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Kathy Shaidle and Pete Vere lift the rock on Canada's thought police in their new volume published this week. The Tyranny Of Nice is the book of the show trial of the magazine excerpt of the original hate crime (America Alone). It's a great read, not just about the Steyn case and the Ezra Levant cartoon showdown but about all the other travesties of justice that have received far less publicity, beginning with the outrageous and totalitarian lifetime speech ban on the Reverend Stephen Boissoin. From transsexual labiaplasties to hygiene-free hamburger joints, Kathy and Pete examine the many exotic new "human rights" that have supplanted the old, real human rights, like free speech, the presumption of innocence and the right to a free trial. We here at Hatemonger Central are delighted to be able to offer The Tyranny Of Nice for sale to readers around the world, and I'll be happy to autograph it, too.
Aside from looking in at a couple of chums at the Montreal Jazz Festival, I gave Canada a wide berth this summer. But I was rather surprised in my travels at how many people far and wide were up to speed on the case. Under the aegis of Britain's Centre for Social Cohesion, I gave a speech at the Carlton Club on the subject, and while passing through London looked up a few old showbiz pals. My friend Nica Burns was busy with her stage production of Rain Man and I was a little stunned, backstage at the Apollo, to be introduced by Nica to the star of the show, hunky heartthrob Josh Hartnett*, with the words, "This is Mark Steyn. He's being hounded in Canada for exercising his right to free speech." Josh did a remarkably convincing job of feigning interest, considering there were 200 squealing dolly birds on the other side of the stage door panting to tear his clothes off.
A couple of days earlier, I was at Andrew Lloyd Webber's 60th birthday bash at Hyde Park, and was equally amazed at how well informed Andrew was about the case. Apparently, he'd been in Toronto for some TV show, and had chanced to pick up a newspaper while he was there. That may explain these remarks to The Daily Telegraph:
So many people nowadays are obsessed with things offending people. Today people say you can't do this because it will offend that community, and then you can't say this because the Muslims will be offended by it and we'll end up being talked out of it. Talked out of ideas. Whereas when I was 20 I didn't think about those things - you could just do it.
Quite. It has been a little disheartening this last year to find that non-Canadians - whether Noam Chomsky or Richard Dawkins, Pat Buchanan or Salman Rushdie, The Australian's Janet Albrechtsen or the Telegraph's Janet Daley (two of the world's all-time great Janets, by the way) - get what's at stake so much more clearly than many citizens of Trudeaupia do. I'm hopeful The Tyranny Of Nice will help change that. You can read an excerpt from the book here, and listen to Ed Driscoll interviewing Kathy and Pete here. And don't forget, you can double your reading pleasure by buying The Tyranny Of Nice with the paperback of America Alone together for one low price.
(*He's just terrific in the play, by the way. Much better than Tom Cruise.)
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