Ghost of a flea: The backbone of the northern blogosphere

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April 10, 2008

The backbone of the northern blogosphere

Mark Steyn weighs in on the northern blogosphere... under siege. Steyn's Warman piece* "Global Warman", argues the case against the Canadian Human Rights Commission is the case against one man who has made it his "personal inquisition" (this via Five Feet of Fury and Steyn's argument following Jay Currie).

It's not possible to take a stand against the Canadian Human Rights Commission without also talking a stand against Richard Warman. He has been the plaintiff on half the Section 13 cases in its entire history and on all the Section 13 cases since 2002. There are 30 million Canadians yet only one of them uses this law, over and over and over again, which tells you how necessary it is to keeping the Queen's peace. Section 13 is, in effect, Warman's Law and the CHRC is Warman's personal inquisition and the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal is Warman's very own kangaroo court. Whether or not the motivations were pure and pristine when this racket got started, at some point his pals at the CHRC and the "judges" of the CHRT should have realized that the Warmanization of Section 13 doesn't pass the smell test: Justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done, and when you see what's done at the CHRC you understand it's a cosy and self-perpetuating romance between a corrupt bureaucracy and its favored son.

* This half-assed pun is recycled from my attempt to come up with a tag-line for this post; as you can see this morning, I got nothin'. More coffee, stat!

Update: You know you’ve lost your freedom when you cannot call a censor a censor.

Update: Much useful press linkage at Instapundit.

A tangent here. People wonder why I quit university teaching. Imagine an office - all your colleagues and all your supervisors and anyone with a say in your tenure prospects, your research funding and your publications - where everyone organizes their careers in such a way that a "human rights" commission would have no reason to object. Their teaching practices, their research, their political views; everything they think and do including and especially their "private" lives from the television they (do not) watch to the fast food they (do not) eat to the sex lives they (do not) allow themselves to have. Even the concept of a "private" life dismissed as reactionary and/or illusory and in any event subject to the scrutiny of any undergraduate with internet access and a grudge. That is the life I escaped. Even a couple years after the fact I find it a surprise when my internal censor warns me against writing something for fear of losing my livelihood and my career and I realize I have already crossed that bridge, burned it and done a little dance some time ago. It is a small price for freedom compared to the price so many have already paid for me. But it is something.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at April 10, 2008 06:39 AM

Comments

The freedom to fail is conversely related to the freedom to succeed.

Posted by: OregonGuy at April 10, 2008 11:44 AM

Flea, your 2nd update brought a smile to my face. 'Tis part of the reason I'm "Urthshu" everywhere, and Me in only a few places. Amen, brother.

Posted by: urthshu at April 10, 2008 09:42 PM

Oh, hell. I thought you were still teaching. You must've quit while I was in dial-up hell (that several months between when we moved to the country and we could finally afford a hi-speed Net link via satellite) and I missed it.

I hope your new career track is working out well. Cheers.

Posted by: Sean M. at April 12, 2008 01:55 PM

Ghost of a flea

April 10, 2008

The backbone of the northern blogosphere

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