Andrew Coyne is live blogging the “Human Rights” Commission star chamber for Mark Steyn and MacLeans. He’s hoping that his magazine will lose:
Don’t tell my employers, but I’m sort of hoping we lose this case. If we win–that is, if the tribunal finds we did not, by publishing an excerpt from Mark Steyn’s book, expose Muslims to hatred and contempt, or whatever the legalese is–then the whole clanking business rolls on, the stronger for having shown how “reasonable” it can be. Whereas if we lose, and fight on appeal, and challenge the whole legal basis for these inquisitions, then something important will be achieved.
I liked this:
Oh God: they’re talking about who they’ll be calling on Friday. Five days in a windowless room. If that’s not a human rights violation…
And this comment on the Orwellian nature of the law:
Under Section 7.1, he continues, innocent intent is not a defence, nor is truth, nor is fair comment or the public interest, nor is good faith or responsible journalism.
Or in other words, there is no defence.
It’s a good read, so far.
[Update about half an hour later]
Some thoughts from Mark Steyn:
The Canadian Islamic Congress lawyer says that freedom of speech is a “red herring”. If it were, it would be on the endangered species list.
. . .a guy from the New York Times, who
“innocent intent is not a defence, nor is truth, nor is fair comment or the public interest, nor is good faith or responsible journalism.”
So a malicious unfair liar, doing irresponsible
journalism in bad faith is good to go? Now I understand
what human rights are.
Did I just describe a certain group?
Did I just describe a certain group?
Yeah, you did. But not even noisy pinko morons should go to jail just for being their so-delightful selves.
I was just enjoying a delightful critique of Steyn:
http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/1281773.html
And what was it about it that was “delightful”?
That was me who posted the link.
Background: Believe it or not, you and Nicoll often post on similar subjects. Although you and most of your commenters are diametrically opposed politically to him and his commenters, the posts and the comments are often quite intelligent. I enjoy reading the two blogs back to back, particularly when they cover the same subjects.
On Steyn: I only know about Steyn because you mentione the free speech issue and the human rights commission. I’m with you 100% on that. But is he any good? You often echo his worries about Eurabia and such, so you might think well of him. The link I provided offered fact based criticism of Styen, mixed with witty and not-so-witty comments. Since you recently had a run-in with the liberal blogosphere that was sometimes pretty dim-witted, I thought you might find this refreshing, assuming (among other assumptions) that you don’t mind reading things that you might not initially agree with.
I was just enjoying a delightful critique of Steyn:
http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/1281773.html
What critique? All I see is comments — as far as I can tell, James Nicoll wrote just one sentence.
Ezra Levant (publisher of the Western Standard in Alberta) hoped to lose his case as well, because then it can be taken out of the human rights commission and into a proper court. Once standards of evidence and the rule of law apply, they believe they can win, and set a precedent, which can’t happen in an HRC.