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Monday, February 09, 2009

Intellectual freedom in Canada: Roundup of Fire. Them. All. News

Hellzapoppin.

Commentator Mark "one-man global content provider" Steyn is testifying today at the province of Ontario's legislature (Queen's Park), Room 155 on the Ontario "human rights" commission (= the commission for trampling civil liberties in the name of social engineering, using "human rights" as a cover) .

Last year, Ontario's commission dropped its charges against Steyn for his famous Maclean's article, but issued a media release implying that he really was guilty - which gives you some idea how much it resembles a real court. As Kathy "I'm with the banned" Shaidle says, "Can't find room 151? Just follow the buzzing sound: Steyn tends to be surrounded by a flock of ardent admirers."

According to Gloria Galloway at the Globe and Mail,
The controversial section of the Canadian Human Rights Act governing hate speech comes under scrutiny today when federal politicians decide whether to debate the limits it places on freedom of expression.

Brian Storseth, a Conservative MP, has asked the Commons justice committee to review Section 13 of the act, which contains provisions that deal with hate messages. Mr. Storseth also wants the committee to review the mandate of the commission itself.
It shows you just how much things have spun out of control when they are debating whether the mandate of a rogue organization should be reviewed. Here's the debate live.

This lavishly tax-funded junket abroad - while othrs struggle to save their home after losing their jobs - won't help the social engineering cause. Nor will the fact that almost the entire Conservative Party convention voted to strike down infamous Section 13.

However, I really hope Section 13 does not become a partisan issue. It didn't start out as one. It was Liberal MP Keith Martin who first sounded the alarm. This is, as I told Liberal Party leader Michael Ignatieff (see below) a constitutional issue. Section 13 makes civil rights meaningless in Canada, and that is why it must go.

In other news, civil rights lawyer Ezra Levant tells how the University of Calgary is attempting to charge pro-life students enrolled there with trespassing. It sent letters to their homes that look like legal documents but really aren't. He writes,
It’s an abuse of process.

It’s an abuse of the police.

And that’s why the university did it.

That letter isn’t a real legal letter. It’s written very carefully, very skillfully, with one goal in mind: to intimidate the young students (see picture, above) who wanted to have their pro-life display.

Imagine being a teenaged girl, and receiving a knock on your door. You probably still live at home; your parents are shocked when it’s the police asking for you. It’s a summons.

You’ve probably not dealt with the police ever before – except for maybe a speeding ticket. And now they’ve come to your home, to charge you with trespass.

It’s shock treatment – designed to cause the girls to give up, in fear and shame.

It’s not a real lawsuit. It’s a bogus charge. Shame on the police and prosecutors for going along with it. Shame on the university for scheming up such a plan.

The University of Calgary should pay massively for this abomination of everything liberal.

They should lose endowments. They should lose grants. They should lose donations from thousands of alumni.

Not just from pro-life alumni – though it should lose all of those. But from anyone who believes that a university is a place where different ideas can duke it out, and the best wins.
But universities have not thought that for some time, actually. They are head over ears for social engineering and groupthink now. Only now are they actually being called on it. This particular episode is the administration's part of an organized campaign against pro life students that is backed vigorously by student councils, on whom education is apparently wasted. JoJo Ruba, a pro life activist, offers a YouTube of the student herd in action.

The real challenge, in my view, is that so many people have become inured to social engineering, and feel that they are being helpful to the government when acting as censors. Consider, for example, the case in England of a nurse who was suspended for offering to pray for a patient. But here's the interesting part:
"The woman mentioned it to the sister who did her dressing the following day. She said that she wasn't offended but was concerned that someone else might be.
Did you hear that? She wasn't offended but someone else might be ...

Well, ... why doesn't this woman think that "someone else" is free to say so then? Because, quite honestly, she sees nothing wrong with doing people's thinking for them. And she certainly won't mind the government doing all the thinking for everybody.

Now for a bit of comic relief: Just as preachers who rant long and often about loose women tend to get caught in hotel rooms with hookers, a key supporter of human rights commissions was recently caught slurring Chinese Canadian restaurants (= they cook and serve stray cats). The episode went viral in the Chinese media, but Liberal leader Ignatieff ignored his staffer's behaviour as long as possible.

That's not an accident; it's part of a pattern: Social engineers want to engineer others, not themselves. It's okay for them to have bizarre, offensive ideas, because they are the experimenters. We are the lab rats.

Freedom doesn't evolve. It revolts.

Stay tuned to Fire. Them. All. News, for the latest firefights:



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