dalem

As I've said before, no one has protections on free speech like America.

For now, anyway.

-dale

Trooth

Here is their mandate :-

Alberta Human Rights & Citizenship Commission - Mandate and Function of the Commission

Lots of words, but the summary is it's motivation is :-

Which it claims to achieve in the following areas :-

Now, i can't see how publishing an article about Mohammed or anybody else comes under that remit. I don't see anything in their remit that says "to make sure people aren't offended". What Lavant has not done is discriminate in his publication. Therefore i think that the HRC has completely overstepped it's remit.

If anything what it has done is end any usefulness of the HRC because if i was an Albertan i would take a hint from the article from Lavant that you published Bluesman and complain about the various writings of those complaining about the cartoons. Clog the HRC of A up with such cases and it will get it's neck pulled in.

As to should the HRC exist? That's up to the people of Canada to decide. Do they feel that everyone gets a fair shake of the stick? It's easy for me to say "no such things have the opportunity to Orwellian mis-uses (as in this case)", because i am a White Anglo-Saxon Male with a reasonably neutral accent. Hence I carry nothing before me into most encounters in huge tracts of global society that have been moulded around people like me. If everyone in Canada regardless of their sex, colour, ethnic background or what they sound like can say the same then it doesn't need to exist.

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The world as it should be at surrealscoop.blogspot.com

entropy

I have to be very careful with what I say here in Belgium. I risk hatred of the people, dire consequences for my career, a lawsuit, or murder.

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If memory serves...

entropy

That's nothing, sir. Nothing yet.


Young immigrant garbage shooting at police officers with rocket lauchers, killing several and wounding more than hundred, while the police has orders not to fire a single bullet to not offend the poor discriminated youth, that's something.

And me receiving threats for saying in public that the people responsible should be shot.

Bluesman

But it WILL exist, as long as somebody gets to lord their petty (and sometimes profound) power over their fellow man, whether it be justified or not, and whether they have the legal excuse or not doesn't in any way affect the question of the morality of it, as seen in the context of the natural rights of all human beings.

This is the attempt - no, actually, it's now an established FACT - to criminalize certain THOUGHTS. I gives a good goddam' whether it's legal, in the narrow sense that some bureaucrat can point to a duly-enacted law that gives him the excuse (I did not and would not say the 'right') to violate the freedoms that come to us by the simple fact of our existence.

This is WRONG. It should be resisted, and to any extreme that an out-of-control state wishes to push it. Resistance to the system, NOT counter-use of it, in a misguided attempt to break it. Because I can see what would happen: as a government agency that can prove it's got way too much work, it'll request more people, a bigger budget, possibly even a cabinet ministry eventually. All of a sudden, it's not an on-the-ropes puny little office with make-believe authority, it's a massive bureacratic monster, more powerful and much less answerable than before (and it seems altogether too powerful and unaccountable even at THIS stage).

Furthermore, trying to 'win' your case is not resistance (even if the government's 'win' rate wasn't exactly 100%, as is the case), but the granting of legitimacy to something that should be spit on in contempt, rather than standing meekly before it, awaiting the inevitable unfavorable judgement it never had any natural right to make in the first place.

No, what SHOULD be done is to utterly ignore every single thing that ever issues from its insatiable maw. When they summon you to appear, go about your business as if they had NO standing to order you to do ANYthing - because they should NOT. If this is followed by a warning of consequences, make no attempt to protect yourself - no attorney, no alibi or justification, no deal or plea-bargain. And finally, if they attempt to FORCE your compliance, pull a gun and blow the head off the first stormtrooper that tries to take either your liberty or property, because you refused to bow down to the Thought Police. And prepare to die for a principle that's worth your life to defend.

That's what our ancestors did, and they are immortal for their bravery in the face of unjust power. I admire Lavant because he refuses to be intimidated into asking, please, sir, may I be allowed to apologize, and I swear I'll never do it again. If they take ANY action to silence him, he should re-double the 'offensive' speech in volume, amplitutde, depth, breadth and reach. If they attempt to fine him, he should say come and get it, if you're ready to fight to collect it. If they attempt to make him serve time, he should treat the people that come to get him as mere kidnappers, and defend himself from them.

Those are the acts of free men that do not recognize any government's power over their own conscience, or their rights. THAT is RESISTANCE.

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"The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it, and if one finds the prospect of a long war intolerable, it is natural to disbelieve in the possibility of victory."
- George Orwell

Expat Canuck

Well said Bluesman!

I hope he doesn't get in any **** at all, he does not deserve that.

Trooth

Does that speech come with free popcorn?

Yes, yes, let us pick and choose the laws that we follow. Because that way, when the gun battle happens and the neighbours tut and say nice things about you to the media - about how unexpected it all was and how you seemed so happy yesterday as sat on the porch, polishing your gun and reading that book on Larry Flynt - nobody will know what the principle was that brought out the guns - unless you went all "a la mode" and put your pre-shooting rant onto YouTube by way of a trailer for the feature presentation. The first time anyone hears about it will be when some wife and child of a salaried employee - just trying to uphold the law and do his bit for his community - becomes a widow and fatherless.

Aye, that is a great response in a civilised society. *******s to all that process, the fact that the people of Alberta could get the law changed if they wanted to. I sympathise that the process is longer winded and would probably only make a deleted hour on the DVD release of your movie but hey that is civilisation - that is why there will always be room for lawyers.

In my opinion Mr Lavant's opening remarks in his "interrogation" were a lot more effective than the polemic from your soapbox above mate - his speech was about how the HRC is infringing not just his perceived rights, but also his rights as enshrined in constitutions and precedant deep within the history of Canada's founding. Whilst i fully agree with your comments about rights over laws, there is nothing as powerful as precedant and he showed loads of precedant for being able to do what he did and why his "integerrogator" has none.

He didn't need some Braveheart nonsense to make his point.

So i will return to my quiet, black and white, made for text, direct to internet, low budget release. Please don't turn the volume up, some of the WABbers are trying to sleep.

The HRC's remit seems to be about jobs, housing; the material facts of living. There seems nothing in it's remit that has anything to do with the complaint it is responding to hence it should have ruled with its rubber stamp when the form came in that "no case to answer" or "not for us - try the legal system". The fact that it didn't shows that the HFC needs to be reviewed (probably disbanded and if reformed given a name such as "Department to ensure all canadians get a chance at a job and somewhere to live." which enshrines what it is supposed to do.

The good that is coming of this is that Mr Lavant is making his objection known and that - instead of wrapping his tie around his head and yelling "I want my country to love me as much as i love it" followed no doubt by "Yippee Kai yay" to cover the generational divide - he made the system look stupid and was sharp enough on his feet to make an effective point about why it doesn't matter what he was thinking when he wrote something and about the proud traditions in Canada and its previous heritage that the "interrogation" was trampling all over.

All of which would have been drowned out by the HE grenades in the cinema release.

ChrisF202

Its not much different here in the US ... come to think of it a few places might even be worse (ex. San Francisco or Burlington, Vermont)

Bluesman

Yes, yes, LET'S. That's what free men DO. Unjust laws, whether enacted through some process that has a patina of legitimacy or not is still UNJUST, and if those laws are dangerous enough to our natural rights and inherent freedoms, they SHOULD be disobeyed.

Unless you'd like to make the case that the people running the Underground Railroad were WRONG.

I bet it wouldn't be that much of a mystery.

I think you'll find that married fathers were the majority of the people putting other people into ovens all across Europe. They have a choice, too, and if one or another Mountie chooses not to be a jack-booted tool of an oppressive state, I applaud him for it. But if he just wants to follow his sick orders, he gets what he gets.

A civilized society does not haul writers before some kangaroo court to extract money and apologies from them. And ORDERLY society may, and you seem to prefer that to freedom. May your chains rest lightly upon you, slave.

And whom do you suppose MADE this process that has given Canadians this abominbation in the first place, eh? Wasn't writers, mate; it was LAWYERS.

I agree that he's much more well-spoken and effective than I am. That's why he's an accomplished editor of a national publication, and I just fulminate on our little message board.

And at the end of the day, it will likely avail him naught. He's fighting POWER, COMPULSION, from a body that seeks to strip him of his rights, even his THOUGHTS. When it comes down to it, the state can CRUSH him, and it will, if it thinks it can get away with it without danger to itself. That's something Captain Parker and his Minutemen understood, something I understand, and something I just don't think you 'get'.

And what do you suppose Mel and the Micks SHOULD have done, when oppressed? An appeal to the legality of Longshanks' acts likely would not have gotten past, 'M'Lud, I object to...'

Meanwhile, the state notices your lack of willingness to do ANYthing to defend your rights from outrages, so long as, you know, they're all LEGAL, and everything. And as you wake up tomorrow, the faceless bureaucrat has been up for HOURS already, diligently crafting the latest incursion into your perogotives, 'for your own good'.

You simply do not understand th nature of government power. It is like water, or rust. It relentlessly applies pressure at all points, seeking a way into places it isn't currently. When it finds a weak point, in it comes. It's a natural force.

And do you imagine that if the state does not perceive a mailed fist behind the legal brief that there will be ANY dimuntion of its new-found power? Certainly NOT. They will go on and on until COMPELLED by force at least equal to its own to begin respecting the rights of individuals. In the end, it comes down to WILL, and if the state's corporate will to use compulsion is not matched or exceeded by the People's collective will to resist it, by force if it goes that far, this is just the beginning of the outrages that can be imagined, and if that bureaucrat can imagine it, he'll try it, eventually.

Yuk it up, girly-man, but that attitude is a pre-condition for slavery. Your masters absolutely count on it.

texacali

Bluesman, if you ever get in my neighborhood, let us split a bottle and put Memphis Slim on.

Trooth

OK, so to disobey this law he keeps publishing as he sees fit. Not shooting people.

So, to recap you are equating 2008 Alberta with 1930's Germany (and environs)? Whilst i see where you are trying to go (totalitarian state and all that). You are basically advocating an armed resistance to laws you don't like in a democratic, civilised, secular society. What next a bombing at the HRC HQ 'cos it's (to paraphrase) "the only language they understand"?

I am sure the people who sit in log cabins fretting over the silent whisper of the black helicopters think their message will spread like wildfire after their noble sacrifice too.

Buddy, take a step back and really think about what you are saying. Not the blood and guts stuff, but the essence and the context. You are, essentially, saying that if there are laws, in a democratic country, that you don't believe in, your (seemingly first and only) recourse would be to kill the lawmen that came for you under said laws (which seems to be your response if you were in Mr Lavant's position). Is that what you are really saying - or are you just playing to the crowd - because that has some pretty unpleasant connotations.

A civilised society has created an organisation, and nothing that you have mentioned changes that other than one or two dead people. Rather than a Braveheart style speech, you have made one akin to Samuel L. Jackson's character in Deep Blue Sea. Very empowering, very motivating up until he gets eaten part way through giving it. The sharks are still very much there. It will still take the people to change it, using the process that exists to do so.

Lawyers, politicians, people who draft bad terms of reference. But i will bet that all of the decision makers were Canadian and the last i looked Canada has a process for changing all this kind of stuff.

Go on, if you drop the ego a little, the messageboard might look a bit bigger

I get very well what he is fighting but i disagree the time has come to send him a care package from Armalite. However it would be interesting to see what our Canadian friends on WAB are doing on his behalf.

I love the reference to "Mel and the Micks", a nice piece of Gibson slighting satire that i am sure you are subtle enough to have meant and one i wholly approve of.

Wallace et al had no options left, no one to take up their cause, no route to travel. Lavant has had his "interrogation" put up on YouTube to be debated by you and me - we don't need to be on the Irish hilltop infront of "Mel the historian".

Indeed and they may well be sitting there looking at the motivational poster on their wall of "a man's face being smashed by a boot, again and again and again", as per the imagery of the iconic novel, however i don't believe that Alberta has reached that level yet.

Or possibly a bill will pass through the legislative assembly in Edmonton because of a ground swell of support from Canadians who are as opposed as you are.

******

Bluesman

Okay, so you mis-read what I clearly wrote, to wit: violence is NOT my first recourse, only that force should be met with force, because at THAT point, not before, anything else means that what's being done to you is being done with VIOLENCE, and at that point, not before, you are justified in doing literally anything at all to defend yourself.

For all your deference to processes and systems and whatnot, this is the simple truth: EVERY law is backed by the compulsion of a state, and if that state has a monopoly on violent means, it WILL USE IT to strip the People of their rights. And this is an iron, unbreakable LAW OF NATURE.

And that's what I said. Ignore ANYthing ('member when I wrote that? It's right there...) that issues from these fascist thugs that seek to trample your rights, because if you grant them permission to take from you your natural freedom without any notion of resisting their compulsion, they won't need to threaten any violence. But if you do ANYthing except knuckle under and take it, eventually, it comes down to which side can FORCE the other to give over.

Certainly not. I was talking about the antebellum American organization that defied an unjust but perfectly legal set of laws to take runaway slaves into free territory. Those people BROKE THE LAW, and were perfectly justified in doing so. So, please, don't come at me with a justification of this travesty because it was 'approved'. I don't CARE whether unjust laws were enacted through the same process as a just law; the only part that determines whether I'll disobey it is if its unjust, and YEAH, each of us gets to make that call for ourselves, and then we should be prepared to face the consequences either way.

Not laws I 'don't like', laws that unjustly oppress me, that strip me of my rights. You seem to think I'll kill highway patrolmen that pull me over in a skool zone when I'm late for work. NO.

Do they seek to deprive me of my life, liberty, or property because I refuse to obey unjust laws? If not, they may go about their bidness as I go about mine; they'll be perfectly safe from ME. if the answer is YES, however, let 'em live in terror until they get their minds right.

I'm just saying there won't be much guess-work involved as to why Marshall Brownshirt is leaving my property horizontal, feet first, and with the same body temperature as the ambient air.

If that's what you got, you didn't read for comprehension. What I wrote was that the MINUTE force is applied against me in the enforcement of unjust law, not merely a law that I don't 'believe' in, but one that takes positive steps to deprive me of my given and enumerated rights (and remember, ALL laws are backed BY FORCE), I feel justified in meeting that force with equal or greater force to defend myself and those rights. Not first recourse, not only recourse, and how the hell did you manage to get THAT, when I was REALLY clear that the answer I'd prefer to resort to should I ever be in Lavant's position is to IGNORE THEM. I'd be good and goddamned before they EVER got me to go to that ridiculous interrogation. I'd treat 'em as I said before: like they had no standing to order me around for the 'crime' of exercising my rights. I'd IGNORE them.

But I bet that wouldn't be the end of the matter, would it? What do you suppose would happen NEXT?

Oh, I mean it, alright: the first attempt to COMPEL me, BY FORCE, to surrender my person, my property or my rights, would be met with equal or greater force, and I'm surprised that you'd consider yourself a man in the fullest sense if you're NOT prepared to defend any and or all of that yourself.

And I contend, again, that this is NOT the hallmark of a civilized society, merely an orderly one. Once this ironically-named HRC has ordered me to appear, and I have absolutely refused to do so, or even acknowledge their authority to order it, a civilized society would say, 'Well, I'll be damned; he's caused us to either back down, or escalate this, and I suppose now, we'll either see that our authority stops well short of making him think and say what we want him to, OR...we send out the armed men to bring him before us in manacles.'

At that point, do you not agree that a civilized society would NEVER do the latter?

ALL LAWS - EVEN THE TRIVAL ONES THAT DON'T TOUCH BASIC HUMAN FREEDOMS, LIKE THIS ONE DOES - ARE ULTIMATELY BACKED BY LETHAL FORCE IF EVEN ONE PERSON CHOOSES TO DISOBEY IT.

And if the people cannot COMPEL government to change the law as they wish to interpret it, there is NO WAY to do so, short of violence. Political power is a phantom; eventually ALL power comes down to FORCE. ALL power, all REAL power, is backed by the threat of superior force. Your power, government's power; ALL POWER. If the People believe as you do, that there is never, ever, ever an excuse to meet unjust government compulsion by force, then you may have all the votes you like, and it will not make a dam' bit of difference to a despotic government that need have no fear that no matter how outrageous they may be...you'll just have a nice little vote about how you don't agree to be shipped off to the work camp; how cute. Now, get on the truck, serf; we're not playin'.

And what of poor Ezra Lavant, then? Think he'll have satisfactory redress in double-quick time, and he may go about exercising his rights, as he sees them, while this drags through the legal process? NO. Because remember, he's essentially confessed, AND refuses to do ANYthing the HRC may order him to do, so what else is there to do but put him in prison? That's unsatisfactory, because if you look at some of the other victims that have been steamrolled already by this star chamber, you'll see lives ruined. In short, the system has FAILED in a spectacular fashion, to protect ANYbody's rights. And why is that? Because the enforcement mechanism has not been FORCED to stand down, lest it's executors end up with their brains all over the defendent's front porch yet, after they - the armed might of the state, in the form of police - have tried to use violence to COMPEL compliance from those bad ole rights-exercisors. And until that is likely or actually happens, until it is COMPELLED to cease and desist the suppression of free peoples' rights, it will continue.

That made me laff.

So do I. I already said that, but you missed it, thinking I want to machine-gun crossing guards because I like getting my McNuggets home before they get cold, and that reflective-vest-wearin' brat-coddlin' sum***** is unjustly in my way. Nah. I think Lavant's doing a HEROIC thing and doing it very, very well. But what happens when he refuses to pay up or choke out an apology after they find against him (and they will: 100% 'win' rate, and Lavant has confessed to his 'crime')? What does the state do THEN, eh? Why, they come to get him, don't they, and if he doesn't want to go...WHAT THEN?

They'll come for him, and ask him will he please get in the car. And if he refuses, is it all over, the state just sighs, and says, 'Well, that's that, I suppose; he refuses to cooperate, just like he said all along, from the first hearing to now. Let's get some coffee and a donut at Tim Horton's'.

NOPE.

Tasers, maybe tear gas, maybe drawn guns and a battering ram, because REALLY, in the last analysis, THAT is what the police ARE: armed force to compel compliance, and ALL law is backed by force; ALL LAW.

He can be KILLED if he refuses to be bound by this absurd law, just like for the violation of ANY OTHER LAW.

It WILL be interesting, but just because nobody or a million rise to protect your rights, it doesn't change ANY part of one's responsibility to see to it that your own rights are respected.

New band name. Heh. Made MYSELF laff at that one.

Hey, I got it. I'm just making the point that Stalin was making an excellent point when he asked 'How many divisions does the Pope have?' This is the important part to understand about power: VIOLENCE is the ONLY THING that counts, at the end of the discussion. I do not believe that this is always how matters are settled, but this is an absolute truth: except when the dominant party is altruistic enough to forego the advantage of superior force, a relative calculation is made - sometimes correct, sometimes not - about how much the respective parties may give and take.

Lavant, happily, is not there - yet. It depends on what he does and what the state's reaction to that is that will determine if it goes all the way to the limit. But eventually, if neither side will give, it WILL come down to compulsion.

They have not. Nobody has resisted yet. They've all tried to 'win' their cases. In so doing, they granted the authority to the state to sit in judgement. If they had treated the HRC with complete disdain and a lofty contempt that is usually reserved for Senate Majority Leaders and skateboarders, the state would've had a decision to make then: let 'em get away with it, or haul 'em in in chains?

That would be best, and if it does go that way, you need to see it for what it is: not evidence of respect for popular will in and of itself, but the state's acknowledgement that, if we, the state, break the social compact and treat free people that are suspiciously jealous and fiercely protective of their rights like they were so many cattle, they're likely to resent it enough to ACT against us. And I don't mean by VOTING, either. They have REAL power, and if they came marching up the capital steps, and we'd outraged them enough to make their sons in the Forces come with 'em, instead of sheilding us from their parents...quite.

ALL power is based on the potential for violence.