Why So Serious?

I caught this bit via Drudge. Some guy in LA has been hanging this charicature of Obama about town.

Sound the alarm!

KTLA: Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable President Earl Ofari Hutchinson is calling the depiction, politically mean spirited and dangerous.

Hutchinson is challenging the group or individual that put up the poster to have the courage and decency to publicly identify themselves.

"Depicting the president as demonic and a socialist goes beyond political spoofery," says Hutchinson, "it is mean-spirited and dangerous."

"We have issued a public challenge to the person or group that put up the poster to come forth and publicly tell why they have used this offensive depiction to ridicule President Obama."

Oh, chill out. Some dude hung a bunch of posters and it went viral. Big deal. A public challenge? I'm sure the guy's having a private laugh. Who knew hanging posters on a street corner could put the national media in such a twist?

I've read a few pieces where people are trying to figure out what the posters mean. If I had to guess, I'd say the guy's calling Obama a "joker" or a "clown" or a "phony" or a "socialist." A stretch, I know.

A trivial story on an otherwise slow news day. Besides, you can't have it both ways. There wasn't a peep of outrage over the hundreds of different "Bush/Hitler" posters and bumper stickers over the years. You can't start crying now that someone's going after your guy - well, you can, but nobody should care.

Free speech. Ain't it a bitch?

The New Order

Without a doubt, this is the most frightening piece of writing I have read in some time. It's called Special Report to Parliament: Freedom of Expression and Freedom from Hate in the Internet Age. It's written by the Canadian Human Rights Commission. You may remember them from the news.

I read this document and my dread increased with every word. The document is in response to the recommendations of a Professor Moon. He was hired by the commission to look at their Section 13 rule, whereby a person can be prosecuted for inciting hatred or contempt on the internet.

None of the people running the CHRC are elected officials. The Canadian Human Rights Code (of which Section 13 is a part) is not a section of the Criminal Code. It is outside and above the law.

I searched through this document and saw dozens of sections that I wanted to copy, paste, and talk about. In the end, I would have had to copy and paste the whole thing (I think this is against copyright law, which doesn't scare me nearly as much as these people do).

The people at the CHRC are strange Canadians. Very strange. They write about their "Code" as if it is Law. And, truth be told, it might as well be:

The dual approach ensures that there are two distinct tools that can be used to deal with hate on the Internet:

First, the criminal law, to deal with situations where the person posting hate does so with criminal intent and therefore is deserving of punishment by way of fines or incarceration. The Criminal Code is the most severe mechanism that can be used to deal with any problem in society. Its necessity is undeniable. However, the prosecution, incarceration and stigma that can flow from the criminal justice system are not necessary to deal with every situation.

That is breathtakingly bold. A government agent is telling Canadians - the report's on the internet; it's not a state secret - that there are now two Criminal Codes. One is harsh. The other is nice. One is for crimes that are so heinous and obvious - ie, provable - that the law is required. Others are more squishy. To see them, you must be able to see clearly. Like these government agents do.

The report tells us that the Criminal Code is a "necessity," but that it causes stigma. And so, ladies and gentlemen, allow us to present the New Law. The Nicer Law. We're doing this for your own good, don't you see? You may be found to be a racist for what you say, but not to worry: we don't hate you. We pity you. We are soft, warm, and understanding. We will perfect you. Make you whole again. There is no long-term stigma. When you give thousands of dollars to the person you've offended, you are making recompense. Penance. When your name is published in the papers and you're identified as a bigot, you are helping yourself because you are helping society. We are all together now, part of the same broad tapestry. You save one life, you save the world entire. We are saving the world from you. And you'll feel better for it. Your shame will disappear once you see that we were not stigmatizing you. We were saving you.

And O'Brien said to Winston, "You must humble yourself before you can become sane."

Incidentally, was there ever any argument that the Criminal Code was a necessity? It's disturbing to ponder what was going through the head of the hack who wrote that. "Its necessity is undeniable." Who denied it? And note the "however" right after saying how necessary the Criminal Code is. Necessary. But not quite good enough.

You're probably not scared yet. Don't blame you. Maybe you don't blog, maybe you live in the woods, maybe you never say anything to another human being, ever. But try this on for size:

The requirement for proof beyond a reasonable doubt is a basic principle in criminal law. The requirement is particularly difficult in prosecuting charges under the hate provisions of the Criminal Code.

For example, in the recent case of Her Majesty the Queen v. David Ahenakew, the Court found that although the accused had made public statements about Jewish people that were "revolting, disgusting, and untrue," he could not be convicted because it was not proven beyond a reasonable doubt that he intended to promote hatred against Jews.

The difficulty in proving intent may explain why so few cases have been prosecuted and even fewer have resulted in convictions.

On the other hand, intent is not relevant in the human rights law context where the focus is on the messages themselves and their impact on their targets. Pairing the CHRA with the Criminal Code allows the flexibility to deal with cases where intent does not exist or cannot be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

If you are any kind of Canadian, you should be sitting bolt upright in your chair saying, "What the hell is that? If they can't prove something, they'll just use the other rule book?" I also love their reasoning for why so few hate crimes have been prosecuted. It's not because Canadians aren't a bunch of bigots. It's because the rules make it too hard to lock the bigots up.

The CHRC believes the the Criminal Code is insufficient for prosecuting crimes of the mind. They literally say reasonable doubt is a concept that must be overcome. It's there in black and white. In order to circumvent two great tenents of Canadian law (mens rea - the guilty mind - and reasonable doubt) the commission simply throws them out the window. No votes, no referendums, no arguments on Parliament Hill. They just do it.

Who knew writing law could be so easy? Members of Parliament are no longer required. Voting is a moot point. Make up your own laws and, if you don't like them, change them:

The requirement for the consent of an Attorney General was likely included in the law as a safeguard against frivolous prosecutions. However, some police and Crown prosecutors are concerned that this requirement unduly hampers prosecutions. Professor Moon also expressed concerns in this regard.

Professor Moon recommends that this matter be considered further and that if it appears that the consent requirement is a barrier to the prosecution of serious hate propaganda cases, the Criminal Code be amended to remove this requirement. The Commission concurs with this approach.

Scared yet? Check it out: an unelected government agent with great power now wishes to attain greater power by not only writing their own rules, but doing away with the rules in the Criminal Code. This doesn't jibe so well with a statement just a few paragraphs before: The Criminal Code falls outside the Commission’s jurisdiction, hence, the Commission will not make specific recommendations for change. Uh, you just did.

This is brazen material. Remember that this a report to parliament, the people that supposedly draft legislation. A committee of unelected people is telling the "leaders" of the country that their laws suck. Change them. Don't you know what's good for you?

Surely there's one or two elected officials with enough wherewithal to say, "Hey, jackass. We represent the people, and we write the rules. I didn't go through months of mudslinging on the campaign trail to listen to you tell me a damn thing. By the way: you're fired."

Their disrespect for the law is clear. Their contempt for parliament and Canadian culture and history is unquestionable. But that's not the worst of it. For people that declare being on the side of "human rights," they have a funny way of showing it. Note the candor above: "The rule guarding against frivolous prosecutions is getting in the way of prosecuting people. Scrap it." Protect the little guy from harm? To hell with that. Change the rules so we can pound the nails in a little deeper.

This isn't about protecting anybody. This isn't about you or me. It's about power. Pure power. And I can think of no greater power than running your own law enforcement agency while telling elected officials which hoops they should jump through. That's heady stuff. It must be euphoric. Imagine the ego it takes to tell parliament that everything's fine on our end and, by the way, here's the list of things we need you to take care of for us. No questions asked.

Professor Moon and others raise the concern that the mere filing of a complaint, even if it is ultimately dismissed, can have a chilling effect on freedom of expression; that is, that people may refrain from posting something on the Internet out of concern that someone might file a complaint. Whether such a chill actually exists cannot be proven [bold mine]. Nonetheless, the Commission does recognize that there is potential for a "chill" scenario to arise.

Consider it proven. Believe me.

Steyn In Haiku

I was reading Steyn's latest travails about his writing and the people that hate that he's a...er, hater.

Anyway, since this story has become more and more like farce, I say it's time to have fun with it. And so...Steyn in Haiku. For backstory on this stuff, you'll have to click on his link above and go through it bit by increasingly bizarre bit. More Steyn in Haiku are always welcome.

Mark Steyn's bigotry
Outraged trio assemble!
No cash? No Sheikh. Shit.

*****

Mark fronts Bushitler
Ezra says, "Attaboy, Steyn."
Top bestsellers: two.

*****

Sinatra is King
Elmo sucks. So do Beatles.
Demographics? Yes!

*****

Quotation Mark's up.
"Human rights?" Don't make me laugh
Fart me a lawsuit

The Swift Justice of the Trash Can

The free speech crowd should like this result:

Canadian Press: A Saskatoon judge acquitted former aboriginal leader David Ahenakew Monday of wilfully promoting hatred against Jews.

The former head of the Assembly of First Nations was charged after a controversial speech and subsequent interview with a reporter more than six years ago. In the interview he called them a "disease" and appeared to justify the Holocaust.

Provincial court Judge Wilfred Tucker said the comments were disgusting but he didn't believe Ahenakew intended to promote hatred.

Fine by me, though this story's reporter is hedging: Ahenakew didn't "appear" to justify the Holocaust. He downright did, and in plain language, too. He said, "The Jews damn near owned all of Germany prior to the war. That's how Hitler came in. He was going to make damn sure that the Jews didn't take over Germany or Europe...That's why he fried six million of those guys, you know. Jews would have owned the God-damned world."

You know why I don't like hate speech laws? Because they send these clowns underground. I like to know what people are thinking, and the only way to know it is to hear them speak. Let them rant all the live long day. That lets me know who I should keep my eye on.

Actually, that last statement of mine is a little over the top. Do I know there's Holocaust denying bigots in Canada? Sure. Do I care? Not really. There's all kinds of goofballs walking around. Some hate Jews, some hate Christians, some hate Muslims, some wear tinfoil, some want to live on Andromeda 5 in the Doppleloopy Nebula.

I'm reminded of a story from PJ O'Rourke. He was visiting his old college campus and paid a visit to the student newspaper office. He was amused to see the editors going back and forth over whether or not to publish a piece written by a student denying the Holocaust.

Some of the editors were disturbed by the content and said it shouldn't run. It was racist and vile. Others said it had to be published because it was free speech and the student had a right to his opinion. The First Amendment was at stake. Earnest handwringing followed. They didn't know what to do with it. O'Rourke wondered why they just didn't throw it in the garbage because it was a "piece of shit."

The Death Of Freedom in Australia

Two things: 1) How long until this catches on with the governments of other supposedly "free" countries? 2) When is the last time you heard a politician proudly use the word blacklist?

From the Herald-Sun:

AUSTRALIA'S mandatory net filter is being primed to block 10,000 websites as part of a blacklist of unspecified "unwanted content".

Some 1300 websites have already been identified by the Australian Communications and Media Authority...

"The pilot will specifically test filtering against the ACMA blacklist of prohibited content, which is mostly child pornography, as well as filtering of other unwanted content," Senator Conroy told Parliament today.

"While the ACMA blacklist is currently around 1300 URLs, the pilot will test against this list - as well as filtering for a range of URLs to around 10,000 - so that the impacts on network performance of a larger blacklist can be examined."

Bronzino: Unwanted content?
Though an absolute disgrace, this tyrannical crime is hardly surprising. Anyone who thought China would corner the market on internet censorship was kidding themselves. When people can speak freely, governments get nervous.

"But no, Sean, it's about protecting people from child pornography." Uh-huh. You can buy that line of bull if you want to. Just tell me what the "other unwanted content" is going to be?

With this new rule, Australians have sold their souls as a free people. They should be ashamed of themselves.

(Psst. Hey Aussie guys. Quick. Screen-capture this criticism so you can read it in the future.)

The Slippery Slopes of Australia

Wonderful. Another government that knows what's best for its citizens when it comes to freedom of speech and expression.

From the Herald Sun:

AUSTRALIA will join China in implementing mandatory censoring of the internet under plans put forward by the Federal Government.

The revelations emerge as US tech giants Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, and a coalition of human rights and other groups unveiled a code of conduct aimed at safeguarding online freedom of speech and privacy.

The government has declared it will not let internet users opt out of the proposed national internet filter.

The plan was first created as a way to combat child pronography [sic] and adult content, but could be extended to include controversial websites on euthanasia or anorexia.

And after that, what else?

You Know What?

"And we have to tell them, you know what, if you're not going to allow us to do that, there will be consequences. You will be taken to the human rights commission, you will be taken to the press council, and you know what? If you manage to get rid of the human rights code provisions [on hate speech], we will then take you to the civil courts system. And you know what? Some judge out there might just think that perhaps it's time to have a tort of group defamation, and you might be liable for a few million dollars." YAHHH!!!

All right, so I made up the scream.

The rest of it is Khurrum Awan at a weekend conference, as quoted in the National Post. He's one of the guys that wants the government to tell Maclean's to run an article by an author of their choosing. When I read his speech above, I thought for sure he was doing a Howard "The Scream" Dean send-up. "You know what?...You know something?...We're not just going to New Hampshire...We're going to South Dakota, and Oregon, and Washington, and Michigan, and then we're going to Washington DC to take back the White House. YAHHH!!!"

If we have to get serious for minute, then it's worth remembering that Khurrum Awan is not one of the complainants against Maclean's. He's on TV and in the papers so much that it's easy to forget that fact (as the Post has). Mohamed Elmasry and Naiyer Habib are the official complainants, not Awan. The Post: "Awan is a recent graduate of Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto, and one of the main complainants against columnist Mark Steyn and Maclean's magazine...[Awan] and his co-plaintiffs are demanding the magazine give Islamist messages space equal to the amount it devoted to Mr. Steyn's work."

No he isn't, and no they aren't. Awan isn't a co-plaintiff of anything. He's just in the papers a lot. The Post has done a hell of job at keeping this issue in the news, but like everyone else they have to be careful and avoid the Kool-Aid. In their June 9th editorial, they referenced Awan as a complainant more than a few times, and didn't mention Elmasry or Habib even once. That's a Kool-Aid alert if ever I saw one.

Awan obviously had an agenda by inserting himself into this complaint, and I don't think it had much to do with "free speech." For him, the issue seems to be more about about punishment for Steyn and Maclean's, and a healthy dose of publicity for himself. Last year, he was just some guy. 6 months later and he's in the papers every other day, and making the rounds on the TV circuit. It'll be interesting to see if he can handle it, but to judge by the speech above, he hasn't yet hired a publicist.

As for the punishment deal, I can't see it as being much else. If, as he says, the human rights code gets ammended, that doesn't mean there's any hope of a civil court telling Maclean's to run an article written by anybody, and a group defamation suit (does that exist?) wouldn't get the presses rolling either. So what's the answer? "A few million dollars."

Funny. This all started with the complainants and their allies claiming they just wanted an open debate. They've received all kinds of press, including a TV showdown with Mark Steyn, but it hasn't been enough. So the quest for an "open debate" continues. If they fail at that altruistic goal, it will now be about boring old cash?

Whatever the case, this is the first time that I have heard someone from the complainants' camp mention the possibility of the human rights commissions being brought to heel.

You know what? That's interesting.

Journalism (Room) 101

Mark Steyn's been linking to some pro and con sites regarding the Human Rights Tribunal, and I check in now and then to see what's going on.

I was looking at this article by John Miller, who has a piece on a website called The Canadian Journalism Project. Steyn has him as a journalism professor. As boring and dry as that sounds, I decided to read his bit all the way through.

I've been calling for the mainstream press to get on board against this human rights business for a while. Instead, I get this:

Journalistic opinion is hailing Mark Steyn, of all people, as the new poster child for freedom of expression in Canada.

I beg to differ.

Miller has a problem with Mark Steyn, whose writing he declares both xenophobic and Islamophobic. Miller thinks the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal should take Steyn down a peg or two. This line of Miller's will give you a good first impression. His lectures must be a blast: "That is the law as it stands, and everyone must obey the law."

When I read that note from Squaresville, I sank a little lower into my chair and let my eyes glaze over. From then on, I was on auto-pilot, waiting for the buried lead (cool - I just used some hip journo-speak) to rear its head.

It comes at the end of Miller's essay. After he's done declaring Steyn's article a work of bigotry, Miller gets to the point:

Steyn and Maclean’s also appear to violate a great many of the principles and guidelines for reporting that the CAJ [Canadian Association of Journalists] adopted in 2002. They include (to name only the most obvious ones)...

Horrors! Xenophobia, Islamophobia, and violating the CAJ's principles.

Actually, I figured that's what Miller's problem was. It's not that Steyn's a bigot, it's that Steyn's not a real journalist. He doesn't toe the CAJ line. He shouldn't be playing with Miller's toys. Steyn didn't quote enough sources, or give enough references, or otherwise follow the rules of the CAJ (which is pretty funny, since the CAJ intervened on Maclean's behalf in BC and wants them off the hook, rules are meant for bending, so forth).

Still, let me play devil's advocate. Here's what Miller says, with my comments to follow.

It [Steyn's article] is contrary to the value of keeping the news comprehensive and proportional – specifically by “inflating events for sensation, neglecting others, stereotyping or being disproportionately negative.”

Sounds like how I describe strip clubs to my girlfriend. Still, let's say it's true, that Steyn waxed negative. So what? Where is this mighty book of values kept, and when did it become law? If Steyn is guilty of breaking some sort of ethics, then newspapers can refuse to print him, and Maclean's can stop running his stuff. This does not mean that a government agency has the right to tell Maclean's what to print afterwards (yes, John, Maclean's is the real issue here, no matter how much you want it to be about the xenophobic writer).

It violates the discipline of verification – specifically by not “seeking out multiple witnesses, disclosing as much as possible about sources, or asking various sides for comment.”

There's no way Miller can know any of that, unless he was sitting in the room when Steyn wrote the piece, or he broke into Steyn's pad and stole his notes. (Dear Journalism Professor: when you see the words "Newsweek stands by its story," it's because Newsweek knows more about the story than you do, but isn't disclosing the sources). But, again, let's say it's true. Big deal. If John Miller was an editor of a paper and one of his reporters wrote a fabricated story about neo-Nazis, I doubt he'd agree to a human rights commission forcing him to run an essay supportive of neo-Nazis. No, John Miller would use the old "Miller's Magazine regrets the error," run an op-ed berating itself, and that would be that.

And it runs contrary to a journalist’s first obligation to the truth – specifically by neglecting “the professional discipline of assembling and verifying facts.”

Um, sources please? Again, there's no way he can know any of that. He's making it up. He has no clue what sources Steyn and Maclean's looked at two years ago, and which ones they found credible or not. Earlier in his piece, Miller says that he spent a few minutes Googling Steyn's subject, and he found entirely different facts and arguments. No surprise. That's why there's dozens of books on the Kennedy assassination. Nobody agrees on anything. But does the good professor really believe that this means Maclean's should be found guilty of promoting hatred in British Columbia?

Other specific claims in the article are questionable. For example, Steyn states that high birthrates in Muslim countries “will give tiny Yemen a higher population than vast empty Russia” by mid-century. Yemen’s population in 2007 was 22 million, and Russia’s was 141 million. Barring some historic collapse of the Russian population, Yemen is not going to overtake it by 2050.

Note the key words. Questionable. Barring. Not exactly a damning assessment of Steyn's article. If something is questionable, then it is possible. I also like the "barring some historic collapse" bit. Okay, but what if the collapse happens? One, Yemen would be pretty crowded, and two, Miller's argument would cave in.

Indeed, one is tempted by this evidence to conclude that Steyn’s article was not journalism at all, but a “polemic” – which my dictionary defines as a selective attack.

Damn, a journalism prof that has to look up "polemic." I hope he paused for irony when he saw what it meant. Miller's whole article reads like a polemic - a very selective attack against the xenophobic, Islamophobic writings of Mark Steyn.

Let's be real. Miller kicks off his piece by calling Steyn's work xenophobic and Islamophobic, and uses exactly one source to back up the bigotry claims (a year-old book review; the rest is just his opinion). Tsk, tsk. He then Googles some of his own facts, cherry picks the good ones, and uses them to refute Steyn's piece. In essence, he did to Steyn what he says Steyn did to the world.

You know what? That's exactly what he should do. That's called arguing. Anyone can do it, and Miller just did. Asking the state to step in and shut Steyn up because he doesn't follow the rules of the BCHRT or the CAJ is chicken, and it's a crock.

What is it with the guys in the writing game that don't see the writing on the wall? It might be Steyn today, but later on it could be some CAJ member's career on the line. It wouldn't help the reporter to know that a journalism professor, John Miller, once told the human rights commission that a lack of references should be a factor in judging someone as a promoter of hate speech.

Keep Talking

I had an interesting chat with a buddy of mine tonight. We batted around the hockey playoffs for a while, I asked him how business was going, he asked me the same. Then he told me that he'd checked out my blog and he was curious about this "human rights stuff."

My friend stays up to date on things, so I asked him if he'd heard anything about the Mark Steyn/Maclean's deal. He told me he hadn't, but that he'd seen something in the Globe about the human rights issue sometime after reading my blog.

He said, "So give this stuff to me in a nutshell. Sounds like Communist Russia or something."

I found that interesting. My friend and I are fairly opposite on the political side of things. I lean more right, he leans more left. I was wondering how he was going to view the Canadian human rights issue. Then it occurred to me that this stuff isn't about right or left. For people that are immersed in the internet, the world is all right and left. For people like my friend, life is just life, and it becomes left or right on election day.

See, my buddy's just some guy. He doesn't scour the news for political conspiracies. Like most Canadians, before tonight he had no idea that there's a human rights commission in every province, or even what they're for. So when I told him about the stuff going on now, he was a bit incredulous.

I explained things further, and the further I went, the more he said, "Jesus. What?"

We talked about the bar owner in Burlington that got screwed for not letting a guy smoke dope on his porch, and we talked about the free speech stuff, and we talked about the dude in Vancouver that wants BDSM to be called a "sexual orientation," so much so that he's using it in a discrimination complaint against the cops.

The more we talked, the more my buddy didn't quite believe me. He said, "So...it's like civil suits or something? Like, they can award punitive damages."

And I said, "No, as far as I can tell, they award all kinds of damages, but they're careful not to call them 'punitive.' They're called 'remedies.'"

To which my friend replied, "Huh." Then he asked who Mark Steyn is and what all that was about. Again, he laughed and said he wanted it in a nutshell.

"Well," I said, "it's like this. Mark Steyn wrote a book and said the Muslim population is growing faster than the rest of the population, and by such-and-such a time, they'll be a big political force in whatever European country. Maybe Sharia law and whatever. He also quoted some imam guy that says Muslims will "breed like mosquitoes." Maclean's ran an excerpt of the book. So this guy filed a human rights complaint against him and Maclean's in Ontario, BC, and with the Feds. He wants the commissions to force Maclean's to print an essay written by a writer of their choosing, and they want it to be a cover story."

My buddy said, "What?"

But the 'what' wasn't for anything Steyn had written, but for the fact that someone was trying to tell Maclean's what to print.

And again, it hit me: my buddy's just some guy. He might be left, he might be right, but he's still Canadian, and these complaints struck him as incredibly un-Canadian. Before calling me, he probably thought he had nothing to fear by writing or saying any damn thing he wanted. Now I was telling him the opposite. That's a tough thing to hear when you're not ready for it. In a way, it's life changing.

I told him that I knew these commissions were a bad thing because last week I sat down to write something...and I paused.

That is the first time in my life as a Canadian citizen that I have ever thought twice about saying what's on my mind for fear of getting in trouble for it. First time ever. The words of the commissions were going through my head: "likely to expose someone to hatred or contempt."

Okay. So tell me what "likely" means. Or "contempt."

I think the blog was about gay marriage. I'm not against it, but I'm not for it. I think it needs time to sink in, and that it shouldn't be rushed. The reason I paused is I suddenly thought, "Could someone spin this as me "likely to expose someone to contempt?'"

Couldn't they do that to anything you or I write?

That's what I don't get about the weirdos that say, "But no one's been convicted of a speech complaint yet, not unless they're a neo-Nazi." That isn't the point. Fact is, the more you learn about these commissions, the more you learn how easy it is to drag someone through the mud for saying something, even if the complainant doesn't see it through to the end. The fear of accusation is enough to frighten and silence people. But then, I guess that's their whole point, too.

I told my buddy about this. I told him that I didn't want to write political blogs all the time, because I don't want to be seen as some political crank. That's why I mix it up, so my friends don't get bored. But once in a while, politics is fun to write about. Yet now I was nervous. Could I write about these commissions, or should I just ease off in case someone decided to screw me over?

My buddy's just some guy. He had one thing to say:

"Keep talking about it."

Debating Steyn

Last night, I watched Mark Steyn's debate with the Osgoode Hall law students, and it went about the way I thought it would go: Steyn quoted a lot of stats to back him up, the students quoted his writing which they say is Islamophobic, and once in a while Steve Paikin told them to quiet down and play nice.

On the facts, I think Steyn is correct: a government agency should not be telling a writer or a magazine what to write, or what not to write. If someone finds a piece of writing offensive, then they should write their own stuff. Prefer TV? There's You Tube. Radio? Blog Talk.

The students have it that Maclean's is playing unfairly because they won't publish an article by a writer of the students' choosing. But the students' rules are unfair in the extreme: the editors of Maclean's will not be allowed to edit the piece in any way beyond a spellcheck. What's more, if Maclean's does not run the piece, then the students vow to take them to the government's Human Right Commissions who will force the magazine to print it.

That stinks. Anyone who doesn't see that it stinks is a fool. Think about the precedent that would set: print this, or else the government will get involved, and they'll tell you to print it.

One thing that struck me about last night's debate was how naive the students are. When one of them said Maclean's has a huge readership, and Steyn told them that they have a website, the students scoffed. Their point is, Maclean's is a magazine and a website doesn't hold up, so Maclean's must publish the piece.

Well, that's not the way the publishing world works. I wish it did. I would like nothing better than to tell editors that they must run a piece of my writing. But those aren't the rules I was raised on. I was brought up to believe that you have to write something worthy of printing in order to find it in a magazine, and even then, you might not get between the covers.

Editors worry about newsworthiness, and the bottom line. Now and then they even care about the quality of writing. They also worry about their reputations. Maclean's might have a big readership now, but imagine that readership if people knew that Maclean's was a mouthpiece for special interest groups. An unedited opinion piece is not an article, it's an advertisement.

Another thing that struck me is that these students weren't true "students" from the old days. All right, they're law students, so that makes them automatically suspicious. But still, whatever happened to not ratting on anybody? "Print this or I'll tell teacher." Lame. Their legal bills would have been better spent on hiring a name writer, having them write a piece, and submitting it to Maclean's. The mag would have printed it, of that I am pretty sure: Mark Steyn (name writer) against so-and-so (name writer). Now it's gone too far. The students have painted Maclean's into a corner, and there's nothing the magazine can do but say no to anything with the students' fingerprints on it.

The students have elevated the maxim of human rights to its logical conclusion: all the world's a court, and those of us in it merely defendants. Give this man a job, or I'll tell the government. Give this lady wheelchair access, or I'll tell the government. Don't talk mean to minorities, or I'll tell the government. Be nice to women, or I'll tell the government. Print this article, or I'll tell the government.

We're teaching our kids to become sissies and tattle-tales. I don't know what kind of impact that's going to have later on in life, but it's got to have some ramifications. I don't think they'll be good ones.

I was looking at Mark Steyn's blog, and he had this to say in a post-game write up:

We didn't go for dinner, but we did have a relatively pleasant conversation after the broadcast that I thought was much more productive than the show. Khurrum was a bit chippy but the two ladies, Muneeza Sheikh and Naseem Mithoowani, are rather cute, even when they're damning me as a racist and hater. (Years ago, the BBC used to keep putting me up against humourless Marxist feminists only to find that on air I'd go all sweet on them and just make goo-goo eyes.) One confessed to finding me "mildly funny", which I took as a tremendous compliment until she remarked that she found "Little Mosque On The Prairie" funnier. Evidently by "mildly funny", she sets the bar down at world-champion limbo level. Heigh-ho.

That rings true. I once wrote that all of the people that say they "hate" George Bush don't really hate him. They hate his ideals, but they don't hate the man. Unfortunately, they can't draw that distinction. Over dinner, the people that hate Bush would have a pleasant enough time. I've had drinks with people that I previously despised, only to find that while I don't agree with them, I can still carry on a decent conversation with them across the bar.

I'll bet the students don't hate Steyn now after having met him. They disagree with him, but they don't hate him. I also think it very telling that after meeting someone whom they call Islamophobic, they hang around the set to have a chat. If you truly hated someone and thought they hated you because they're a bigot, would you chat them up and tell them they're mildly funny?

And that's why we don't need the government in our lives, telling us what to write and how behave. We can take care of ourselves, thank you very much.

I know it's hard work, but if you want to write, then write. If you want to meet people on TV and debate them, then work your ass off for a year and get on the program. Lately, I've been reading a lot of people saying that Steyn is a high school drop out and an ex-DJ. That sounds a lot like sour grapes to me. Since when was a high school diploma or any vocational background a prerequisite for writing? I don't know what people think writers do for money until they become full-time writers, but I can assure them it isn't writing. Writing doesn't pay jack until you get syndicated. Until then, being a DJ is as good a job as any.

I think the high-school-drop-out stuff is jealousy, pure and simple. You're not getting published, but Steyn is? Sorry, it means he's a better writer than you, and he's had some luck to go with it. Tough.

If the students had worked as hard on their writing as they have on these complaints, they'd be in print now. They claim that filing these complaints was the only way to get on TV. They said last night, "If we didn't complain, we wouldn't be on this show."

Really? Is this the only option you had, to open the Pandora's Box of government and let the suits fly? Or was this simply the easier, new Canadian way?

Tell us, but do it in writing.

Are You Part Of The Spike?

Boy, did I blow it.

I figured the OHRC would lay off the newspapers and let their press statement fade into memory. But no. Instead, they ramped up the rhetoric.

Quick re-cap: Maclean's ran a Mark Steyn book excerpt that somebody took as bigotry; they complained to various human right commissions, including the Ontario branch (you get to file a complaint in every provincial human rights commission, as well as the Federal one, a pretty good deal); the OHRC didn't hear the complaint, but called Maclean's Islamophobic anyway; in the same statement, they said the media had to be careful about what they printed; the media freaked; I said the OHRC would back off before they took too much heat from the press; instead, the OHRC's Barbara Hall decided to expand on her statement, a very strange move unless she wants a confrontation with the press; got it now?

The National Post interviewed Hall, and her statements are frightening indeed. The one that should scare you the most is this:

"I would say that for a province as large and as diverse as Ontario, to have 2,500 formal complaints a year, that that's a very low level," the activist lawyer [Hall] and former mayor of Toronto said. In the long term she would like to see human rights complaints decrease, but in the interim they "may have to spike."

Hmmm.

They may have to spike.

Right now you're saying, "Ah, cool it, Berry. The OHRC can't force the complaints to spike."

Oh? Perhaps you haven't heard of June 30, 2008. On that date, the OHRC will not have to wait for someone to complain to them about a human rights violation. Rather, they will be able to charge people with human rights violations themselves. Any writer, filmmaker, or artist will have to keep the OHRC in the back of their mind when they ply their craft, aware that the OHRC will have investigators prowling the magazines, art galleries, newspapers, and cyberspace.

And why wouldn't they be prowling? Their boss, after all, says that the numbers are too low and have to spike. It's simple, really: in order for everyone at the OHRC to keep their jobs, they have to find violations to process, day after day, year after year.

These are incredibly sad times in my homeland. Even an indignant smartass like me is going to feel the chill. "Should I write this? Can I say that? Why so many visits from someone in Toronto? Am I being...investigated?"

The morons that have defended these commissions simply don't get it: you've helped raise a monster. On June 30, it won't matter which side of the political spectrum you're on. Your piety be damned. All it takes is one unelected official to find your stuff troublesome, and they can turn your life upside down. They have quotas to fill. When they're done with your enemies, who do you think they'll turn to next? Way to go, buttheads.

Hey Jamil, do you hear me down there? My ex-pat Canadian friend, living in Australia? Did you think you'd see a day where a Canadian civil servant would be paid to bring people before a tribunal for something they'd written, even though they had committed no crime and offended no one except the civil servant?

The true north, strong and free.

Says who?

Truth Outing

I was wondering when the other shoe would drop on the You Tube rape scandal. A video sat on the internet for three months, showing a British woman being gang raped by a group of teens. She told police that she had been drugged, and that the rape took place in front of her two small children.

Someone finally got around to seeing the video and freaking out about it. You Tube removed the clip. In the fallout, there were the predictable demands that You Tube vet all of their videos before allowing them to be posted, and Google's lawyer ended up in front of the Commons defending the site.

The lawyer, Kent Walker, said that it was impossible to vet all of the videos posted. Not only was it a logistical nightmare, but it would go against the spirit of You Tube. He also said he could not disclose how many people You Tube had monitoring the thousands of videos that that pour onto the site every day.

Upon hearing this, an MP asked Walker if he knew how absurd he sounded. Another MP, Adam Price, declared that no person could view the rape material without knowing it for what it was.

To which I say, "Not so fast, bonehead."

I see all kinds of stuff on the net, and a lot of it is labeled "fake" by people that see it. Other people respond with, "No, man, it's real." And the next guy says, "No, totally fake." And another guy says, "It's real, look at the horns, it's a real Martian antelope, I swear."

That is the world of the internet, and it is great.

"But Sean," you say, "this is rape."

Oh? Shortly after the MP called Kent Walker absurd, the rape victim was exposed as a liar. It wasn't rape. All charges against the "rapists" have been dropped. The woman herself has now been charged with having sex with a minor and perverting the course of justice.

People that want the internet and You Tube monitored don't get it: You Tube, like all sites, is already monitored. It is monitored by the people that surf the site. Every time I log onto You Tube and watch a clip, I have the option of flagging the clip for any reason whatsoever. If a clip receives enough flags, someone at You Tube looks at it. If they find it out of bounds, they remove it. If I log onto a site that does not have a flagging option, and I think I see an actual crime committed, I can use the telephone.

Google's lawyer is absolutely correct in saying that vetting the videos would go against the spirit of the site. The site is called "You Tube," not, "You-After-Vetting Tube."

It all comes down to the same old garbage that do-gooders throw us every time: protecting people (usually children) from objectionable material.

Well, define "objectionable." Does that mean sex only, and if so, what kind of sex? Is kissing okay, but not anal porn? How about foul language? You Tube is loaded with clips of people saying all kinds of things. Is "damn" a bad word? How about "shit" or "piss"? If sex is taboo, how about religion and politics? And which kind of politics?

On You Tube, it is the people at large that decide whether a clip is objectionable or not, and it is this aspect of the internet that drives do-gooders and politicians crazy. They have no control over people's views, and it disturbs them greatly that someone might speak their mind without passing through their screening tests.

For the last time, keep your hands off my internet. It is the ultimate form of free speech, it belongs to all people, and it is the people that will decide its fate.

Do-gooders and politicians crack me up. Their lives are so terribly lame and inconsequential. Imagine them, lying awake at night, worrying that some crackpot somewhere is uploading something to the internet. Then they surf the net for hours, looking for the crackpot, hoping to find him and prosecute him for some imagined crime or other.

I don't need your protection. Turn off your internet, get laid for the first time in a decade, and piss off.