Barbara_in_BC July 1, 2008 at 6:58 p.m.

Remind me again. How is it free speech to say one group of Canadians is breeding so fast they are soon going to be the predominant religion in Canada. If this was a true statement, I wouldn't complain. But it isn't. Muslims have a right to complain about Steyn spreading lies in print about their birth rate.

Barbara_in_BC July 1, 2008 at 8:22 p.m.

Free speech was vindicated in the Rafe Mair case where the judge decided:

"The legal tests the court set out to determine “honest belief” include:

The comment must be on a matter of public interest.

It must be based on fact."

I conclude that the Mark Steyn article in Macleans doesn't conform to this test.

frustratedink July 2, 2008 at 10:07 a.m.

Barbara

It is free speech Barbara. They are mere words regardless of the content. Every expression does not have to serve an ideology or some legal notion of “public interest.” And, who determines and defines what is “public interest?” You? Barbara Hall?

Even if Mark Steyn is wrong it is still ludicrous for some public sector Commissar to initiate an investigation based on him having an idea that people find “offensive.” Nowhere in the charter of rights does it say that one has the right to “not” be offended, and rightfully so. Steyn didn’t call for the mass genocide of Muslims, he merely stated his opinion (just words) just as you or I or the three complainants have the right to publically disagree with his views. In a civil society, people should be free to express whatever it is they have to say as long as it does not facilitate violence against life or property. When that Canadian university professor publically stated that Asians are superior to Caucasians who are superior to Negros (his words), he was not assailed by some make-work project of a federal Commission in Ottawa, he was vigorously refuted by fellow academics that proved him wrong with their own expertise. Frankly, having the government go after someone for merely expressing an idea that you do not agree with is sad and pathetic, even more so than Steyn’s self-inflicted paranoia.

If people want to live in that sort of society then they should move to North Korea or Iran where the governments excel in protecting their citizen’s frail ears and “guarding their minds from corruption.” And if the three complainants are so easily offended by an idea then they should move to Disneyland and live in a perfect bubble where their delicate sensibilities won’t be shaken. If they had any true dignity they would have issued a major paper refuting all of Steyn’s arguments – not go running off crying into Hall’s bureaucratic bosom like pathetic school children.

Personally, I don’t need some political flunkie telling me that Mark Steyn is wrong. I can decide that for myself, as I have actually read America Alone and sent him a lengthy note on how wrong many of his points are. I find the incarnation of Barbara Hall more offensive than Mark Steyn in that she has the gall to believe that she can decide what we can or cannot read.

No wonder the west is in decline.

frustratedink July 2, 2008 at 10:36 a.m.

One other point I wanted to make Barbara is the danger of “function creep” which makes government bodies serving as moral guardians so dangerous. Today it is Mark Steyn and the Muslim threat, tomorrow it may be Christian evangelist zealots filing human rights claims against articles that discuss evolution. And, the next day it could be you as the target for merely expressing an idea that someone finds offensive.

These matters should be left to the public dialogue and not some bureaucratic mission. Ernst Zundel is now a folk hero who has found legitimacy because his ideas seemed important enough to gain government attention. If the three complainants left Steyn to his own devices, he would have drifted off into obscurity and his book would have ended up in the $4.99 clearance bin at Indigo instead of becoming even more of a best seller.

Barbara_in_BC July 2, 2008 at 12:09 p.m.

You are ludicrous frustratedink: the ideas Steyn expressed were untrue, yet were featured on the cover of Macleans magazine. I wasn't "offended" by that Macleans article but rather I was amazed that they would let a high school dropout spread misinformation on their front cover. If as Steyn says, "The Future Belongs to Islam", what are we supposed to do about it? Restrict Muslims from immigrating? Enforce birth control among their members? Obviously this Steyn fellow has an agenda for spreading this stuff, one which his fellow neocons share.

frustratedink July 2, 2008 at 1:09 p.m.

Barbara, I understand that what Steyn has to say is untrue, but even if it is a government body should not be the one to regulate what is printed and what is not. Are you saying that the people of Canada are so weak minded that they will just believe anything that is printed on the cover of Macleans? Are they not capable of deciding what is bullsh*t and what is not? Do they need an appointed official to decide for the unwashed masses? Isn’t that somewhat elitist? How is that any different than neocons assuming that the public needs to have public policy decided by the few? I’m not arguing that Steyn is right, in fact he’s wrong, but that’s for us to decide and not political cronies. Did you write a letter to Macleans or to Steyn himself? You can on his website. It should be up to you and me and the public to refute him, not Barbara Hall.

Also, it’s a million mile stretch between Steyn writing an erroneous article and imposing immigration and birth control policies upon Muslims. Where did you think I connected the two? Are you such a reactionary that you would equate me having an anti-Muslim bias simply because I’m against having the BCHRC involved in this? If I criticize Israeli foreign policy does that make me an anti-Semite?

True intellectual growth comes from allowing people to print their beliefs (no matter how wrong) and responding to them in kind instead of shutting them down (via a regulatory body) because you don’t agree that they are true– a very juvenile outlook on life.

Like I said, today it’s Mark Steyn; tomorrow it can be you or I on the receiving end of a government gag.

And, as Noam Chomsky said, “If you don’t believe in freedom of speech for those you despise, you really don’t believe in it at all.”

GravityLevity2 July 2, 2008 at 2:56 p.m.

fru is, I think, right about function creep. Certainly fundamentalist religious groups have recently tried to silence academics in the classrooms of Canadian universities for offensive speech criticizing religious beliefs, such as the belief in a deity. But part of the problem with Maclean's--which has become a hopeless rag under its current editor, is that it allowed no right of reply.

Barbara_in_BC July 2, 2008 at 3:20 p.m.

frustratedink said:

"Also, it’s a million mile stretch between Steyn writing an erroneous article and imposing immigration and birth control policies upon Muslims."

Not so fast - Steyn is a puppet of the neoconservatives in America. Whose goal is not spreading democracy but controlling oil resources. Currently the American army occupies a Muslim country, where 1 in 40 Iraqis have been killed during the freedom-spreading "mission of mercy". Could this be a way for neocons to decimate the Muslim population before taking control of their oil resources. And then the Steyn agenda becomes clear... demonizing Muslims has an economic goal.

frustratedink July 2, 2008 at 3:49 p.m.

Barbara, when I wrote that, I meant to say that Mark Steyn writing an erroneous article would hardly act as a catalyst to motivate millions of Canadians into demanding immigration and birth control policies upon Muslims. Read my post below again.

“Are you saying that the people of Canada are so weak minded that they will just believe anything that is printed on the cover of Macleans? Are they not capable of deciding what is bullsh*t and what is not? Do they need an appointed official to decide for the unwashed masses?”

You are smart enough to have figured Steyn out, so why do you need the BCHRC? The BCHRC can also be used as a tool by the neocons to silence you and me or anyone who doesn’t agree with their policies which is why it should not exist. If I wrote an article on how white American evangelical zealots were growing and taking over policy making institutions, I could also find myself on the receiving end of a human rights complaint. It is a double edged sword.

P.S. I think you give Steyn waaaayyyyyyy too much credit. His true agenda is servicing his ego with book sales and TV appearances. You can’t waste time on pundits. It’s the faceless Cheney/PNAC policy wonks (Rove, Perle, Feith, Wolfowitz, et al) that you should be worrying about. They formulate policy. Steyn is just the monkey dancing to the organ grinder.

Barbara_in_BC July 2, 2008 at 9:52 p.m.

frustratedink said:

"Steyn is just the monkey dancing to the organ grinder."

There are a lot more bigots where he came from. And they're multiplying like mosquitos, with every article he writes.

jade_lee July 3, 2008 at 2:37 p.m.

We find ourselves in a catch 22 situation.....should we apologizes to all muslims in 60 years and stay on our current path where the Mark Steyns of the world poison what value is left in main stream media? The fact is that we can frame this argument about freedom of speech all we want and even go as far as give the traditional "press" the sentimental free reign to express the personal opinions of those who are able to write well but communication among all of us has changed and no government short of censoring the internet will be able to control free democratic exchange of ideas....good ones and bad ones because in reality I doubt any government has the capacity to stop people in extremely large numbers......The human rights commission is not intended to stop freedom of speech but instead to curb the freedom to spread hate, even in it's covert form. The commission has found the grounds to slap Macleans with a notice of misconduct to be unfounded but in reality the message was loud and clear to those who have followed the case....they have addressed the issue of steyn's opinions and discredited his views.....the outcome which was the goal to begin with of those who wanted the opportunity to challenge mainstream paranoia expressed by well connected extreme thinkers.

Fintan July 3, 2008 at 4:18 p.m.

Excellent comment and analysis, jade_lee! I tend to believe that people should have the right to say and write more or less what they want - just as long as they are aware of what the consequences of what they say could well be. Mark Schweyn is just a little money-grubbing opportunistic turd with a gift for wordsmithing, but he ought to think of the effect his views have on people who are essentially nasty and what they do to people they, often sincerely, believe deserve to be treated badly because he has so effectively abused his talent and fuelled the fear that all those inedaquate people have in them. He is just as evil as His Lardship (now happily in the slammer for exactly four months) and his golddigging crone wife Morticia, who likewise abused the talents they had and didn't give a doo-doo what harm they caused just as long as they lived on the pig's back,