Thoughts on Gun Control in The US

The Political Tidal Wave Recedes

I didn't have much to say after the mass murder of children and teachers in Connecticut on December 14, 2012. I knew that it would only take about an hour before the horror faded into memory, to be replaced by political axe grinding for gun control in the US. I didn't feel like getting involved in that. It seemed distasteful, especially at Christmas. But I knew the political tidal wave would arrive within hours after the massacre.

On this, social media didn't disappoint: within minutes, my Facebook and Twitter feeds were alive with cries for more gun control in the US.

I wasn't too bothered by this. This is the way political tidal waves work. I knew the cries would become grumbles, then whispers, and finally they would recede as if nothing had happened. Carnage in the households of those directly affected, but beyond that, nothing. At least, until the next massacre in the United States.

Those last two words are key: United States. When something happens in the US, it makes headlines around the world, and everyone comments on how US citizens should live their lives. When a massacre happens in Norway, there aren't too many calls to question laws in that country, even when the guy knocks off 77 people and draws 21 years (yes, yes, they can keep him longer if they deem him a threat to society - but should that possibility even exist?). Similarly, when a man walks into the cafeteria at one of the biggest malls in Canada and opens fire, the proponents of Canada's laws are silent on the fact that Canada's gun laws obviously failed.

When it happens anywhere else in the world, it's about the victims and flowers on the sidewalk. When it happens in the United States, it's about the politics. Either way, the pain for the families of the victims goes on forever, but for the rest of us, whatever "pain" we feel fades after a matter of days.

There's nothing wrong with this. It's not cynicism, it's human nature. I've written before that caring is about proximity, both in time and place. Terrorist in Iraq? No worry. Terrorist in my city? Worry a little. Terrorist in my living room? Worry a lot.

So it is with time. The further back, the less and less we care about it, until it might as well not have happened at all. So long as it didn't happen directly to us, we lose our ability to care about things pretty quickly, no matter how big or important they seemed at the time. It has to be this way, otherwise we'd be basketcases.

When I'm in a smartass mood, I sometimes ask people how things are going in Myanmar lately. Or Fukushima. Or Haiti. I usually get some quizzical looks, but these places were a really big deal not too long ago. I couldn't escape them on Facebook. People were asking me for money, or posting how they were going to fly somewhere and help. With regards to Myanmar, there were people saying an invasion might be advisable, while some women's libbers were going to send their bras and underwear there to embarrass the regime.

That was 4 years ago. It was a major news story, and a lot of people really cared about it. I wonder how many people remember that it started as a response to a hurricane? In any case, all the hurricane did was uncover what a godawful mess Myanmar is all the time. Myanmar is still a mess, but we've since moved on to the BP oil spill, nuclear reactors in Japan, the Occupy movement, presidential candidates talking about Sesame Street, gun control in the USA. That Myanmar hurricane might as well have happened in 1920.

Which is when the worst massacre in a US school took place. May 18, 1920. It happened in Bath Township, Michigan. A man named Andrew Kehoe set off bombs at his house and farm, and then at a local school. After rescuers arrived at the school to tend to the wounded, Kehoe arrived and set off a truck bomb at the site, killing himself and a few more people. 38 children and 6 adults lost their lives. It was discovered that before the destruction, Kehoe had also killed his wife.

It must have seemed like hell on Earth in that little Michigan town. If it happened today, the wall-to-wall press coverage about the demise of American society and culture would be suffocating, and it would be hard to disagree. Yet it was almost 100 years ago. In our mind's eye, we tend to see those olden days in sepia tint, and can easily imagine a man doffing his cap as a lady walks past. Men used to do that. They also used to gas people at Treblinka.

The killings in Bath Township show us that evil is old, but the killings in Connecticut remind us that evil never dies.

100 years ago, of course, there were no video games, and not too many violent movies. The motive for Kehoe's crime appears to be foreclosure on his house, as well as a loss in a town election. Maybe he was under pressure, felt slighted, and snapped. Maybe he was just evil or nuts. Whatever it was, he formed a hideous plan in his head and he brought it to fruition, without any help from computers, video games, or the latest bogeyman, the National Rifle Association.

Point is, there's really no way to defend against any of these people, and nothing is going to stop killings like this from happening again, though it may make people feel better to talk about it.

Gun laws or not, a nut will find a way to do what he wants to do. I'm of the reasoning that the US has a large population, and sooner or later one of those people is going to go off the rails. Would it be better if the person didn't have easy access to a gun? Sure. But people don't have easy access to guns in Canada or Norway, and people still get shot. A few days ago, two people were shot at a nightclub about a mile from my front door. How'd the shooter get the gun in a place you "can't get guns?" Beats me. But he got it, and he used it.

Looking in One Direction

Again, the hew and cry isn't about the guns. It's about the United States. If it was about the guns and - more generally - criminal violence, then people would be audibly outraged by what is going on in Brazil and Mexico. They are the bad boys of rock 'n roll when it comes to murder. Especially Brazil.

Though the US has more guns per person than anywhere else, the US murder rate hovers around 5 per 100,000, or a little less than the worldwide average of 6.9. Mexico and Brazil sit around 22 and 21 respectively. Average-wise, though, they are as nothing when it comes to Honduras. Though the body count in Honduras is much lower than in Mexico and Brazil, the average is a whopping 91 people murdered per 100,000 population.

Last year, the US saw over 12,000 people die in intentional homicides of all kinds. Chump change. According to the UN, between 1979 and 2003, half a million Brazilians were killed by firearms alone, or roughly 20,000 people per year. This average doesn't do the butcher's bill justice, as 2004 saw 36,000 Brazilians shot and killed. It hasn't gotten better since.

Simply put, Brazil and Mexico are very violent places. You have a much better chance of being killed by intentional homicide in Brazil and Mexico than you do in the US. But when it comes to protesting violence, no one ever mentions those countries in my social media feeds. Ever.

Cop in Brasilandia. Photo: CNN.

No surprise. People are busy. Why dig, when things are served up for you? People see America on their TVs, computers, and tablets every day whether they want to or not. Ask anyone on Earth what they think of the US and they will have an answer of some kind. Ask those same people what they think of Brazil and they may mention soccer or beaches. Leastways, they might know that Brazil has the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics on the horizon. They probably don't know that someone is shot in Brazil every few minutes, that the country has a growing crack epidemic, and that drug gangs execute police officers on a regular basis.

America has a great megaphone but a lousy publicist.

Why "Gun Control" in the US Won't Happen

I hazard to guess that when people say "gun control," they don't mean they want gun regulations tightened. They want guns to cease to exist. I don't think I know anyone who says "gun control" and actually means something like, "Yes, US citizens should own guns, but no assault rifles, no semi-automatic pistols, a limit of ten shotgun shells per person, and a 2 month waiting period before taking a weapon home."

No, when I hear people say, "The US needs gun control," I know what they mean is, "US citizens shouldn't have guns."

This is why I'm not one way or the other on "gun control." It's not an argument worth having, because nothing is going to substantively change gun ownership policy in the United States. You might as well tell me that you think the sky should be purple. I will agree with you to save time, but I know it's a load, so I don't bother getting into it.

The gun issue has been argued before the Supreme Court for decades, and the gun side keeps winning. Some people may detest the 2nd Amendment, but there it sits. To ban guns outright and take them away from US citizens can't be done without amending the constitution, and that simply is not going to happen. Besides, even if you could ban them, it's a practical impossibility that you'll ever round them all up. There are millions of guns in American households. No chance.

I yield to no one in the volume of my giggles when President Obama calls himself a constitutional scholar, or when he swears to be a defender of that document, but even he knows this argument's already over. If I had to guess, I'd say he'll let this issue drift off to nowhere over the next month or two. But if he actually did try to get something through Congress, it will probably be some kind of high capacity magazine limit, or a stricter background check on gun buyers. A bone to throw to the anti-gun crowd to say he tried.

Contrary to what I'm reading and hearing everywhere, NRA members are not the only people who own guns or want the right to own them. Every story needs a villain, but right now NRA membership is around 4.5 million people. That's not a small number, but it's not exactly a quarter of the country, either. The city of Philadelphia has more people than that. So there are a lot of people out there who aren't carrying NRA membership cards, but they are carrying guns - and they vote Democrat.

Obama knows it. This Gallup poll taken after the Connecticut shootings shows that a little more than half of Americans would like to see some stricter rules on the sale of firearms, but when it comes to an outright ban on assault weapons and especially handguns, you can forget it. Even after 24/7 coverage of Newtown children being killed by firearms, 75% of the country rejects the notion a handgun ban and, as the Gallup pollster states, Americans' views on the sale of assault rifles are unchanged. The slight majority, 51%, remain opposed to making it illegal to manufacture, sell, or possess semi-automatic guns known as assault rifles.

Piers Morgan may make fun of NRA spokespeople and tell them that they're "incredibly stupid," but Morgan is 1) a Brit, and 2) working in a professional bubble surrounded by people who think like he does. In short, when it comes to America, he just doesn't get it (co-hosting America's Got Talent probably didn't help, either). If he thinks the NRA is the problem, he's way off. The problem - if you believe it is one - is that a lot of Americans view the right to bear arms as an important part of their daily lives.

I remember the first time I saw a gun up close and personal while I was staying in LA. I'd held and fired weapons before, but never seen one in a civilian setting. I opened the trunk of a friend's car, pulled out a bag, and saw a pistol on the floor. I told her later, "Hey, I saw a gun sitting in your car." She replied, "Yeah, my dad got me that." Her tone would have been no different if I had told her I had seen a pair of scissors.

Many Americans, of all political stripes, are used to guns. They've seen them, handled them, fired them. They don't like massacres, but they don't like the idea of someone taking their gun rights away, either.

As for the president, after some tough talk early on, he has slowly begun distancing himself from "gun control." Here is what he had to say two days after the massacre, in a moving and poignant speech:

We can't tolerate this anymore...These tragedies must end, and to end them, we must change. We will be told that the causes of such violence are complex, and it is true. No single law, no set of laws can eliminate evil from the world or prevent every senseless act of violence in our society. But that can't be an excuse for inaction. Surely we can do better than this.

Fourteen days later (and perhaps not coincidentally 3 days after that Gallup poll came out), in an interview with David Gregory, the president was asked what his single biggest priority would be for his second term. The president was generous, and stated four big priorities. In order, they were: 1) Immigration. 2) Stabilize the economy. 3) Energy policy. 4) Make sure taxes don't go up on middle class families.

David Gregory noticed something was missing and quickly cued the president with this: "Those are four huge things and you didn't mention after Newtown, although I know you're thinking about it, new gun regulations."

Heh.

David Gregory and several other people working in network news might be thinking about new gun regulations, but apparently it slipped the president's mind. So the president gave David a few minutes of boilerplate - task forces, we'll see what public opinion looks like, I don't want to see mass murder happen again - and then they moved on to foreign policy.

Here's the rub, and it's a rough one for people who don't like the idea of American civilians owning guns: the majority of US citizens want the right to own a firearm. That simple. The Colorado and Connecticut massacres of 2012 didn't change that. It may have seemed like they did on your social media feeds and in conversations over dinner, but that was a brief snapshot in time with people who mainly agree with you, anyway. Fact is, a person can lament what happened in Connecticut and still want to own a firearm. That may seem like a paradox to an outsider, but to many Americans, it's not something they lose sleep over.

A friend of mine remarked to me about the 2nd Amendment and how it should be scrapped. I said, "It's the rules. They're allowed to own guns."

He said, "But the rules are 200 years old."

"I know," I said. "But it's the rules there."

They won't change anytime soon.

Harper

Well, maybe someone with a fancy title was reading the Twitter reports of women being gunned down in the streets of Tehran.

Foreign Oil

The US House of Representatives, determined to obliterate the American economy, passed their whacko "green bill" by a close vote yesterday. Time and again I heard the words, "To keep us from being held hostage by foreign oil."

Neverminding most of the junk in the bill, and all of the lunacy that comes from trying to scale back an economy during a recession, the one thing that bugs me is the "foreign oil" bit. McCain and Obama both harped about it during their campaigns, and many politicians have used the, "Importing oil from people that don't like us very much" excuse, or as one guy said yesterday, "People that fly airplanes into our buildings."

For the record: Canada is the number one provider of US crude and petroleum imports. Nobody else even comes close. Though the numbers fluctuate for imports from other countries, Canada always tops the list. Mexico generally comes in second, with Saudi Arabia around second or third. Last year, the US imported 2.532 million barrels of petroleum per day from Canada. That's more than double Mexico and Venezuela combined, and roughly 1 million more barrels per day than Saudi Arabia. That's a lot of petroleum. And a lot of money for Canada.

So I'm guessing that by "people that don't like us very much," the American politicos mean Canadians. Which, if you read a Toronto Star op-ed, is understandable. But it's time to give it a rest on the Middle-East-Oil-Bogeyman.

It's also time for Canadians to give it a rest on the Obama Love. Every time you turn around, the guy's trying mess up the Canadian economy. Buy American came first, now it's "Wind over foreign oil."

Canada is the foreign oil.

The Proud City

There's a commercial making the rounds about the 29th Annual Pride Week. At the end of the commercial, an actor (posing as 'some everyday guy,' but they're always actors) bleeds euphoria and says, "Look how far we've come. Look how far this city has come."

Indeed. 29 years ago, Toronto was an epicenter of racism and bigotry, chock full of knuckledragging Klan members. You couldn't move without running into a bigot or being assaulted by a neo-Nazi. 29 years later, the city has parades. Look how far we've come.

In other news: About 24,000 unionized city workers walked off the job this morning, setting the stage for garbage pile-ups, closed daycare centres, cancelled summer programs and even the postponement of weddings.

I guess the city union guys ain't so proud of how far the city has come.

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 Curious Case of George

Galloway, that is.

Canadian immigration officials turned British MP George Galloway away at the door and told him to go home. They accused him of being a supporter of Hamas, which Canada declares a terrorist organization.

Naturally enough, the Canadian blogosphere has turned it into a free speech issue. I guess I'll play ball.

1) Constitutional free speech is meant for citizens, not guests, and it doesn't apply to anybody at the border. The border's a no man's land. The next time you try to cross either way across the US/Canadian border, tell the customs official that he wears ladies underwear [I originally posted that as "tell him his mother wears ladies underwear." Long day, and I got caught between a "mom insult joke" and a "dude insult joke." But it would be an interesting thing to say just to see a man's reaction], his president/PM is a total idiot, and that you wish everyone in his homeland would just die already. See how far you get before he a) puts you through a body cavity search, b) rips your car down to the chassis, and c) hands you a wrench and tells you to put it back together yourself before driving home.

2) Do I think Galloway should have been admitted to the country? I guess so, unless the story's true that he's raised money for Hamas and that his intent was to raise more money by speaking in Toronto. The Canadian government would be idiots to declare Hamas a terrorist organization, yet allow someone to throw a fundraiser for them in Canada's biggest city.

3) No one's mentioned this point yet, and there's no way to prove it, but maybe this is Canada stating, "You started it." Only last month, the UK didn't allow a Dutch MP to enter Britain. The MP, Geert Wilders, was invited by a member of the House of Lords. No dice. When he arrived in the UK, they kept him on ice for hours before kicking him out, saying they were afraid of protests from the Muslim community. In effect, Britain announced that all bets were off. It was now perfectly legitimate for a Western government to bar a visiting MP from entering their country.

The Commonwealth Games does not include the Netherlands, but pretty soon it might not include the UK. There's a political shift going on and the UK is slowly being marginalized as a power to be taken seriously or perhaps any power at all. As for it being the "mother" of Canada and the Commonwealth, a message has been sent: sorry mom, we're moving on with our lives.

Sentence

Vis-a-vis that post I wrote about the Mounties and the guy who killed a man aboard a Greyhound bus. News today:

The family of a man who was beheaded on a Greyhound bus says his killer is "getting away with murder," but the judge who found him not criminally responsible for the "barbaric" slaying says the law doesn't unnecessarily punish the mentally ill...

"Mr. Li will get help," said his lawyer, Alan Libman. "The Canadian public can be assured that the review board will take into consideration the protection of the public. Mr. Li advised me after court that he's going to work with his treatment team because it's his desire to get better."

Li will be placed in an institution. He will be up for review each year to decide if he's well enough to be released into society.

And that's that. For now.

Mounties in the News Again

The Mounties made the news a couple of times last week. Once because of an inquiry into a Taser death. Another time because the Mounties didn't send out a search-and-rescue team until days after being told of an SOS signal in the snows of British Columbia. One woman was later found dead.

These stories reminded me of a piece I wrote last summer. It was my reaction to the RCMP's handling of the Manitoba killer who murdered someone on a Greyhound bus. I think my comments still hold water:

For Everyone's Safety, August 3, 2008

Can someone tell me exactly what the RCMP are for?

I don't mean the guys in their pretty red jackets. We know what they're for: parades, handing out sports trophies, and posing for pictures.

I'm talking about the guys that show up brandishing weapons and acting like the best thing to hit law enforcement since Walker Texas Ranger. They're loud, they're proud. They carry big guns and wear black SWAT outfits that make the ladies swoon and macho men cream in their pants. They are...drum roll...the Mounties. Protectors of the innocent and smiters of evil.

What hogwash.

Last week, a 22-year-old man was sitting on a Greyhound bus travelling through Manitoba. He was apparently minding his own business when his seatmate stood up and stabbed him to death. According to witnesses, the murderer was very calm. No rage, no screaming lunacy. He stabbed the victim anywhere from 40 to fifty times. One witness described the murderer as "robotic."

The bus driver pulled over to the side of the highway, and he and the other passengers exited the vehicle. Witnesses tell us that the murderer stayed aboard the bus, cut off the man's head, and held it aloft for all to see. The witnesses know this, because three of them went back aboard the bus to check on the victim. That is when they saw the murderer cutting up the young man. At that point, the murderer ran towards them, knife in hand. The witnesses, bus driver included, ran back off the bus and slammed the door shut, locking the murderer inside.

They kept a vigil at the door, making sure the killer couldn't get out. It was then that the killer showed them the man's severed head and dropped it to the floor in front of them. Yet they kept their vigil, not running off to the nearest farmhouse and hiding behind the barn.

The cops eventually showed up and a standoff ensued. You know the type: brave cops surround a vehicle or building, and wait for the killer to do whatever it is he's going to do, until he gets tired and quits. All the while, a "crisis negotiator" is there, talking to the man in soothing tones, promising he won't come to any harm.

Cops, you see, don't like confronting people carrying weapons. It's safer outside. Safer, they tell us, for "everyone involved, including the suspect." Sure. We honestly believe you when you say you're worried about the suspect's safety.

Only in the surreal world of today's police will you find a crisis negotiator attempting to negotiate with a man that has just decapitated someone.

Oh, but the story from Manitoba gets worse. During the several hour standoff, the murderer kept himself busy. Here's an RCMP transmission, recorded and posted on YouTube: "Badger is armed with a knife and a pair of scissors and he is defiling the body at the front of the bus as we speak."

"Badger" was the codeword for the murderer. Macho types always come up with such great nicknames, don't they? Makes them feel like they're doing something cool.

Another transmission: "Okay, Badger's at the back of the bus, hacking off pieces and eating it."

After the standoff, the RCMP immediately told the press that the transmissions needed to be removed from the internet because they were not for "public consumption." Setting aside the unfortunate choice of words in that statement, it's no surprise the Mounties didn't want this stuff on the airwaves. The Mounties wouldn't want people to know that these brave men in uniform had ringside seats for the evening's cannibalism show, and did absolutely nothing to bring it to an end except sit on their macho asses and play sportscaster (neverminding the fact that, as Canadians, no one on that bus thought to do anything about the guy while he was stabbing the victim 50 times; we'll save that argument for another day).

The scene eventually ended the way it usually does: on the murderer's terms. He tried to jump from a window and the police arrested him. But not before the bastard had done such awful things to the victim that his parents will be having nightmares for the rest of their lives, and the chances of an open casket funeral are remote.

Speaking of the parents, the RCMP weren't done with their latest laughfest. Too busy playing CSI Miami, the cops forgot to tell the victim's family about the whole thing. The victim's father didn't find out about his son's demise for 24 hours, and it wasn't anyone official that broke the news. Rather, it was a news reporter at his front door, seeking a reaction piece.

Those brave Mounties. Last year, a man from Europe was sitting in the Vancouver airport, waiting in the baggage room. He couldn't speak English, had never been on an airplane, and couldn't understand why his mother wasn't coming to pick him up. He was a big, simple, innocent guy. He sat there for almost a complete day, and nobody helped him. Finally he wigged out and started throwing things around in frustration. The RCMP showed up, Tasered him, sat on his back with his face to the floor, and within twenty seconds the man was dead. No negotiator for him. Just high voltage, and brave cops pinning him to the ground.

Or how about this one: earlier this year, the Mounties showed up in the hospital room of a man suffering from pneumonia. He was lying in bed. The man was delirious, and he had a knife in his hand. Time to call the negotiator? Nah. They zapped the man with the good ol' Taser. The man, by the way, was 82 years old. In their defence, a Mountie spokesman said, "Whether the person is 80 or 20, we are dealing with a person who had a deadly weapon in their hand." Like, say, a man in a bus carving someone into little pieces?

Yeah, they're brave all right. Some guy without a weapon goes into airport rage, or an old timer goes nutty in bed, and the Mounties have no problem - what's the phrase? - "taking them down." But a murderer with a knife carves up a mother's son for hours on end, and they do nothing except give a play-by-play on their cute walkie-talkies. Guess they forgot to charge their Tasers back at the office.

The lack of bravery among cops in nothing new, nor is it only lacking in Canada. In the US, when a gun nut goes whacko, it's usually a gunpacking witness that solves the problem, or the murderer just gets bored of the whole thing and shoots himself in the head. The police, you see, are outside "securing the area" for "everyone's safety."

Keep up the mantra, guys, I'm sure it will help you sleep better at night. Too bad the victims won't be.

Ontario's Open Season On Small Business Owners

Mark Steyn has a good piece about the human rights commissions' impact on small business owners. He sounds mad as hell, and I don't blame him. He mentions Gator Ted's, an Ontario bar that's been put through hoops for the past few years for not letting a man smoke medicinal marijuana on their property.

I heard that the case was settled last year. The Gator Ted's story, however, is still not over. Far from it. If you want to hear the definition of a rock and hard place, here it is:

Hamilton Spectator: Gibson complained to the Ontario Human Rights Commission in 2005 he's been discriminated against because he is disabled after Kindos asked him not to smoke marijuana outside the restaurant's front door. Patrons complained about the smell, Kindos said.

Kindos was ready to settle with Gibson, pay him $2,000 for mental anguish, arrange sensitivity training for staff and post a sign saying the establishment accommodated medicinal smokers. But he changed his mind after the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario warned that use of a controlled substance in areas the restaurant controls, including parking, put his liquor licence in jeopardy.

So Kindos decided to fight rather than settle, despite the fact the upcoming hearing could cost as much as $60,000. As Kindos sees it, he either fights or Gator Ted's Tap & Grill loses its licence and closes.

When's the hearing? June 8, 2009. When did this all begin? 2005.

So there you have it. If Gator Ted's owner appeases one government institution (the OHRC), he gets nailed by another one (the gaming commission). He is literally damned if he does and damned if he doesn't.

This stuff has always made me angry, but now it's starting to scare me. And that sucks. I suppose it's the feeling these government institutions want me to have and I have to fight it.

We're being told that the economy's going to hell in a handbasket, and that small business owners are oh-so-important, yet two government institutions seem quite content to have a small business owner crushed between them. Who's next? This can't be the Canada I grew up in. But it is.

I don't know who to call on to stop this madness. Maybe it has to start at the grassroots. No-namers that can take an issue and run with it, making it an issue that can put them on the front page.

Here's MPP Joyce Savoline from Burlington, showing more sense and guts than any of the bigshot politicians. This appeared in the smalltime Burlington Post yesterday:

There is something morally reprehensible and very disturbing about a government that allows its citizens to pay the price for its inconsistent policies.

I encourage you to write to Minister Ted McMeekin — who has suggested that he will not let Ted Kindos flounder — and tell him what you think.

He can be reached at tmcmeekin.mpp@ liberal.ola.org.

Take her up on the offer.

Steyn Wars: Good Luck - Updated

I stopped by Mark Steyn's site for my weekly roll through the Canadian political BS. I'm amazed he's still interested in the Canadian human rights stuff. Maybe it's his therapy to get away from US politics and demography rants.

Steyn linked to a paper that had a note from Cheri DiNovo. She's an Ontario MPP and was one of the people tossing questions at him last week. Here's her statement to Eye Weekly: "You see I am absolutely in favour of right-wing bigots having freedom of speech. Their opponents deserve the same rights."

No mention of left-wing bigots. They don't exist. There's only right-wing bigots and the people protecting us from their evil ways.

I decided to look up her webpage and found a blog. On it, there's a transcript from a speech she gave on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.

I think it's fair to say that Ms. DiNovo has a fairly heavy political agenda, and a massive axe to grind against anyone and anything that isn't far left. Here's the first part of the speech. Sorry it goes on for a bit, but I want you to see the logic at work here:

The statistics are awe-inspiring. They’re horrendous. They’re absolutely an assault on the senses. These are the statistics: 51% of our population are abused or assaulted; one in every two women in Ontario experiences abuse or assault. What does that mean? That means, for those viewing at home and watching this discussion, when they look at their daughters, if they have two daughters, that one of those little girls is going to be abused or assaulted in her lifetime. That means that, if you look at your mother and your grandmother, one of those women is going to be abused or assaulted in her lifetime. That means, as you look around this assembly, that 50% of the members of provincial Parliament who are women have been abused or assaulted at some point in their lifetime. So the question is, are we doing enough? The answer is always, absolutely not.How are we failing women in this province? That is the question before us, because we are failing women in this province. How are we failing them? Let me list the ways. First and foremost, there isn’t any daycare. Only one in 10 families can find daycare. Now you ask, how does that contribute to violence against women? Well, it’s very simple: If a woman can’t find adequate daycare, she can’t escape an abusive relationship. If she can’t find an adequate place to stay-transition housing, a shelter; and there are not enough beds in shelters and there’s not enough transition housing for women escaping abuse-then she can’t escape abuse. Then this province condemns her to that abuse.

We can look at the Congo, we can look at Darfur, we can look at the horrors of the world; here, it’s more guerrilla warfare; here it’s one man against one woman in the quiet of their own home where no one else can see it, away from prying eyes...

It goes on in the same vein for the rest of the speech, wrapping up with a statement about how there's nothing to celebrate in Ontario because "51% of the population [I'm guessing she means the population of women] will be abused or assaulted."

I could never be in politics. How do you keep your mouth shut while someone declares that half of the households in Ontario are as bad as Darfur?

Besides, do those numbers sound right? I'm up late and don't feel like looking them up, but those numbers seem pretty steep. If your mother isn't beaten, your grandma surely was? Can she be right that half of the women in the province have been abused? Damn. I just opened the door, didn't I? "It depends what you mean by abuse. Lack of daycare is abuse. Unequal pay is abuse. Sexist language is abuse..." I can hear it already.

I've got a funny feeling that no matter what Steyn said at that hearing, he wasn't going to change this politician's mind about anything. As for his sweating about the logic of the "fire in a crowded theatre" stuff, he needn't bother. It's pretty plain that logic has nothing to do with it.

If DiNovo is an example of the politicians that the free speech crowd will have to go through to get the human rights commission brought to heel, I wish them luck. They're gonna need it.

Update: I had a cup of coffee and called Statistics Canada this morning. For a closer look at the numbers, go here.

Flagging Sales Make Strange Bedfellows

Here's a bit from the Ontario Human Rights Commission. It's under the title "Submission to the Canadian Human Rights Commission."

The report is either a) a way to show solidarity to the folks living in the mother ship; b) a signal fire to fellow human rights commissions that it's time to circle the wagons; c) a sign that the Ontario Human Rights Commission will never be able to pass its own legislation and therefore needs the CHRC to get its act in gear and have legislation passed all across Canada, thereby letting the OHRC off the leash. Call it Trickle Down Tyranny.

But tyranny over whom? Read on. My comments follow.

The OHRC agrees with the Report’s recommendation that: Non-state actors including the media also have responsibility to address issues of hate expression, and should do so either voluntarily through provincial press councils, or through statutory creation of a national press council with compulsory membership and powers to determine breach of professional standards and order publication of press council decisions.

The OHRC would particularly support a national press council given that, increasingly, media services publish online editions. This would help bring about more consistency across all jurisdictions in Canada.

At the same time, the OHRC recognizes the media must have full freedom and control over what they publish. Ensuring mechanisms are in place to provide opportunity for public scrutiny and the receipt of complaints, particularly from vulnerable groups is important, but it must not cross the line into censorship.

This is hardly a surprise. Two years ago, I had no idea that Canada had a human rights commission in Ottawa, plus separate human rights commissions in every province. No clue. Two years later and they're all over the papers, and not in a good way.

Bloggers and - to a much smaller extent - the press have been hammering the human rights commissions over the past six months. They've upturned the rock and exposed the commissions for what they are: bureaucracies that rule outside and above the law, imposing fines, holding hearings, and punishing people for the crime of being "offensive."

Their tribunal hearings have no set rules of discovery or evidence. Anyone accused of being a bigot does not have the right to face his accuser, nor is the accused presumed innocent. He or she must prove that they're not a meanie. The latest most egregious example of their outside-the-law rule came from Saskatchewan, where it was decided that a restaurant owner should have made it clear that he was not a bigot before throwing a man out of his restaurant. The price tag for the accused? $7000. The crime? He offended the accuser's "dignity."

Bloggers and - again, to a much smaller degree - the media have kept the heat on since the Maclean's fiasco in British Columbia. It is no wonder then that the OHRC and others want to shut them down.

Let's take a closer look:

The OHRC agrees with the Report’s recommendation that: Non-state actors including the media also have responsibility to address issues of hate expression, and should do so either voluntarily through provincial press councils, or through statutory creation of a national press council with compulsory membership and powers to determine breach of professional standards and order publication of press council decisions.

Believe it or not, that's one sentence. Tough to break into, and it literally rolls over you, wave after wave. It seems harmless and friendly enough, until you realize that if it had been written in bullet points, it would be a frightening look into the minds of people that want to do serious harm to your country.

a) "Non-state actors including the media..." All right, so what is a "non-state actor?" That would be you. The lowly citizen. It should hit you again that people who work for the "state" no longer see themselves as "citizens." You are a non-state actor. They are the state. Separate. In charge. (It may be handy to remember that not one person in any human rights commission in the country is an elected official).

b) "...have the responsibility to address issues of hate expression..." This is a tough one because we don't know who they're talking about. If "non-state actors" includes the media, then who are the other non-state actors? Your plumber? The guy handing out fliers on the street corner? Your mom? If they're saying that the media has a responsibility to address issues of hate expression, the answer is simple: "No they do not." They have a responsibility to sell newspapers and beer commercials. Period. If the OHRC is saying that your mom has the responsibility to address issues of hate expression, get ready for some long Thanksgiving dinners.

c) "...should do so either voluntarily through provincial press councils, or through statutory creation of a national press council with compulsory membership..." Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hang on a minute. Did I just hear a provincial body tell a Federal body that it was time to write a new national law? Funny. And here I thought it was elected Federal representatives that did that. Not so. And notice the trick: the provincial press councils would be voluntary, but if that doesn't fly, a national one would be compulsory. Now, why wouldn't they say that the national one should be voluntary too? That is a huge leap: voluntary at the provincial level, but compulsory at the Federal level.

d) "...powers to determine breach of professional standards and order publication of press council decisions." Go fly a kite. Where's the 'professional standards' handbook, and who's going to write it?

e) "The OHRC would particularly support a national press council given that, increasingly, media services publish online editions. This would help bring about more consistency across all jurisdictions in Canada." Bingo. See (c) above. So much for all of that "voluntary" hogwash. They were just kidding around. What they particularly support is national, compulsory media oversight. And, because they're on the low end of the totem pole, they need to call for help from their big brothers at the national level to make it happen. (Two random thoughts: one is the envy they seem to have for their CHRC brethren; the other is that leftists always think about the collective).

The last paragraph in their release is a beauty. You can't make this stuff up. Here comes the doublethink, right to the side of your head: "At the same time, the OHRC recognizes the media must have full freedom and control over what they publish. Ensuring mechanisms are in place to provide opportunity for public scrutiny and the receipt of complaints, particularly from vulnerable groups is important, but it must not cross the line into censorship."

This is hilarious. But not amusing. In order: a new law should be written to force publications - including those online - to join a press council that will oversee their content, using standards written by...somebody, and if the content is deemed irresponsible or unprofessional, then the publication will have to publish the findings of the council saying their own publication is a joke, but don't worry because the media still has full freedom and control over what they publish.

Huh?

But I'm not concerned. I can't believe the big boys in the media would ever go along with this. Sure, it might help shut down bloggers and other non-professionals, but the big boys would never agree to it on moral grounds. All right, and yes, it would silence the small publications that rely on edgy stuff to draw an audience, but no, the big boys wouldn't want censorship in Canada because there's room for everybody. And yeah, okay, the handful of big papers in Canada are hurting for cash, but surely they would never want to sit on a press council just to kill the competition. Never happen.

Yesterday I was watching the radio show (that still sounds funny) on Sportsnet and Mark Spector was a guest. According to the lower-third, Spector's their lead columnist. Fancy. He was telling a story about how a blogger released a rumour about so-and-so, and it took Spector and other reporters 3 whole hours to chase it down and find out it was false. The three-hour deal really bothered him. He repeated it a few times and said it was a huge waste of his time. At one point co-host Nick Kypreos said, "Easy." Spector said, "This is why reporters hate bloggers." He went on to say that blogging should be outlawed and all bloggers should be banned. The hosts laughed, Spector didn't, and they moved on with the show.

I'm sure he wasn't serious.

Steyn Wars: Bloggers Bummed By Moon

With the US economic drama taking up all of the headlines, I was remiss in looking at the Canadian news for a while. Lo and behold, the human rights deal has boiled over again with the latest episode of Steyn Wars.

Yesterday, Mark Steyn showed up at an Ontario legislature meeting looking into the behavior of government agencies. Sounds nice, but let's be real: who cops the cops?

Anyway, Steyn made an appearance and said that human rights commissions should be abolished because they trample upon a free people's ultimate freedom: speech.

All fine, and to be honest, nothing new. While I think it's a good thing to have someone like Steyn keeping the pressure on (and let's face it, he doesn't have to; the human rights gurus must be wondering when he'll take his bestselling book money and disappear), it will be a cold day in hell before the government dissolves an entire branch of itself. If the government can be likened to a human body, then asking it to dissolve the human rights bureaucracies at the Federal level and in each province would be like asking a man to cut off all of his fingers and toes. Ain't gonna happen.

Still, yesterday did provide one piece of comedy: Dr. Richard Moon slammed the free speech crowd, to the chagrin of anyone who used his November report as ammunition for saying that the commissions must go. The National Post:

Richard Moon, the University of Windsor law professor who last fall became a darling of right-wing free speech advocates when he recommended scrapping the federal human rights hate-speech law, on Monday lashed out at his admirers.

He accused them of launching a "smear campaign" against human rights commissions and "baseless personal attacks" against their staff.

"I urge the committee not to be taken in by these individuals. They don't care about the truth. They make stuff up," he said in a submission to an Ontario government committee reviewing the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario.

Ah, the old liar-liar-pants-on-fire approach. How I miss it. Grammar school was such fun.

I hate to say it (well, no I don't), but...I told you so. Here's me, back in November, after reading Moon's report:

Moon's peace treaty isn't bad. If he had stopped typing after saying that Section 13 should be scrapped, I would have been on board. But the second he remembered who he is (and who he's working for) I got off the train. Telling papers what to print, and who to write stories about, is how we got into this mess in the first place.

See, here's the thing. Did you really expect Dr. Moon to enjoy the atta-boys from the free speech crowd? After submitting his report, he must have thought that was that. Imagine his horror when bloggers - bloggers! - began using his name to prove their cause was just. The man's a university law professor. He must have taken fifteen hot showers to wash the heebie-jeebies from his skin after hearing that people with emoticons for signatures were quoting him in the footnotes.

More from the Post:

In an interview, Prof. Moon said he was initially "perplexed" by his invitation, given that his expertise is not with Ontario's Human Rights Code, nor the Tribunal that adjudicates complaints.

"Why invite me? It didn't make any sense," Prof. Moon said. He initially declined, but accepted after hearing Mr. Steyn, author of a controversial book excerpt that led to three human rights hate speech complaints against Maclean's magazine, would also appear.

He said he also felt obliged to publicly rebut the claims of personal malfeasance by CHRC staff, of which he found no evidence in his own research, and which are often repeated by commentators who cite him admiringly as an authority.

The invitation "made me realize that there is serious interest, and maybe this smear campaign against the commissions generally has taken hold to some extent. Why else invite me?"

If the Post's story is accurate, then this is a scream. A scream. Let's take it one by one: The man admits having no expertise on the Ontario Human Rights Code, yet shows up when a celebrity declares he is going to attend, then admits that he felt obliged to refute a smear campaign against people that hired him last year, though the article quotes him as saying, "I'm hoping to return to obscurity." Uh-huh. Just as he was until Steyn walked on stage.

Even better, the Post has it that Moon only realized "there is serious interest" in Canada's human rights commissions after being invited to Ontario, though last year he was asked to write a report about the CHRC and was paid for his services. That would have sounded like pretty serious interest to me. Honestly, did the man think the CHRC wanted him to investigate their raison d'être merely for the hell of it?

So now I get what all the hoo-haw is about. Note to Mark Steyn and his blogger friends: the only reason people are taking this seriously now is because your smear campaign has taken hold "to some extent." Way to go, jerks.

There's a punchline to all of this. Dr. Moon showed up to clear the CHRC's good name, yet only the National Post quotes him as saying anything. In fact, the other major papers don't even let you know he was in the vicinity. For the Ottawa Citizen, it's "Moon who?" For the Toronto Sun, it's "What Moon, where?" Even the Toronto Star hasn't seen the Moon since it don't know when.

Who does let you know that Moon was around town and then quotes him so he can have his say? The bloggers.

Funny.

More From Canadian Human Rights Commissions

This time in Saskatoon. Absolutely shameful. Read it and call Saskatoon's MPs, your MP, and the PM's office. Do something. Blogs and strong language around the water cooler do nothing. Right now every politician in Canada is worried about their jobs. Get on the horn and let them know you can hit where it hurts: votes.

I'm sick of seeing news reports in the US where no one can get through to their representatives because too many other people are already on the line. In Canada, we just frown and head for the closest Tim Horton's. It's time to steal the American playbook and jam some phone lines.

We're told that a recession is killing us and that business owners are hurting, but we're prepared to let a business owner lose $7000 for this (boldface mine):

A Saskatchewan Human Rights tribunal has ordered a Saskatoon restaurant owner to pay $7,000 to a man who claimed he was kicked out of the restaurant because he's aboriginal.

The complainant, Leslie Tataquason, admitted no racial epithets were used during the brief exchange with Northwoods Inn and Suites owner John Pontes more than two years ago. In an interview Sunday, Pontes said he would have kicked Tataquason out "if he was blond-haired and blue-eyed" and it had nothing to do with race.

Tataquason was kicked out because he was visiting his wife while she was working as a waitress there, all sides agreed. Pontes said Tataquason was distracting her while she worked, and Tataquason said he wasn't.

No racial epithets were used, and all sides agreed the guy was hanging around his wife's work. Turns out he was there over an hour. The boss understandably tells the hubby to take a hike, and now he's out 7 grand. Why?

Tataquason said he was "deeply hurt" by the remarks. It caused him to "trigger" memories of residential schools he has tried to bury since childhood. Tataquason testified that he "spiraled into depression," leaving him unable to work. The remark is also responsible for his return to drug use, his marriage breakup, his homelessness and his committing petty crimes, Tataquason testified.

According to the ruling, the onus was on Pontes to prove he did not discriminate by denying service to someone in a restaurant.

Pontes was found to have inflicted an injury to Tataquason's dignity and was ordered to pay $7,000. The maximum for such an offence is $10,000.

Just another day in Canada.

Update: It gets better. More from CanWest:

Leslie Tataquason of Saskatoon was forced to leave the restaurant of the Howard Johnson Inn "at least in part" because of his race, Gingell said in her closing statement...

Restaurant owner John Pontes asked Tataquason to leave in a way that one could "infer" was stereotypical, Gingell said.

She said Pontes did not make any overtly racist remarks, but it was Pontes' responsibility to clarify that he wasn't being discriminatory.

Note to bouncers, ushers, police, bartenders, stadium staff, and business owners everywhere: when telling someone to leave an establishment, gather witnesses, break out the camcorder, and announce in a clear voice that you aren't being a bigot.

How Do You Like Me Now?

Ahead of his trip to Canada, Barack Obama has some news for Canadian steel workers: the shop is closing.

From the CBC:

There is unsettling news for Canada in U.S. President Barack Obama's economic stimulus bill, or at least in the version approved Wednesday night by the House of Representatives.

It says that steel used in public projects under the $819-billion US plan must be made in the United States, an idea likely to cause trade disputes and block sales by Canadian mills.

The piece goes on to say that Canada and the EU are getting leery of the "buy American" portion of the bill, which could lead to a trade war, sending prices up and costing jobs.

Specifics are a funny thing. Nobody wanted to rain on the Hope and Change parade because it all sounded so good.

Hope and Change are words. They're fantasy. They don't cost a nickle. Now, ten days after the man became president, maybe the reality is starting to sink in. Honestly, did you ever stop to ask yourself what the junior senator really meant by change, or did you just take it for granted that it meant, "Nicer than George W. Bush?"

Home Sweet Home

I thought my ex-pat friends would find this video clip interesting. Welcome back to Toronto.

A few thoughts on the video clip below. 1) As Mark Steyn points out, how can he be dragged in front of Canadian "human rights commissions" for writing about European demographics, while people that shout anti-Semitic garbage ("You are the product of pigs!") receive police protection in downtown Toronto? 2) I have the same winter hat as the violent thug at the end of the clip, who says that Hitler didn't do a good enough job. It isn't the hat's fault, but somehow I don't feel like wearing it again.

If these protests are evidence of what happens when there's strife in the Middle East, I wonder what it will look like if the gloves come off at home? Then again, Canada doesn't seem to be "home" to anyone these days. More and more, it looks like a waiting room for political and cultural gangsters. Their bodies may be here, but it's obvious their thoughts and beliefs lie somewhere else.

To talk about this stuff raises the old spectre of being called a racist, but this has nothing to do with race. It's about religion and old school heritage. And if I may be so bold, Canadians should not be slugging each other because of either.

The thug's final action in the clip reminds me of a line from 1984. It comes in the chapter where O'Brien tells a helpless Winston that the object of power is power. Simply power:

"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stomping on a human face - forever."

Heeere's Iggy!

You gotta love these Liberal party guys.

Failed election? Failed coalition? Failed leader? New temporary leader? Polls say Canada isn't in the mood for a coalition? Economy's the most important thing? We need a stable government, where everyone works together?

To hell with that. Charge!

Michael Ignatieff began his tenure as Liberal leader with a blunt challenge to Stephen Harper: change your divisive, ruthlessly partisan ways or we'll bring you down.

Just an hour after being named interim party leader Wednesday, Ignatieff declared he's prepared to topple the minority Conservatives and try to form a coalition government if he's not satisfied with the coming federal budget.

Incidentally, what is it with this guy's name? I'm not making fun of his handle, but I've noticed a subtle shift in the last couple of months. When I first heard of him a few years back, people were pronouncing his named like it's spelled: IG-NAH-TEEF. Lately it's being pronounced IG-NATCH-EFF.

I guess they polled it and found it more hip. Or something.

Here They Come...

By "they," I mean the usual Canadian bureaucrats that lie awake at night worrying about a citizenry that might think and speak for itself.

From the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission website:

The Commission hereby initiates a public proceeding to consider the issues addressed in this notice pertaining to Canadian broadcasting in new media.

As part of the public proceeding, the Commission will hold an oral public hearing commencing on 17 February 2009 at 9:00 a.m. at the Conference Centre, Phase IV, 140 Promenade du Portage, Gatineau, Quebec.

The first time I sent an email was a pretty seminal moment in my life. I remember thinking, "There goes the post office." I thought it was incredible that someone on the other side of the globe (my first email was sent to a person in Israel) was going to read what I had written only a few seconds before.

Then "websites" came around. Cool. Now I could get my news without laying down a dollar or leaving my house. Then "blogs" showed up. The word "blog" sounded lame and stupid until I started reading them and, eventually, writing one of my own.

YouTube showed up, and suddenly we could see friends that we hadn't laid eyes on in years. This was especially handy for me because most of my friends were scattered all over the Earth. It was great hearing their voices again, seeing their laugh, taking a look at the living room over their shoulder, seeing them chug a beer at an all-nighter. They were people again, not just words on a screen.

I always knew the day would come when the government would get involved in all of this. I think the internet caught them by surprise. Like me, they saw the advent of email as something convenient and harmless. 9/11 hadn't happened yet, so email was more or less a pen pal deal amongst friends.

Then came blogs, and people did something weird: they started to talk to strangers. They gave themselves funny names, put up funny pictures, and began to talk about anything and everything. No longer was the internet about inviting friends to a party or bugging your employee while he was on vacation. Now people were booting up and saying "this government sucks," or "let's write a petition," or "they should change that law, it's crazy."

Newspapers reporters hated it. Who were these amateurs butting in on their business?

Trouble was, blogs started to become real news sources. It was The Drudge Report that broke the Lewinsky story, and Drudge has never looked back. According to one media guy, the Drudge Report is on the homepage of most newspaper editors in the country. If Drudge runs a story, you are almost certain to see it on CNN that evening.

Bloggers can thank Drudge for making them something worth reading. Sure, some blogs are lame, and others downright nutty, but there are several that have become the primary source for people to get their news.

Magazines and newspapers finally capitulated by offering their own blog sections on their websites. Some of them suck, but others are pretty good: when Maclean's and Steyn were put through the ringer by the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal, Andrew Coyne "live blogged" from the BCHRT's room on his Blackberry. Thanks to him and his Maclean's blog, I read the hearing in real time. In fact, the reason the Canadian Human Rights Commission might lose its grip on power is because of bloggers. Big Media didn't pick up the story until way late in the game. It was bloggers that applied the pressure.

When video hit the web world, bureaucrats must have become very nervous. Now people weren't just writing, they were talking. All the time. About anything. To anybody. The public.

Contrary to their election-year propaganda, almost no politician or bureaucrat feels that they work for you. No bureaucrat or government employee sees themselves as a "public servant." They see their job as one of control. When a bureaucrat tells you that you filled in the wrong form, go to the back of the line, pay an extra surcharge, sign here, now get out of my office, NEXT!, they don't feel they're your servant. They believe they're your master. And they're correct, more or less.

The internet changed this. Ten years ago, you had to belong to a special club or blow 4 years in college to get your face on TV. Now anyone can do it, and you don't need a bureaucrat's permission (that's what a broadcasting license means, by the way: permission to speak to people). Even better, you don't have to pay for it. YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, none of them charge any fees and - the important factor - you don't get taxed for doing it.

So here comes the CRTC. Letting the people broadcast their own views and opinions, without being regulated by a government watchdog? It just won't do. It took the CRTC longer than I thought it would, but they've decided to have a look at this crazy thing called "new media." After having a look at it, do you honestly think they'll walk away and do nothing? Not a chance. This is their opportunity to make money, increase their power, and grow their bureaucracy.

The questions they wish to consider during their meeting in February:

I. Defining broadcasting in new media
II. The significance of broadcasting in new media and its impact on the Canadian broadcasting system
III. Are incentives or regulatory measures necessary or desirable for the creation and promotion of Canadian broadcasting content in new media?
IV. Are there issues concerning access to broadcasting content in new media?
V. Other broadcasting or public policy objectives
VI. The appropriateness of the new media exemption orders

Number 5 is the biggee. It's a bureaucrat's catch-all. "Other." Meaning: "Anything."

Freedom of speech is winning a battle against the Canadian Human Rights Commission in Canada. Next up: the CRTC.

These people work for us. They are not our bosses, we are theirs. But only if we can say so.

What A Difference a Week Makes

Fantasizes of being PM one week, steps down the week after.

Smooth move on that coalition deal, buddy:

"There is a sense in the party, and certainly in the caucus, that given these new circumstances the new leader needs to be in place before the House resumes," Dion said in press release Monday.

"I agree ... So I have decided to step aside as leader of the Liberal party effective as soon as my successor is duly chosen."

Photo: AFP

The Big Flop

I don't know what it's going to take for these clowns to realize that talk of "force" isn't doing the trick.

The NDP/Liberal/Bloc coalition utterly failed in its attempt to gain power. They learned a painful lesson of politics: real power means something. Wanna-be power doesn't. (By the way, please don't bother me with Canadian political propaganda; only in Canada-speak can a Bloc party "support" a coalition, sign papers saying so, and then not be considered part of the coalition).

Harper proved himself to be the real power in Ottawa by taking the big PM stick, walking into the Governor-General's office and saying, "Suspend it."

She did. No letter required, no need for handshakes and backroom deals. He already had what he needed: the biggest bully pulpit in the country.

Immediately after the announcement that Parliament was closed for the season, the phony coalition of losers went before the cameras and said that Harper still had to go. When asked if anything could change their minds, Stephane Dion said it would take "monumental changes" in Harper's budget plans for Harper to keep his job. When a French reporter said, "What do you mean by monumental changes, no one knows what that means?" Dion could only repeat, "Monumental changes." In other words, even if Harper does whatever Dion wants, it won't be good enough.

Sigh. Dude, you're the one who should be monumentally worried about his job. Your party lost an election 7 weeks ago, and your most recent power play just flopped. When are you going to understand that to voters, transparent power grabs are ugly? Duceppe, the Bloc leader, said this was now about Stephen Harper, and that he should be booted out of office no matter what concessions he made to the "coalition." Harper, you see, called the Bloc "separatists," which is highly insulting even though it's exactly what the Bloc are. Well. So much for doing this coalition deal for the good of all Canadians. Now it's a personal vendetta by three party bosses against the PM. They actually said so. As if we didn't know it before.

The day after the announcement, polls show that the Conservative party would win an outright majority if an election were held today. I don't place too much faith in polls, but I know that politicos love them. This line should freak out the phony coalition:

A Strategic Counsel poll in Friday's Globe and Mail newspaper put the Conservatives ahead of the Liberals 45 to 24 percent, with the New Democrats trailing at 14 percent.

This compares with the October 14 electoral result of 37.6 percent for the Conservatives, 26.2 percent for the Liberals and 18.2 percent for the New Democrats.

Yet numbers like these still can't convince some people that threats and extortion aren't the way to go. From the CP: The [Canadian Auto Workers] union leader says there's a "battle to wage" and that he's "damned pissed off."

"The only way that we can force this government to change direction is to build a coalition."

What does the man mean by "change direction?" Why, money, of course. He wants a "stimulus package," which is a fancy way for saying "Gimme." How's he going to get it? By force.

Nobody learned anything out of this mess except the Canadian people. They now know that the Liberal and NDP parties do not have a platform outside of their desire for power and their hatred for Stephen Harper. Oh, and their contempt for the ballot box.