Tag Archives: Mark Steyn

Why Mark Steyn isn’t keeping a list of donors to his legal defense fund

From Mark Steyn’s blog. He explains why he cannot issue receipts for donations, because he refuses to disclose donors to the IRS.

Excerpt:

Six months ago, I fell out with National Review and decided to go it alone in climate fraud Michael E Mann’s defamation suit against us for mocking his “global warming” hockey stick.

[…][E]ver since our suggestion that you might like to help out in this manner, we’ve had a steady stream of emails from readers explaining that this is all well and good but it’s taxable income and what I really need to do is set up a 501(c)3 or 501(c)4 or 501(c)87 or some such as a vehicle for this campaign.

To which the answer is: well, we certainly considered the possibility, and a few years ago I might have entertained the notion. But not anymore. The National Organization for Marriage, which was founded to protect the pre-revisionist definition of marriage, is, in its various arms, both a 501(c)3 and a 501(c)4. As such, its tax returns are publicly available, but not its donor lists. Nevertheless, it is obliged to report its donors on Schedule B to the Internal Revenue Service. Someone at the IRS leaked the donor lists to a man called Matthew Meisel, a gay activist in Boston. Meisel in turn passed it on to the gay group Human Rights Campaign (whose president was a national co-chair of the Obama re-election campaign), and HRC in turn published the list of donors, which was subsequently re-published by The Huffington Post.

There’s no secret about why they’d do such a thing. As we know, if you disagree with progressive orthodoxy, you have no right to host a cable-TV home-decor show or give a commencement address at an American university or be a beauty-queen contestant. But that’s not enough for these groups. If you’re not a public figure, if you’re just a Californian who puts up a yard sign or a bumper sticker on Proposition Eight, your car will be keyed and your house defaced. And likewise, if you slip a check in the mail for a modest sum, it is necessary that you also be made an example of. Brandon Eich, Richard Raddon and Scott Eckern all lost prominent positions as chief executives because of their donations. But Marjorie Christoffersen, a 67-year-old Mormon who works in the El Coyote restaurant in Los Angeles, was forced to quit because she wrote a $100 check in support of Proposition Eight.

So, when it comes to the leaking of donor lists, we’re not dealing with anything “theoretically” or “potentially” “troubling”. These guys act on this information, and act hard, and they are willing to destroy your life for a hundred bucks.

I had a conversation like this with a friend of mine who works for a large, effective non-profit recently. I have a rule that says that I do not donate money to non-profits that will put me on a donor list and then submit that donor list to the IRS. I have had this rule since Obama came into office. The rule is there because of the problems Mark Steyn describes above. I need to not be persecuted by the government in order to do my job as a Christian. Why take chances?

How far will global warming alarmists go to destroy critics like Mark Steyn?

A post from Free Think U tells you everything you need to know about whether global warming is based in evidence or intimidation.

Excerpt:

The critical point in this campaign is a defamation lawsuit by global warming promoter Michael Mann against Mark Steyn, National Review, and the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

[…] Consider the specific argument Mann is making, as summed up in the report I linked to above.

“In the articles, Mann says in his lawsuit, the think tank and the publication ignored more than half a dozen investigations that found no scientific wrongdoing, focusing almost exclusively on the Penn State inquiry in order to call him a fraud. CEI also mentioned the National Academy of Science’s investigation, but dismissed those findings by saying the body had obtained information from Penn State, meaning the inquiry was ‘not truly independent.’ The basis mentioned by CEI to call the Penn State investigation a whitewash was stating it had only interviewed Mann, and ‘seemingly ignored the content of the emails.’”

Even more ominous, the DC Superior Court, which let the suit proceed, embraced this reasoning in its ruling.

“The CEI Defendants’ persistence despite the EPA and other investigative bodies’ conclusion that Plaintiff’s work is accurate (or that there is no evidence of data manipulation) is equal to a blatant disregard for the falsity of their statements.”

In other words, Steyn’s evaluation of Mann’s scientific claims can be legally suppressed because Steyn dares to question the conclusions of established scientific institutions connected to the government. On this basis, the DC Superior Court arrives at the preposterous conclusion that it is a violation of Mann’s rights to “question his intellect and reasoning.” That’s an awfully nice prerogative to be granted by government: an exemption against any challenge to your reasoning.

[…]Mann is attempting to install himself as a kind of American Lysenko. Trofim Lysenko was the Soviet scientist who ingratiated himself to Joseph Stalin and got his crackpot theories on genetics installed as official dogma, effectively killing the study of biology in the Soviet Union. Under Lysenko, the state had an established and official scientific doctrine, and you risked persecution if you questioned it. Mann’s libel suit is an attempt to establish that same principle here.

Mann has recently declared himself to be both a scientist and a political activist. But in attempting to intimidate his critics and suppress free debate on global warming, he is violating the fundamental rules of both science and politics. If it is a sin to doubt, then there is no science. If it is a crime to dissent, then there is no politics.

In one way I think the tactics of censors in general are interesting because they show us how Darwinism came to be accepted as “science” despite the back that it is at odds with the evidence from origin of life studies and the Cambrian explosion, not to mention molecular machinery in the cell. The science doesn’t matter if the government and the courts make it illegal to question the dogma.

Another reason never to write under your real name. Use an alias, because these people don’t play games. They will go after you in your work place and destroy your ability to earn a living. Don’t make it easy for them.

Canada repeals Section 13 law that criminalized politically incorrect speech

Canada Political Map
Canada Political Map

Sun News reports on some good news up north.

Excerpt:

An Alberta MP has succeeded in his bid to repeal a section of the Canadian Human Rights Act long seen by free-speech advocates as a tool to squelch dissenting opinions.

Conservative MP Brian Storseth saw the Senate give third and final reading late Wednesday to his Bill C-304 which repeals Section 13 of the Human Rights Act, an act that had been used to, among other things, attack the writings of Sun News Network’s Ezra Levant and Maclean’s columnist Mark Steyn.

Section 13 ostensibly banned hate speech on the Internet and left it up to the quasi-judicial human rights commission to determine what qualified as “hate speech.” But, unlike a court, there was no presumption of innocence of those accused of hate speech by the commission. Instead, those accused had to prove their innocence.

With elimination of Section 13, producing and disseminating hate speech continues to be a Criminal Code violation but police and the courts will adjudicate rather than human rights tribunals.

Storseth drafted his bill in 2011 and enjoyed support from the highest levels in cabinet.

“Our government believes Section 13 is not an appropriate or effective means for combating hate propaganda,” Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said in late 2011. “We believe the Criminal Code is the best vehicle to prosecute these crimes.”

Last summer, Storseth’s bill cleared the House of Commons in a free vote and, now that it’s through the Senate, it will get royal assent and Section 13 should soon disappear.

Brian Lilley comments: (H/T Blazing Cat Fur)

To put it bluntly, the means you can’t take someone through the federal human rights apparatus over hurt feelings via a blog post or a Facebook comment.

Now the bill is passed and will become law but like many acts of Parliament it will not come into force for a year.

Still after a long hard battle to restore free speech in Canada, this is a victory.

Canada just became a little more free. Congratulations to Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party of Canada for undoing a harmful policy enacted by the radical left.