Thursday, December 06, 2007

Andrew, Just Admit It

Andrew Coyne writes on Macleans troubles with the Canadian Human Rights Commission:

...the commissions have been allowed to stray, far from their original purpose of preventing discrimination in employment and housing, into the nebulous world of expression. They succeeded, largely because their early targets were so odious, marginal figures who scribbled letters to the editor or left hateful messages on their answering machines: who wants to defend racists and homophobes? Emboldened, they are now going after mainstream media or­gan­izations—Maclean’s, for heaven’s sakes.

And so, rather than give the back of their hand to the CIC’s complaint, we are treated to the spectacle of not one but two human rights commissions—On­­tario’s may yet join them—agreeing to launch inquiries. Had the CIC sought remedy under Canada’s hate speech law, as over-broad as it is, they would at least have had to persuade a prosecutor to take their case, and to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. But as it is they can tie up the magazine and its lawyers before one commission or another for months. The chill this should send through the nation’s newsrooms is obvious.

I don’t propose to get into the merits of their complaint: suffice to say I think it is baseless. The point is, I shouldn’t have to. Maclean’s shouldn’t have to. There is only one proper outcome for this affair: not merely that the CIC’s complaint should be thrown out, but that the commissions’ power to hear such cases should be removed. They have no business meddling with speech.

There is certainly something disturbing about the ease with which these fellows can have their sensibilities rattled:

"To say that we share the same basic goals as terrorists … if you look at the theme of the article in the context, it is putting that label on all of us and I felt personally victimized," he said.

Big strong law students oppressed by harsh language, as it were.

But I find it more than a little rich that Coyne is willing to hide behind Macleans status as a mainstream publication. That status, Andrew, is earned, and it can be lost, and it is clear that, under the leadership of Kenneth Whyte, a decision has been made to take the magazine aggressively down-market, to give it the heart, if not the physical form, of a right-wing tabloid. Hiring a writer like Mark Steyn is in perfect accord with this strategy, perhaps even epitomizes it.

Mr. Coyne and Macleans in general would probably receive a lot more sympathy if they simply admitted this. Steyn is the modern day equivalent of Zubor Link. His writings are the journalistic equivalent of WWF wrestling. They're the rantings of a crazed blogger, "scribbled letters to the editor", as Coyne puts it, yet they have become the center-piece of what has been, and is apparently still intended to be, Canada's national magazine.

Specifically, this admission would involve saying that, yeah, the origonal Steyn piece is indeed racist tripe, but that, hey, that's the direction in which Macleans is going shopping for its readers these days. Note that I say "racist" rather than "anti-Islam" or "anti-Muslim", because to use these more finally grained expressions suggests that Steyn's writings have a nuance that I do not believe they possess. Mark Steyn is shovelling boob-bait to the bubbas, and his core audience wouldn't know Muslim from Mexican or a hijab from a babushka. Promoting the notion that we must all return to the old ways because otherwise we will get out-bred by swarthy immigrants is a political strategy that far pre-dates any of the current debates re Muslim extremism or reasonable accomodation.

And I should say, Andrew, that The Sun chain, of all places, seems to have internalized the lesson that in these stressful times, Conservatism really should attempt to grow up a bit and lose the craziest of its crazies. Marsden has had her ass fired out the door, and it seems as though mad Ezra is being quietly shunned.

Odd that a real tabloid should be teaching Macleans a lesson.

51 comments:

Ti-Guy said...

I actually agree with Coyne in theory, but in practice, I personally just don't care anymore. Sensible people have been scratching their heads for years now trying to figure out why we have to be treated endlessly to unlettered ponces like Mark Steyn at the expense of so many other voices who can probably better articulate what is the existential threat the bubbas are sensing without exploiting it (which is, in fact, the only issue here and which scapegoats, currently, scapegoats Canadian Muslims, although that could change in a heartbeat).

Having read this from Coyne and an almost identical rant from that pseudo-Canadian twit Margaret Wente in today's Globe, I think I'll arse myself to write a letter of support to the CIC, an organisation I'm barely aware of.

If people treat freedom of expression like garbage, then what else do they expect?

Anyway, I'm always surprised at how whiny the white males get when they get the mildest taste of the persecution they've meeted out for centuries against everyone else. Grow a pair, for God's sakes. You're an embarrassment to men everywhere.

JimBobby said...

Whooee! I been a Maclean's subscriber fer more than 30 years. Ma an' I talked about it over coffee a coupla days ago and we decided we won't renew. It ain't just because of the sharp right turn they took. That's part of it. We get a lotta the same stuff online and one less magazine or newspaper might not save the rain forest but like my ol' Mum sez, "Every little bit helps."

JB

bigcitylib said...

Ti-guy, so do I, and the CBC piece (linked) where the law students talk about how offended they are is a bit of a gagger. But then I think people are simply too sensitive when it comes to over the top, and even blatently hateful speech. If Macleans were to say that, yeah Steyn's writing racist spew but we think we have the right to publish it because you don't HAVE to read the damn magazine then I would probably say fine, let the market take you down. But there's a double game involved where Macleans want to say that the stuff isn't offensive in the FIRST place, AND invoking the free speech defense which says offensive speech must be protected.

Anonymous said...

"a decision has been made to take the magazine aggressively down-market, to give it the heart, if not the physical form, of a right-wing tabloid. Hiring a writer like Mark Steyn is in perfect accord with this strategy"

When I see Mark Steyn make it through a column without breaking into Broadway show tunes (I'm not exaggerating, see his latest, he does this a lot) or mentioning men's nipples (he does this a lot too) I'll believe he is right wing, until then he is an uneducated art critic with zero credibility in matters political who will be running a gay B&B in Vermont with his lover within 3 years, book it.

Take it from a real conservatve, we can't stand Steyn and can't stand Maclean's. As for Coyne, the CHRC was established in 1977 for fuck's sake, he's never given a shit about it until he could make hay from it, and his bandwagon jumping looks pathetic.

Maclean's is a unionized shop with strict race and gender quotas; the medium is the message and when the medium is heavily unionized and staffed by short-bus quota fillers like Kady O'Malley, that's the message.

Gayle said...

I have said it before and I will say it again: consorship is not limited to telling someone they may not express themselves.

Censorship is the act of silencing someone.

For example, if a magazine prints an editorial telling people that all feminists are nazis and encouraging people to ignore what women say and return to treating them like property, then that editorial is an attempt to censor women.

Freedom of speech often conflicts with censorship. That is where our "values" step in. That is why hate speech is illegal, and human rights tribunals hear these complaints.

Lord Kitchener's Own said...

"But I find it more than a little rich that Coyne is willing to hide behind Macleans status as a mainstream publication."

BCL, I think you've misread Coyne's piece. Coyne's not saying that it was ALRIGHT when the Human Rights Commissions were attacking the freedom of speech of "odious, marginal figures who scribbled letters to the editor or left hateful messages on their answering machines" and that it's only NOW that they're going after people like MacLeans that there's a problem. He's just saying that the Human Rights Commissions have been plummetting down this slippery slop for a while now, and (hopefully) now that they're going after a publication like MacLeans something will finally be done. In other words, someone should have stepped in when the HRCs started arbitrating what IS and IS NOT acceptable speech LONG ago, back when they were only going after total and complete nutjobs (who have freedom of speech too) and he hopes that now, finally, maybe someone will.

Also, Andrew's not even saying that free speech (even in Macleans) can't be curtailed. What he's saying is that the HRCs were never meant to even attempt to do so, and that "the traditional legal means by which freedom of speech may be limited, (or) any of the legal system’s usual requirements of due process" are being shunted aside, because it's faster and less onerous for lobby groups like the CIC to attack someone's freedom of expression these days using the HRCs. Why go through the LEGITMATE process of attacking speech you feel is harmful (using the country's hate speech laws) when the HRCs have taken it upon themselves to provide you with a fast track to the remedy you desire, with none of that onerous "due process" or "burden of proof" stuff that has traditionally made unfettered freedom of speech so doggone tough a nut to crack. (Well, the answer is obvious. Canadian law does not allow free speech to be curtailed lightly, and being offended, not matter how great the offense, is simply not sufficient to curtail a speakers' freedom to speak. In other words, the HRCs are allowing people to attack speech that they disagree with that could NEVER be attacked using our hate speech laws).

Form Coyne's piece: "As Alan Borovoy, general counsel for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, argued recently, “during the years when my colleagues and I were labouring to create such commissions, we never imagined that they might ultimately be used against freedom of speech.” To be acting as censors, he wrote, was “hardly the role we had envisioned for human rights commissions."

Sadly, Coyne's right: "There are a great many people in this country who seem to have no clue about what freedom of speech means, or why it was invented."

Ti-Guy said...

But there's a double game involved where Macleans want to say that the stuff isn't offensive in the FIRST place, AND invoking the free speech defense which says offensive speech must be protected.

Well, that doesn't surprise me; incoherence is a fundamental principle that underlies what is inherently stupid.

I'm exhausted by the mentality of the media that has come to believe, for reasons that aren't all that clear, although I suspect it's largely a matter of intellectual laziness (and maybe baby-boomers approaching dotage), that controversy unrelated to anything meaningful or relevant to real life is objectively good. I understand it sells newspapers and magazines, but it's as addictive as crack and has about the same effect on the mind.

The Right is convinced that a market approach to everything fosters a competitive environment in which, ultimately, only the best prevail (which is curious, given the fact that Steyn is still being published). I really wish someone would disabuse them of that perception when it comes to ideas, and certainly those ideas taking up media space that are not subject to market forces. Some ideas are toxic and choke off the oxygen needed to nurture those that most of us recognise as either more positive, or productive, or at least more insightful. We only have to look at the cretinisation of the Most Advanced Society the World Has Ever Seen to see where this complete indifference to standards of excellence ultimately leads.

I'd buy the market approach to expression and ideas if there were such a thing as a free market, but there isn't, and certainly not in the commercial media.

Lord Kitchener's Own said...

Gayle, "That is why hate speech is illegal, and human rights tribunals hear these complaints."

This confusion of "hate speech laws" with the human rights commissions (note: NOT tribunals) is really Coyne's whole point!!!

Hate speech IS illegal and it is NOT the HRCs role to hear hate speech complaints. OUR LEGAL SYSTEM hears hate speech complaints. The COURTS decide what is and what is not "hate speech" not the Human Right's Commissions. It's not REMOTELY their role, but the HRCs have taken it upon themselves to hear complaints about people's speech and expression in cases where those complaining could NEVER get a remedy under our hate speech laws, so they don't bother trying.

I support Canada's hate speech laws, but I also support our laws being enforced by our COURTS, not by pseudo-judicial bodies that were never intended to deal with these types of issues. If someone has abused their freedom of speech, use our country's legal system to seek remedy. Don't look for ways to "work around" due process because due process isn't convenient. There are indeed reasons that we have hate speech laws but those reasons are not limited to "so we can stop hate speech". The reasons we have hate speech LAWS is also so that "no one's freedom of speech can be curtailed accept by a court, and with respect to the due process of law".

Mr. Coyne simply wishes it would stay that way.

Lord Kitchener's Own said...

Oh, and BCL, on THIS I'm not a moderate!

:-)

If someone wants another's freedom of expression curtailed they should go to the courts and use our legal system. No body short of that is remotely qualified (nor remotely empowered) to deal with such an issue of fundamental freedom.

Ti-Guy said...

Racist rightwing nut-job yank (and member of the esteemed MacLean's 50 gushes:

"Tom Flanagan

5, December, 2007 | 3:55 pm

Good column, Andrew. I'm glad to see Maclean's fighting back. What puzzles me is the complete silence in other media outlets on this case. Don't the deep thinkers at the Globe and Mail or the National Post realize that, if this complaint succeeds, they will be next?"

See? What else does this do but embolden the cretins to engage openly in an vulgar orgy of cretinousness?

Margaret Wente commented on this this morning, Tom. Maybe you should expand beyond your little ghetto of rightwing bird-cage liners and read other things.

Gayle said...

LKO - I know they are different adn I meant to include both as separate processes. I have more to say but must dash to work right now.

Ti-Guy said...

Censorship is the act of silencing someone.

I agree whole-heartedly, Gayle. The Right never seems to understand how the targets of their hate are not always up to confronting them, and quite often don't get the opportunity (without also worrying that they'll get their heads caved in). I can think of no more effective censorship than that, and the Right knows it, despite all the moaning and puling about persecution. Intimidation and silencing have always been the key to their power and it's interesting to note, with the rise of what is the closest thing to a true market place of ideas (the Web), how brittle and fragile they seem when those tactics aren't so easy to mask.

Ti-Guy said...

The COURTS decide what is and what is not "hate speech" not the Human Right's Commissions.

Well, how exactly has that worked out when the courts become involved? All we get are years of litigation and endless exposure to some toxic nazi.

I'm sorry; it's the failing of commercial media (with its wingnut welfare support for people like Mark Steyn) that is at the root of the problem here, and whining from them now just seems a little too self-serving.

Lord Kitchener's Own said...

Well Ti-Guy, to me, that just sounds like a complaint that it's just too darned hard to shut people up in this country.

Well, damned right it is. As I said, I support our hate speech laws, and I do think there are times when freedom of expression needs to be curtailed. But it SHOULD be onerous. And only a court of law should deal with issues of curtailing a fundamental freedom.

bigcitylib said...

LK,

Firstly, yes I recognize the main thrust of Coyne's column is as you say. My point is that he seems to be claiming that the CHRC abusers are moving from the fringe to the mainstream, and that is what their attack on Macleans boils down to. But I think rather Old Mac is moving towards the fringe.

Another brief point.
The route to silencing speech should be onerous, but should it be expensive? I wonder if the CHRC does not provide a chance at justice on the cheap.

rabbit said...

I wonder if the CHRC does not provide a chance at justice on the cheap.

Well we seem to getting what we paid for.

BCL, do you want to live in a country where it is cheap and easy to shut someone up? It is naive to think that such tools will never be used against you, or others you support.

bigcitylib said...

Rabbit, do you want to live in a country where only the wealthy can afford the process? That is a country much closer to the one we already have.

Anonymous said...

I find people don't understand the difference between enciting facts and hate speech. Almost anything can be given a racial twist to make it offend just about anyone, I personally think we are all to politically correct these days. and you can see this sort of thing everywhere and any form of media. People just have this need to feel victimized it seems. Don't get me wrong their are those who intentionally incite Hate. your KKK members or your NDP those types.

Ti-Guy said...

Well Ti-Guy, to me, that just sounds like a complaint that it's just too darned hard to shut people up in this country.

I know; I'm so glad you're as distressed about that as I am...;)

In a culture that celebrates exhibitionism and baseless self-agrandisement and talking for talking's sake, I can think of no more noble a virtue than having the humility to realise you have absolutely nothing meaningful, interesting or entertaining to say and shutting the fuck up.

I should be honest and state that the issue is very specific to Mark Steyn here, who I count among the cabal of people who helped dupe the Americans into an illegal, immoral war. If it hadn't been for the largesse of a now-convicted fraud, Steyn would have shut up long ago and found his true vocation (which I believe involves someehing akin to the escort business).

ALW said...

LKO summed up my views perfectly. Especially this:

Well Ti-Guy, to me, that just sounds like a complaint that it's just too darned hard to shut people up in this country.

Sorry, ti-guy, but you have to take the good with the bad. That's what you get in a free society. I'm sure both of us could finger half a dozen idiots we disagree with and wish they'd just STFU once and for all. But that doesn't mean we should be able to.

Ti-Guy said...

do you want to live in a country where it is cheap and easy to shut someone up? It is naive to think that such tools will never be used against you, or others you support.

It's certainly cheap and easy for the mainstream media; it doesn't cost them anything at all to marginalise and exclude the ideas they don't think others should be exposed to.

Rabbit...when the wealthy and powerful start to whine, that's always a signal for the rest of us to get them. You know, to keep society balanced.

Ti-Guy said...

I'm sure both of us could finger half a dozen idiots we disagree with and wish they'd just STFU once and for all. But that doesn't mean we should be able to.

Again, you really should try for a more nuanced analysis. I'd be much more willing to defend a bile-soaked Blogging Tory from a CHRC complaint, because I think that would be targetting the citizen's individual right to freedom of expression (but all bets are off with criminal hate speech). But in this case, we're talking about an irresponsible and unlettered dolt representing the interests of corporations and whose freedom of expession has been privileged and given more weight, not by virtue of its rhetorical brilliance (most sensible people really think Steyn is a cretin), but through money and power. Now, don't you think the rest of us, average people, should find that far more concerning, given what we have seen has happened in the US in the last few years?

Oh, right. I forget I'm dealing with a Conservatives...authoritarians and authoritarian-followers who believe might makes right.

Oh, well. C'est la guerre! and all that.

rabbit said...

Ti-Guy, BLC:

Actually, it's never been easier or cheaper for people to get their message out. All you have to do is set up a blog.

Even starting a magazine or publishing a book is easy, what with desk top publishing. Making money or getting distribution is something, but then that's always been the hard part.

Whether you are actually listened to is something else again. More voices than ears these days.
But then, freedom of speech has never come with a guarantee of an audience.

These claims that the little guy is silenced by big media, and that communication is only for the rich, are completely bogus. This very blog is proof of that.

Ti-Guy said...

These claims that the little guy is silenced by big media, and that communication is only for the rich, are completely bogus. This very blog is proof of that.

You're comparing this blog to CanWest-Global, CTVGlobemedia, Quebecor, Rogers, etc....not to mention the American industrial-media complex and claiming the interconnection between power and freedom of expression is irrelevant (ie, bogus)?

How odd. What do you do for a living, Rabbit?

rabbit said...

Ti-guy:

I didn't say everyone had perfectly equal access to the lines of communication, only that virtually everyone had some access to it.

And this is far truer today than at any other time in history.

I am always amazed at the justifications people come up with to try to restrict free speech. For some, there appears to be a deep-seated fear of people just going around doing whatever they want without rhyme or reasons. The desire to control and regulate the cacophony is too much to resist.

Lord Kitchener's Own said...

As a (somewhat) aside on the COSTS of challenging speech that one disagrees with, I most CERTAINLY support initiatives such as the Court Challenges program, and similar initiatives to allow legal challenges to be more affordable for the common citizen. My sense of how "onerous" the ability to curtail someone's freedom of expression should be does not necessarily extend to it being EXPENSIVE, I meant to emphasize more "onerous" in a legal sense. The bar should be set high in determining what is and what is not "acceptable" speech, and where the bar is set should only be adjudicated by a court of law, with all the protections of the due process of law. I don't believe the Human Rights Commissions are either competent nor appropriate places for such issues to be adjudicated, and I'm quite sure they were never intended for such a purpose.

If you believe someone should be constrained in their excercise of a constitutionally guaranteed right (and ESPECIALLY if your goal is to constrain the excercise of a fundamental freedom enumerated in Section 2 of the Charter) there are legitimate ways to do so in our legal system (the Hate Speech laws being the prime example in this case). However, I don't believe any group other than a court of law should be adjudicating (or even be SEEN to be adjudicating) the limits of any constitutional freedom, and CERTAINLY not the limits on our Section 2 fundamental freedoms.

Ti-Guy said...

I am always amazed at the justifications people come up with to try to restrict free speech.

Why are you so amazed? All kinds of human behaviour is restricted, for very good reasons.

I'm not for restricting freedom of expression...I'm for weakening the influences of those who really do control discourse and who debase it for reasons that have nothing to do with freedom at all, and which in fact, try to establish arbitrarily the boundaries of what is acceptable thought.

I thinks it's a capitulation to just throw up your hands and say "oh well, let the market decide" when we all know that that always leads to a crisis before a healthy equilibrium is re-established. I think that is quite clearly what has happened in the US in the last few years, and I think it's happening here.

If you're not interested in finding out why Mark Steyn's writing is abysmal or interested in understanding why indulging in the petty hatreds and prejudices of people is suddenly fashionable, that's fine; just say that, and go back to your reality television and your shopping. But it strikes me as disingenuous to re-brand that indifference by elevating it to the virtue of generous and altruistic support for unfettered freedom of expression. It's like being indifferent to pollution because economic activity (which we, of course, all have to support as an objective good) requires it.

Anonymous said...

ti-guy says in his first post:

"Anyway, I'm always surprised at how whiny the white males get when they get the mildest taste of the persecution they've meeted out for centuries against everyone else."

Even if that foolish statement is true ti-guy, it has zero relevance to the issue at hand.

ti-guy says in his post above:

"All kinds of human behaviour is restricted, for very good reasons."

LOL. Free speech is fundamental in a democratic society. It is astonishing you can not see this nor provide any "good reasons", except offence to your dull political sensibilities.

"I'm not for restricting freedom of expression..."

LOL.

"I'm for weakening the influences of those who really do control discourse and who debase it for reasons that have nothing to do with freedom at all, and which in fact, try to establish arbitrarily the boundaries of what is acceptable thought."

Oh brother. What drivel. Your thoughts on "free speech" are alarming . . . and dangerous.

- Paul S

Ti-Guy said...

Well, that certainly was compelling. All those "lols" and "oh brothers" and the high degree of eye rolling the commenter must have indulged in in order to establish just the right atmosphere in which to call forth his muse to direct him in bringing that bit o' brilliance to light.

My attitudes towards freedom of expression are even more dangerous than you think Paul S. if you ever discover exactly what I think society should do with aggressively stupid people who try to claim they're not.

Anyway, a point-by-point rebuttal:

Even if that foolish statement is true ti-guy, it has zero relevance to the issue at hand.

Oh, jeez..great come-back there, Einstein.

LOL. Free speech is fundamental in a democratic society. It is astonishing you can not see this nor provide any "good reasons", except offence (sic) to your dull political sensibilities.

Nice try, but...*bzzzt*...WRONG! "Freedom of speech is fundamental in a democratic society?" Where'd you get that profound statement? Off a Hallmark Card? *snort*

Oh brother. What drivel. Your thoughts on "free speech" are alarming . . . and dangerous.

Dangerous? OMG, like you're having a PANIC ATTACK! Someone call the waaaaaahmbulance!

...LOL.

Ti-Guy said...

What a lie.

Is Mark Steyn posting anonymously? Or is that Ezra?

Anonymous said...

"For example, if a magazine prints an editorial telling people that all feminists are nazis and encouraging people to ignore what women say and return to treating them like property, then that editorial is an attempt to censor women."

So it's okay to censor some people because supposedly what they would say could possbily lead to them censoring someone else.

Anonymous said...

I shouldn't have expected you to intelligently respond to any of my points ti-guy, after all, intellectual integrity is not your forte.

What I see your main objection as being, is that Macleans does not reflect your bigoted world view, and as this is intolerable, Macleans must be censored.

Bigcitylib is not much better. He appears to want Macleans to admit to publishing an offensive article, and if it doesn't, well, censor the idiots.

Whether Macleans has gone downmarket or not is irrelevant (particulary since it had been in a coma for decades; found only in doctor's waiting rooms where noboby would even consider stealing one).

Both of you are consistent on one point; you are no friends of freedom of speech. After all, your feelings have been hurt.

- Paul S

Ti-Guy said...

I shouldn't have expected you to intelligently respond to any of my points ti-guy, after all, intellectual integrity is not your forte.

LOL.

What I see your main objection as being, is that Macleans does not reflect your bigoted world view, and as this is intolerable, Macleans must be censored.

*Pfft*...As if.

Bigcitylib is not much better. He appears to want Macleans to admit to publishing an offensive article, and if it doesn't, well, censor the idiots.

Ouch! Even *I* felt that...

Whether Macleans has gone downmarket or not is irrelevant (particulary since it had been in a coma for decades; found only in doctor's waiting rooms where noboby would even consider stealing one).

Wow, you're old, grandpa.

Both of you are consistent on one point; you are no friends of freedom of speech. After all, your feelings have been hurt.

LOL redux.

What does the "S" stand for? Stick up the arse?

/rimshot

Justin Socie said...

In his article, Coyne makes it fairly clear that he didn't bother finding out very much about how human rights commissions work.

Oh well. Never let facts get in the way of a good rant!

bigcitylib said...

Paul,

What I'm saying is that I would be more sympathetic towards Coyne's free speech argument if he admitted that he was using that arugment in order to claim that McLeans was entitled to publish racist crap.

Anonymous said...

That is part of your error BCL, as Islam is not a race. Second error is considering yourself as a legitimate arbiter of what is racist.

Why you need be "sympathetic" towards Coyne's argument is also irrelevant to the issue at hand.

- Paul S

Anonymous said...

ti-guy said:

"What does the "S" stand for? Stick up the arse?"

Ouch! I don't stand a chance against a razor wit like that!

- Paul S

Gayle said...

silly little anon/biff:

"So it's okay to censor some people because supposedly what they would say could possbily lead to them censoring someone else."

If you bothered to read my whole post you might understand....though it appears to be beyond your ability to comprehend.

Anonymous said...

"Silly little"

Isn't it sad how Gayle has to rely on condescention instead of pursuasive arguement.

The latter requiring a deft ability to harness facts and reason to support one's position.

The former requiring one to be....well.....like Gayle.

BTW, its intersting how Gayle has unwittingly elevated "Biff" to the status of some omnipotent force that is always in the here and now.

Gayle: "is that Biff.......is THAT biff......I JUST KNOW THAT IS BIFF, BIFF IS EVERYWHERE!!"

That being said, Biff is all powerful, and all knowing. As such, you are wise to respect and fear him as an ideological foe.

Anonymous said...

You may carry on with your discussion, under the watchful eye of your blogging overlord, Biff.

Anonymous said...

...while pull on this pathetic little peggo and see if he'll stand up and salute, I hasten to add.

Anonymous said...

I can only assume that last one was ti-guy.

Anonymous said...

While Gayle relies on condescention to mask her lack of wit,

ti-guy uses good ol fashioned vulgarity.

Anonymous said...

Don't be rediculous...It's all Biff.

Accept no substitutes!

Anonymous said...

"What I'm saying is that I would be more sympathetic towards Coyne's free speech argument if he admitted that he was using that arugment in order to claim that McLeans was entitled to publish racist crap."

How exactly was that specific article racist?

Gayle said...

Ahhh, silly little biff is back, ignoring the point and dropping insults.

How predictable.

Gayle said...

"Whose values? Yours?"

Yes

Anonymous said...

Looks like Biff was dead on about Gayle.

Anonymous said...

I disagree. Biff is a fool.

Gayle is clearly his intellectual superior.

Anonymous said...

I agree with the above poster. Biff's lame attempt to critique Gayle's original post sealed the deal.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.