Chilling Effect in Canada
Kathy Shaidle reports that she and other bloggers are being sued by Richard Warman, a former member of Canada’s Human Rights Commission and frivolous lawsuit filer extraordinaire:
Canada’s busiest litigant, serial “human rights” complainant and — the guy Mark Steyn has called “Canada’s most sensitive man” — Richard Warman is now suing his most vocal critics — including me.
The suit names:
• Ezra Levant (famous for his stirring YouTube video of his confrontation with the Canadian Human Rights tribunal after he published the “Mohammed Cartoons”)
• FreeDominion.ca (Canada’s answer to FreeRepublic.com)
• Kate McMillan of SmallDeadAnimals.com
• Jonathan Kay of the National Post daily newspaper and its in-house blog
• and me, Kathy Shaidle of FiveFeetOfFury.com
Kathy says fighting the lawsuit will cost her $30,000 or more and I’m betting on the “or more” bit of that statement.
Obviously, this fight isn’t just about Warman and the defendants. It’s about political censorship, the abuse of government power, and the freedom of the blogosphere. Warman wants to marginalize and perhaps even criminalize conservative ideas. Well, I want to denormalize the human rights commissions. It’s going to be a helluva fight – and an excellent opportunity to showcase the abusive, corrupt, bullying, censorious nature of the CHRCs and their star pupil, Richard Warman.
I don’t even think the importance of this fight is limited to Canada. The creeping censorship that Warman embodies is of the same breed as the censorship that Geert Wilders faces for his film, Fitna. It’s part of a global attempt to squelch ideas about liberty and other western values. It’s part of an unholy alliance between domestic leftists and foreign jihadis. In fact, it’s precisely what I’m talking about, with Mark Steyn, in New York tomorrow.
I believe that this sort of censorship-by-proxy is a pressing issue that needs to be countered by active resistance from writers and readers alike. That’s why I’ve donated to Kathy’s fund and plan to tip the others who have requested help as well.
Do your part to help keep the web (relatively) free and open. Where else can you make your voice heard?
Than you for getting this out off the contient, Marc.
RG
Thanks for the support guys! Hi Right Girl!
This should bother us. A lot. Because it basically says the state has a right to legislate thoughts and morality. This is like the New Mexico Human Rights commission’s heavy handed efforts to punish a small photographer who declined to photograph a lesbian commttment ceremony because she views it as violating her strict Christian beliefs, or Lake Superior State University’s efforts to censor the conservative professor because his cartoons and postings on his office door may offend Moslems, women, and other PC protected groups. That so many governments and their agencies feel this is proper should scare all of us. While one may not be in agreement with the photographer, the professor, or with some of the people being sued in Canada, they should have the right to believe what they will. Now, committing an act of violence against someone is a different matter. That, obviously should be illegal.
The irony of this should be self-evident,but it seems to escape the so called ‘progressive’ thinkers. The protection of protected classes who may not be offended in any way is very much like the antebellum slave society in the southern US, or the ‘Jim Crow’ polices which lasted thee until the mid-20th century. The sort of laws and governmental policies which made it illegal to offend the dignity of a white woman or a southern gentleman (by definition at the times, also white). A free society cannot exist unless people are free to believe what they will. that includes the freedom to believe in God, or Buddah, or Allah, or the Man in the Moon, or no one in particular; to freely associate with those whom they want to, and not others; and, yes, to be wrong. All without any sanction from the state. When one hurts another - physical injury, theft of property - THEN the state has an obligation to protect the dignity of all and punish the guilty party. Hurt feelings should not be actionable. Making it a crime to hurt someone’s feelings does not lead to greater civility. As we can see, it leads to less and less freedom.
There will, of course, be one group who benefits from the increasing police state in Canada. The out of work former members of the eastern bloc secret police agencies like the Stassi should be delighted with the prospect of employment int he People’s Republic of Canada.