I wish Kinsella (a so-called "liberal") cared more about an avowed terrorist supporter and his ever shrinking band of beards trying to hijack Canada's oldest magazine, than he did about the kinds of names I choose to call them.
A creature that feeds off its host and hastens the host's demise is, in popular parlance, a parasite.
Like too many contemporary 'liberals', Kinsella's overblown sense of misplaced outraged is matched only by his stubborn refusal to fight his real enemies.
The ones that would behead him in a second rather than just call him and other folks nasty names on the internet.
Moreover, is there much difference between the CBC reprinting the controversial word "Paki" and the Western Standard reprinting the controversial images of Mohammed?
Posted at 2008-02-25 19:18:15 [PermaLink]There are folks with egos that are hyper-dependent on being seen as the champions of the downtrodden and victimized and as such they have an insatiable need for there to be legions of the downtrodden and victimized to feed upon. Without them, their egos go into spasms of pain and atrophy. If there are no victims, or if their chosen victims don't particularly see themselves in the same way, the raison etre dries up and they can no longer be the holier than thou big shots. Simple as that.
Posted at 2008-02-25 19:20:57 [PermaLink]Damien, that is a little pat and I think those of us backing Steyn/Levant are starting the show the signs of spending too much time talking to ourselves and demonizing Kinsella & co. The argument that truth always, or even almost always, prevails under radical free speech works pretty well with nuts on the fringe out of step with the zeitgeist. Ahanekew is a good example as is Phelps in Mark's post below, as are neo-Nazis real and imagined. But the situation is murkier when you are talking about those in charge of youth (Keegstra) or the current multiculturalism/Islamist alliance that not only plays mainstream leftist thinking in universities, bureaucracies and the cultural community like a violin, but is also couched in rhetoric that resonates with the busy, decent middle that simply isn't going to back what they perceive as pleas to start disliking their neighbours and especially not folks telling their kids to. The argument that multiculturalism and the human rights industry has been thoroughly hijacked and corrupted is more subtle and difficult than the argument that it was a crock from the beginning, but it is also the winning argument. The best analogy I can think of is war crimes. That whole concept has become a dangerous mess in international affairs, but if you set out to make that case by arguing the Nuremburg trials were a huge mistake, you are just going to draw a lot of nervous blank stares.
We here are becoming jaundiced by the very phrase "human rights" because we are taking the time to see exacly how it works under HRTs, but make no mistake, the phrase rolls proudly off the tongues of average Canadians the way "good Christian" did in the 19th centruy. If you read the obituaries of prominent Boomers these days, you will be amazed how often you learn that the deceased (four marriages, in and out of rehab, estranged from his kids, etc.) "cared passionately about human rights". When that young Ottawa lawyer was killed by a drunk Russian diplomat a few years back, the papers were full of testimonials to her committment to human rights. None of them ever mentioned anything she did in particular, but boy was she committed.
You don't advance the cause of freedom of religion by pronouncing the Bible to be a dangerous fraud and you don't advance the cause of free speech by heralding obscenity and hate speech as health tonics.