Jay Currie is opening up another front in the war against Canadian HRC abuses, this time by using the very institutions that we would like to see reined in.
This follows the initiation of a HRC complaint against a radical imam by Marc Lebuis.
I suggested that actions like this might well be the unintended consequence of the latest libel suit issued by Kinsella/Warman. What the Kinsella/Warman suits have done is to bring the fight to a very personal level. There has been genuine anger over the HRC and free speech issue, and the recent flurry of legal paper has unleashed a beast. Within a week of the suits flying we have two new Human Rights complaints, both against targets that
would ordinarily only earn a sneer and jeer from the Right, but whose defendants may now face somewhat more problems.
There will be more, I guarantee it. I predict that prominent left wing blogs will find themselves on the receiving end of complaints and/or lawsuits in the near future. There is plenty of material there for cherry-picking, and thanks to the wayback machine and Google Cache nothing stays consigned to the memory hole forever.
Early on in the Freespeech debate I suggested it should be a non-partisan fight; we all want to be able to write what we want, when we want about whatever we want. If we upset folks then we argue about it and if it gets too ugly or personal - that’s what libel laws are for.
Many of the left preferred to support the HRC’s attacks on free speech. Consequently we have some Free Speechers willing to use the left’s favoured censorship mechanisms against them. It’s inevitable - I and many others have tried to argue the facts on some lefty sites, but when all you get is return fire ad hominem attacks and the usual suspects falling prey to Godwin’s Law you have to ask what will it take to make them understand the real threat.
Jay and Marc have decided that fighting fire with fire is one way to make the left ‘get it’. I sincerely hope that Section 13 gets overhauled or dumped before any more victims are caught in its insidious grip, but perhaps these examples of turn-about might enable a few of the more conscious lefties to see the real dangers that we’ve been fighting over the past months. And if they cannot or will not see after these examples, then they are beyond help and can fend for themselves when the reaper comes.
I don’t like where this is going, but I understand the frustration that has led us here. I guess the right to continued free speech is an omelette, and it’s time to break the eggs.
Make mine a denver, please.
