M.J. Murphy of BigCityLib blog challenges Mark Steyn to be consistent in his critique of Human Rights Commissions when they rightly target hate speech found in other quarters.
Other Liberal bloggers have made similar comments of inconsistency. Warren Kinsella commented about Ezra Levant,
The fraud, in this case, is my friend Ezra Levant. He is full of crap, actually.
When it has suited him in the past – and when the verbal attacks have focused on him, say, and not a non-white family, or a Muslim kid, or a gay man – Ezra has launched a fullisade of legal actions. He has papered the courts with legal actions, and legal threats, which presumably leave the intended targets feeling that their freedom of speech is being limited. When it is his feelings being hurt, watch out; anyone else’s – too bad.
And then, today, he turns around and attacks a guy like Richard Warman, who has the temerity to object to Nazi filth. And that’s when Ezra goes too far, in my view.
Steyn’s connundrum is that the previous targets, and opponents, of the Human Rights Tribunals have been far-right racial supremacist groups.
Strange bedfellows to be sure.
Paul Fromm, who himself has come before Tribunals, said,
The neo-Cons are now being bitten in the butt. It looks good on them. We’ve been warning of the gagging power of human rights censors for 20 years. Few would listen as long as the tyrants took on small defenceless and media-defamed victims.
I laugh at the consternation of some of these outraged neoCons. “But, we’re not disreputable letter writers. We’re ‘respectable.'”
They don’t get it. Censorship is like a narcotic. The bully and the thought controller is never satisfied. It was never about “hate”. It was about silencing anyone who dissents from the minority agenda.
Yesterday, it was Doug Collins, Ernst Zundel, Tom Winnicki and Terry Tremaine. Today, it is Rev. Boissoin, Bishop Fred Henry and Mark Steyn.
Tomorrow, it may be you.
We’re picking up a lot of new allies.
ABOLISH ALL HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSIONS — THE BANE OF LIBERTY!
(Warning: video below contains disturbing footage, including calls for freeing Ernst Zundel).
Murphy’s blog entry follows below:
Challenge To Mark Steyn: Come Defend The Wingnut!
Yo Steyn! The Canadian Right thinks you’re a hoity-toity! You stood on the side-lines when they came for Marc Lemire, and twiddled your thumbs when they went after Paul Fromm. Now that the CHRC is looking in your direction, you want this Brotherhood of Free Speech warriors to ride to your rescue! Such presumption!
But you know what? Here’s where you get a chance to redeem yourself. The CHRC is going after one of the little guys again, someone who hasn’t got the full weight of Macleans magazine’s vast legal team to fall back on. Now its your turn to wield that flaming sword of flowery rhetoric of yours and play the role of hero, rather than whining like an oppressed minority!
Arthur Topham runs The Radical Press, a Victoria B.C. website to go along with The Radical, a paper-based, monthly alternative tabloid that he produces himself. Arthur’s chief obsession is those darn Zionists. He has written any number of posts about them, with titles like:
“The Shell Game†Just Another Zionist Scam to Stop 9/11 Investigation of Israel
ARE THE GLOBALISTS [Zionists] OUT TO GET RON PAUL?
Unfortunately for Mr. Topham, Harry Abrams and the League for Human Rights of B’nai Brith Canada got wind of his site (you’re basically fucked when that happens), and launched a CHRC complaint against it. In his response to the CHRC questionnaire he was sent, Mr. Topham explained why he was having difficulty linking to “The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zionâ€:
This has not been possible in one case. When Mr. Abrams and the B’nai Brith or some other Zionist pressured my previous server into canceling my agreement with them I received a short notice on August 24, 2007 that the hosting service would cease as of August 31, 2007. This gave me very little time to arrange a database back up for the site and during that process that backup became corrupted. As a result I had to upload an earlier archived version when I resumed online publication on November 3, 2007 and that version didn’t contain the specific article which is included in the complaint. I’m referring here to the topic “The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zionâ€. The url to the forum was still intact on the RadicalPress.com Home Page but the content had disappeared from off the forum itself and no link remained. I therefore removed the url from the Home Page of the site. The article exists on numerous other websites outside present-day Zionist Jew control. I have now reposted the article and it can be found at http://www.radicalpress.com/?page_id=601
It’s my contention concerning this matter that the site was purposely sabotaged by either the B’nai Brith or some other affiliated pro-Zionist person or organization.
So here’s the deal, Mark: are you a Free Speech man, or a Free Speech girly-man? If the former, it behooves you to unleash your yellow crayon of fury and defend Mr. Topham from B’nai Brith Canada and their ilk.
And, as for my personal opinion, I think this particular CHRC case is a waste of time and money. Sure Mr. Topham’s site is offensive, and the material on it in most likely in violation of the relevant legislation. But why pick on some flake with zero readership (and no apparent propensity towards violent behavior)? The proceedings against Macleans and Mr. Steyn are a much more useful gesture. These guys have the ability to reach 1000s of Canadians, and thus the ability to do much greater harm to the nation. Remember, if it had been up to Steyn and the current editorial staff at Macleans, there’d be Canadian kids dying over there in Iraq.
(Disclosure: Administrators of this site have known Liberal Party, Liblogs, and Jewish activist connections)
Unfortunately, due to abuse of the option in the past on this subject, comments will be closed.
