Or at least, one Rex Murphy of the CBC pushes back against the attempts by the perpetually offended to use the resources of the state to muffle inconvenient speech in the name of “human rights.”
At issue is the excerpt of professional bombast Mark Steyn’s new book “America Alone” in Maclean’s magazine. Mohammed Elmasry and the Canadian Islamic Congress have brought suit against Steyn and the magazine in the venue of not one, but three Human Rights Commissions – Canada, British Columbia and Ontario, two of whom have agreed to take up the case. Weighing in, essentially, on whether Steyn has the freedom to write what he wishes, and Maclean’s to publish what has been written.
Human Rights Commissions – the words sounds so snuggly, don’t they? Who could stand against human rights? Well, writing in the Ottawa Citizen, David Warren has some concerns:
For more than twenty years, in this column and elsewhere, I have been writing against the human rights commissions, which have quasi-legal powers that should be offensive to the citizens of any free country. They are kangaroo courts, in which the defendant’s right to due process is withdrawn. They reach judgments on the basis of no fixed law. Moreover, “the process is the punishment” in these star chambers — for simply by agreeing to hear a case, they tie up the defendant in bureaucracy and paperwork, and bleed him for the cost of lawyers, while the person who brings the complaint, however frivolous, stands to lose nothing.
You don’t have to agree with everything – or anything – that Steyn writes to realized that we’re wandering down a dark path when quasi-governmental agencies get to choose what kind of speech is permissible. Steyn may well be comprehensively wrong, but the remedy to that is found in rebuttal, not suppression.
The title of Steyn’s excerpt? “The Future Belongs to Islam.”
It’d be more than ironic if a “human rights commission” helped bring that grim prediction closer to reality through a surfeit of well-intended sensitivity.
What is curious about this to me is they don’t even have to define what right has been infringed. That seems to be happening more often these days. We constantly hear that strident shout, “my rights have been violated!” You glance around and can’t seem to find which right it is that’s gone missing. Maybe it’s a new human right:
“The right to be free from criticism.”
I suppose it’s enshrined somewhere, I’m just not sure where.
I too would like to know what right, under the Human Rights legislation, they are alleging was violated. I quickly perused the federal Act and can’t see where it fits. And admitting that I didn’t yet read the MacLean’s article (hilarious comment about the magazine being a hotbed of discontent by the way, so true), I have trouble seeing this complaint as ever being found valid at the end of the day.
But I will take issue with some of Mr. Warren’s comments re: kangaroo courts, the defendant’s right to due process being withdrawn and reaching judgments on the basis of no fixed law. That’s just wrong. There are no violations of natural justice allowed, meaning that the defendant certainly has his “due process’ rights. They do indeed have to rely on ‘fixed law’ and are subject to review by the courts in both regards.
If any of his points has any validity, it would be the one about a defendant being tied up in bureaucracy and paperwork, and bled for the cost of lawyers while the person who brings the complaint, however frivolous, rides for free. Wht he fails to mention there, of course, is that a complainant can’t just sic the bureaucracy of the HR commission on anyone he chooses; the Commission has to first find some legitimacy to the case before it will proceed.
So I guess now I will have to find this issue of MacLeans and see what it’s all about.
And, now that you have said all of that Michelle, I wish you to take up this case of Mark Steyn and his “right” to publish a book against those that deem his writings “illegal” in a Canadian court.
I would be very intersested in your support of Mark Steyn’s “right” to express his views in public in your country.
LOL
Don’t know how much good I could do him, Babs. After all, I don’t practice law. Or perhaps you were talking about something else?
No, I was under the impression that you were a lawyer… I guess I misunderstood.
In any event, it is a dark time that anyone needs to defend their writing to any type of “court” in the northern hemisphere…
Where are we going with this?
I am.
I call myself the lawyer that isn’t. In other words, I don’t practice.
But there’s some writing that deserves to be challenged, IMO, northern hemisphere or otherwise. For example, anything that incites violence against another group.
Well, “fighting words” aren’t protected speech in the US either, but nothing that Steyn wrote in Maclean’s rises to that standard.
No, still haven’t read it but wasn’t meaning to suggest that the MacLeans’ article was. I was just responding to Bab’s comment that it is a dark time that anyone needs to defend their writing to any type of “court” in the northern hemisphere… just saying that I didn’t agree with the blanket statement.
Hsaving read Steyn’s entire book I wonder at the fact that any part of it is up for judicial review in Canada. I maintain that it is a dark day for free expression when Mark Steyn has to represent himself in a court of law in Canada…
Lends a whole new meaning to the words, “British disease”.
I would also like to add Michelle, that you have conveniently “not read” any of the issues that we are trying to discuss. Funny how that works; you are able to keep up your ideological bias by not investigating the issue that we are discussing…
After all, I don’t practice law.
I was just responding to Bab’s comment that it is a dark time that anyone needs to defend their writing to any type of “court” in the northern hemisphere… (Canada)
I too would like to know what right, under the Human Rights legislation, they are alleging was violated. I quickly perused the federal Act and can’t see where it fits.
Well then Michelle, I ask you to take this up and report back to your United States friends on what grounds the Canadian gov’t has dragged Mark Steyn into court and what others have been dragged in as well as him… Have Muslims also been asked to answer for their ideological positions in Canada? If not, why not? Why just Mark Steyn and his recent book?
The National Post chimes in with a comment on this as well.
http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/story.html?id=175234
One quote is worth looking at. Tne opinion of this court, in a case regarding a letter in a newspaper claiming homosexuals are destined for fire, brimstone, yadda yadda yadda resulted in the following legal verdict: “the publication’s exposure of homosexuals to hatred and contempt trumps the freedom of speech afforded in the Charter.”
Now I’m not a lawyer but this looks like a pretty slippery slope we’re dealing with. I don’t discriminate on the basis of race, gender, etc… when making hiring decisions but I discriminate against the brussel sprouts and for the steak whenever I eat. Do the brussel sprout growers have standing to prosecute because I hold them in contempt? Can they hold the newspaper that published my tirade against brussel sprouts responsible? How about my ISP if I post anti-brussel-sprout information?
We in the USA hold no moral high ground here — the McCain-Feingold act, upheld by the Supreme Court, defines political speech so broadly that spending my own money to voice my opinion for or against a candidate by name is punishable if I do so on the wrong day.
Unintended consequences, and it won’t get better until lawyers and politicians grow a spine and actually adhere to some principles. The ones in our founding documents would be a pretty good start, and that goes for both of our countries.
— Max
I read Stein’s exerpt, there is nothing slanderous in it but there is quite a bit of opinion that Muslims might not appreciate. On the other hand, if you’re a Western Christian you’ll probably be uncorking a bottle of Chablis and tossing the cork — won’t need that again — and drinking a toast to the demise of your civilization.
Stein lays it out in simple numbers — they have more. How that infringes upon somebody’s civil rights has apparently been taken up by the Canadian courts, using Canadian tax dollars to prosecute.
Were I a Canadian taxpayer I’d be a bit miffed, then I remember I’m an American taxpayer and the sweat of my brow just funded a bike trail in Minnesota. Where you can only ride a bicycle three months out of the year (and I ought to know, being about 15 miles from their western border), and a major bridge collapse recently points out bicycle trails might not be the most pressing concern when it comes to transportation infrastructure.
Yeah, not much high ground to occupy here when it comes to courts, government, or taxes. But at least I can still call somebody a poopy-head with carefree abandon and no consequences whatsoever.
Ummm… Unless they’re a politician up for re-election and mentioned by name within 90 days of the election date…
There is a story that Ghandi, when asked what he thought of Western Civilization, replied that he thought it would be a good idea. After writing this, I’m temped to ask if we still have one?
– Max
Michelle, writing that incites violence doesn’t need to be challenged in court, it needs to be challenged in the public discourse and the marketplace of ideas. Writings that encourage a call to arms and a race to war are not inherently wrong. In fact, often they are correct. Writings that encourage abuse of innocents might be handled in a court but are best countered by exposing their flaws to the public.
Winston Churchill was a writer as much as he was a politician. Read his works. Some things are worth fighting for, going to war for, before you find yourself conquered and unable to fight. Then read the works of, say, the Unibomber.
If we legislate against both authors expressing their opinions, we’re goose-stepping around and writing with our R’s backwards as the end result.
If, on the other hand, we allow the expression of ideas to be unfettered and let the marketplace decide, I think we’ll find Churchill to be vindicated in his opinon and the Unibomber to be a crank unable to gain a following.
It’s a marketplace of ideas. Like any market, those with utter crap to sell find few buyers, no matter how alarmed we might be that they find a few and feel we have to do something about it.
– Max
Babs, I can keep my ‘ideological basis’ without having yet read the article by responding to the abstract issues brought up by Warren, his general human rights tribunals bashing. Because what he stated was wrong. And yeah, I ‘m just crazy enough to think I know of what I speak because I continue to work and research in the legal field. Although I didn’t realize that correcting misinformation on the process of human rights tribunals was an ‘ideological basis’, but whatever.
Anyway, once I do get a chance to read the MacLean’s excerpt [I was working yesterday and wanted to take the time to actually read the article and not just skim it], I can get back to you. Although I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for me to tell you on what basis the HR Commissions made their decisions. I already gave you my first impression and none of the commentary I’ve read has set out which portion of the legislation they think has been violated. I can tell you right now that to the best of my knowledge no Muslims have been asked to answer for their ideological positions in either Canada or the US. Am I wrong on that last part?
My guess as to why not would be two-fold: First, I’m not sure what they have actually published in either country which would convince a court or tribunal to take the issue on. And we (westerners) appear much less strident in protecting our rights against Muslims then they are against us. Which, personally, I think is wrong. But it seems to be the way it is, doesn’t it? Although I also think that they intentionally evoke the legal process over the stupidest things … like that incident when a few were asked to leave a plane last year. I would like to think that we have more sense in that regard than some of them do, but I won’t say that for fear of tilting at windmills.
Just to clarify that last, when I said they bring legal action over the stupidest things, I meant ‘stupid’ from a legal point of view. But I don’t for one moment think that what they are doing is stupid; for the most part I believe it’s well-thought-out intentional action looking for a calculated result on their part.
Michelle,
I certainly agree with your last few thoughts…
Having read Mark Steyn’s book and the magazine exerpt, I am terribly troubled by the trend I see developing to silence people and publications that dare to discuss the situation the west now finds itself in. This is not an isolated event. Hell, you can’t even draw an off color cartoon without inciting a riot anymore if said cartoon is directed at a certain agrieved religion. It is happening in the EU at a rapidly accelerating pace and needs to be stopped. Human Rights Tribunals… indeed!
Not to redirect traffic but Cathy at http://www.fivefeetoffury.com/ has a good writeup on the entire matter.
Islamofascists will use the courts or quasi-court system to run whomever they want into the ground with frivolous suits. Until ‘loser pays’ is instituted you will continue to see the abuse of courts everywhere in this manner.
Great quote in another article by Stein. Sorry, can’t make the link work but its http://www.macleans.ca/columnists/article.jsp?id=7&content=20080103_113631_1360
It was linked in post Gmac linked.
“Two years ago, Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, musing on Islamic radicalism in her own country, said that people need occasionally to “show their opposition to Islam… It is a challenge we have to take seriously. We have let this issue float about for too long because we are tolerant and very lazy. And when we are tolerant, we must know whether it is because of convenience or conviction”
We are indeed tolerant and lazy. I think that’s the perfect answer to Bab’s question of why Muslims haven’t bee challenged in the same way.
And yes, I’m still going to get to that MacLean’s article.