A "necessary public shaming"

BigCityLib concedes that the human-rights complaint against Mark Steyn has little merit, but he's perfectly okay with any "chilling effect" that may result:

Is Steyn a racist? Indubitably. Is what he wrote protected by Canadian Freedom of Expression laws? Contrary to some of the Doom-Sayers on the Right, who want to make Macleans, the representative of the "powerful corporate media" in question here, look like underdogs in the case, it almost certainly is.

[...]

...Given that most of Macleans' editorial staff are the same gang that crashed and burned the National Post (which you can't even use to line a bird-cage these days, because the parrot will complain), an even stronger case can be made that they have mis-judged the Canadian Zeitgeist a second time, and that the final trade-off will be the two semi-literate Neo-Nazis who are attracted to the magazine by its stand on Mr. Steyn, versus the half-dozen normal Canadians who still read Old Mac from nostalgia, but cancel their subscriptions for the same reason.

For me, what this is all about is the necessary public shaming of a Canadian news institution that has gone from being harmless if a little dull to a disgrace to the nation. If Kenneth Whyte and co. come to realize that an association with Mark Steyn is a net negative for their publication and give him his walking papers, this will be a good result however the CHRC case in question plays out. [emphasis added]

Frivolous legal proceedings being used to "shame" a writer and his publication (which, presumably, is so out of touch with Canadians that it's going to go bankrupt, but God forbid we let the market decide). That's the "progressive" position on freedom of expression in Canada, 2008.

Hey, BigCityLib, it's all a big laugh until they come after someone on your side, right?

Damian P.

Posted by damian at January 3, 2008 01:12 PM