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Free speech hero Mark Steyn reflects on the demise of Section 13 fascism

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Canada 2011 Federal Election Seats
Canada 2011 Federal Election Seats

Kathy Shaidle at Five Feet of Fury linked to this editorial which explains how the battle for free speech was won up in the frozen North.

Excerpt:

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson had voiced support for the legislation. So had the Prime Minister. The result, then, was never in doubt: at 9:35 p.m. on June 6, by a vote of 153-136,  Parliament got Canada’s human rights bureaucrats out of the business of policing speech on the Internet. There was a scattering of applause, and handshakes for Storseth (the bill requires the rubber stamp of Senate approval). “To be honest, it’s all a blur,” says the three-term MP, laughing. But if the passage of Bill C-304 represents a fundamental shift in Canadian culture, you’d never have known it that night. Members dealt with a few housekeeping matters, then waded through a supply bill. Finally, one by one, they trickled out into the cool Ottawa night.

The effect of killing Section 13 will be debated for years among anti-racist groups and civil libertarians. But it is undoubtedly a turning point. Since 1999, Canadians who felt aggrieved by material transmitted online have been encouraged to seek redress under federal human rights law, which targeted material “likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt” based on grounds of discrimination like race, religion or sexual orientation. Storseth’s bill repeals the provision outright, leaving the Criminal Code as the primary bulwark against the dissemination of hate propaganda by electronic means.

With it will go one of the most divisive disputes to grip the country since the introduction of the Charter of Rights itself—a contest of values that over the past five years has pitted Canadians’ desire to protect minorities from discrimination against the bedrock principle of free speech. Mainstream media outlets, most notably Maclean’s, have been hauled before commissions to answer for their published content. The commissions themselves have come under fire for allowing their processes to be used as a bludgeon against legitimate expression, tailored as they are to encourage complainants to come forward. Meantime, a Saskatchewan law similar to Section 13 has become the subject of a Supreme Court challenge that could invalidate hate-speech provisions in most provincial human rights codes. By year’s end, it is conceivable that no human rights commission in the country will be in the business of adjudicating published material.

And here’s a must-read cri-de-coeur from free speech hero Mark Steyn in Maclean’s magazine. (H/T Binks the Web Elf)

Excerpt:

Operationally, Section 13 was stinkingly corrupt. There are some 34 million Canadians, yet just one individual citizen had his name on almost every Section 13 prosecution of the last decade. Just as Matthew Hopkins appointed himself England’s Witchfinder General in 1645 and went around the country turning in raven-tressed crones for the bounty of a pound per witch, so Richard Warman appointed himself Canada’s Hatefinder General and went around turning in shaven-headed tattooed losers in their mums’ basements for far more lucrative bounties of tens of thousands of dollars. He filed his complaints as a supposedly “offended” and “damaged” private citizen while an employee of Her Majesty’s Government. And, in fairness to Matthew Hopkins, he didn’t personally put on a pointy black hat and ride around on a broomstick. Whereas Mr. Warman joined Stormfront and other “white supremacist” websites and posted copious amounts of hate speech of his own, describing, for example, Jewish members of cabinet as “scum” and gays as a “cancer.” That’s how “hateful” Canada is: there’s so little “hate” out there that the country’s most famous Internet Nazi is a taxpayer-funded civil servant.

For Warman, there was little risk: you paid his costs, and the dice were loaded. After Hosni Mubarak was “re-elected” with 97.1 per cent of the vote, he was said to be furious with his officials for stealing too much of the election and making him look like one of those crude ham-fisted dictator-for-life types like Saddam and Kim Il-Sung. So next time round his officials arranged for him to “win” with a mere 96.3 per cent of the vote. Canada’s “human rights” commissars had no such squeamishness: until the tenacious Marc Lemire won his landmark victory in 2009, Section 13 prosecutions had a three-decade 100 per cent conviction rate even the Soviets might envy.

That wasn’t even the most basic affront. Until Maclean’s intervened in 2008, Lemire’s Section 13 trial was scheduled to be held in secret. I couldn’t quite believe this when I chanced to happen upon the “judge’s” rationale, and I suggested en passant that we should get Maclean’s estimable QC Julian Porter to file a whatchamacallit, a brief or motion or whatever, referencing precedents and other jurisprudential-type stuff, and put a rocket up these totalitarian buggers by treating their dank outhouse of pseudo-justice as a real courtroom subject to real law. Secret trials are for Beijing and Tehran, yet in the name of “human rights” they were introduced to Ottawa.

The line that sums up my objection to the racket was formulated by the Toronto blogger Kathy Shaidle: “You’re too stupid to tell me what to think.” In recent days, the last lonely defenders of the Canadian thought police have all volunteered to demonstrate Miss Shaidle’s proposition. The Opposition [NDP] critic for “public safety,” Randall Garrison, bemoaned the demise of the commissars’ “power to educate Canadians.” “We do have a serious problem,” said Garrison. “If you take away the power to take [websites] down, it’s not clear they have any mandate to even talk to people about it and educate them about it.”

The Conservatives held up their end of the deal once they got their majority, didn’t they? Everyone who said they were not going to do anything with their majority should hang their heads in shame, now. They can’t do everything, but they can certainly do some things.

This is a lesson for us down here. If you love your country, then get out and vote in November! And make sure your friends vote, too – you should be convincing them to vote by giving them the facts about Obama’s catastrophic failures even now.

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Some women think that fathers should not protect their children with force

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Women often ask me why I am cautious about getting married. I have a number of reasons for being cautious. I have general concerns about the anti-chastity, anti-marriage, anti-parenting culture. I am concerned about the financial situation that the country is in, which my future children would inherit.

But there is a quirky reason that I almost never tell anyone, and that has to do with the aversion that many women have of men using force to punish evil. The kind of woman I am thinking about is comfortable with banning self-defense, banning guns, coddling criminals, opposing just wars, blaming Israel for Middle East tensions, etc. Even non-feminist women tend to want to regulate and seize firearms, even though though they know nothing about them, except that they go “boom” and loud noises are scary, and therefore bad. These women oppose wars, even they don’t want to know anything about how military history shows that weakness provokes aggression – not strength. They don’t like martial arts, they won’t play wargames, they don’t know anyone in the military, they think that contact sports are evil.

Now how widespread is this attitude, do you think? Sure there are some Harriet Harman and Lynne Featherstone types in the UK, and some Bertha Wilson and Beverley McLachlin types in Canada, and some Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Betty Friedan types in the United States. But how widespread is this? How many women want to use laws, courts, schools and government to prevent men fulfilling their traditional roles as protectors, providers and moral/spiritual leaders? How many women want to control the judgmental things that men say, and the use of force by men to protect the weak and punish evildoers?

First, consider this news story sent to me by Wes:

According to the Lavaca County Sheriff’s Office, the 23-year-old father and his family were enjoying a barbecue last Saturday at their ranch on Shiner’s outskirts where they keep horses and chickens.

His young daughter had gone off toward the barn, to feed the chickens, the child’s grandfather — who isn’t being named, to protect the identity of his granddaughter — told CNN affiliates KSAT and KPRC.

Then her father heard screaming and ran. He found a 47-year-old man in the act of sexually abusing his [4-year old] daughter, according to Sheriff Micah Harmon.

The father stopped the alleged abuser, then pounded him repeatedly in the head.

[…]The father himself called 911, saying his daughter’s alleged abuser was lying, beaten, on the ground. Afterward, the sheriff said that the admitted killer appeared “very remorseful” and didn’t know the other man would die at the scene.

Now here are some reactions from women to this story.

Here’s Jezebel:

Like, okay, instead of a trial, let’s just put a dad and a child molester in a room, and give the dad a sword and give the child molester a mild sedative and call it justice! And Judge Judy can referee! Nope. I’m not a legal wizard, but I’m going to stick with my gut here, which says that WE DO NOT JUST GO ABOUT MURDERING PEOPLE.

Now, for the record, I also don’t believe that the government should be allowed to murder people who murder people, so take my opinion with however much salt you want. Is it less upsetting when someone murders a child molester? I guess so. (Although, and I know I’m opening a can of worms here, even child molesters are officially human beings and entitled to the same legal recourse as any other citizen. Also, a lot of them get murdered in prison anyway, so…you guys will get your wish.) Is accidental deadly force excusable if someone walks in on a person actively molesting their child? I think yes. But that doesn’t mean we should legalize murder and normalize vengeance. If that was even a real question.

Got that? Defending your family is murder, and executing a serial murderer is also murder. This is from a web site that is radical on abortion – somewhere to the left of Obama, which is loony territory.

And here’s CafeMom:

I’m a parent, for cripes sakes. I never want to see a child being hurt in any fashion. Just last night I sat in my house with my heart beating fast against my chest because I’d heard a rumor that a local teen had to be airlifted out of an accident scene (good news: it was one of those exaggerations that spreads on Facebook — she’s fine). In that sense, if the allegation of abuse is true, then I would have been shaking with anger and horror both. If I were that father, I would have wanted to kill that man.

But wanted to does not equal would have.

Consider this: when you take justice into your own hands, what happens? You get in trouble. You, the person who, up until that very moment, was in the right.

You may say it’s “worth it” because the other person got what you thought was “coming,” but you are forever marred by having sunk to the criminal level. You are what you profess to despise.

Got that? Defending your family is sinking down to the level of a criminal.

This is actually quite common, and I do ask about it when I am evaluating women for friendships and courtships. I once was courting a Christian woman who told me that soldiers should not use violence to stop terrorists, and policemen should not use firearms to stop criminals, even as a last resort. She imagined that there was always some other feasible alternative to violence, and that war and use of deadly force was never justified. She even said that capital punishment was always wrong. (This is in spite of what the Bible says).

What some women really want is to feminize men and to dominate them – stopping them from getting into debates, from defending themselves with force, from telling the truth if it offends others, from judging immorality, from excluding others whose beliefs are false, from disciplining their children, and so on. I was once called a “bully” by a woman for saying that I would discourage my daughter from studying ballet instead of a STEM field in college, even though my motive was to make sure that she could be financially independent, so that she would be able to pick a husband for the right reasons, instead of being desperate.

Feminism – the denial of and disrespect for distinct male roles – has influenced everything in society. Feminism has influenced the tax rates, the size of government, the laws, the courts, the schools… everything. If I were to get married, I would be getting married in a world dominated by feminism – where the majority of single/younger women are fully supportive of regulating and controlling men, as evidenced by their voting patterns.

Many women just seem to have this enormous confidence about regulating and dominating other peoples lives, and these convictions are often not based on any evidence, but merely on intuitions and feelings – or even the desire to be perceived by others as “nice”. I am frequently encourtering women on the right and the left who boast to me about how they do not judge others – as if having no informed, evidence-based moral convictions was a qualification for being a wife and mother. Who wants to marry a hedonistic sociopath? Not me.

I think it is very important for me to be careful about getting into a relationship where the state can intrude and regulate my entire life, in the event of a divorce or because I have children and they want to be a “co-parent” with me, as a Canadian educrat recently said. I can take care of myself, but when you have to face divorce courts, or let your children face government agencies and public schools forcing their secular left viewpoint on tiny little kids, it’s a lot to ask of a man.

I am already being forced to give a third of my salary to fund a secular leftist bureaucracy which opposes my plans and my values. For me to consider marriage, I would have to be convinced that the woman would support me. And the precondition for support is having an informed view of what men care about and what we are trying to achieve. Women need to show that they are willing to recognize the differences of a man, and his distinct roles, and to give him space to make his contributions.

This understanding of the contributions of men has to be done at the micro level of defending the family, but also at the macro level of defending the nation. Women ought to make an effort to understand and affirm the use of force by Western nations against tyranny and oppression. Counter-terrorism, national security and a robust peace through strength foreign policy are not things that come easily to women, and that’s exactly why they should be open to studying those things, so that their minds are naturally changed as they grow in knowledge.

UPDATE: Grand jury says there will be no charges laid against the father.

News

New large-scale UK study confirms the importance of fathers to children

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Dina sent me this article from the UK Daily Mail.

Excerpt:

A father’s love is as important to a child’s emotional development as a mother’s, a large-scale study has confirmed.

Examining the cases of more than 10,000 sons and daughters revealed how a cold or distant father can damage a child’s life, sometimes for decades to come.

The review of 36 studies from around the world concluded that his love is at least as important to youngsters as that of their mothers.

Researcher Professor Ronald Rohner said that fatherly love is key to  development and hopes his findings will motivate more men to become involved in caring for their offspring.

‘In the US, Great Britain and Europe, we have assumed for the past 300 years that all children need for normal healthy development is a loving relationship with their mother,’ he said.

‘And that dads are there as support for the mother and to support the  family financially but are not required for the healthy development of the children.

‘But that belief is fundamentally wrong. We have to start getting away from that idea and realise the dad’s influence is as great, and sometimes greater, than the mother’s.’

His conclusions came after he examined data from studies in which  children and adults were asked how loving their parents were.

Questions included if they were made to feel wanted or needed, if their  parents went out of their way to hurt their feelings and if they felt loved.

Those taking part also answered questions about their personality. These ranged from ‘I think about fighting or being mean’ to ‘I think the world is a good, happy place’.

Tallying the results showed that those rejected in childhood felt more anxious and insecure as well as hostile and aggressive.

Many of the problems carried over into adulthood, reported the study  published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Review.

Crucially, a father’s love was often just as important as a mother’s. In some cases, it was even more so. One reason for this may be that rejection is more painful when it comes from the parent the child regards as more powerful or respected.

You can read more about how fatherlessness damages children here.

I think the first question we should ask the people who want to redefine marriage is this: “which parent to do you think that a child can do without? the mother or the father?”. We must do everything we can as a society to keep both of a child’s natural parents in the home while the child grows up. If we really care about children, then we should prefer to meet their needs, even if the grown-ups have to be a bit more responsible in their decision making. if the conflict is between innocent children and selfish grown-ups, then the children should win.

We need laws and policies that promote traditional marriage, not laws and policies that break it down and destroy it. Repealing no-fault divorce, lowering subsidies for single motherhood, and making shared parenting the default position, would all help solve the problem. Policies like school choice and lower corporate tax rates helps men to be able to perform in their role as provider. We have to be practical and ask: “what makes men capable of marriage and parenting?” If we want strong fathers, then it makes sense to ask how to make fatherhood more reasonable: what do men need in order to do what we want them to do?

Christians should be especially concerned about the presence of fathers, given the evidence I blogged about before showing how the presence of quality fathers is essential for passing Christian beliefs on to children. Churches need to ask themselves tough questions: Are we teaching women how to choose men based on practical concerns and proven abilities in our churches? And are we doing a good job of attracting men to churches by promoting the masculine, practical aspects of Christianity that men like – like science, apologetics debates, economics and foreign policy?