“Everyone is in favor of free speech… but some people's idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone else says anything back, that is an outrage.” ― Winston Churchill
“It is a bit ridiculous to mandate cultural curiosity,” representative Edwin Mui, one of the three individuals who abstained from voting, told Campus Reform.
“As U-M students, we should already have a mindset of fostering diversity and inclusion,” Mui continued. “The fact we must pass legislation to force representatives to learn about different cultures is disappointing.”
Indeed. But not, I think, for the reasons Mr. Mui regrets. I note no one is being forced to be curious about the College Republicans club.
With the feigned distress of one who refused to take a side, he regrets the “necessity.” But which necessity? The necessity that attendance at Students of Color events be raised? The necessity of virtue signaling? The necessity of using power to make people do something they obviously prefer not to do? At not least frequently enough to satisfy U-M’s tiny totalitarians?
Mr. Mui is not upset that University of Michigan student government is force marching the cultural-diversity resistant reprobates who are obviously not real “U-M quality” students. It’s something they should want to do anyway. U-M student government was left with no choice but to make them attend re-education seminars. That may not work exactly the way they hope.
Mr. Mui doesn’t object to the result; he objects to the U-M student government’s abuse of power being laid bare. That necessity wasn’t regrettable. Or necessary.
I wonder if someone will become so enamored of another culture that the U-M student government will have to pass an anti-cultural-appropriation mandate. If they haven’t already.
TOC has noted many instances where Canada serves as a bad example, and a few where we should follow our Northern neighbor’s lead. This is one of the latter, and it’s a big one.
France’s top law-enforcement official was convicted Friday of making racist comments and ordered to pay … [about 3,000 Euros] … to an antiracism group. Mr. Hortefeux [Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux] was caught on camera last year making what sounded like anti-Arab remarks
… A video circulating on the Internet showed Mr. Hortefeux at an event last September in southwest France for the governing UMP party, having his picture taken with a young party member of North African origin.
A woman’s voice is heard saying “it’s our little Arab,” and Mr. Hortefeux is heard saying: “We always need one. When there’s one, that’s all right. It’s when there are a lot of them that there are problems.”
Mr. Hortefeux’s office said later the remark was a reference to the many photos taken at the event. The incident occurred shortly after Mr. Hortefeux suspended a top regional official for racist comments.
Hoist with his own petard. Ironic.
More ironic yet is that the French are a people who practice organized vandalism over the opening of a McDonald’s and who pass laws to outlaw the phrase “le hot dog,” because those are icons of cultural assimilation; threats to the French way of life. Meanwhile, mentioning the true existential threat of demographic reverse assimilation is, um, verboten.
Where will France’s culture take refuge after that process is complete? Then who will sing La Marseillaise? And if anyone does, in what language?
So, where is Charles DeGaulle when he’s needed? Spinning in his grave, because if that country of “North African origin” turned out to be Algeria, it would be more than irony can bear.
Canadian freedom takes a step forward by allowing a foreign corporation to sell books from Canadian soil. I’ll bet you never thought this had been prohibited, but for Amazon to Open Center in Canada is a big deal:
The decision is the biggest departure yet from Canada’s long-standing policy that “cultural” industries like book and music publishing should be controlled by Canadian companies.
…Canada is trying to position itself as a champion of free trade and open markets…
…Canada also announced last month that it plans to eliminate all tariffs on the import of machinery and other manufacturing parts, making it the first developed country to do so.
Canadians just became a bit more free and, predictably, protected industries are upset about it. Amazon in Canada angers McNally
Support for multi-culturalism apparently has its limits, but the bigger story is elimination of machinery and parts from the tariff list. Good move. The US should follow it.
Sadly, that headline is neither fanatic nor fanciful. RTWT
9/11 is to become the “National Day of Service,” so we will no longer focus on external danger or the 3,000 who died. 9-11 is a past crisis which must be wasted away by Presidential edict.
Despite this attempted revisionism, 9-11 will remain a day of somber reflection, attenuated mourning and thoughts of “never again.” Americans aren’t the dupes Barack Obama and his fringe-left friends imagine them to be. 9-11 is sacred. Attempting to make it a day of celebration of the advent of carbon taxes and ACORN/SEIU/AFL-CIO/FoE/Color of Change organizing is reprehensible.
What’s next, designating December 7th as the “Day of Pan-Oceanic Multiculturalism?”
There was a time when Christian religious leaders could remember that Jesus said, “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” There was a time when honor lived in Canterbury, but we’re apparently a long way past Thomas Becket: Sharia law in UK is ‘unavoidable’
The Archbishop of Canterbury says the adoption of certain aspects of Sharia law in the UK “seems unavoidable”.
Dr Rowan Williams told Radio 4’s World at One that the UK has to “face up to the fact” that some of its citizens do not relate to the British legal system.
Dr Williams argues that adopting parts of Islamic Sharia law would help maintain social cohesion.
The problem is that in a one-way multi-cultural society where the courage of Western convictions has been lost, Dr. Rowan is absolutely correct. Surrendering your legal system to the demands of the religion of immigrants may temporarily achieve “social cohesion.” Don’t ask them to assimilate. It’s your guilty penance to accomodate.
On this side of the Atlantic we have a parallel example. Polygamy is not legal in Canada, but in Ontario male Islamic Torontonians with more than one spouse are collecting more than one welfare payment: Polygamy under fire
An abuse of the welfare system by GTA [Greater Toronto Area] Muslim men allowed to live in polygamous marriages under a controversial Ontario law was met with shock and outrage yesterday.
Politicians and the public reacted angrily to an exclusive story in yesterday’s Toronto Sun about how the men collected social benefits for up to four wives.
Mumtaz Ali, president of the Canadian Society of Muslims, said hundreds of members of his community in polygamous marriages have been collecting welfare for some time.
Frankly, the strange thing in that story is how it is possible for Ontarians to muster the shock and outrage necessary to experience shock and outrage.
Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket died in 1170. His brutal murder sent a shock through Medieval Europe. It was another 45 years before the Magna Carta was forced upon King John in 1215, but these events are not without connection.
Is it possible that English speaking democracies go past their “best before” date if they have not had a revolution in 800 years? To be fair, no other language group has had democracy for that length of time, but Canada and Britain share the slow suicide of one-way multi-culturalism, and they both have severe restrictions on freedom of speech. It is not coincidental that neither has adopted the concept of our First Amendment, the same Amendment John McCain thinks should be subservient to the “appearance of corruption.”
In the US it has started with Somali cabbies in Minneapolis refusing to transport customers possessing alcohol, then Muslim Piggly Wiggly check-out clerks refuse to sell you bacon. It progresses to an unwillingness to defend our borders. Welfare for polygamists is about one election cycle away.
After that, the lobbying for sharia will begin in earnest here.
TOC has long pointed out that the United States can profit from observing the consequences of Canadian social experiments. Prominent among these precautionary tales have been socialized medicine and gun bans.
Another example is official multi-culturalism. Canadian immigration policy has been to reject the “melting pot,” assimilationist approach in favor of a multi-cultural “mosaic.” Official multi-culturalism is the theory that your country’s traditional values and character are less important than the mores immigrants bring with them when escaping leaving their own countries. To believe otherwise is racist and chauvinist. Therefore, immigrants should be encouraged to remain culturally separate and exquisitely sensitive to any criticism of the values they bring with them.
In Canada this national self-deprecation is quite advanced. Complaints of hurt feelings are prosecuted by government “Human Rights” Commissions wherein those charged are guilty until proven innocent. They have no right to confront their accusers and must bear the entire financial burden of their defense – while the government funds the prosecution. Entrapment is practiced officially. Double or triple, or more, jeopardy is standard.
The convening of such tribunals is considered even more important when the complainant is on record as advocating the replacement of Canadian norms with his own cultural paradigm. Replacing Canadian jurisprudence with Sharia, is one example. This idea has been seriously debated in Ontario, and we have not seen the end of it.
It is also particularly important to upholding “human rights” to hear from individuals who have elevated racism and misogyny to art forms. A history of advocating the destruction of Israel, or defending “honor” killings may not be required for acceptance by an HRC, but they’re strongly correlated with many recent plaintiffs’ beliefs.
TOC has written extensively about the charges against Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant brought by extreme Islamists and taken up by various Canadian HRCs. This is multi-culturalism as suppression of free speech in contradiction to Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms: “2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms: b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;”
Some Canadian bureaucrats are not entirely on board with this fundamental freedom.
The following exchange is from the Warman vs Lemire Section 13 hate speech hearing before the Canadian Human Rights Commission (page 4793 of the transcript). Barbara Kulaszka is the attorney for the respondent in the case. Dean Steacy is the chief CHRC investigator.
MS. KULASZKA: Mr. Steacy, you were talking before about context and how important it is when you do your investigation. What value do you give freedom of speech when you investigate one of these complaints?
MR. STEACY: Freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don’t give it any value.
MS. KULASZKA: Okay. That was a clear answer.
MR. STEACY: It’s not my job to give value to an American concept.
Mr. Steacy is otherwise famous for posting at the “white nationalist” website Stormfront under the name “Jadewarr.” Steacy’s intent in this activity is entrapment. Mark Steyn reports:
1. Do any investigators post on Stormfront.org?
I am not aware of any investigator other than me [Steacy], who has posted on Stormfront.
2. Getting back to Jadewarr, do Commission employees sign up accounts on Stormfront, under pseudonyms such as “Jadewarr”?
I used the Jadewarr email address to create an account on Stormfront. I am not aware whether or not other investigators have created other accounts on Stormfront.
3. Do you know who Jadewarr is?
Jadewarr is not a person, it is an email address and a user account on Stormfront.org. I created the Jadewarr email address on yahoo.ca and the Jadewarr account on Stormfront. I have used the Jadewarr email address and the Jadewarr account on Stormfront on occasion, in the course of investigating complaints. I am not aware of anyone else having used the Jadewarr email address or account.
4. To your knowledge, is Jadewarr a Commission employee?
See above.
5. As part of your duties, have you ever signed up with a message board and made postings?
Yes, I have done so using the Jadewarr account in investigating section 13 complaints.
Thought police. He’s just taking a cue from ex-CHRC employee Richard Warman, who practices such entrapment for financial gain. Warman is quite good as a sock puppet:
Is Richard Warman a racist bigot, or was he “just following orders” issued by his masters at the Canadian Human Rights Commission when he posted the headlined message above on a Freedomsite forum on September 5, 2003? Whatever the answer, the same CHRC that has ruled Bible verses to be hate speech doesn’t seem to consider these words to be a problem.
But they are a big problem, for both Richard Warman and the CHRC, and the rest of what he wrote only makes matters worse.
“Not only is Canadian Senator Anne Cools is a Negro, she is also an immigrant!
And she is also one helluva preachy c*nt.
She does NOT belong in my Canada. My Anglo-Germanic people were here before there was a Canada and her kind have jumped in, polluted our race, and forced their bullshit down our throats.
Time to go back to when the women nigger imports knew their place…
And that place was NOT in public!
It may be mere coincidence that Richard Warman is in fact an Anglo-German, but it is not likely a coincidence at all that the owner of the website where Richard Warman posted this racist screed against Sen. Anne Cools came under attack by the CHRC shortly after Richard Warman began his complaint-less investigation there.
One hopes Mr. Warman is criminally charged. Mark Steyn has a further note about Mr. Warman here.
Who has availed themselves of the “human rights” protected by Section XIII? In its entire history, over half of all cases have been brought by a sole “complainant,” one Richard Warman. Indeed, Mr. Warman has been a plaintiff on every single Section XIII case before the federal “human rights” star chamber since 2002 — and he’s won every one. That would suggest that no man in any free society anywhere on the planet has been so comprehensively deprived of his human rights. Well, no. Mr. Warman doesn’t have to demonstrate that he’s been deprived of his human rights, only that it’s “likely” (i.e. “highly un-“) that someone somewhere will be deprived of some right sometime. Who is Richard Warman? What’s his story? Well, he’s a former employee of the Canadian Human Rights Commission: an investigator. Same as Shirlene McGovern.
Isn’t there something a little odd in a supposedly necessary Canadian federal “human rights” system used all but exclusively by one lone Canadian who served as a long-time employee of that system? Why should Richard Warman be the only citizen to have his own personal inquisition? You can hardly blame the Canadian Islamic Congress and the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada and no doubt the Supreme All-Powerful Islamic Executive Council of Swift Current, Sask., for now figuring they’d like a piece of the human rights action.
Many other excellent posts on what this fascist tendency in Canada may mean to us are to be found at Pundita. Links below. What does it mean that Canada’s multi-cultural policy is called a “success” and used to encourage other countries to do follow suit?
