Yo Steyn! The Canadian Right thinks you're a hoity-toity! You stood on the side-lines when they came for Marc Lemire, and twiddled your thumbs when they went after Paul Fromm. Now that the CHRC is looking in your direction, you want this Brotherhood of Free Speech warriors to ride to your rescue! Such presumption!
But you know what? Here's where you get a chance to redeem yourself. The CHRC is going after one of the little guys again, someone who hasn't got the full weight of Macleans magazine's vast legal team to fall back on. Now its your turn to wield that flaming sword of flowery rhetoric of yours and play the role of hero, rather than whining like an oppressed minority!
Arthur Topham runs The Radical Press, a Victoria B.C. website to go along with The Radical, a paper-based, monthly alternative tabloid that he produces himself. Arthur's chief obsession is those darn Zionists. He has written any number of posts about them, with titles like:
“The Shell Game” Just Another Zionist Scam to Stop 9/11 Investigation of Israel
ARE THE GLOBALISTS [Zionists] OUT TO GET RON PAUL?
Curt Maynard’s blog The Politically Correct Apostate shut down hours after posting anti-Zionist article
Unfortunately for Mr. Topham, Harry Abrams and the League for Human Rights of B’nai Brith Canada got wind of his site (you're basically fucked when that happens), and launched a CHRC complaint against it. In his response to the CHRC questionnaire he was sent, Mr. Topham explained why he was having difficulty linking to “The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion”:
This has not been possible in one case. When Mr. Abrams and the B’nai Brith or some other Zionist pressured my previous server into canceling my agreement with them I received a short notice on August 24, 2007 that the hosting service would cease as of August 31, 2007. This gave me very little time to arrange a database back up for the site and during that process that backup became corrupted. As a result I had to upload an earlier archived version when I resumed online publication on November 3, 2007 and that version didn’t contain the specific article which is included in the complaint. I’m referring here to the topic “The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion”. The url to the forum was still intact on the RadicalPress.com Home Page but the content had disappeared from off the forum itself and no link remained. I therefore removed the url from the Home Page of the site. The article exists on numerous other websites outside present-day Zionist Jew control. I have now reposted the article and it can be found at http://www.radicalpress.com/?page_id=601
It’s my contention concerning this matter that the site was purposely sabotaged by either the B’nai Brith or some other affiliated pro-Zionist person or organization.
So here's the deal, Mark: are you a Free Speech man, or a Free Speech girly-man? If the former, it behooves you to unleash your yellow crayon of fury and defend Mr. Topham from B'nai Brith Canada and their ilk.
And, as for my personal opinion, I think this particular CHRC case is a waste of time and money. Sure Mr. Topham's site is offensive, and the material on it in most likely in violation of the relevant legislation. But why pick on some flake with zero readership (and no apparent propensity towards violent behavior)? The proceedings against Macleans and Mr. Steyn are a much more useful gesture. These guys have the ability to reach 1000s of Canadians, and thus the ability to do much greater harm to the nation. Remember, if it had been up to Steyn and the current editorial staff at Macleans, there'd be Canadian kids dying over there in Iraq.
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ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteLinking to an offtopic hoax gets you deleted. Nyah Nyah freaking nyah.
ReplyDeleteThis is a pretty fucking good post BCL. I fancy myself a free speech advocate yet had never heard of Topham; thanks for giving this the attention it deserves. A minor quibble:
ReplyDelete"Sure Mr. Topham's site is offensive, and the material on it in most likely in violation of hate speech laws"
If that were the case why has he not been charged with anything? A "human rights" complaint is not analogous to a criminal charge, let alone a conviction.
If B'nai Brith, an organization with exceedingly close relations with Canadian police services, thought the commentary in question were hate speech, then they would not have hesitated to have him charged under the criminal code.
Still, excellent post.
Mark Steyn can't defend his own right to free speech unless he does so on your rediculous terms.
ReplyDeleteQualified right to free speech.
Interesting.
Not surprising,
but interesting.
Only those who are zealous advocates of free speech, are entitled to it.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if I should write to BCL for a membership in his special group.
Dear BCL,
ReplyDeleteI was recently in an auto accident (was rear ended) and I was planning to suing in small claims court for my deductible.
However, I have not, at any time, been an advocate for auto safety.
May I please bring my otherwise valid complaint?
Your's truly,
your loyal subject
ps
praise be to BCL, may you have mercy on me for my selfishness
If we eliiminate these Human Rights kangaroo courts the only harm will be to put a couple of hundred politically correct wingnuts out of work - by keeping them we endanger freedom of speech and any other freedom they choose to threaten whenever the urge hit them. The courts are well equipped to deal with hate crimes. The misnamed HRC is a sop to a very squeeky ideological wheel and should be eliminated.
ReplyDelete"by keeping them we endanger freedom of speech and any other freedom they choose to threaten whenever the urge hit them."
ReplyDeleteStop this.
The tribunals are subject to the Charter, which protects freedom of expression (subject to the limitations set out in the Charter of course).
They are also subject to the Courts, which can overrule the decisions from the tribunals if they are wrong.
Our Charter freedoms are not in danger.
Anon 9:32,
ReplyDeleteYou're right. You caught me speaking sloppily.
Our Charter freedoms are not in danger.
ReplyDeleteWell, they are in danger from stupid wingbats who don't even understand how the Charter (or the law in general) works and therefore wouldn't know if civil liberties were being radically restricted until it's too late.
These people need to be interned in re-education camps.
By the way, BCL....your request to (shit)Steyn will be ignored. He's completely unburdened by the need to be consistent and principled.
Steyn Matters.
ReplyDeleteBCL doesn't.
Steyn has millions of readers worldwide.
This is a far out lefty blog that doesn't even register a micro-blip in the world of political discourse.
But ti-guy's offended that Steyn doesn't heed BCL's "request".
Narcissism anyone?
hey douche-bag, steyn has in fact addressed your concern: http://www.steynonline.com/content/blogsection/14/128/
ReplyDeletethis shitty little blog is completely obsessed with steyn. you would think that with global warming about to kill us all and Halliburton about to take over the world, you retards would have better to do than to obsess about steyn.
Anon 9:42,
ReplyDeleteThanks for letting me know about that. Tomorrow Steyn gets a spanky like he's never know.
Are you stumping for Free Speech while at the same time demanding that climate 'deniers' be blacklisted and banned from any sort of public communication forum?
ReplyDelete