Return of the Thought-Crime Commissars

The War on Free Speech
June 7, 2019

https://www.steynonline.com/9439/return-of-the-thought-crime-commissars

This week Mark gave evidence to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, about the proposed return of Canada's hate-speech laws. The hearing attracted a lot of press coverage. While in town, Mark also spoke to David The Menzoid Menzies about free speech and the Dominion's thought police. Click below to watch:

Tuesday's hearing was an odd one. The Conservative vice-chair, Michael Cooper, who had invited Steyn, Lindsay Shepherd and John Robson was booted off the committee by his party leader (and Prime Minister-in-waiting) Andrew Scheer. Because of interest in what Mark and his fellow witnesses were to say, the meeting was scheduled to be televised. But, in the opening minutes of the hearing, the Liberals voted to un-televise it, and the remaining Tories voted with them. Why would the Conservatives vote to diminish the profile of witnesses their own side had called? Andrew Lawton has the scoop:

With Conservatives like this, it may be time for Mark to call Maxime Bernier and find a Quebec riding.

~Steyn may be de-televised in Ottawa, but, for Mark Steyn Club members, he'll be back on camera this Sunday with a brand new video selection in Steyn's Sunday Poems - because, as Mark always says, video poetry is where the big bucks are.

As we always say, Mark Steyn Club membership isn't for everybody, but it helps keep all our content out there for everybody, in print, audio, video, on everything from civilizational collapse to our Saturday movie dates. And we're proud to say that this site now offers more free content than ever before in its sixteen-year history.

What is The Mark Steyn Club? Well, it's a discussion group of lively people on the great questions of our time (the latest was last Wednesday); it's also an audio Book of the Month Club, and a live music club, and the aforementioned video poetry circle. We don't (yet) have a clubhouse, but we do have many other benefits, and not one but two upcoming cruises. And, if you've got some kith or kin who might like the sound of all that and more, we do have a special Gift Membership that makes a great Father's Day gift. More details here.

© 2019 Mark Steyn Enterprises (US) Inc. All rights reserved.
No part of this website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied, modified or adapted, without the prior written consent of Mark Steyn Enterprises.

If you're a member of The Mark Steyn Club and you take issue with this article, then have at it in our comments section.

receive the latest by email: subscribe to steynonline's free weekly mailing list

Comment on this item

Submission of reader comments is restricted to Mark Steyn Club members only. If you are not yet a member, please click here to join. If you are already a member, please log in here:

Member Login

90 Reader Comments

AB43 • Jun 9, 2019 at 17:42

When I joined the newly formed People' party of Canada and invited friends and family to join I issued the following prediction:
I have a sign for you to watch if Maxime Bernier is for real or just a flash in the pan, watch the Canadian TV, Read the papers the more you will see hysteria of the MSM of the left, Attacking him same as Trump, calling him a Nazi, racist, Islamophobe, whatever name that they can come up with, that is the best sign that they are scared and he has a chance. Same as Dough Ford that came from nowhere and now he is the premier of Ontario.
The attack's on Maxime Bernier and People's Party of Canada are in full swing including sending out spoofed Emails to discredit it with false accusations. It can come from liberanos, Conservanos, NDPanos. There is no dirty trick in the book and not in book that they will not do Populous parties are on the rise all over the world and there is no reason why it should not happen in Canada also. People are disgusted with all traditional corrupt parties they are hungry for fresh air that replaces the foul odor of the traditional political kitchen of corrupt deals to enrich traditional politicians.

AB43 • Jun 9, 2019 at 14:47

Mark the best help that you can offer to Maxime Bernier is invite him for televised interview same as you gave to George Papadopolos

Mark replies:

I interviewed M Bernier here.

AB43

AB43 • Jun 9, 2019 at 15:49

Mark that was in March 2017. Lot of water did flow in Ottawa river since then. Then it was an introduction of a newcomer to the scene. It was before Justin Trudeau screwed up the Liberal party, Before Jody Wilson-Reybould and Jane Philpott were forced out, it was before you, Lindsay Shepherd and John Robson were expunged from the records of the parliament and MP Michael Cooper is facing removal from the Conservative caucus. Right now we are 4 month before September election for the Canadian parliament Looking at the political landscape of Canada at this moment that the only honest truthful populous politician in Canada is Maxime Bernier. As far as status quo is concerned all of the political parties i.e. liberanos, Conservanos, NDPanos and approved media are doing the best muzzle Maxime Bernier to turn him into a nonperson, If he is mentioned it is with false accusation. There is no chance that those crocks and their media will do anything regarding publishing the truth because their political life depends on it . Maxime Bernier needs every ounce of publicity that he can get. It is an opportunity to pay them back for what they have done to you and Lindsay Shepherd and John Robson and thousands of people that logged on to hear your, Lindsay and John testimony. Mark please consider it it will be definitely more useful than running as a candidate fro PPC. Who knows you may get elected and then what? Close the club and collect a a Canadian MP salary?

Nicola Timmerman • Jun 9, 2019 at 05:23

All this PPC talk is inside baseball for non Canadians and many Canadians. However Mark wouldn't have a hope in hell of getting elected in Quebec with a smattering of French among other things. I read of one of the founding members of the PPC in British Colombia quitting the party because most of the original people who had put a lot of spade work and heart and soul into the party were pushed aside. Makes me very suspicious. So I am working for my local conservative candidate who has principles and is coldshouldered by the Party because he is a social conservative (I am not). In Canada we don't vote directly for our prime minister anyway.

AB43

Nicola Timmerman • Jun 9, 2019 at 17:01

Nicola There is not dirty trick in the book that the enemies of PPC will not do to discredit it: That was in Yesterdays Vancouver Sun
B.C. wing of People's Party targeted by forged emails, apparently designed to discredit it
Canada's populist party appears to be the target of cyber fraud designed to deepen divides within the party, an early warning of the surge of online disinformation expected in the fall federal election campaign.
Emails that appeared to come from the B.C. chapter of Maxime Bernier's People's Party of Canada were recently provided to the media. They purported to show a top party organizer promoting racism.
But an analysis by internet security experts, at Postmedia's request, has confirmed the emails are "spoofs" — forgeries that fake a sender's display name and email address.

"In this instance, successful spoofing of both the display name and email address was used," said Ruan Müller, an independent security researcher.

Such fake emails exploit vulnerabilities in messaging services to make letters appear they're from other senders.
Canada's populist party appears to be the target of cyber fraud designed to deepen divides within the party, an early warning of the surge of online disinformation expected in the fall federal election campaign.

Emails that appeared to come from the B.C. chapter of Maxime Bernier's People's Party of Canada were recently provided to the media. They purported to show a top party organizer promoting racism.

But an analysis by internet security experts, at Postmedia's request, has confirmed the emails are "spoofs" — forgeries that fake a sender's display name and email address.

"In this instance, successful spoofing of both the display name and email address was used," said Ruan Müller, an independent security researcher.
Such fake emails exploit vulnerabilities in messaging services to make letters appear they're from other senders.

"Email was originally designed for functionality," said Dominic Vogel, the founder and chief strategist of Vancouver-based firm Cyber SC. "Security was never thought of when email protocols were introduced."

Vogel and Müller traced the recent emails to a hijacked server in Germany that uses a URL that is oddly similar to a German children's education website. But the identity of the sender — or why they were sent — remains a mystery.
"The fact that they're spoofs only raises more questions to me," said Angelo Isidorou, who received the emails. Isidorou is a former People's Party executive who quit the party in March.
"Email was originally designed for functionality," said Dominic Vogel, the founder and chief strategist of Vancouver-based firm Cyber SC. "Security was never thought of when email protocols were introduced."
Vogel and Müller traced the recent emails to a hijacked server in Germany that uses a URL that is oddly similar to a German children's education website. But the identity of the sender — or why they were sent — remains a mystery.
"The fact that they're spoofs only raises more questions to me," said Angelo Isidorou, who received the emails. Isidorou is a former People's Party executive who quit the party in March.

P. Gao • Jun 8, 2019 at 17:15

Heh. The Board of SPECTER, no kidding, and the lunging out of the bathtub spurned hell-girl-ghoul that won't expire: Section 13 -- it really is a bad number, and the people who need it, know this.
Meanwhile, the "Streisand Effect" is starting to manifest. In their zeal to blank out the info, the MPs have drawn 10,000 times more attention to it than had they let it fade unremarked into the depths of the archives abyss. Not as smart as they pass themselves off to be?
Also, too, had there not been such a massive effort to shut down anything video,audio,photo,tweet,about the New Zealand event, it has raised suspicions that it's a narrative that needed protection. Why? Don't know, but 'Shut up' is quite peculiar. What's the panic about? They blurred the police-flanked suspect's face in court, as if he was a junvenile or something - 'cause the media showed every other suspect's face as fast as possible for all previous atrocities everywhere else - so it was impossible to match his mug to the faces in quickly disappeared 'scene' photos, but LOL forgot that a lot more people are getting wise to the devil sign 6 he was flashing (dead giveaway he ain't no 'conservative' of anything ROTFLOL) so a couple days later after reading the thousands of comments that people had caught that blatant 'gang' allegiance, the same photo could only be found with BOTH his face and hand signal blurred. Funny - they will blur the middle finger insult, but never that... see all the big list actors/singers/artists who flash the triple 6 and it never gets blurred. Who knows what the hell happened, but it sure got the scrub treatment. Then this erasing attempt in Canada -- a long way away one would normally think, yet they fell all over themselves to cover and deflect. As if it conforms to logical behavior?

Kate Smyth

P. Gao • Jun 8, 2019 at 21:58

"Also, too, had there not been such a massive effort to shut down anything video,audio,photo,tweet,about the New Zealand event, it has raised suspicions that it's a narrative that needed protection. Why? Don't know, but 'Shut up' is quite peculiar. What's the panic about?"

Is it any wonder that such an extraordinary international response has generated speculation about a false flag operation? What we do know is that Brenton Tarrant spent considerable time in both Turkey and Pakistan. An Australian (of European descent) in Pakistan: odd for someone who is allegedly "anti-Muslim", no?

Kate Smyth

P. Gao • Jun 8, 2019 at 22:09

Should not have used the quotation marks for anti-Muslim, as the attack and attacker were manifestly so. As is most jihadist terrorism, globally speaking.

Sounds crazy? The authorities could do a lot to dispel the now widely-held view by revealing information about his background (especially travels) and training, which is what usually happens after such events.

P. Gao

Kate Smyth • Jun 9, 2019 at 00:17

Heh. What we know except what's been told us? Since back in the ancient eons, namings were given with meanings and ceremony. Today, too many people make up nonsensical prenoms, sort of rootless namings that sadly uninspire the hapless persons receiving them. Surnames (family) are either fake or have real roots, with real meanings. For example, from what clan/tribe/nation root is "Housefather"? Ermm-errm as the BBC journalist would say. Then we wander irritably over to the vague, Tarrant. Before being enlightened by information,the full moniker rather evoked sort of a name a novel writer would concoct. So, how about this WEIRD: When looking it up in any use of translation, which seem to be hard to find, eyebrow-raising examples were offered up such as: "Guilliame Tarrant killed seven people before killing himself." Say what? what? WHAT? Is that a new entry or has it been there molding and fermenting for a while?
Meh. Watch that disappear tomorrow. Who knows what's really going on with these slippery creatures? They gots their story, as the country song goes and they're 'st-st-stickin' to it'.

P. Gao

Kate Smyth • Jun 9, 2019 at 00:27

We've been in Pakistan, and 31 hours on the Karachi to Islamabad train in second class (6 people but only two sleeping bunks... unlike the more civilized Kenya Railways second class of four people, two bunks and for a few extra shilling a neat bedroll delivered and set out by spiffy Kenyan stewards AND a sink with actual clean water) can make one cross-eyed in exhausted frustration, but that's all. Cranky can easily be solved with tea, chappati, nice grilled chicken and a good sleep at destination. So what's up with all the 'rage'? This 'snapped' stuff is bogus.

Kate Smyth

P. Gao • Jun 9, 2019 at 10:34

It certainly fuels conspiracy theories when governments agree that his name and manifesto be disappeared, and his face be pixelated in all images. Possessing or sharing a copy of the document is a criminal offence attracting a 10 year prison sentence in NZ. Why wasn't that the case with the Sri Lanka attacks?

Maybe the radicalisation of eco-fascists intent on homicidal population control is a greater threat than we realise?

P. Gao

Kate Smyth • Jun 9, 2019 at 19:27

Exactly. We don't know the truth, so we can't confirm a thing, except one: that we do know they stampeded to remove everything about what happened. Then, they tell us how we're all supposed to think about it or not think about it. So, the innocent public is supposed to base all henceforth on what would be called in any actual functioning court as inadmissable 'hearsay.' Time will tell.

Steven Benner • Jun 8, 2019 at 11:18

I'm afraid that Mr. Robson's testimony does not quite get correct the argument for free speech. Yes, knowing the adversary's position is indeed necessary to be able to refute the adversary. And every now and then a "wrong" viewpoint turns out not to be wrong. But these arguments do not persuade those who have the power to censor to refrain from using that power. They believe they are already able to refute their adversary's positions; indeed they deeply believe that those positions neither need nor deserve refutation. Further, they're convinced that the viewpoints that they seek to suppress will never prove out to be the correct position ("Yes, Galileo turned out to be right, but Mussolini never will be.").

Even your point, Mark, that government-approved speech will inevitably end up limiting speech to the speech of the powerful, although obviously true, is not persuasive in the dispute at hand. The people who want to suppress speech are powerful; your goal is to persuade them not to use that power even though they have it.

You are telling them that if they adopt a new censorship code, they will gain the power of the State to suppress the speech of their political adversaries, to which their response is "That's great, bring it on". Your argument makes a rhetorical point (that they should oppose State-approved speech because they SAY that they are in favor of empowering the disempowered), but that takes their statements at face value. The powerful actually are NOT in favor of empowering the disempowered, and they (privately) are fully aware of that fact (even though you can never get them to admit it). So your point does not persuade them. It may persuade the powerless not vote for them, but that assumes that the powerless are listen to this hearing. So your argument can be made for the broader political future, but don't expect it to work with this particular audience.

And as a 45 year veteran of this fight, I have learned that even warning the powerful that they might not always be in power is not particularly persuasive. People with an inclination to censor project their inclination on their adversaries. They believe that if they lose power to their adversaries, their adversaries would be just as eager to censor them as they are to censor their adversaries. Therefore, to the argument "You may not always be in power, so you do not want to set the precedent of censorship", they plausibly reply: "Our adversaries, when they gain power, will be no more inclined to be constrained by precedent that we are. So we damn well better censor hard, now, fast, to keep them out of power."

Therefore, when I argue the case, t begin with the proposition that the powerful should not censor, even though they have the power, because censorship damages the censors, and damages the censors much more than it damages the censored.

Unfortunately, it is a complex argument to make, and requires a level of intellectual sophistication that the average censor does not have.

Mr. Robson explored one side of this when he noted that the censored gain the political advantage of martyrdom. This was certainly the case in the Weimar Republic ("Spät kommt ihr--doch ihr kommt"). Historically, the national socialists got this advantage especially outside of Germany, especially in common law jurisdictions, since British law has always been a bit more tolerant of free speech than Napoleonic law (see Milton's 1644 Areopagitica). This is especially true in the United States, where Hitler remained an admired statesman even into the summer of 1939.

So had I opened the argument in the Canadian parliament, it would've gone something like this. "I realize that you powerful politicians and the powerful 'oppressed' identify groups in Canada have Stalinist tendencies towards censorship. Everyone has a little bit of Stalinism in them. But if you indulge those tendencies as you seem inclined to do, rest assured that freedom loving people, especially those south of the border, are going to recognize you for the Stalinists that you are, and your censorship will do far more damage to you than any gain you might get vis-à-vis your political adversaries." Sort of what Mr. Robson said, but a bit more clearly.

But another side of the argument drills deep into epistemology, and is best exemplified from the sciences, not from the law.

In the law, in advocacy, you hire your advocate with the goal of having him/her cherry pick facts in favor of the desired proposition ("I am innocent"), ignore facts that oppose it, and suppress those who disagree. The successful scientist, in contrast, builds a model at the outset that is most consistent with his/her perception of reality. Then, that scientist weighs more heavily facts that OPPOSE the model than those that favor it. Successful scientists are anti-advocates.

Of course, scientists are also human, and you will discover that they too rarely do this. Instead, many scientists build a model (or theory), make it their own, and then advocate for it. As advocates, scientists are as good as any lawyer when cherry picking data that support their personal theory, ignoring opposing data, and suppressing those who disagree. However, once scientists become advocates, they loses FOR THEMSELVES the ability to distinguish reality from non-reality. They no longer have at their disposal the one intellectual process that, since the Enlightenment, has actually been able to advance something that we like to call "knowledge". Once the scientist becomes an advocate, knowledge can be advanced only in the public literature, where other scientists support the counter proposition, now a process that resembles the law (except there are no rules of evidence and no judge who enforces them ... well, maybe also a bit like the law in reality).

To preserve for oneself the power of the "scientific method" to gain (for yourself) knowledge requires that one NOT slip into advocacy, which in turn requires extraordinary self-discipline, which in turn requires training. A depressingly large fraction of practicing "scientists" lack that training and that discipline.

Now, to be fair, even if you have the training and discipline, it is nearly impossible to NOT slip once your model gains wider recognition. This is especially the case when your model gains political recognition. For example, the Card-Krueger study purporting to show that raising the minimum wage does not have a negative impact on employment, Michael Mann's hockey stick model, or even Lysenko's anti-Darwinism in Stalin's Russia, all gained political value because they were single examples that contradicted well-known facts in ways that political advocates found valuable. Never mind the thousands of studies showing price-labor elasticity, or that the Holocene thermal maximum was warmer than today, or that organisms adapt by random variation subject to natural selection, these single counter-studies served advocates in the public square very well. And when they did, it became very (very) difficult for scientists to maintain the discipline in the face of public recognition, television interviews, grants, prizes, and the other emoluments that come to scientists known for having generated a correct theory.

So how do we persuade Card, Krueger, Mann, and Lysenko to return to doing science? We start by saying that when they became advocates, they lost FOR THEMSELVES the ability to make any more progress towards understanding, respectively, labor wage relationships, climate, or evolution. By returning to doing science, becoming anti-advocates, and weighing now more heavily the data that OPPOSE their model of wage-supply elasticity, historical climate variation, or Lamarckianism, they will regain for themselves the ability to create knowledge.

Yes, of course, such an appeal does not often work, but it does more often than you might expect.

But the epistemology goes deeper. Unless you are able to articulate the counter-view, not only can you not say with any confidence that your view is correct, but YOU DO NOT EVEN KNOW WHAT YOUR VIEW IS. Now we are deep, deep into theories of knowledge. A proposition is defined by its counter-proposition. So it is not simply articulating the counter-view that you despise. To understand your own view, you must PERSUASIVELY argue the counter-view that you despise, to yourself, to the point that you yourself believe the despised counter-view.

Now, this requires extraordinary discipline, and we often train scientists by treating it as a game. For the next week, live your life as if water were not H2O, but rather H3O. Believe it, deeply. How does your perception of the universe change? By that exercise, you will discover not only why the proposition "Water is H3O" is likely wrong; that is the least interesting thing that you will learn. More importantly, you will also understand more deeply what "H" is, what "O" is, and even what "2" is.

The analogy that I like is from Gandhi, who explained to a distraught Hindu who had killed a Muslim boy because a Muslim had killed his son: "Go out and find a homeless Muslim boy, take him into your home and raise him as a Muslim." Not quite apposite, I know, but the sense is similar. There is deep value in acting and believing things that you despise.

Now imagine the outrage on today's campus if we were to give students the assignment: "For the next week, live your life assuming that Mussolini were correct". Not fake it. Believe it. And live it. And write an essay on how your view of the universe changed?

Today, the professor would be fired. The students would be rioting. But in terms of political philosophy, it would be a very instructive week. In part because the students would learn that the policy prescriptions of AOC look very good in the world of Mussolini. Does not make them right; does not make them wrong. But the students who undertook that assignment would have a deep understanding of what political philosophy underlay the policy prescriptions of AOC by the process, as well as enhanced discipline that is needed to advance knowledge in any area, not just political philosophy.

And that process is called ... education.

And so here is the final point about how censorship damages the censors; It requires that we believe that educated populations are useful. In the American South, creationists worked very hard to have creationism included in the high school science classes. In Texas, what eventually sealed the deal against them was the observation that biotechnology could be a major economic activity in the state. This was possible, however, only if science was taught as science. The children needed to learn how to think like scientists, not like politicians. For the same reason that biotechnology will never flourish in society where the education of the youth consists of reciting the Koran over never again.

My parting shot for the Canadian Parliament would therefore have focused on this, since even the most power-hungry politician understands that their power comes from an economically successful base. Yes, you can train your children to be politically correct, in safe spaces that avoid them ever having them consider Mussolini. Or you can train them to think. You cannot do both. To the extent that economic success in the modern STEM world requires a workforce that knows how to think, Stalinist censorship in the schools will fail.

Andrew A

Steven Benner • Jun 8, 2019 at 13:53

Good points. Tell them that as censors, they have the political power of dinosaurs. Impressive and intimidating, but doomed. The panelists did make this point, but not in a way the dinosaurs could understand.

Kris Dray

Steven Benner • Jun 8, 2019 at 14:42

Sir, that was epic. I am not sure the parlimentarian animals could stay awake for it, but I enjoyed it. I might suggest a simpler version of the argument that might engage their self-interest because lust for power and self-interest are the air they breath. To borrow:

Mussolini was a fascist and a tyrant. Mussolini wound up hanging, a most embarrassing death. The lesson of Mussolini especially with so many well-armed free people in such close proximity to your august selves: if you don't want to embarrass yourself by being hung because you are a tyrant and a fascist, don't be a tyrant and a fascist.

Lacking your eloquence and elegance, mine might get their attention a bit more effectively.

Results may vary.

Josh Passell

Steven Benner • Jun 8, 2019 at 15:49

As learned and considered as your post is, Steven, I think it is fundamentally flawed. Or it should be. We should not and do not concede they (whomever they are) have the power to censor. That they have it in some places at some times may be a matter of law, but laws are mutable. I'm ignorant of free-speech law in most countries, but I can quote the First Amendment fairly reliably: "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech". We have our dead, white, slave-holding fathers to thank for that. The US Constitution, as majisterial as it reads, is a document of compromise, and the sacred Bill of Rights (as sacred in secular law as the Ten Commandments are in holy law) was the price exacted by the anti-Federalists for their support of a federal republic. Imagine the jackals of the US Congress agreeing to that today. They're going after most of the enshrined rights individually, for crying out loud, who thinks they'd sign off on a bill giving away so much power? AOC would have a seizure at the very thought. No, free speech is a right, not a privilege, and as I wrote above, we are lucky it was a right placed above all other rights--and above politics. (And even then it isn't wholly safe.)
But I'm not done. Because neither were those dead, white, slave holding fathers. The Constitution lays out US law; the Declaration of Independence (written 13 years earlier, actually) argues for all mankind. There was no United States, there were only "all men" (sorry, ladies) and their "inalienable rights", which were "endowed by their creator". Not endowed by Parliament or Congress, not by the King or Queen, not by Lord Percy of Chipping Sodbury, or by any other manifestation of government. By their creator. Government does play a role, and that is defined immediately thereafter: "That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men (again, sorry, ladies), deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." Liberty, under which heading I would place free speech, is a God-given right to all people, and the only role government has to play is to secure it. What a horrible, stinking perversion of that principle we all witnessed (aurally) in Ottawa last week. The vast majority of human beings today (to say nothing of history) live under nothing like "inalienable rights". Who are these vacuous heaps of parrot droppings (hat tip Monty Python) to bat around a cherished liberty like a cat does a mouse? The only answer to the jumped-up jackals of "justice" is a polite but pointed reminder that they have no role in regulating speech. None. It's above their pay grade.
"Everyone has a little bit of Stalinism in them," you wrote--and you weren't kidding. Only no one sees his personal Stalinism as Stalinism. Paternalism, sure, even narcissism; I would add Alda-ism (after Alan Alda's persona of the Sensitive Man). But even short of the executions, purges, and famines, a little Stalinism is a dangerous thing. They want to play Stalin? Go ahead. I'll play free citizen instead. Your move, Joe.

Nicola Timmerman

Steven Benner • Jun 8, 2019 at 16:16

Sorry but leftists don't care about the economy. I seem to remember Ayn Rand saying as long as there is one pearl or one grain of rice the prigressives will keep on confiscating.

Kate Smyth

Steven Benner • Jun 8, 2019 at 16:39

Great food for thought, Steven. A return to anti-advocacy looks unlikely at a time when ideologues in education have so thoroughly inculcated young minds in "right thinking". So advancing (politicised) scientific knowledge is attractive not only from the perspective of "public recognition, television interviews, grants, prizes, and other emoluments", but - more importantly - because it is *morally* sound. And the corruption is taking hold across all STEMM disciplines: nothing is immune.

PS. The spectacle over Halloween costumes at your alma mater in 2015 was the tip of the iceberg. I remember my disbelief watching the video footage at the time, yet it's now the prevailing campus culture - and becoming more retrograde.
https://www.steynonline.com/7292/tomorrow-belongs-to-them

Kate Smyth

Josh Passell • Jun 8, 2019 at 17:02

"Who are these vacuous heaps of parrot droppings... to bat around a cherished liberty like a cat does a mouse?"

Indeed. In retrospect, knowing the response to MP Michael Cooper's "insensitive" words, Mark and co should have been maximally "hurtful" by quoting their OWN "hate speech" (as opposed to being on the back foot with the inquisitors reciting it to them). Read the whole Maclean's article aloud - and proud. Put it on the parliamentary record!

PS. If free speech is for men only, I'll have no choice but to transition.

Steven Payne

Andrew A • Jun 8, 2019 at 20:01

Andrew, remember, the dinosaurs ruled the Earth for over a hundred million years and were only displaced because of a vast cosmic accident.

Steven Benner

Josh Passell • Jun 8, 2019 at 20:49

Good points. US is quite special, even among the common law jurisdictions, where absolute free speech is written in the founding documents. Hence the remark that British jurisdictions are "a bit more tolerant of free speech". Milton's 1644 Areopagitica was, after all, written to oppose British parliamentary intent to censor.

AB43

Josh Passell • Jun 9, 2019 at 12:42

Josh as to the "consent of the governed " that is very nice in theory but practically impossible. Sometime even within a framework of a family it does not work out, imagine among 330 million people. Even in Israel with a population of say 8 million in the last election there were 44 parties running. Just imagine how many thousand parties would be running in the US. Squeezing them into 2 parties did not solve the disagreement within those two radially disagreeing parties. Throw in religions, you mention ten commandment, there is nothing holly about them either, they are manmade there are plenty of religions that have different commandments. Add to it race and gender. Even with its amendments the constitution was written in completely different environment, and don't forget including to that the activism of the courts that makes complete mockery of separation of power of the constitution, US has changed population wise , technology wise, morality (immorality) wise, language wise (look at the Babylon of languages spoken in the US), Race wise, Population ignorance wise, Would you have imagined that framers of the constitution would care about Football, Baseball, Tennis, Golf? Completely different art just go to art galleries and see the ridiculous thing that are portrayed as art and go to concert halls and try to listens to the noise that portrayed as music. The Framers could not even imagine the change in science and technology that happened from then to now.
To summarize we are living in different world than the world that the framers of the constitution lived in. The way I see it USA is ungovernable mess. Not only US has changed in the last 230 years the world has changed including the climate. The wars that were fought in the last 230 years reshaped geography, reshaped the balance of power in the world, the power of the religions has changed What has not changed is the human nature and the ignorance of the masses.

AB43

Josh Passell • Jun 9, 2019 at 15:06

Josh all the rights are beautiful on paper but completely useless if they cannot be enforced .if the majority of publications at this time goes through social media that cannot be sued for violating the First Amendment so what good is it for. As to the "consent of the governed " that is very nice in theory but practically impossible. Sometime even within a framework of a family it does not work out, imagine among 330 million people. Even in Israel with a population of say 8 million in the last election there were 44 parties running. Just imagine how many thousand parties would be running in the US. Squeezing them into 2 parties did not solve the disagreement within those two radially disagreeing parties. Throw in religions, you mention ten commandment, there is nothing holly about them either, they are manmade there are plenty of religions that have different commandments. Add to it race and gender. Even with its amendments the constitution was written in completely different environment, and don't forget including to that the activism of the courts that makes complete mockery of separation of power of the constitution, US has changed population wise , technology wise, morality (immorality) wise, language wise (look at the Babylon of languages spoken in the US), Race wise, Population ignorance wise, Would you have imagined that framers of the constitution would care about Football, Baseball, Tennis, Golf? Completely different art just go to art galleries and see the ridiculous thing that are portrayed as art and go to concert halls and try to listens to the noise that portrayed as music. The Framers could not even imagine the change in science and technology that happened from then to now.
To summarize we are living in different world than the world that the framers of the constitution lived in. The way I see it USA is ungovernable mess. Not only US has changed in the last 230 years the world has changed including the climate. The wars that were fought in the last 230 years reshaped geography, reshaped the balance of power in the world, the power of the religions has changed What has not changed is the human nature and the ignorance of the masses.

Segnes Schonken

Steven Benner • Jun 16, 2019 at 19:14

Interesting points which have excited a very interesting discussion and illuminated a number of points of view, S. My own opposition to censorship may have more to do with personal gross-grainedness than a philosophical point of view, so I'll keep my troubles to myself for as long as I can. It's anyway nice to know that Mark Steyn enjoys such wholehearted and intelligent support in fighting the good fight.

Denyse O'Leary • Jun 8, 2019 at 06:44

Being at the hearing on Tuesday took me back to the previous free speech battles in Canada in the oughts of this century. It seems so long ago; much was different then.

Here's what's changed, why free speech might lose big this time: the new desire for protection against "hurtful" speech.

Twenty years ago, it still mattered somewhat whether what you say has a factual basis. Today, increasingly, people drown their ears and scream, on behalf of an offended identity.

Facts are drowned out. Words don't mean what they used to and we are even told that they do not mean what they used to.

All of this protects feelings in a world in which everyone is entitled to their own truth.

Someone once said that everyone is entitled to their own truth but not to their own facts. That fails when facts do not matter, only feelings.

Feelings are an infinity so - it turns out - only SOME feelings matter. The slice chosen is, of course, the feelings of those whose plight, whatever its origin or significance, is a political tool or weapon.

Let me do the sum for you: The feelings of politically useful people, whatever their justification, matter. Facts do not, or not much. You can no longer use facts reliably in your defense against a juggernaut.

The education system, many tell me, has largely bought into this approach, which means graduates will be increasingly difficult to interest in a fact-based approach to reality. Good luck to STEM. It's got money and is the next target.

Kate Smyth

Denyse O'Leary • Jun 8, 2019 at 17:53

The references to "hurtful speech" were very ominous, indeed. It's also why John Robson's comments (about various "mean" online posts) were unhelpful. Christianity *needs* to be scrutinised, critiqued, ridiculed, dismissed etc (and is sufficiently robust to withstand it), because that's the standard that must be applied to all belief systems. Only flawed, weak and dangerous beliefs (religious or otherwise) need to be shielded from "blasphemy".

On STEM comments on this thread:

SB: "To the extent that economic success in the modern STEM world requires a workforce that knows how to think, Stalinist censorship in the schools will fail."

DO: "The education system, many tell me, has largely bought into this approach, which means graduates will be increasingly difficult to interest in a fact-based approach to reality. Good luck to STEM."

Censorship in schools has already succeeded, unfortunately. Human biology has been overturned. Knowing what to think has replaced knowing how to think, without regard for longterm societal implications. I'm inclined towards your pessimism, Denyse.

Nicholas Strathy

Denyse O'Leary • Jun 8, 2019 at 18:41

Nevertheless I think it's still more advisable to stear children towards STEM nowadays since they will learn about how the concrete world actually works. I suppose that their STEM instructors will be flakey leftists too but it is less likely that students will need to espouse flakey leftist views to pass a course in differential equations than gender studies. Although they will still have to be careful not to get expelled for misgendering.

The less attention paid to the weird obsessions of the left the better for a person's productivity and sanity. Most of their focus appears to be on winning approval for their sin and silencing opposition to their sin.

Kate Smyth

Nicholas Strathy • Jul 7, 2019 at 22:28

Nicholas - checked back on this column for something related.

Check out AWIS (Association of Women in Science) - Using Intersectionality to Achieve STEM Equity. A handy visual reference just recently published!

Cottesloe dreaming • Jun 8, 2019 at 03:08

As an Antipodean club member I don't have to worry about the return of the Thought Police Commissars , section 13 , as they never went away. Our 18c
I found comments most interesting , though not being au fait , as they might say in Outremont , with your politics.
Grim as Canadian politics may seem rest assured its inspired and overflowing with disinterested service to
the citizenry compared to our lot.
Haven't heard of D Day or John Stewart Mill ? That can't be right. In T.O ?

P. Gao

Cottesloe dreaming • Jun 9, 2019 at 00:35

Heh. The only time we've heard antipodean used this year was with the earthquake guy. hmm! Might be ironic - proven that earthquakes in one place will rapidly transfer energy directly to their global antipodes... will this free speech scandal also rock the planet?

Robert • Jun 8, 2019 at 01:04

Talking of going over to Max, who I regret not voting for, but hey ..... is all very well, but there is an alternative solution.
When you've ended up with a lemon, make lemonade.
Become active in the Conservative Party. Volunteer. Get on boards, etc., etc.
As has been hinted, a lot of ordinary members are with us.
Pressure from such people within the party, volunteers who MP's knew personally and wanted to keep on side, I think, was one unsung factor in pushing the government to actually repeal Section 13 in the first place.

I still believe that Justin's submoronic, you-can't-make-this-stuff-up level of twittery (have you seen the "this makes me a better feminist" rubbish?) will put Andrew Scheer into No. 24. Help elect MPs and then keep reminding them of this issue.

Once more into the breach. Mark's comment about the return of the creature from the horror movie was apt, but remember, it always gets (re)killed in the end.

And how's John Robson feeling these days? Does he regret not supporting Harper in 2015?

Andrew A

Robert • Jun 8, 2019 at 12:09

Life is short: no time or energy to waste making lemonade. Scheer is cute and says all the right things on camera, but he'll sell us out like the others. Canada isn't an ossified two party system like the US.

Simus1canada • Jun 7, 2019 at 23:53

"Mad Max" Bernier is a rare diamond among the zircons. We could do a lot worse in the future if he is deemed to pose no threat to to the "vote whoring as usual" crowd going forward.

Sol • Jun 7, 2019 at 17:45

The moniker for this reportage could be David The Menzoid Mens Rea Menzies. The principles of common law get no more basic, I would say, than the requirement that mens rea ("guilty mind") and actus reus ("guilty act") are both required in order to convict. Section 13 arbitrarily and capriciously defines mens rea and declares that one, single finding to be an actus reus. 1 + 0 = 2. Basic evil.

Babs from Cali

Sol • Jun 8, 2019 at 12:46

I believe Jesus said something like "to think it is the same as to do it" (with regard to lusting after someone in one's mind being the same as committing adultery or fornication). But this was purely a spiritual or moral matter, not political and certainly not criminal or illegal. But the Left has, as they usually do, gone to the extreme, but only against those they oppose. Agree with them and you can think, say and do as you please; disagree with them and you are in peril on any of the three, singularly or in combination. Does anyone else see this leading to their plans for a one world government and a world dictator after that? I find it suspicious that this evil trend is not limited to one country.

Sol

Babs from Cali • Jun 8, 2019 at 13:48

That's a good point, and yes, a matter between one's conscience and God rather than of law purporting to read and police the conscience, I suppose. I see it as heading in the direction of a one-world government. It's more "leveling" of humankind with which Communism treated the poor souls under its jurisdiction. It's harder to combat than the Soviet Union.

Fran Lavery

Babs from Cali • Jun 8, 2019 at 13:52

This seemed more like an inquisition to me, more than anything else. What was it supposed to be initially? A discussion, a hearing? No, it was just missing the firing squad. Yes, Babs from Cali, I see it leading to their plans for a one world government, but I see them more in a tiny fiefdom on a tiny planet somewhere in outer space where they can take a one way excursion.

Kris Dray • Jun 7, 2019 at 13:53

The irony of a pack of parliamentarian nobs, regardless of their avowed political allegiance, doing their level best to limit free speech at a hearing ABOUT FREE SPEECH is breathtaking, but predictable. Is there any doubt that here, 75 years down the road from one of the greatest uprisings of humanity against pure evil, the human heart is a fickle, damaged beast sorely in need of instruction from God? The simple, profound commandment to love your neighbor gets swamped every day by tribalism and the lust for wealth and power all across this world each day. Insulated from this savagery as we are, now the remaining sane folks in the West find themselves contending with a significant part of the populace who can't wait to throw away the blessings of freedom. The sheer hubris of such an act leaves even my simple mind boggled.

Joseph Dornisch • Jun 7, 2019 at 13:13

So, actually this is just like a horror movie sequel where the people from the previous movie get killed right at the start of the sequel.

Kevin Cohalan • Jun 7, 2019 at 11:50

Sign up as a candidate for Maxime Bernier? Excellent idea --- especially since there's no danger of winning! For Mark Steyn to become an MP is not desirable: a waste of time, compromising his world-champ punch in the cultural struggle. But spending a few weeks this fall as a candidate could be a barrel of fun. Consider the riding of Outremont, adjacent to Trudeau's. I can personally guarantee one vote. There's also, right next door, Laurier-Sainte-Marie, which includes most of "The Plateau" (the rest being part of Outremont), the umbilicus of the woke universe. The incumbent NDP deputy is stepping down. It'll be a toss-up. Steyn as a candidate would drive them all nuts!

BallBounces in PEI

Kevin Cohalan • Jun 7, 2019 at 13:32

How about Mark Steyn as a write-in vote from sea to sea?

Kris Dray • Jun 7, 2019 at 11:40

I am glad Mark is finding online poetry so lucrative. Next to "Tales" and anything historical one of my favorites. Lord knows I am no match for the politics.

Lowell Walker • Jun 7, 2019 at 11:00

Committee on Justice and Human Rights.
George Orwell would be so proud.

Jan V. • Jun 7, 2019 at 09:51

In the early days many good things came from above: mature politicians made good decisions. Today we have members of the standing committee (in Lindsay Sheppard's words) lacking intellectual depth, and the same seems to apply to most politicians. Then we have too many people on the streets having no clue about history or anything that matters for understanding what is happening around us. Where will the next batch of good decisions come from to stop our march towards tyranny? Is it even an option?

Kate Smyth • Jun 7, 2019 at 09:31

"It's not the government's business to be labelling people as beyond the pale."

To hear a parliamentarian use the "N" word in reference to a witness at a government hearing is disturbing. The MP sounded as though he's a random person on Twitter (where it's a moronic insult). Yet he's been elected and paid - apparently to name and shame private citizens.

Richard Malaby • Jun 7, 2019 at 09:15

I'm sure we'll see a related article on the demonetization of YouTube personalities, specifically Steven Crowder. I've never watched a Crowder video, don't know anything about him other than his association with CRTV/The Blaze, (one or the other, or are they one and the same?), but I do know it sets an awful precedent when one or two individuals can successfully lobby Big Tech companies to destroy someone's livelihood over hurt feelings. These MP's are no different; they paint themselves as the great defenders of the common man, but they are in fact the bullies.

Sol • Jun 7, 2019 at 08:51

The "pro-choice" position on abortion is that every child should be a "planned and wanted child" and that abortion should be "safe, legal, and rare".

Substitute "thought" for "child" and "free thought" for "abortion" and that's Section 13.

It's resection, in two ways: 1) a second stab at the law and 2) the institution of thought-abortion doctors excising undesirable thought from the body politic.

Steven Benner • Jun 7, 2019 at 08:30

I understand the "zombie returning" problem. My one political activity as an undergraduate (where I was a science nerd) was to participate as one of two undergraduate student representatives on a committee, headed by the noted historian C. Van Woodward, to examine the state of freedom of expression at Yale. This followed the disruption by students of a debate on a topic then at the top of the range of "hatefulness" (racial genetics). The committee eventually issued the 1975 "Woodward Report" (https://yalecollege.yale.edu/deans-office/reports/report-committee-freedom-expression-yale) which strongly supported open discourse in the academy, and was adopted by the faculty and made policy. The monster had been slain, and the science nerd could get back to science nerdity.

Imagine then my horror to discover that during the following four decades of inattention, the monster re-awoke, and Yale has abandoned this hard fought victory for open discourse and modern civilization. And for nothing nearly as "hateful" (they have problem with Hallowe'en costumes).

Jamie Marsh • Jun 7, 2019 at 08:11

A good article related to this in today's American Spectator titled "Something Totalitarian This Way Comes".

Denyse O'Leary • Jun 7, 2019 at 07:23

I was at the hearing Tuesday morning. Three comments for now:

1. Back of all this is Big Tech. Big Tech now offers Big Snoop. Hate speech laws offer total control. What could go wrong? Ask the Chinese Christians and Muslims. Google was testifying in the afternoon...

Please, it doesn't matter what Google or other Cool Kids SAY. Their angst is just posturing. They know what they must do to be the biggest arm of the new style of government, far more powerful than the government of Canada. The Googler values probably do not have you in mind.

2. The media that Trudeau is now putting on welfare will hate free speech because - to have an audience - independent media will cover the stories bought, "trusted" media daren't. That's why the indies are NOT "trusted." So taxpayer-funded media will have a strong interest in suppressing free speech.

To judge from the hearing, they will rely on vacuous pieties against "hate." "Hate" becomes an ever-changing standard, applied whenever pieties are challenged.

3. To say that Andrew Scheer is in no way a Winston Churchill is to shower him with unearned praise. That said, I believe that it is better for Canadians to vote Conservative anyway, to get rid of the trust fund baby Justin and the embedded Quebec Liberal corruption scandals that are his playpen. But please do enjoy the comedy of baby feminist J driving out strong women...

Only after progressives are defeated in honest contests can a real battle begin. Andrew Scheer is, of course, next to go, to the extent that he doesn't understand how serious all this is.

Splitting the vote and enabling a minority of any party won't help you, if you care about the right to even HAVE a self, apart from Big Tech.

Make no mistake. That is what it is coming down to. And many people won't even begin to understand until fearful things happen and then they will be encouraged to identify the wrong causes and blame the wrong people. In a cloud of confusion generated by welfare media that they still rely on because no one took the time to set them straight and map out a strategy.

Anger is not a strategy. Distrust is not a strategy. Thinking carefully about our position and taking action based on reasonable conclusions IS strategy!

Tom Osterman

Denyse O'Leary • Jun 7, 2019 at 09:11

Giving your support to a party that sells you out when it's Crunch Time isn't a strategy, either.

Kris Dray

Tom Osterman • Jun 7, 2019 at 11:36

You could ask a dedicated Tea Party member how it has been, working with establishment Republicans.

Paul Harmon

Denyse O'Leary • Jun 7, 2019 at 12:10

If incremental changes bring you closer to your goal, fine, then you have to hold your nose and take the incremental step. (Eg, convincing the populace to stop using abortions for convenience, 95% of abortions, is a great step, even though it leaves some still happening.) But... having taken the incremental step, you have to keep working to get to the real goal.

Leftists learned this a long time ago. Conservatives, because they have real lives (wives, children, jobs...), tend to want to go home, push the plow, and let someone else take the next step. But that has never worked, and has led to a lot of trouble.d

Kris Dray

Paul Harmon • Jun 7, 2019 at 15:08

In a civilized world, in a rational, stable system, incremental changes are probably the best you can get and this is a desirable outcome if they are positive changes and you want a stable sociey. Civil war and revolution can seem romantic and noble, but mostly they are a bloody business which create as many problems as they resolve. You are correct that the Left have turned our own institutions against conservative people. Today, apparently, my new vocabulary word is irony. Educational institutions founded by Christians now reject the tenets of Christianity...irony. The Supreme Court, put in place by the founders to harness an overreaching legislative and executive branch becomes a defacto dictatorship setting the course of our culture and allowing 60 million innocents to be murdered...irony. The Bush family inherits the Reagan legacy, and uses it to plunge us in decades of war, buries our children and grandchildren in the national debt and lay the groundwork for Barack Obama...irony. History is full of irony and it isn't nearly as comical as a pack of besuited nobs trying to suppress free speech at a free speech hearing but it often shares the sad and horrifying aspects of the hearing.

Roy A Crocker

Kris Dray • Jun 7, 2019 at 17:38

You bet Kris - Swamp creatures abound in the GOP. The Tea Party is extinct. Virtually all of the GOP congressional delegation in Arizona has come out firmly against the Mexican tariffs. Support for a wall is tepid at best. Martha McSally has been pulling away from the president more and more hoping for more independent support in '20 - it won't work. Now 'refugees' from the Congo and Bangladesh are streaming over the border as the word goes out worldwide that America is wide open now. I wonder how many have their vaccinations in order?

Andrew A

Denyse O'Leary • Jun 7, 2019 at 20:04

No to #3. A Liberal win on a split conservative vote will give Scheer a quick political end and send a strong message to any future conservative leader. That is almost as good as ousting Trudeau, and maybe better in the long term. Nobody seems to notice or care that the leftist vote is split among the NDP, Greens, and Liberals. That is a threat to Trudeau too.

Kris Dray

Roy A Crocker • Jun 7, 2019 at 22:14

Answer: none. I love living in a place where summers are short, winters are brutal and springtime is nature's way of weeding out the unwary. It makes raising livestock tricky, but at least we should be reasonably safe from an Ebola outbreak. If we aren't, Alaska is next even if I could practically walk to Canada. It is a beautiful place, but i don't think i would quite fit in there.

Sandy Bottom of Boodjidup Beach

Roy A Crocker • Jun 8, 2019 at 01:45

The solution is to localise as much as possible. Make the states pay. Ship them to the sanctuary cities and let them handle it at their own cost.

Kathy Shaidle

Andrew A • Jun 8, 2019 at 08:15

exactly. Every vote for Mad Max sends a message to Scheer to get his act together or else.

John Francis • Jun 7, 2019 at 06:49

Mark, I joined Maxime Bernier's new People's Party of Canada recently. So far, all his policy proposals have been excellent. In particular, his stands on free speech, AGW global warning, company bailouts and grants, and many more, have really resonated. Scheer, on the other hand, is a CINO.

I would not like you to waste your time as a politician, but as a PPC policy analysis and advisor you would have great positive influence. Provided you maintain your stupendous daily output of essays, interviews, songwriting analysis, and all the rest!

All the best from Victoria BC, a town desperately in need of a Steynian visit and speech.

Cheers!

Ian Wilson

John Francis • Jun 7, 2019 at 08:04

Agreed, John, Mark (like Jordan Peterson) is most dangerous for our opponents if he concentrates his firepower on what he does best and, as you suggest, possibly works behind the scenes advising and inspiring the PPC.

Kathy Shaidle • Jun 7, 2019 at 06:42

Yep, I'm voting PPC if they run a candidate in my riding, and if they don't, I will "write in" his name.

I'm told if I do this, Trudeau is guaranteed another term, that I should hold my nose and vote for the aptly named Andrew Scheer, who, after a spectacular speech following his leadership win, had revealed himself to have all the substance of one-ply toilet paper.

I don't care. I am voting my principles. Unless we do this, we can't turn around and complain that "there are no politicians who speak for us." Bernier may lose this time. He may lose again. But we have to start somewhere, and play the long game.

Ian Wilson

Kathy Shaidle • Jun 7, 2019 at 08:02

Me too, Kathy. Max and the PPC are the only candidates on our side. Similar thought process for me--much as I loathe Trudeau and everything his party stands for, I won't vote for Scheer and company. Will stand with Max whatever the consequences.

Andrew A

Kathy Shaidle • Jun 7, 2019 at 10:43

Kathy,

I'll also be voting PPC. The choice between Justin Trudeau and Andrew Scheer is between Poseur #1 and Poseur #2. If the behaviour of the Conservatives on the panel is a omen, a Scheer government will be voting with the Liberals and the NDP even in the unlikely event that they win the next election.

Ken Costa

Kathy Shaidle • Jun 7, 2019 at 12:22

I think you are right, Kathy. I was going to strategically vote Tory but Scheer's treatment of Mr. Cooper and the contemptible performance of the so-called Conservatives on the Justice and Human Rights panel have caused me to alter my thinking. The left is already split between the Liberals and the NDP, and the Greens threaten to splinter it even more long term. So even if the PPC are ultimately unsuccessful in electing a candidate this time around, a message has to be sent in the only words that simpering little squishes like Scheer understand.

Andrew

Ken Costa • Jun 7, 2019 at 12:33

I don't know what I'll end up doing in the election, but I do think there's truth to what Kathy and Ken are saying about the prime criticism of the PPC, that it is only a spoiler. Canadians haven't been served by never thinking more than a term ahead. If we want the larger change we need, we have to look to the longer term narrative that can form if people reject the status quo.

Kathy Shaidle

Andrew • Jun 7, 2019 at 12:53

To turn Pauline Kael's (possibly apocryphal) "Nixon" line upside down:

I keep hearing the Bernier's PPC's "can't win" — yet everywhere I go, people say they're going to vote for them.

:-)

Ken Costa

Andrew • Jun 7, 2019 at 13:17

Exactly. Perhaps I'm delusional, but I also think there's a chance that in the long run the PPC may succeed in attracting some classical liberals with their position on free speech, and perhaps even some lefties with their position on ending corporate welfare and dairy supply management, which is nothing more than a regressive tax on the poor.

Josh Passell • Jun 7, 2019 at 06:11

Let me see if I have this right. Out of scads of witnesses appearing in favor of censorship of offensive speech, the Conservatives manage to sneak in three saps willing to lay claim to the idea that offensive speech--thoughts and concepts out of the mainstream, and the language used to express them--is the only speech that actually needs defending. But the spectacle of three martyrs willing to spend what popularity they have in defense of the unpopular is so disturbing to the panjandrums of Parliament that not only are their visages blotted out like pornography, the very words and carcass of one Conservative member of the committee were rendered unspoken and disappeared. Michael Cooper, meet Nikolai Yezhov.
During his testimony, John Robson quoted the philosopher John Stuart Mill. As great a proponent of liberty as Mill was, I couldn't help feeling his words were out of place in this show trial. Robson might as well have quoted Hayley Mills to the assembled apparatchiks. If I might offer a suggestion from That Darn Cat: "Father always complained that we were running a rehab center for punch-drunk juveniles." You have to admit, she describes the Orwellian-named JUST committee to a T.

Kathy Shaidle

Josh Passell • Jun 7, 2019 at 07:02

Cooper's mistake wasn't pushing back at that Muslim witness earlier and being fired for his pains. Everything he said was sound and brave.

His mistake was inviting John Robson to this particular hearing.

Mr Robson is very learned, but 99% of the population has no idea who John Stuart Mill is and doesn't care. We can bemoan this but it is a fact. At the risk of sounding like I'm agreeing with the unpleasant gay MP (and I call him that because he foregrounded his sexual identity and gave an entire speech about it), that gay MP revealed something important:

We are dealing with people who care about feelings not facts. That hearing was NOT a faculty meeting or a symposium about medieval history. Robson was speaking over the heads of the assembled legislators and even if everything he said was right (and it wasn't) you must speak at your audience's level or you might as well be p***ing in the wind.

Lindsay Shepard is a brave free speech warrior who has more guts than most and deserves our gratitude and admiration. However she seemed to have had the opposite problem: of being woefully UNDERprepared. I was yelling obvious "answers" for her at my computer screen during questioning -- most of which amounted to Andrew Breitbart's Swiss-Army-Knife of an answer to such goons: "Yeah, so??"

Where did she think she was GOING that morning?

Mark posts his interview with David Menzies. Yesterday David interviewed random Torontonians about D-Day. Over half had no idea what it was, and some struggled to answer the question, "Did the right side win World War II."

Last month, one of his colleagues offered a similar group a $10 bill if they could name Canada's first Prime Minister. (John A. Macdonald's face adorns that currency, get it?) It took him HOURS to finally get rid of the five such bills he'd gone out with.

In (not so) short, we have to remember something I learned my first day of kindergarten:

Other. People. Are. Dumb.

We have to operate on this assumption. We can't change minds that are empty in the first place. Those without power will never understand. Those IN power are, to quote myself, too stupid to tell us how to live.

We simply have to carry on, doing our own thing, saying whatever we want to the few we know will understand, safe in the knowledge that we are in the right — and keeping a lawyer on speed dial and a shotgun by our desks.

Kate Smyth

Kathy Shaidle • Jun 7, 2019 at 10:22

"We can't change minds that are empty in the first place." Profound!

Another recent David Menzies interview (further down the page) - and definitely worth watching - is with Pastor David Lynn discussing, amongst other things, his treatment by the LGBT community when street preaching: physical assault in response to group prayers. Needless to say, the rainbow crowd weren't as keen to confront Muslims openly calling for their execution at the recent Toronto al Quds Day protest (also covered by DM)... and no arrests made!

The pastor's discourse on Islam is excellent (and a reminder of the source of the gay MP's alleged death threats).

Elizabeth Neville

Kathy Shaidle • Jun 7, 2019 at 10:45

Please start writing your blog again. Your intellectual firepower should not be hidden under a bushel. Maybe under an alias?

Andrew A

Kathy Shaidle • Jun 7, 2019 at 10:51

"We can't change minds that are empty in the first place."

Good one. I'll remember that.

Lowell Walker

Kathy Shaidle • Jun 7, 2019 at 11:10

If you lived in the States, you'd have an AR15, with several 30 round magazines.

Andrew Lawton

Lowell Walker • Jun 7, 2019 at 11:19

Alas, my new AR-15 is required to have magazines pinned to five rounds each. At least I got it before the almost certain ban.

Chris Hall aka MCF

Andrew Lawton • Jun 7, 2019 at 11:47

That's half of what the guys had on Gold, Juno, and Sword Beaches (bolt action Enfields), and significantly less than the M1s used on Omaha and Utah. Will you have to convert the rifle to be a matchlock, flintlock or caplock muzzle loader? Here in Michigan, we can have 30 round mags, but we have a new governor with a D by her name. So far, no 2A movement yet, thank goodness.

Kathy Shaidle

Elizabeth Neville • Jun 7, 2019 at 12:54

Ha Elizabeth thanks for that but I would NEVER write under an alias :-) I don't believe in them. As I mentioned earlier, if Section 13 is reinstated I will be forced to start blogging again however.

Kathy Shaidle

Lowell Walker • Jun 7, 2019 at 12:57

I honestly don't think I could manage one, regardless. As it is I am limited to Winchester's smallest Junior 20 gauge shotgun because I can't wield anything bigger, and can barely lift THAT

Andrew Lawton

Kathy Shaidle • Jun 7, 2019 at 12:57

You'll have to try, Kathy! They're remarkably light weight and minimal in recoil.

Josh Passell

Kathy Shaidle • Jun 7, 2019 at 12:57

Look what happens when you poke the tiger's cage. Sometimes she bares her claws. Hey, if Biden gets elected president, Kathy, move to America: at least you'll get to keep your shotgun.
You and the ghost of Andrew Breitbart got to where I was trying to get to, but with characteristic pith. When accused of crimethink, in place of "Yeah, so?" I often say "It's like you really get me." We have to carry on, as you say, and not let just the brave few speak for us.
I just taught a self-defense class this morning on strategies and tactics against multiple attackers--when 1) don't and 2) run are no longer on the table. Forewarned is forearmed in self-defense, as in so much of life. But it now occurs to me that while I may have half an idea how to defend myself from some antifa lout in his camo pajamas, his female counterpart, the triggered assistant professor, shrieking obscenities in my face because I think 41 weeks might be just a wee tardy for an abortion--I have no answer for her. James Cagney face-palmed Mae Clarke with half a grapefruit in Public Enemy, but I think I need a kinder, gentler retort. Maybe compliment her clothing, like Hannibal Lecter: "Love your suit!"

Chris Hall aka MCF

Andrew Lawton • Jun 7, 2019 at 13:13

I second that. They are easier to handle than a shotgun, even one with an evil 30 round magazine.

Kathy Shaidle

Josh Passell • Jun 7, 2019 at 13:21

"It's like you really get me" is a keeper! thanks.

Nicholas Strathy

Kathy Shaidle • Jun 7, 2019 at 13:27

"Other. People. Are. Dumb."

I resemble that remark!

You had me at "you're not smart enough to tell me what to think."

The witnesses were fine. They spoke their own witness in a hostile atmosphere, not someone else's. The censorship committee were utterly pathetic in their efforts to malign and silence the witnesses.

Not by might nor by power ...

Simus1canada

Kathy Shaidle • Jun 7, 2019 at 23:41

Dumb people with votes are just like dumb people with credit cards.
Each type of bankruptcy is similar as it starts off, it occurs very slowly and then very quickly.

Denyse O'Leary

Kathy Shaidle • Jun 8, 2019 at 11:15

I think everyone who cares about free speech should read and reflect on what Kathy Shaidle is saying. I still think it better to move incrementally - elect the Tories but then prepare candidates who care about the people's traditional freedoms, not welfare, abortion, and drugs. But the Tories should know that they are on a razor edge of acceptance in a world where many nations are simply voting for their own survival, ignoring what the people he kowtows to say.

Which reminds me: Why does Scheer think Canadians are more cowardly than Brits? They didn't used to think that when wars were on.

Kathy Shaidle

Denyse O'Leary • Jun 8, 2019 at 15:54

Thanks Denyse, but as you know all too well -- more as a matter of temperament than philosophy, I'm not an incrementalist :-) I want action, yesterday.

Where did his famous incrementalism get Harper? He had a majority government and did next to nothing about abortion, CBC funding, private property rights, gun ownership, the Supreme Court...

Steyn quoted Thatcher: Don't move to the centre -- move the centre to YOU.

Denyse O'Leary

Kathy Shaidle • Jun 8, 2019 at 16:34

Kathy, to move the centre to us, we need to give the current Tories a slamdown victory. That would settle the question of whether we -- not Woke, just folk - and dead TIRED of Trudeau's looney bin - can make things happen.

If we do that and the Tories don't listen, THEN we go on to make their stupidity unfortunate mainly for them, not us.

A number of provinces have gone Tory or nearly so recently. If Scheer wants to ride that wave, he'll have to pay his fare: Stop grovelling to crazies and stop funding crazy. But let's give him a chance to win, so we have something to discuss with him.

Kathy Shaidle

Denyse O'Leary • Jun 8, 2019 at 19:08

I don't have time for "THEN." We need now. We are always talking about giving so and so a chance, accepting the devil we know or the best of a bad lot. I've given him a "chance" as leader and he is simply appalling. "Discuss"? Do you really believe he has any interest in that? You are too nice.

Denyse O'Leary

Kathy Shaidle • Jun 8, 2019 at 19:35

Kathy, I don't think "discuss" means what you think it means. ;) I mean the discussion where one finds a discreet way of intimating: We hired you. We are giving you a chance. Fix this mess or we find someone else.

I've had those discussions with people. It's best to be polite and non-confrontational - to make clear that the issue is performance, not personality. If he knows I am holding key cards, I needn't shout or threaten to make my point

Sandy Bottom of Boodjidup Beach • Jun 7, 2019 at 05:28

No video means no video on YouTube which means no general consumption and discussion - that being effectively shut down.