Posted on 01/19/2008 3:32:58 AM PST by Clive
Since 9/11 it is transparently clear the assault against the West by Islamists is not limited to indiscriminate violence.
Islamists also are "using our own legal system as a weapon against us" as Professor John Yoo at the law faculty of the University of California, Berkeley, recently noted.
Islamism is Janus-faced with one face bearing the dreadful visage of Osama bin Laden and the unholy fanatics of the Arab-Muslim world. The other face bears the likeness of "everyman," making it indistinguishable everywhere.
Islamists with their ideological fellow travellers and apologists wearing the Everyman's mask have adopted "lawfare" -- a term coined by Yoo -- as "another dimension of warfare" against the West.
The case brought to the federal and provincial (Ontario and British Columbia) Human Rights Commissions against Maclean's magazine for publishing Mark Steyn's essay on the future belonging to Islam, a growing faith, is an example of "lawfare" being used to undermine the fundamental values of liberal democracy.
The case was brought by Mohamed Elmasry and the Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC).
Elmasry and the CIC are well known to Canadians keeping track of them, and the case against Maclean's reflects their political hucksterism and notoriety as apologists for Islamism.
As once noted about the Holy Roman Empire for being neither holy, nor Roman, Elmasry's CIC is neither Canadian, nor Islamic. It speaks only for that segment of Canadian Muslims who publicly or privately support the Islamist agenda of global jihad.
Elmasry's complaint that Maclean's discriminated against him as a Muslim and the Muslim community at large by publishing Steyn's essay, described as "flagrantly anti-Muslim" is frivolous and false.
Elmasry is incapable of grasping what freedom means -- he is on public record for insisting all adult Israelis are legitimate targets for Palestinian suicide bombers, only apologizing under duress -- since he comes from a culture where freedom is mostly non-existent.
But it is outrageous that the HRCs are willing to entertain such frivolous complaints as Alberta's did in accepting a similar complaint against Ezra Levant, the publisher of Western Standard, now out of business.
The objection of Islamists that discussions of Islam and Islamism -- the latter being a totalitarian ideology -- is offensive and deserves contemptuous dismissal, not an investigation by the HRC at taxpayers' expense.
The complaint by anyone -- least of all Islamists as determined foes of liberal democracy -- of being offended by the general robustness of free speech would be indicative that the complainant cannot distinguish between speech that could be construed as maliciously directed at an individual, or a group, and speech in all its variety and vigour that makes for free discourse in the media and academia.
Freedom comes with cost, and the cost of freedom of expression enshrined in Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms is finding someone occasionally offended, yet this cannot be the basis for bridging or censoring the most fundamental right of an open society.
It will not be surprising to learn the HRC bureaucrats find incomprehensible the observation made by Ronald Dworkin, a highly respected legal philosopher, "the only right you don't have in a democracy is the right not to be offended."
Federal and provincial legislators bear heavy responsibility in protecting our democracy and safeguarding our freedoms.
The HRC's function urgently needs confinement by statute to its original purpose, while denying it authority to entertain frivolous complaints -- as is Elmasry's case against Maclean's -- that would subvert rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Charter.
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Good post. Glad to see the Toronto Post standing firm against the small, narrow minds.
“Freedom comes with cost, and the cost of freedom of expression enshrined in Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms is finding someone occasionally offended, yet this cannot be the basis for bridging or censoring the most fundamental right of an open society.”
I dare say the truer cost will be much higher than just offending someone, before this is all resolved. Our Canadian brothers appear to be coming to the realization that an ultra-Left approach to government yields outcomes both unintended and unwanted.
Gook luck with shaking off that coming dhimmi yoke.
CIC “speaks only for that segment of Canadian Muslims who publicly or privately support the Islamist agenda of global jihad.”
Uhhh...that pretty much covers the entire Muslim population, as thinking folks recognize.
Islam is a cult, and needs to be eradicated.
", "the only right you don't have in a democracy is the right not to be offended""
Canadians have only a few more opportunities to regain control of their civil rights. Once the speech police are sufficiently empowered, it will be impossible for anyone to oppose them because the full power of the State will be brought to bear, not to protect free speech, but to impose standards of what speech is forbidden. And the first thing that is forbidden will be any free discussion on what free speech means.
What is at stake is not just a PC future about what people can say. It will means what teachers must say and must avoid saying to children. It will even mean that discussions about public policy will only be allowed withing the framework defined by “human rights” commissions.
Liberty and freedom will no longer be values that are allowed to have any weight in the discourse. Indeed, liberty and freedom cannot be allowed to enter the discourse.
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