Few Americans are familiar with Mark Steyn, the conservative writer out of Canada who has a huge International audience. This year he was indicted by the British Columbia Human Rights Commission for what is broadly charged as a hate speech crime for Steyn’s mild condemnation of Islamism in an article that appeared in Macleans Magazine. (It was actually an excerpt from his book). As far as I know, this is an attempt to put the magazine out of business and has yet to be resolved. There is almost no coverage of this in the American press. A search of the Google News site brings up almost nothing, except in Canada.
I found some videos that outline this deplorable situation. All this proves to me is what I’ve said all along, we should consider Canada to be a terrorist state for harboring terrorists. This whole Human Rights Commission thing up there is a form of terrorism itself.
Let’s start with the Rex Murphy editorial on the National that addresses this issue. Also read this Rex Murphy editorial in the Globe and Mail here.
Then we go on to Steyn on the Mike Duffy Show in Canada.
Here is Steyn at a more typical conference talking about the inherit dangers of multiculturalism. Does he seem like a dangerous hate-monger to you?
Not surprising since Canada’s hero, Great Britain, is the same way when it comes to Islamic matters.
Can you say Michael Savage and his lawsuit?
“Does he seem like a dangerous hate-monger to you?” No he sounds like a douche. What does anything he says in that clip have to do with multiculturalism? He talks about calling England part of Europe and not knowing exports or capitals of countries. What does that have to do with multiculturalism?
I’m from the USA and don’t know much about the legalities of Canada. He can say whatever he wants to say as far as I’m concerned. But he seems like a huge jerk to me.
Here’s one of the people involved in the suit telling his side:
This guy is a straw man..are you telling me that you buy his argument that he is being denied free speech because Macleans won’t publish him? WHAT? Hey, they won’t publish me either. What does that have to do with free speech denial??
Since when does a commercial publication have to publish anything they do not want to publish for whatever reason?
I’m not buying this guy… I want a link to the Macleans article that specifically says that Muslims have sex with animals. Give me a link. He specifically said that Macleans claimed (in one of 19 or so offensive articles) that Muslims have sex with animals. I want to see this article.
Moreover, and talking about douchebags, this whole suit was actually promoted by the CIC — the Canadian Islamic Council, a fundie organization which looks to be a group of out-and-out Jew-haters. They also accuse the National of being in the same camp as Macleans. This whole thing stinks.
Doesn’t America have some human rights tribunals too?
@5: “Doesn’t America have some human rights tribunals too?”
Not at all. Closest analogue is the judicial branch.
I’m not sure I buy his story but the reason I posted the video was so that people could see what one of the people bringing the complaint had to say.
As I said before I know little about Canada’s laws so I can’t talk about the legalities of the case. In the USA there wouldn’t really be any grounds for one and I don’t think there really needs to be one. So I’m not defending the case at all. I’m responding to the question, “Does he seem like a dangerous hate-monger to you?”
Here’s another video interview with Steyn and the people involved. http://www.tvo.org/cfmx/tvoorg/theagenda/index.cfm?page_id=7&bpn=779191&ts=2008-05-06%2020:00:45.0
I haven’t watched it yet but the short clip I did looks interesting. They talk to Steyn and then with Steyn in the studio they talk to the people bringing the suit (click on McClean’s Complainants) and agree to debate him.
We have a very interesting argument here in the comment section.
Fact is, we might never know the outcome of this situation if these two opposing parties don’t get to battle it out in person. For all that we know, they could all be a bunch of douches. On the other hand, this could all be just a big misunderstanding…
The 4th clip is standard tactics from the Muslim camp on how to repel opposition and shatter defenses.
Simply make claims demanding fairness when fairness has not been denied. The goal is not to gain fairness or the stated aggression, but to weaken the will of Macleans to publish any future enlightening articles about Muslims thus in affect shutting down free speech.
The first 3 clips are very insightful and illuminating to those that will listen.
Agreed and more interesting is the fact that the Muslim community has plenty of input in Macleans. Here is an article rebutting the Steyn piece that is a good read and quite reasoned. So what’s the beef?
http://www.macleans.ca/article.jsp?content=20071212_101640_9648&source=srch&page=1
Oh and I’ve looked through the Macleans archives and have yet to find the “sex with animals” accusations. The wimp host of the TV show should have immediately called out that joker for making that claim and demanded documentation. It was obvious that he threw it out as a flyer and when the host said nothing he knew he had him and began to harp on the accusation. The TV folks suck at their own business. That guy was the worst kind of TV wimp host.
Here is a direct link to the “Agenda” Video. It’s ending is quite revealing…
http://www.tvo.org/cfmx/tvoorg/tvoutils/globalfiles/VideoPop.cfm?spot_id=5588&sitefolder=theagenda
wow it’s like jonny carson reading the weekly world news, or the star magazines, toss in an alien abduction and a story of bigfoot and it ould be complete.
this guy is nothing more than a windbag, he makes his living opening his mouth and not really saying anything…… seems canadians are just as dumb as the u.s.
Islamists get the upper hand my a$$. I am calling BS.
This is propaganda similar to the annual ‘War on Christmas’ of Faux News, and I’m sorry to see Dvorak falling in for it.
Tyranny of the majority, much?
Please go read some James Madison and work on that edumacation that’s sorely lacking.
Do you guys ever leave your house?
As for James Madison, he was an out-and-out anti-factionalist and that marked most of his thinking. He was the idea-man behind checks and balances because he feared these sorts of pressure groups would be too influential. Maybe you should take that GED of yours and try to get a library card and read this stuff yourselves.
“Does he seem like a dangerous hate-monger to you?”. No, he looks like a rabid neocon nut job who’s about to have his cojones served on a plate.
This hasn’t hit main stream news here, or I’ve been in a cave. Thanks for posting it John. This silliness will go away and those particular Muslim complainers will once again waste everyone’s time and money with nonsense. If Maclean’s were ever threatened in any serious way by imaginary discrimination such as this, THEN you would see sparks fly.
Part 1/5 The Agenda – Maclean’s & Islamophobia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApcnpFCYd7E
Part 2/5 The Agenda – Maclean’s & Islamophobia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcUz1FDb8ks
Part 3/5 The Agenda – Maclean’s & Islamophobia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wa2T0nBBfWY
Part 4/5 The Agenda – Maclean’s & Islamophobia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZlGTv63QM0
Part 5/5 The Agenda – Maclean’s & Islamophobia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ka7mePjPoFg
Sorry about making it five posts… the Dvorak censorship filter took my first post some hours ago.
John, you really need to get on to some medication. You’re paranoid about the people in both neighboring countries. Do you by any chance surround your house with barbed wire?
that’s the same video I linked to above http://www.tvo.org/cfmx/tvoorg/theagenda/index.cfm?page_id=7&bpn=779191&ts=2008-05-06%2020:00:45.0
#21 – jccalhoun hates the spam filter – that’s the same video I linked to above
Did you look at the link(s)?
The bigger problem is the human rights kangaroo court. I think MacLean’s already won this case, but what happens to all the other people who can’t get media attention?
I don’t know why all you Americans seem to think that your answer to the problem is any better than ours. If someone lodges a complaint, both parties involved are taken to the human rights tribunal. That is how we solve problems of this nature around her. This would not be a big deal if both parties involved were not sensationalist assholes and all around unsavory people.
Of course the case should be taken to the human rights tribunals. Who is in the right? Its hard to say, but all will come clear when the tribunals have made their judgement.
I don’t know what your problem is John, but anyone is allowed to make complaints to the human rights tribunals whether they are nuts or not. The tribunal hasn’t decided anything yet, so i don’t know why exactly you are in such a tizzy about this. And if we are talking about terrorist states here, I think the good old USA probably takes the cake. Your government would hold up much worse than Steyn in front of the British Columbia Human Rights Commission.
Sounds like a college speech code.
Re Jägermeister, thanks for posting those links. Young Lawyers to be, cutting their teeth on a perceived human rights issue will lose their first fight. Too bad, so sad.
A “Human Rights Tribunal” used to curtail basic human rights like the right to free speech. George Orwell would be proud. What I find interesting is that we’re not having this debate in the United States at all. Possibly there is less Islamist sympathy in the US media. Honor killings don’t seem to be as much of a problem here, either.
No matter anyone thinks of Steyn, it’s odd that so many people are all for the Human Rights kangaroo Court. Wild!!
Canadians are more than docile in accepting – taxes, corruption and a level of geographic nepotism that no American would ever accept for one moment.
It is not for our “good neighbor” to the South buying overpriced oil Canada would be the banana republic that it almost is.
It can be often said that “Canadians are among the stupidest people to ever inhabit the earth”
And yet many Canadian are anti-American and think that they are superior to them.
Yet these same Canadians have no trouble in buying to purchase American houses and real estate as it is “so reasonably priced”
I always have harped on the need for free speech rights in the rest of the Western world. It’s usually met with, “But we have freedom of speech in (name Western country). I guess it’s because those who give that retort have never lived in a country with real freedom of speech…