Update: My own tiny role in Canada's biggest free speech case ever
If you haven't heard, my article here might have caused a bit of legal trouble for myself and the Tribune. I was inspired (and outraged) after I read Mark Steyn's article that was reprinted in the Gazette. At the same time, I had been doing research for a sidebar about Bill C-10 funding restrictions and the history of media censorship in Canada. What I found was a disturbing pattern -- an illiberal crusade on the part of minorities to shut out unpleasant ideas using Canadian law. I wrote this up in the aforementioned op-ed, and waited. I purposely didn't feature lawyer and activist Richard Warman very prominently -- knowing that others have had trouble with him.Luckily, Mr. Warman is competent with Google and found the article anyway, calling up the Tribune, and sending a threatening e-mail, saying my article potentially libeled and defamed him.
Byron Tau
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Original article below.
OFF THE BOARD: Fighting neo-Nazis with crypto-fascism
Last week, one of our own Tribune columnists proudly proclaimed, "I can say pretty much whatever I want [in my column], because that is part of what being a Canadian is about… We hold our right to free speech as dear as we hold our right to due process-and any perceived challenge to said rights arouses fierce opposition and fury.
"She expressed a noble sentiment, indeed. If only that were really the case here in Canada.Canadians live under the veneer of free expression, as granted by their precious Charter of Rights and Freedoms. However, just beneath the placid surface of Canadian jurisprudence lies a whole host of thorny anti-liberal restrictions on freedom of speech and expression.
The Rest :Byron Tau at the McGill Tribune
Sunday, April 06, 2008
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9 comments:
This bad nightmare just won't exit stage left. He must think that by his litigation efforts that he is somehow contributing to public safety and world peace.
The gong folks - the gong.
When it comes to Warman I am slowly being persuaded of the whole Ickes Space Lizard thing;)
Who isn't he apparently threatening with Libel? Lord have mercy I hope he has a day planner to keep track of those he's threatening to sue, those he's sueing and those he's representing for DND. Poor fella it must be hard being a the Great White Nazi hunter by night and a bureaurat during the day. I'm exhausted just thinking about it, I'm guessing but I think that's why he's bald.
LOL is Potentially Libel akin to Section 13 where you might likely offend someone via thought crimes?
I'd just blow the asshole a kiss Blaze.
Mr. Tau is a cogitative and principled young man who needs to be commended, and supported, for his stand against this creeping happy-face fascism that masquerades as progressivism or liberalism these days.
As for the litigious reptilian, that's a spent force...this is how may publications and blogs who were threatened and have flipped him the bone?
WLMR,
Litigious Lizard as BCF so appropriately labeled him.
Brain dead lawyer still walking and yes - it is wonderful to see all these individuals, magazines and newspapers telling him to take a hike.
Hopefully a long one in Afghanistan where he could represent the downtroden Taliban.
I am sure he and Worn spend many a night remembering the good old days and planning a come back strategy so people will take them seriously.
One would think he would get the message! But Lizards are not trainable apparently. It does show though how much time he spends trolling and googling for his own name.
Mr. Tau,
I admire you for being accountable, and admitting your small mistakes.
However, encouraging people to throw a pie in Icke's face could be understood as the metaphorical equivalent of launching a "human rights" complaint, under Canada's crypto-fascist Section 13.
And the larger issue here is one of competing narratives. The avatars of the "human rights" industry in this country are basically scared of free-wheeling political speech, basically afraid that any and all politics creates victims, the sundry losers in debates and conclusions (and democratically-determined actions therefrom) over what is and is not publicly, ethically, acceptable. And they believe in building legal codes to minimize or eliminate all kinds of victimization. The courts and the semi-hidden tribunal must trump open politics.
In the wake of postmodern thinking, all they know of politics is about contesting too much political freedom, which they imagine is largely in the service of the rich and powerful and knowledgeable, i.e. in service of "the normal", they allege consiratorially. So, all they know of politics is about contesting the conspiracy of the normal (all of people's received and local loyalties, as well as their freedom) and its supposedly inevitable creation of victims. And they are no less against the Western, Judeo-Christian normal when it is advancing the cause of human freedom in face of tribal codes. White racism they will put on trial, but black or Arab racism?
Haven't seen that yet. (But Bob Rae's wife is a Jew...)
So, instead of allowing someone like Ezra Levant to get away with publishing cartoons that throw light on the return of fascism to Europe, or allowing Mark Steyn to quote the tribal fanatics and their desires for Europe, they would prefer we come to no such conclusions, that we not debate, that we just give up our freedom to top-down opinion control of politically-correct elites. Freedom is what the "human rights" industry today fears most.
In other words the "human rights" industry pretends to be demanding personal accountability of those they tag with "hate crimes" while being part and parcel of a system that systematically erodes public accountability by replacing properly political arenas and free speech with moral and legal codes that demand you button your mouth.
When Mr. Warman's friends in the Canadian Jewish Congress support him in free-wheeling public debate with the real force for antisemitism in this country - the left-Liberal-Islamofascist alliance - or, when they are open and honest with a Royal Commission, or with free and accountable journalists, about all the methods and tactics they have used as "human rights" investigators - I will say they are being as accountable as you.
But, when they claim, again and again, the victim (defending) role, I will just ask: but what about your victims? Do you really think you have created none? And how can we properly weigh the balance, without free speech? It is no accident that those who make a career out of victimary politics, out of using the state to control against too much freedom, are afraid of a free and full accounting. They rightly demand it of others, but think it an outrage when others ask it of them. For they have done no wrong. Couldn't have. They're the righteous, the defenders of victims and human rights. They only throw bad guys under the bus. Really. You know the guys in the black hats. Black hats! Nazis! Get it?!
The true journalist will respond to Mr. Warman's letters by calmly and carefully investigating all the claims made against him on the internet, and now in the mainstream media. They will seek to know the truth and hold the reputations of liars and hate mongers publicly accountable. Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn say they are trying to do this, but are they blinded by personal animus? How good a job are they doing?
The more freely-given iterations of that question and answers we have, the better and freer our country will be. And there is a special place in heaven for friends of Canada who help us in the task. Yet in defending the freedom of political debate in one nation, we are defending it in all. For the real enemy fancies itself some kind of post-political, pro-(international) law, trans-national progressivism.
Lucy the Litigious Lizard = LLL = L-Cubed = L3
;-) :-D
Have you, by any chance, got a copy of Lucy's legal beagle email. It would be interesting to see the silly man in full spate.
Will have to ask Byron Jay.
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