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Yesterday the Canadian Association of Journalists announced it had applied for intervenor status at next week's trial in Vancouver. Alas, not every CAJ member is happy about the move. An esteemed Ottawa journalist - well, self-esteemed - wrote back to the executive committee:
Hello all:
I would like to find out more from the CAJ executive about what we feel is at issue here, and what we plan to say before the tribunal. I am familiar with some of Steyn's work in the past and have written about it. It was not the sort of material that I was able to defend on a professional basis. At the time I believe I referred to it as <<obscene.>>
It is one thing to say 'I don't agree with what you are saying, but I will fight to defend your right to say it' and quite another to say we will tolerate as professional journalists the most unprofessional sort of journalism just because someone wrote it.
Now is the time to avoid the kind of disaster we brought upon ourselves in the Stevie Cameron affair.
A brief outline from the executive on what we plan to say and why would be useful to the membership.
Yours Truly
Oh, my. I only wish my work were more "obscene" and preferably state funded: crucifixes floating in my urine, or pictures of naked kids - I'd have a lot more defenders.
It's regrettable how few expensively educated members of the west's elites understand principle, but it's even sadder how few can even grasp basic self-interest. Next week's case is not about "defending" Steyn: I'll be deemed unpublishable in Canada within the month. But Obscenity Boy should have the wit to defend himself and his colleagues. If the Canadian Islamic Congress get both the statutory penalty (the cease-and-desist order) and the remedy they're seeking (a court-ordered right of reply), that will be a landmark legal precedent in advancing state regulation of the editorial content of Canada's mainstream magazines and newspapers. That's what you're defending, Obscenity Boy. I'll be long gone, a fading memory in the dimmest recesses of a few lonely right-wing madmen. But the BCHRT and the OHRC and the NSHRC and the CHRC and all the rest have made it plain that what you do is subject to their whims and the ambition of whatever fashionable lobby groups take their fancy. It's about you, not me.
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