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Friday, September 25, 2009

Intellectual freedom in Canada: Inquisitor is now himself inquisitioned

No, I don't know if "inquisitioned" is an allowable word. The story is so weird, I just have to use this "word".

It turns out that a serial complainant to the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) is himself being investigated by the Commission for "hate speech."

If this isn't nuts, we don't know nuts from popcorn.

Obviously, the CHRC has long been totally out of control and needs a firm hand to bring it into line with Canadian public policy. Ezra Levant recommends a judicial investigation, and I think that wise. Especially because so few targeted defendants could afford legal representation.

Right now, there is a difference of opinion among free speech journalists about whether the CHRC should just be shut down or turned to other uses. I tend, somewhat hesitantly, to side with the latter view.

My reasoning is that it is difficult, in this country, to actually shut down a government enterprise.

Especially when there is the risk of activating a horde of yelping ninnies from fashionable neighbourhoods, concerned that their own human rights are at risk.

As if.

The sort of women who would dress their toddlers in adorable little tees, blazoned "I [heart] my human rights". But if you interviewed them, you would quickly find out that they have no idea what has happened, do not care, and will not read relevant books - on principle. You see, unlike me, they know what happened, because some local witch has told them what to think.

They certainly haven't supported friends through any of it; that wouldn't even be possible. For one thing, it would never have occurred to any of them to confess to an idea that is not thoroughly approved by the People Who Count, and they would quickly abandon anyone who was targeted.

Okay, to forestall that ninny stampede, I recommend that we direct the human rights commissions (all of them - there are fourteen) to start dealing with issues like female genital mutilation, child marriage, any instance of extra-legal punishment for offences by amputation or flogging, and possible virtual slavery of illegal immigrants. Doubtless, there are other issues to consider as well. Forced suicides come to mind as a possibility.

Will this help? Maybe. I bet virtually all the current staff will quit if we insist that they do something useful instead of pretending to be Nazis in order to bug losers. Then maybe we can replace them with people prepared to deal with true human rights issues in Canada. But if not, we can fold the HRCs into another department that does something useful, and so it just quietly dies.

It's not a question of what needs to be done. That's glaringly obvious. It's a question of how we do it.

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