Your Daily Nazi: Pro-Nazi Bias At The Calgary Herald?

Harry Abrams weighs in on the Bill White Case:

Dear Editor,

Re: Death threats cannot be protected speech, December 14,


Whereas I appreciate the point that the commenter wishes to make, namely that speech calling for violence is abusive; this article abrogates the basic ethics of journalism by quoting a defendant's assertion given at a human rights hearingthat has never been settled.

Here is the phrase: "...the defence suggested Warman--a former CHRC employee--was among those who would post provocative messages to the site using fake identities, in the hope of entrapping other site users..."

Even though described as the "defendant's suggestion at hearing" this kind of quote causes the[...] newspaper to side in an as yet unsettled legal dispute. I certainly hope that the newspaper doesn't interfere with or make pronouncements on other legal proceedings in the same way.

I think Harry might have got the newspaper in question wrong, which is why the quick edit above. But otherwise he catches what is at the minimum some exceedingly shoddy reporting out of...you guessed it...CanWest.

Just for clarity, here's an expanded version of the quote he mentions:

During a CHRC tribunal considering the activities of Canadian website operator Marc Lemire, the defence suggested Warman--a former CHRC employee-- was among those who would post provocative messages to the site using fake identities, in the hope of entrapping other site users.

Your Daily Nazi: Warman And Farber Fight 'Em, While Speechys Ponder Their Very Existence

American Neo-Nazi Bill White is being charged with making death threats, based on the testimony of Canuck Nazi hunters Bernie Farber and Richard Warman. Good news, made weird by the strange role Mr. White has played in the on-going Canadian Speechy Wars.

You see, back in April free speech warrior Ezra Levant publicly questioned Mr. White's very existence, instead theorizing that he might be a CHRC sock-puppet:

I, too, would have believed that the CHRC's Ian Fine received the bigoted e-mails he describes, and I even would have believed that Richard Warman was threatened by a man in the U.S. named Bill White.

[...]

But after last month's day-long hearing, where we learned that the CHRC regularly confects such bigoted comments themselves and goes to great (and sometimes illegal) lengths to hide their tracks, I just can't take any claims from the CHRC or Warman seriously that rely on Internet comments, the provenance of which cannot be independently verified.

And the "Bill White" Internet site -- well, let's just say that Mr. White, who has never been seen in body, only online, has come in handy on quite a few occasions for the CHRC and Warman, such as when Warman and the Canadian Jewish Congress tried to get the Canadian government to permit them to block foreign websites from Canadian Internet users.

[...]

It may well be that the e-mails to Fine were sent by someone other than his own staff. And it may well be that there is somebody named Bill White who is not just another sock puppet for Warman, Dean Steacy and others. It could be. And, with any other group of people, that would be the normal thing to assume. But we're long past the point where the CHRC can be regarded as normal, and where their statements -- even under oath -- can be believed without independent verification.

The madness continued unabated--Nay! was cranked to 11 on the crazy-scale--in Ezra's comments section. For example, Connie Fournier from FreeDominion showed up:

The thing about Bill White is that even the people who proudly call themselves 'Nazis' or 'white nationalists' seem to think he is about as genuine as Grant Bristow.

Ezra is 100% correct when he says we can't believe anything our opponents say anymore.

Then suspected Lemire sock-puppet Fourhorses made an appearance! Eventually, the whole gang arrived!

Nor was the mood of cheerful paranoia spoiled when Mr. White himself crashed the party:

I know, Jew Levant, that when you look upon a God, you see only the radiant light of a soul you know you can never possess.

However, I assure you, I am not merely an ethereal apparition of the God of the Light and Order, opposed eternally to your race of demons, but I have material form as well.

A brief search of Google will yield plenty of photographs and news accounts of my actual presence among men.

(As an aside, give Mr. White credit: this guy knows how to hate. Shaidle, MacMillan and their crew-- they're nothing but wannabes next to him)

No, they didn't let Bill White get them down at Ezra's place, because they figured it couldn't be a real Neo-Nazi writing this stuff, it had to be...wait for it...Richard Warman pretending to be a Neo-Nazi so as to...somehow...infiltrate...well, at this point things get a bit obscure.

In any case, that's how bent this debate has become, when the Speechy movement goes beyond arguing that no limitations on expression are justified in stopping the spread of Neo-Nazis, to denying that they have corporeal being.