Stephen Franks has my thanks for pointing out this article on Mark Steyn’s trial for hate speech.
It makes scary reading.
If found guilty by the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal, Maclean’s could be ordered to stop publishing Steyn’s column, or other articles “likely” to expose Muslims to “hatred or contempt.” In other words, a magazine that’s been published for over a century in an ostensibly free Western nation will now be subject to state sanction and preemptive censorship. Canadian Human Rights Tribunals boast a 100% conviction rate on such “hate speech” cases, and have already handed down lifetime bans against the likes of Rev. Scott Boision. That Christian preacher is now forbidden for life from ever citing Bible verses regarding homosexuality in his sermons, or “in newspapers, by email, on the radio, in public speeches, or on the Internet.”
But some of the “evidence” presented boggles the mind.
Despite the national media’s general incompetence and indifference, many troubling or just plain bizarre developments during the trial made their way into the public record nevertheless:
- Steyn’s accusers called a deconstructionist Buffy the Vampire Slayer scholar as an expert witness.
- One of his accusers admitted under oath that he’d misrepresented his group’s initial demands to the media on numerous occasions.
- Websites that linked to the “offending” Maclean’s article — including U.S.-based sites like Free Republic and Catholic Answers — were proof of Steyn’s contagious “Islamophobia.” This led another Catholic website to ask: “Catholicism: A Hate Crime in Canada?” (A particular point of pride for this writer was one accuser’s testimony that my blog, FiveFeetOfFury.com, had been a particular source of “heat” he’d “felt” since he’d filed his complaint against Steyn.)
- Unable to refute Steyn’s statistics and facts, or to deny that the portions of the article they found most offensive were in fact chilling quotations made by radical Muslims themselves, Steyn’s accusers condemned his “tone,” use of “sarcasm,” and reliance upon “subtle intellectual arguments.”
Not a few bloggers noted ruefully that the last day of Steyn’s trial coincided with the anniversary of D-Day, and wondered what the Canadian men who’d died on Juno Beach would make of their nation today.
Well, if being linked by the Free Republic and using “tone” and sarcasm are now evidence of hate crimes, I’m screwed and then some. Lucky I don’t use many subtle intellectual arguments on this blog, so on that score I’m safe. I’ll try to keep it pretty dumb.
Oh wait, was that sarcasm?
Update: Having read a few of the linked items, it seems that the problem with the Free Republic site is the fact many of the people commenting there.
Jospeph’s got Habib reading through the comments on the Free Republic site… They’re foul. To Steyn’s unfortunate reference to Mulsims “breeding like mosquitoes,” a commenter replies: “Great analogy! Let’s get out the DDT…” Another: “Oh, those Muzzies. They’ll get you with or without your help.” Another: “If you can’t kill the enemy at least you can piss on their God.” Another: “I will die before I have that filthy fraud of a religion forced on me.”
So if you link to a site where users put in hateful comments, you become a hate site.
Thing is, the site with the worst (as in, consistently putrid) comments that I’ve ever seen is YouTube. How many sites link to, or embed videos from, YouTube?
Answer: The entire internet.
Anyone care to write up the complaint?
Something should go here, maybe later. 