Warren Kinsella is an interesting man. As former staffer and strategist for the Jean Chrétien Liberal's, Kinsella made a name for himself with his self-described "kicking ass' style of politics. A style that might also be described as "character assassination", if you ask me.
Perhaps Kinsella's most memorable moment in Canadian Politics was a television interview given in the midst of an election campaign. In the interview, Kinsella brought a prop. A stuffed animal; a dinosaur to be precise. The purpose was to mock then Reform Party leader Stockwell Day's faith by pointing to his alleged belief that the Earth was only six thousand years old.
This incident would come to perfectly exemplify the way in which Kinsella approaches the world around him.
Fast forward to today, and you'll find a much different world. The Conservative Party forms a government, and Kinsella is very much an outsider in federal politics. But Kinsella's battle continues. For what, other than partisanship, is anybody's guess. Well, we've recently gained some insights into one of his goals: preservation of "speech codes".
When Ezra Levant and Macleans Magazine found themselves on the receiving end of human rights complaints, the blogosphere was taken by storm.
In 2006, Levant's—now defunct—Western Standard magazine republished cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, originally printed in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. The cartoons, considered offensive by many Muslims, resulted in mass rioting throughout several Middle Eastern countries, and the cartoonist himself was ultimately targeted with death threats.
For republishing these cartoons, some Canadian muslims, most notably Syed Sowarhardy, a Calgary-based Imam, complained that Levant's publishing of the cartoons exposed Muslims to discrimination, and were therefore a violation of human rights.
Macleans Magazine was also struck with a complaint by the Canadian Islamic Congress for publishing a discriminatory article about Muslims, written by Mark Steyn.
The provisions of the Human Rights Act, under which these complaints were entertained by the commission date back to 2001, as part of the Anti-Terrorism Act that was quickly cobbled together in the weeks after the September 11th attacks in the United States.
The specific clarifications to Section 13 of the act, were largely a result of the lobbying efforts of the Canadian Jewish Congress, to allow Human Rights Commissions greater powers in hunting down, and shutting down anti-Semitic websites.
Soon after the passage of the bill, then human rights investigator Richard Warman resigned, and devoted his full-time to prosecuting cases under the new provisions. And since he took up this cause, Warman alone, has been responsible for one-hundred-percent of all Section 13 cases brought before the federal Human Rights Commission, as well as a large percentage of the cases in provincial commissions.
But now Warman's lonely "anti-hate" industry has come under fire by grassroots civil rights activists, ranging from bloggers, to even a Liberal MP, as a direct result of the complaints against Levant and Macleans. This has resulted in battle lines being drawn, as defenders of speech codes line up to fend off the attack.
Making the public relations battle more complicated for those on the free speech side of the debate, is the fact that they find themselves as unwilling allies with groups of untoward individuals. A precarious situation that those who support state censorship and enforcement of speech codes have sought to capitalize on.
Case in point: Marc Lemire is a well-known white supremacist and former leader of the racist Heritage Front, who has been fighting Richard Warman and the Human Rights Commission for years. He is fighting back against the Section 13 provisions, under which complaints have been brought against him with a Supreme Court challenge. He is also fighting the complaints against him with evidence which potentially demonstrates that Richard Warman and members of the commission itself, may have in fact, impersonated racists to plant evidence on the very websites they have been investigating.
Ezra Levant, of course, has taken great interest in the Marc Lemire case, as it has parallels with his own situation. Clearly Levant is not a racist, but the consequences of the Lemire case apply to him, and his fight with the Human Rights Commission.
Which brings us back to Warren Kinsella.
Not much has changed in he way Warren thinks, between when he mocked Stockwell Day, and today. As it turns out, Warren Kinsella is a big believer in the revised Section 13 of the Human Rights Act and has sought through blogging and other writing to defend it from attack. And how does Kinsella go about that? Well, indirect character assassination, of course.
Levant is a supporter of unbridled political speech. A position which offends Kinsella, as someone who passionately supports laws to prosecute racist and discriminatory words. As such, the momentum that Levant has managed to garner against Section 13 and the Human Rights Commissions themselves, is threatening to Kinsella. This had led him, in a characteristic Warren-way, after the personal reputations of those charging against Section 13.
In fact, Kinsella has taken to openly questioning the reasoning for Ezra Levant's interest in the Marc Lemire case, openly making suggestions that Levant is being un-Jewish in this blog post:
"But this guy [Ezra Levant] , too? How can a righteous Jew promote the likes of Marc Lemire? How?"
Just as with his attacks on Stockwell Day's religion, Kinsella is appealing to faulty logic. The logic here, is as painfully simple as it is immature: if Marc Lemire is a racist, and Ezra Levant supports his challenge against the Human Rights Commission, then Ezra Levant is supporting racism and may himself, be a racist.
The logic is just so bloody absurd, that I have a hard time believing that Kinsella himself believes it. And if he doesn't, then Kinsella is, as Jay Currie reminds us: a liar.
You see, because there is no connection between supporting people's right to free political speech—which unfortunately can include hateful speech—and being racist. If you want to make that jump, then you are implying that most libertarians are racist. That's something I assure you, that most libertarians, myself included, would—and do—have a serious problems with.
I think though, that Kinsella doesn't care about honesty in achieving his political goals. For him, and Richard Warman it would seem, that the ends justify the means. With that type of logic, they can proudly join the ranks of others who justified the suppression of human rights in the name of achieving their good intentions; past figures like Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro, Adolph Hitler, and more recently Hugo Chavez.
All thought (or think) that trampling over people's rights in the name of a better world was worth the sacrifice. All of them were wrong.
Warren Kinsella is not an evil man. Neither is Richard Warman. But as these names remind us, and so the proverb goes: the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Kinsella's attack on Evangelical Christians was unforgiveable. We see a repeat of this in Ontario in the grit whispering campaign against Islam. (Faith based schools= Madrassas) Mr Kinsella was an attack dog for Canada's worst PN pseudo chretien.
His latest comments on free speech ,show and his repeated lawsuits are an indication the Kinsella only wants free speech for himself.
By the way Mike . Kinsella will probably try and sue you next.
Great post Mike. Kinsella isn't evil, he is just reprising the tactics that worked for him in the past. What he failed to realize is that the net is much less friendly to his type of drive by smear. He is a man both out of touch and out of time, hence the SLAAP suits Skipper & Gilligan have launched of late.
"Kinsella isn't evil"
Evil is as evil does? :-)
As I've said elsewhere, I thought that Warren Kinsella was just being his old partisan self, ratcheting up the rhetoric as fast as Dion plummets in the polls. Classic political re-direction.
There is still a possibility that this is still the case. But I'm beginning to wonder, though: maybe he really is this clueless?
Ken McVay (http://preview.tinyurl.com/yqd6ts) has done more from his home office to take on nazis than Kinsella has on all his self-serving book tours and media interviews. For free. No nice earner for Mr. McVay from the CJC...
Deborah Lipstadt (http://preview.tinyurl.com/ywycqf), who took on and beat David Irving, also believes that censoring nazis creates more nazis. In short, another politically correct method backfires and does the opposite of what was intended:
"...I do not believe that laws against denial are strategically wise. They tend to make martyrs of the accused, arousing sympathy for them. They also render the item which has been outlawed ‘forbidden fruit’. Thus it becomes more enticing and appealing to certain segments of society – disaffected youth, for example.
Most importantly, however, genocide denial laws suggest that we do not have the facts and the documentation to prove that these people are liars. We defeated David Irving in court not with law but with facts..."
Great article Mike.
However, you fall into the trap of calling Mohammed, "THE PROPHET MOHAMMED".
He's only a Prophet to muslims not to anyone else.
More correctly you would refer to him as "Mohammed, considered a Prophet to muslims".
After all, you don't refer to Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, do you ?
"Warren Kinsella is not an evil man. Neither is Richard Warman."
They are both grotesquely evil individuals, with evil values, and evil intentions. They use evil methods, evilly, to undertake evil actions with the aim of creating a more evil world. Warren actually brags about how evil he is, giving himself the title "Dark Prince".
In one memorable post Warren stated that he and other Liberals don't care about "issues"; issue are for Conservatives. Warren plainly states that he cares about winning, at all costs. He actually wrote a book bragging about what a badass he is. He describes himself as an "admirer" of mass murderer Lenin, a man who executed and tortured millions. I don't think Warren would describe himself as a "good" person, so I question why you are giving him more credit than he gives himself.
As for Warman, what is the precise number of individuals he needs to harass before you deign him to be evil? His list of victims is in the dozens, if not hundreds.
Within the context of the widespread harm these two individuals have caused millions of Canadians, it would be difficult to identify two less evil individuals in Canada today.
"it would be difficult to identify two less evil individuals in Canada today."
Yes, I agree completely. Gee, I thought you were going somewhere else with that.
Kinsella is not evil.
I don't think Stalin, Che, Mao, Hitler, Pol Pot, or Mohammad thought of themselves as evil either.
Great post, tells it like it is.
I realize that you may not want to be sued by Kinsella or Warman and that is understandable.
You did compare them some of Earths most vile, evil men, so, like what does that say? Really? If those two twits are not the epitome of evil, what is?
"I don't think Stalin, Che, Mao, Hitler, Pol Pot, or Mohammad thought of themselves as evil either."
That's a superb demonstration of the dangers of stripping a word of meaning by overusing it in your propaganda.
Irwin Daisy draws a comparison between a minor Canadian lobbyist, pundit and blogger and Stalin, Hitler and Mao. They're all "evil". Any adjective stretched far enough to allow for that equivalence has become completely meaningless. Either that, or Irwin is actually unable to see the qualitative and quantitative difference between murdering six million and insulting Stockwell Day.
wudjab wrote:
"Great article Mike.
However, you fall into the trap of calling Mohammed, "THE PROPHET MOHAMMED".
He's only a Prophet to muslims not to anyone else.
More correctly you would refer to him as "Mohammed, considered a Prophet to muslims".
After all, you don't refer to Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, do you ?"
I hear your point, but your logic is just a little off. Remember, "Christ" is not Jesus' last name, but his title. It means "The annointed one", or "Messiah". Therefore, it is consistent to refer to "The prophet Mohammad" and "Jesus Christ". Or else, call them simply Mohammad the founder of Islam, and Jesus of Nazareth, or something like that.
theological nitpicking over.
Wow. John West was posting while I wrote that last response.
I guess there really ARE folks out there incapable of distinguishing between the Holocaust and an election stunt.
Scary.
You'll be receiving your libel notices in the next few weeks, I'm sure.
If Warren Kinsella is not an evil man, I guess we could say he plays one on the Internet. His tactics are certainly evil; and those who live by the credo that the ends justify the means, as WK evidently does, if not evil in themselves are nevertheless serving the cause of evil.
balbulican says:
You're confusing character with effect. It is quite possible to be thoroughly evil without being responsible for the deaths of millions. Stalin, Hitler, etc. were not so much "more evil" than other villains, as more powerful.Kinsella is evil and is a liar. No doubt.
One word sums up my impressions of Warren Kinsella: silly. Can't take the man seriously. I mean, what does he actually do?
But his opinions matter. Who has given him this credibility and why doesn't everyone just ignore him? By playing along with him, you diminish yourselves and the issues. And he loves it.
Best to stop talking about him.
Actually, there is a fair bit of evidence that Ezra is a racist. Witness his column on the Alberta bus crash (was the bus driver wearing a hijab?) that eventually got pulled from the canoe.ca website.
And it is also either naive or disingenuous for Ezra to argue that he and Lemire are both fighting for free speech. LeMire has called for booting all non-whites out of the country. If he's up for that, I doubt he's willing to recognize their right to free speech.
Or maybe they're allowed to say what they want when they're on the boat home.
Finally, it took Kinsella's pointing out that Lemire was a Nazi for Ezra to acknowledge the fact. Why do you think he was so shy?
How is questioning wearing a garment that covers most of your hear while driving considered racist? How is it different than questioning using a cell phone when driving?
Never ever question the actions of one of the preferred minorities, otherwise you will be called a racist by the Left.
bigcitylib says:
What is it with you guys and the ad hominem arguments? Don't you know that whether he's a racist or not is irrelevant to the issue of freedom of speech? If freedom of speech only applies to approved speech, it isn't freedom at all.Oh, and being critical of Islam (or Christianity, or Buddhism, or atheism, or liberalism) is not "racist".
Bigcitylib, she was wearing a hijab. It's not unreasonable to ask whether this could interfere with her vision while driving a bus full of children.
And is it really so hard to believe that Ezra & Lemire could have the same views and objectives re free speech, but opposite objectives re deporting non-whites?
everything you have said about the canadian human rights act is both inaccurate and ungrammatical. go back to primary school.
rm
See, that's the thing ld.
If a conservative is to ask the question, "why did the media not report whether or not the person driving the bus was wearing a hijab?" they may be presumed to be racist. Never mind that fact that wearing a hijab or a headscarf could be a contributing factor in an accident, bringing up a question that could identify someone as a minority is clearly racist.
The few photos of the scene clearly showed the driver had something on her head. Maybe the question needs to be asked if professional drivers should be wearing headcoverings of any type. But we can't ask that question because the lefties deem it racist.
But if a tribunal rules that a devout christian dairy farmer should dump his milk on Sundays, because that's when milk pickup is scheduled, and his religion doesn't permit him to work on Sundays, well, that is just being practical.
If the media would do a fair and balanced job reporting all the stories out there, our immediate response wouldn't be "what AREN'T they telling me?"
Ever notice how if a white male is charged in a shooting/stabbing/violent incident, his name will be liberally mentioned throughout the article?
But if the person has a name that would indicate they are from a minority, there MIGHT be one line at the end of the article saying that "X" has been charged with "Y"?
The media needs to be overhauled.
Two things - first calling Warren a liar is easy - primary evidence, he once stated that Dalton McGuinty was an honourable man - nuff said. BCL, your argument that Ezra is a racist is pathetically weak. It's like arguing that you should be able to drive a motor cycle without a helmet, because you wear a turban. It is not rascist to insist that we all obey one law. There is no fundamental human right to ride a motor cycle, or to drive while impaired visually. ( I realise there is a question of whether whatever head gear the woman was wearing actually impaired anything, I'm just saying it isn't inherently racist to question whether rampant political correctness limits our ability to even ask)
Nope. It was a babushka, and it is also clear from the photos (you can find em at my site if you like) that they were not interfering with her vision. The weird thing is that Ezra argued that, even if it wasn't a hijab, and even if the woman wasn't muslim, it was still the fault of muslims that she should be allowed to wear such a thing.
you might want to re think that not evil idea.
"Ezra argued that, even if it wasn't a hijab, and even if the woman wasn't muslim, it was still the fault of muslims that she should be allowed to wear such a thing."
Where? Here's the article in question:
"Of course, it doesn't matter if the woman was Muslim or not, or if it was a religious hijab or just a winter scarf. Or an Eastern European baboushka. What matters is that a school bus driver was allowed to operate while wearing a hood."
Keep quoting:
"Ten years ago, to say that head scarves on bus drivers should be prohibited would have been uncontroversial.
But to say so today is to be called Islamophobic -- even if the bus driver in question was not a Muslim."
In other words its the fault of multiculturalism, specifically the accomodation of muslims, that you're not allowed to critizise a bus driver "wearing a hood".
Finally, it took Kinsella's pointing out that Lemire was a Nazi for Ezra to acknowledge the fact. Why do you think he was so shy?
Ummm... maybe because it's irrelevant?
Ezra argued that... it was still the fault of muslims that she should be allowed to wear such a thing.
Not quite - his argument was that multiculturalism was to blame for the fact that one could not question the appropriateness of headscarves on busdrivers. By labelling him a racist for raising the issue, you are rather proving the truth of his assertion, are you not?
So because he questioned the headscarf he's racist, even though he said it didn't matter what the cultural significance was. The fact that currently the most well known instances of women wearing headscarves is muslim women, this is what makes him racist. Is that right?
DCardno said:
Not quite - his argument was that multiculturalism was to blame for the fact that one could not question the appropriateness of headscarves on busdrivers. By labelling him a racist for raising the issue, you are rather proving the truth of his assertion, are you not? You've got him dead to rights, DCardno -- which means he'll probably be calling you a racist next.
DCardno said: Ezra argued that... it was still the fault of muslims that she should be allowed to wear such a thing.
Not quite - his argument was that multiculturalism was to blame for the fact that one could not question the appropriateness of headscarves on busdrivers. By labelling him a racist for raising the issue, you are rather proving the truth of his assertion, are you not?
You've got him dead to rights, DCardno -- which means he'll probably be calling you a racist next.
In other words its the fault of multiculturalism, specifically the accomodation of muslims, that you're not allowed to critizise a bus driver "wearing a hood".
And (as other here have noted) you're proving his point, are you not?
Great post, Mike.
However, you need to improve your grammar and diction.
"Anybodies" is not a word!
However, you need to improve your grammar and diction.
I posted this late last night without a proof read. I was tired as all hell. I type at over 100wpm, and I tend to have a very hight error rate in my writing (like right there, i wrote "righting" and had to correct that).
My writing quality is really hit and miss. Some of my posts are very well written, I think. Others are piss-poor.
Generally, I've always considered myself a casual writer. I just write as I think.
I know how popular Noam Chomsky is amongst conservatives, so let me quote him:
Amen. I think Kinsella has some growing up to do.
Right on Rabbit,
Either everything is OK to say or nothing is. People do not need their sensibilities protected, they need their rights protected. Robbing a man (or woman) of his (her) right to speak freely, is robbing society of the value or lack thereof of his (or her) intelligence.
Also, Big city lib,
Just because you read something in a certain way does not mean that is the only way to read it. You approached the article written by Ezra as a slur against muslims. How easy it is to see the world is clear after you've assumed that it must be so.
I however approached the article attempting to discover the author's intent... specifically, are draconian practices (like forcing women to hide their faces) that endanger children, acceptable? Does (or should) religion have anything to do with the question?
Mike,
Your blag is excellent... keep up the good work.
Multi Culturalism / Political Correctness:
Both have an insidious way of redirecting the public conscience thru fear.
To my way of thinking,this in itself creates a seriuos form of censorship.
As for Warren Kinsella...well the man has jumped the rails and shows no real prospect of getting back on track.Like a passe Hollywood screen actor or an overipe aged rock star.
I'm sure warren is hurting for recognition and will resort to various means to achieve yesterday's fame...any publicity is better than none.
re: previous post... 2nd line..."make that thru fear of impropriety"
simon
I fail to see what attracts those bloggers who have the urge to comment on Kinsella. He is really quite "passe", and totally irrelevant in the current scheme of things. His logic is puzzling, juvenile, and all the while laced with truly childish foul epithets to characterize those with whom he differs. Once read, doesn't everyone agree that he is over and done with? Indeed, much like the silly liberals by whom he was once employed as a shill?
"Not quite - his argument was that multiculturalism was to blame for the fact that one could not question the appropriateness of headscarves on busdrivers. By labelling him a racist for raising the issue, you are rather proving the truth of his assertion, are you not?"
And the bit about multiculturalism that made it inappropriate was apparently multiculturalism's attempts to accomodate muslim head gear. A contention so nutty that the Sun pulled his column from their website.
Go home BCL, concede the field, you have been soundly trounced.
I agree with Gerry. Can we not stop pulling the car around over and over again to run over the putrifying, flattened remains of WK's erstwhile credibility? Let's leave the poor fellow alone.
I agree with Gerry. Can we not stop pulling the car around over and over again to run over the putrifying, flattened remains of WK's erstwhile credibility? Let's leave the poor fellow alone.
Don't be ridiculous. What else would little Conservative boys have to talk about without these unending school-yard dramas that attract other Conservatives, both the mouth-breathers and the oh-so-mature ones, equally?
Where would I be for that matter, if I didn't have Ezra's and Mike's constant temper tantrums as object lessons for my own children?