that we are better than Steyn and his ilk.
And you said the white male wasn’t being persecuted. You’re such a fascist to call out their bigotry. To the DoughPhone again!
No no no, Mr. Pierce! It’s not Brent “Bozo” Bozell who’s Walter Peck—it’s Mark “the Human” Steyn his own self! And if I could get these flibbertygibbet links to work I’d show you!
Steyn’s an embarassment to anyone with properly firing neurons, nothing but an Uncle Tom.
One of our leading redneck bloggers, whom I don’t bother to read anymore, was actually chuffed when those other Uncle Toms, Malkin and Goldberg, linked to one of her inane posts a year or so ago, figured she’d hit the big time..
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com
I can’t believe it. This actually tops fatass:
“these cockamamie Human Rights Commissions. . .are an abomination to any free society”.
What a world, what a world!
Let’s try this again:
Here’s Walter Peck. And here’s WankenSteyn.
Separated at birth? I think so.
Being a Republican bigot I’m sure there are many things Stain has done that are worthy of punishment so does it really matter this time if he was misquoted?
What else would you call a smarmy advocate of the Michelle Maglalang suck it up plan to ease the mortgage crisis?
You mean Tagalog Cassidy is gonna host a suck-a-thon to raise money for disadvantaged mortgage lenders?
Wait, that’s not news …
.
Arky,
I agree that Canadians don’t have rights exactly like those recognized in our 1st Amendment but I believe that this is basic freedom that all humans should enjoy. Th Universal Declaration of Human Rights says,
Article 19.
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
Canada adopted those principles among others in Section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms;
SECTION 2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:
(a) freedom of conscience and religion;
(b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;
( c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and
(d) freedom of association.
I don’t know about the folks who are giving you a headache but I wouldn’t argue that the Canadian Courts don’t have the right to interpret these provisions more narrowly than I would, just that they shouldn’t. Mark Steyn is an ass and Leonard Pierce makes a great point regarding his selfish myopia when it comes to civil rights. I could care less what happens to him but that it would establish a precedence for future prosecutions.
Should be, couldn’t care less…
I’m just concerned to maintain a level playing field for all phobias, and the biggest obstacle to that are these cockamamie Human Rights Commissions which are an abomination to any free society.
He’s right, you know…in any free society, I should be able to walk up to anyone and beat the living shit out of them just because they’re different.
Can I start with Mark Steyn?
There’s more
http://www.ffwdweekly.com/article/news-views/news/muslim-leader-takes-western-standard/
Nice take down, Leonard.
I just can’t get the image of the old 70’s style GI Joe out of my head.
Thanks for the explanation. And of course people can (and do) argue about how courts should and should not interpret the law. Absolutely nothing wrong with that. However, the article in Tyee seems to argue that this tribunal shouldn’t even hear the case or make any ruling because, in effect, that isn’t its job.
On this side of the border, the people who make that argument tend to be … how shall I say this? Shifty assholes who are up to no good. On this side of the border, courts can and do rule that they can’t hear a particular case for whatever reason, including that they have no standing to hear the case. The tribunal could also hear the case and say there was no harm. Either result would be a win for Stayn.
And as his type are fond of saying: If you’ve done nothing wrong, you’ve got nothing to fear.
Why’d you ruin that perfectly good shot of Chewbacca with that awful Nicole Kidman?
Sigh. I know it’s in another country and I know it’s defending a perfect asshole, but this card-carrying ACLU member thinks its a shitty nuisance suit and it does, in fact, attempt to abridge the unmitigated idiot’s free speech.
Equally, however, I think that Canadian Islamicists have the right to write an opposing op-ed calling Steyn a camelfucker.
Somehow the notion that neither Steyn nor the Islamist-types would respect my free speech is one of those small ironies that make me the liberal fascist I am.
You know, I was gonna kick in some funds for the ol’ CPAC visit, but two things conspired me to get on with it: 1) Getting an unexpected Christmas bonus (which, as a liberal fascist, I plan to spend primarily on gay marriages and Muslim charities–just like the Nazis absolutely would have if they had received Christmas bonuses!), and 2) the revelation that my most favoritest wingnut Mark the Man-Myth Noonan is going to be there. Just be sure to spend my cash on something highly offensive!
I wish that Steyn would stfu, move to the Yukon Territory, and live the rest of his life as a mute hermit. On the other hand, there’s no guideline that could censor him that wouldn’t also catch S,N! peeps like Mikey in its net.
If, in order to get to read Mikey’s comments, I have to accept knowing that Steyn is out there spewing bigoted filth… I choose putting up with Steyn.
Well, I am kind of new around here. That whole web award thing got me to check you guys out and now I am addicted you crack dealing bastards! So I felt I needed to give a little bit to the cause. It’s not much, but every little bit helps, right?
Steyn left Canada for the UK ostensibly because he was revolted by Canada’s liberalism and decadence. Personally I think he followed his hero Conrad Black, like Gollum stalking his precious ring. Then he left the UK because he was revolted by their post-thacherite turn towards liberalism and the fact that they started letting so many of those people in. Now he lives in New England and complains that not enough white women are doing their duty to their race.
Steyn does not speak for Canada. He knows nothing about this country and it’s people. His mental hologram of Canadian politics is 30 years old. It’s revolting to me that he’s thought of as a Canadian columnist at all. Nevertheless, Canada is not America, and Canadian law is not American law. In Canada, free speech does not extend to the right to publish racial slurs and outright lies in a mainstream national publication. People who don’t approve of our legal process are welcome to refrain from living here. And people like Steyn who denounce our country yet continue to lob grenades into our yard in the form of race-baiting columns can damn well face the legal consequences as far as I’m concerned.
Like I said Chris, I know Canada is another country. Different laws come with it. But philosophically, I think that more speech is a disinfectant for bad speech.
That’s all.
We were here first. You don’t take our shared common values and say they are biased and bigoted. We are the keepers of what is right and what is wrong. (Lou Sheldon)
I dunno … Lou Sheldon looks pretty white to me. So on behalf of my fiancee’s great-grandmother and all other Native Americans, let me respond “we were here first? whaddya mean ‘we’ kemosabe?”.
Oops … just after I posted it, it occured to me that if the Mormons are right, then Lou Sheldon might indeed have a point.
I wonder how Lou Sheldon feels about the Mormons?
Just think of it as committing libel against a whole class of people.
Exactly stogoe. This isn’t a scaled-up case of someone violating some idiotic Campus speech code. What Steyn is trying to do, abetted by a major Canadian publication is some very VERY serious shit.
Steyn’s books are on sale across Canada. His columns have been published in papers and magazines here for decades. There’s no firewall that prevents acess to his writings on line. This is not some Howard Roarkian test case that will test the definition of freedom in this country for all time. The Human Rights Commission is simply doing it’s job by investigating a very serious complaint.
And forgive me for being blunt, but we really don’t need to be hearing any lectures about the meaning of freedom from America these days. I think we all know why.
And forgive me for being blunt, but we really don’t need to be hearing any lectures about the meaning of freedom from America these days. I think we all know why.
Oh, I see. Since Canada is worried about the dangerous Mark Steyn, I, as an American, have to shut up about what I like about freedom of speech, which as an ACLU member, I support despite the actions my disastrous goverment.
Steyn hasn’t given up his Canadian citizenship, has he? His buddy Conrad did. That didn’t really work out well for Lord Tubby though, did it?
And of course, by outlawing or sanctioning this kind of VERY serious shit, it won’t serve to make Mark Steyn a martyr and certainly won’t actually serve to amplify both his assertion that “people are afraid of the truth” and his scummy attacks on Canadian Muslims.
There’s absolutely no precedent for that kind of thing boomeranging and resulting in something way worse than the attended effect of sanction.
But I’m an American, so what the fuck do I know?
Cash sent!
I enjoyed the “human rights are the enemy of freedom” dissection in this post, and you’re right that anyone who wades through Liberal Fascism needs some sort of happy compensation, like a soul again.
I understand that Mark Steyn has a dog named Stain Steyn (though he seldom actually uses the surname Steyn).
Mark likes to stand at the back door and call his dog in:
(whistle – – whistle) Come, Stain!
PS – I’m donating to your boondoggle after teh hollydaze.
Won’t you help me stand two feet away from the dumbest man on the planet?
Doug Feith will be there too?
I thought Dan Riehl had wrested that crown from Feith…
I agree with Jay B. Freedom of speech is the big issue here and, regardless of what Steyn says, he should have the right to say whatever if it does not directly cause harm to another. Yeah, Steyn’s a fuckwad. But it feels like we’re taking a page from the rightist playbook when we argue that his being a fuckwad makes him ineligible for this basic right.
And Chris Wren, I consider speech a pretty basic freedom, whether in Canada or the US.
Right, and even if there were such a precedent, so what?
The alternative is to say we have to let the assholes do whatever the fuck they want because trying to stop them will make them worse and that would ultimately result in people being afraid to snark on Herr LædedHösen lest he run amok flinging sharpened Cheetos.
And that would be a shame.
“Right, and even if there were such a precedent, so what?”
So prosecuting Steyn will make him look like a martyr and get more press for his idiotic views. It will make some otherwise rational people think that there might be something to these views, if it seems that they have to be countered through law rather than factual argument. The alternative is indeed to “let the assholes do whatever the fuck they want” (so long as it is not incitement to violence, etc.), and to let most everyone else continue to ignore them.
And yes, I agree with Leonard that it’s hard to feel sympathy for Steyn. I don’t think this is at all necessary, however, in order to find the case troubling–the ACLU has defended the freedom of expression of white supremacists and anti-Semites while still clearly thinking of them as contemptible people. Notice that these efforts haven’t led to a massive resurgence in hate group membership in the US.
What if the tribunal finds that he did nothing wrong? You seem to be presuming they’ll find against him. And don’t waste your time worrying about these people “looking like martyrs.” To listen to them whine when anyone so much as murmurs “Could you please be quiet?” they spend half their time being racked by crazed libruls. Maybe he will get more press and maybe more people will read the things he says and decide he’s a worthless puke.
The otherwise rational people of Canada voted for the system of laws that includes the tribunals (which may or may not find against him or refuse to hear the case at all). And of course whatever the tribunal finds will include factual arguments, so again I have a hard time seeing what it is you’re worried about.
So in your opinion we really shouldn’t be snarking on FatPants because he might get angry/be seen as a martyr/call attention to his “book” and/or get his fans riled up? I’m just curious.
Another question: What would your opinion be if a bunch of civil rights groups (and Brown and Swathmore) announced a boycott of Doubleday/Random House and any news agency that employs the DoughBoy?
Well, if you don’t count the GOP’s “Let’s smear some queers” platform. Which I do. But usually you don’t get a massive resurgence in hate groups until the economy tanks badly and people need something to hate on, which might explain why the Klan is coming out of its holes as a force against the brown hordes of the south. However I’m assuming from your comment there has there been such a resurgence in Canada?
What would your opinion be if a bunch of civil rights groups (and Brown and Swathmore) announced a boycott of Doubleday/Random House and any news agency that employs the DoughBoy?
If you don’t see the difference between a government tribunal deciding correct speech and private organizations and individuals organizing boycotts, then you really don’t get the First Amendment.
If Canadian muslim organizations want to organize boycotts against McLean’s and protest the odious writing of Mark Steyn that certainly sounds like a good idea.
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