The Better Part Of Valor

What a relief. Mark Steyn has got to be one of the biggest crybabies ever to hold Canadian citizenship. Steyn acted as if the HRC was going to kidnap him to a foreign country to have him tortured.

That really did happen to a Canadian citizen recently, just not to Mark Steyn. The US kidnapped Maher Arar and sent him to Syria, where he was tortured. He was eventually released because they had nothing on him, and because the torture and lawless imprisonment looked bad. Canada apologized, but the US still refuses to admit to any wrongdoing. Which goes to show the depth of sanctimonious nonsense in Steyn's case. It's not "first they came for the right-wing aŝŝholes," because the right-wing aŝŝholes know that they are well-protected. It's "first they came for the Muslims."

But still, the HRC was right to drop the case. It's better for insufferable crybabies to be completely wrong, than to be right about something.

Wow, Jim.

Thanks for standing up for free speech. Not.

I'd put up a much stronger defense for your free speech than you're apparently willing to do for Steyn, despite the fact that you are a left-wing **shole.

Thanks for standing up for free speech. Not.

Obviously I am standing up for free speech. Freedom of speech doesn't just protect what is worth saying, but also almost any sort of verbal masturbation that might come from someone like Mark Steyn. As I said, HRC was right to drop the case.

I'm glad that you endorse my freedom of speech, but you shouldn't think that I need your help. On the issue of free speech, I'm no one's victim and you're no one's enabler.

So, let's get this straight. Steyn was only "whining" about being hauled before the HRC? He had no legitimate point to make about how these Canadian kangaroo courts are a dangerous threat to free expression in what is supposedly an enlightened western nation?

You're no one's enabler.

I'm your enabler, here. I continue, at least for now, to let you pollute my blog with your vile bile. I have no legal or ethical obligation to do so.

Steyn was only "whining" about being hauled before the HRC? He had no legitimate point to make about how these Canadian kangaroo courts are a dangerous threat to free expression in what is supposedly an enlightened western nation?

No, as I said, Steyn was not quite only whining, because the HRC was right to drop the case. But he certainly has been whining, you're right about that. The HRC is not a kangaroo court, it's a real civil court. Steyn and MacLeans were entitled to lawyers before this court, they made their case, and they won. Which is one piece of evidence that the HRC is at worst a minuscule threat to free expression in a generally enlightened Western nation.

But there are real kangaroo courts run by otherwise enlightened Western nations. One of the most notorious ones was the notorious Combatant Status Review Tribunal in Guantanamo. There would have been an element of cruel justice if the US had plucked Steyn from Manchester airport and hauled him before the CSRT. After all, speaking out against Islamic terrorism could be a cover for material support in favor of it. If Steyn were branded as an illegal enemy combatant, he'd be in no position to make it out of Guantanamo sooner than anyone else. Until recently, illegal enemy combatants weren't entitled to a presumption of innocence or to real habeas corpus. Steyn would not truly have deserved it, but at least then he would have learned what a real kangaroo court is like.

I'm your enabler, here. I continue, at least for now, to let you pollute my blog with your vile bile. I have no legal or ethical obligation to do so.

That's right, it's your blog and it's your call. You deserve credit for allowing open comments. It makes your blog a more honest forum. But it doesn't make you a protector of the First Amendment.

But he certainly has been whining, you're right about that.

No, you're wrong about that, unless by "whining" you mean "rightfully pointing out the unfairness of a system that has a suppressive effect on free expression."

The HRC is not a kangaroo court, it's a real civil court.

Nonsense. You're now completely full of shit. In a "real civil court" the litigant has to pay their own lawyers. In a "real civil court" the defendant wins quite often. In a "real civil court" truth is a defense.

Your defending these anti-freedom tribunals and star chambers sickens me even more than your usual noxious tripe.

But it doesn't make you a protector of the First Amendment.

I never claimed it did. I am, nonetheless, though you don't seem to be.

In a "real civil court" the litigant has to pay their own lawyers.

That's counterfactual. In the US as in Canada, governments often sue people on behalf of the public interest.

In a "real civil court" truth is a defense.

That's also counterfactual. Certain specific civil actions are based on findings of falsehood, but there is no universal legal principle that you're protected by telling the truth. For instance, in the US as in Canada, you can tell the truth and still lose a tort of false light.

Your defending these anti-freedom tribunals and star chambers

I have made no defense whatsoever of the HRC or any other such tribunal. What I said is that you and Steyn made a mountain out of a molehill.

But as I said, the CSRT is a real anti-freedom tribunal. Not only have you not criticized it, you've rationalized torturing those who are presumed guilty by this kangaroo court. The Canadian HRC could hypothetically have fined MacLeans or Steyn a few dollars, but they certainly have no authority to torture people. Your rally for Mark Steyn is a glass of whine to make up for your own defense of tyranny.

Your rally for Mark Steyn is a glass of whine to make up for your own defense of tyranny.

I have no "rally for Mark Steyn." My rally is for freedom of expression, something for which you are apparently contemptuous, despite your pathetic and vile attempt to change the subject to Gitmo.

Geez, Rand, you're right--you don't have to put up with semiliterate trolls. It's painful even to read this guy's drool.

That's counterfactual. ... That's also counterfactual.

I had to look this up in the dictionary to make sure, but it seems simpler to just say "untrue", "wrong", "incorrect", etc.

I had to look this up in the dictionary to make sure, but it seems simpler to just say "untrue", "wrong", "incorrect", etc.

The problem is that many of these words carry the connotation that Rand has made a mistake. The word counterfactual is more neutral, c.f., counterfactualism or counterfactual history. Rand or someone else reading this thread might prefer the details to be fake but accurate.

Ah, you mean "false" or "untrue".

>>Until recently, illegal enemy combatants weren't entitled to a presumption of innocence or to real habeas corpus.
And why should they be? Soldiers legally engaged in acts of war, wearing uniforms and under the authority of a government have no such protections. When captured they are held until exchanged or hostitlities are ended. Why in the world should persons illegally engaging in warfare, not wearing uniforms and not under governmental authority, be entitled to greater protection?

Why in the world should persons illegally engaging in warfare, not wearing uniforms and not under governmental authority, be entitled to greater protection?

This is the classic lapse in logic that always grips a scared public. If the crime is terrible enough, then let's not worry about whether or not the accused actually did it. If we accuse them, that makes them guilty enough.

In other words, who persuaded you that they actually are illegal enemy combatants? If some of them were grabbed at an airport, or arrested at night in their homes, or turned in for a bounty, does that count as being "caught on the battlefield"? What about the ones that were let go? How is it that they were too guilty to stand trial, and yet innocent enough to be set free?

As I said, with the system that they have (or had), they are entirely free to pluck Mark Steyn from the Manchester Airport in New Hampshire and make him an illegal enemy combatant. After all, he's not an American citizen, and airports count as "the battlefield". He would have no way to persuade them to set him free, since illegal enemy combatants are guilty by military fiat.

Enemy combatants aren't guilty of anything. It's a standard POW situation. But I do agree there should be judicial review of the circumstances of the detention. I don't see the current terrorism problems sufficiently great to suspend habeus corpus.

Enemy combatants aren't guilty of anything. It's a standard POW situation.

The Bush administration has gone out of its way to explain that it is not a standard POW situation, and that the detainees are not just enemy combatants, but illegal enemy combatants. You're correct that they aren't guilty of anything specific. However, the Guantanamo system assigns them blanket guilt. They are guilty enough to be stripped of habeas corpus, to be tortured, and to be imprisoned indefinitely. But if the authorities want to cover their butts, the same detainees can be innocent enough to set free with no explanation.

In one respect they are right that it isn't standard. In a conventional war, it is often pro forma to determine which side a detainee is on, if not necessarily whether he fights. A detainee caught with a German Army unit in Alsace who only speaks German is unlikely to be Canadian. A war against terrorists is different: A suspected enemy could speak any language, have any nationality, and be caught anywhere.

Ordinarily this lack of definition of the enemy would mean more legal protection for the accused, not less, because it's less obvious who truly is the enemy. But the Bush Administration turned it upside-down; they used uncertainty to strip away legal protections. People here have argued that we should feel safe because they only want to strip foreigners of their rights. But that is not what Bush et al had in mind. At first, they also threw American citizens into this legal abyss. They were going to strip away rights whenever and wherever they pleased, until they were stopped.

On the other hand, there is an unstated operational feature of all of the detainees that is meant to make most of us feel safe from CIA kidnapping: the detainees are all Muslims. It's not citizenship, because some of them have been Americans. It's not strictly terrorism either: they have swept up Muslims who aren't terrorists and they haven't swept up terrorists who aren't Muslims. To be sure, there is a wish to restrict the focus to Islamic terrorism. But if Muslim detainees are guilty by government fiat, the wish cannot be completely true. Unlike Mark Steyn's fake hysterics over a micro-infringement of his rights, what they have in Guantanamo truly is, "First they came for the Muslims..."

It's hard to think of a worse security plan for America than a lawless religious war against Muslims. Talk about bringing them on. Hopefully, come January, it will no longer be lawless. Then we can try to eliminate religious persecution from our side of the fight too.

Jim Harris...The Master of the Logical Fallacy.

Lets see, I find several in this thread. False Dilemma's: check, Begging the Question: check, Non-Sequitur: check, Red Herring: check, Equivocation: check, Slippery Slopes: check, Naturalistic Fallacies: check.....