Oh, Right, Harvard's A Cesspool Of Relativism ...

Michael Ignatieff:

Politics is an art, not a science, and so the judgments that you’re making are about people, and they’re judgments about what’s possible, and those are very different than the judgments you make in the safety of academic life.

Actually, politics is a science. It is the branch of philosophy that applies ethics to the social context, having roots in both metaphysics and epistemology. And, like all branches of philosophy, it requires the scientific movement from certain premises to their proper conclusions and corollaries.

This subjectivist garbage is precisely the problem with Canadian politicians. Government should not be a playground for power-lusting pragmatists and intellectual adolescents. The functions of the state ought to be animated by and limited to the stature of a moral social system as determined by reason. When did this fall so desperately out of mode?

Ignatieff is sounding more and more like Stephen Harper's less intelligent and socially awkward cousin every day.

Grow a pair, Iggy. We already know what a Liberal Party with no chutzpah looks like and it ain't pretty.

The 1930s: When Men Were Men ...

... And women were friggin' ninjas.





H/t Kalim Kassam

HRCs Decide They Haven't Done Enough Damage, Seek More Power

This one's for all of those optimists who think that the free speech fight in Canada is coming to a close. We haven't won yet. In fact, we don't even have the enemy in retreat.

Ottawa Citizen:

The Ontario Human Rights Commission is calling for Parliament to force all Canadian magazines, newspapers and "media services" websites to join a national press council with the power to adjudicate breaches of professional standards and complaints of discrimination.

The council "would help bring about more consistency across all jurisdictions in Canada," reads an OHRC report to the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

The media's freedom of expression comes with a duty to "address issues of hate expression, and (media) should do so either voluntarily through provincial press councils, or through statutory creation of a national press council with compulsory membership," the report says.

Under this proposal, media outlets would have the following choice before them: either to "voluntarily" join a provincial press council (with the implicit threat of coercion should they refuse, of course) or to be coerced into joining some perverse national press council through compulsory membership backed by the government.

Make no mistake about what this proposal amounts to. This would be state control of the media, pure and simple. If this proposal succeeds, government bureaucrats would essentially arrogate to themselves the power to control and limit the words and ideas of all Canadian magazines, newspapers, and media services.

Oops. Now we're Russia.

Mr. Harper, I wonder if these thugs read your interview and wondered just how much more they could get away with before somebody actually decides to do something about these blatant violations of free speech.

These fascists are re-defining free speech right under our noses and inventing duties that do not and should not exist. Like I wrote yesterday, we are a very long way from seeing the end of this fight for the achievement of free expression in Canada. Allow this to function as a bracing reminder not to get cocky just because politicians are discussing section 13.1 of the CHRA.

The Foot-In-The-Door Philosophy: How Democrats Are Smuggling Socialized Medicine Into America

The following is a timely reminder for Barack Obama's stimulus crowd from Ronald Reagan circa 1960.



Hauntingly relevant, no?

Titanic Deck Chairs:

If Democrats learned anything from the HillaryCare defeat, it was the danger of admitting to their wish to federalize the health market. Since returning to power, they've pursued a new strategy: to stealthily and incrementally expand government control. "What no one is paying attention to in the [stimulus]," says Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, "is that Democrats are making a big grab at the health-care sector."

The stimulus bill extends Medicare benefits to millions of people who lost work, extends COBRA benefits for years and picks up 65% of those premiums, and attacks the private market in electronic medical records. After passing SCHIP (greatly expanded from the bill Bush vetoed) they are also targeting Medicare for even more expansion.

H/t Maggie's Farm

"We Are All Socialists Now"

Gulp. This is going to be a long four years.

Bush brought the Age of Reagan to a close; now Obama has gone further, reversing Bill Clinton's end of big government. The story, as always, is complicated. Polls show that Americans don't trust government and still don't want big government. They do, however, want what government delivers, like health care and national defense and, now, protections from banking and housing failure. During the roughly three decades since Reagan made big government the enemy and "liberal" an epithet, government did not shrink. It grew. But the economy grew just as fast, so government as a percentage of GDP remained about the same. Much of that economic growth was real, but for the past five years or so, it has borne a suspicious resemblance to Bernie Madoff's stock fund. Americans have been living high on borrowed money (the savings rate dropped from 7.6 percent in 1992 to less than zero in 2005) while financiers built castles in the air.(*)

In other words, Americans want big government without big government. They want to have their cake and to eat it too.

Please wake up, friends to the south. You're being slipped the roofie of socialism and it's going to give you one hell of a hangover. Take it from a country that knows about expensive social programs and the damage that welfarism can do.

H/t Darcey

Geert Wilders's Presence In UK Would "Threaten Community Harmony" & "Public Security"

The following is the verbatim letter sent to Geert Wilders instructing him that he is no longer welcome to visit the United Kingdom as the result of his views on Islam.

Dear Mr Wilders

The purpose of this letter is to inform you that the Secretary of State is of the view that your presence in the UK would pose a genuine, present and sufficiently serious threat to one of the fundamental interests of society. The Secretary of State is satisfied that your statements about Muslims and their beliefs, as expressed in your film Fitna and elsewhere, would threaten community harmony and therefore public security in the UK.

You are advised that should you travel to the UK and seek admission an Immigration Officer will take into account the Secretary of State's view. If, in accordance with regulation 21 of the immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2006, the Immigration Officer is satisfied that your exclusion is justified on grounds of public policy and/or public security, you will be refused admission to the UK under regulation 19. You would have a right of appeal against any refusal of admission, exercisable from outside the UK.

Yours sincerely,

Irving N. Jones

On behalf of the Secretary of State for the Home Department (*)

As John Derbyshire puts it:

Persons with incorrect opinions will not be admitted to the U.K., even if they are elected members of another nation's parliament. Nothing, nothing must be allowed if it gives offense to Muslims.

What fresh hell have we stumbled into here?

BREAKING: Geert Wilders Refused Entry Into Britain

Dutch MP Geert Wilders of Fitna fame has been refused entry into Britain, once again offering what is left of the free world a clear demonstration that the United Kingdom is traveling down the road to multi-culturally relativistic anti-western totalitarianism.

IFPS:

Dutch Right-wing politician and controversial anti-Islam campaigner Geert Wilders has been refused entry to the United Kingdom despite being invited to visit by a member of the House of Lords, the British parliament’s upper chamber.

Mr Wilders, who was due to go to London this Thursday, received a letter today, 10 February, from the British ambassador to the Netherlands telling him that he was not welcome, reportedly because his visit would constitute a threat to public order.

Losing our spines to save our necks. How revolting.

I can only reiterate my support for the words of Sam Harris who enunciated the real issue at work in the Geert Wilders controversy so very clearly:

Wilders, like Westergaard and the other Danish cartoonists, has been widely vilified for "seeking to inflame" the Muslim community. Even if this had been his intention, this criticism represents an almost supernatural coincidence of moral blindness and political imprudence. The point is not (and will never be) that some free person spoke, or wrote, or illustrated in such a manner as to inflame the Muslim community. The point is that only the Muslim community is combustible in this way. The controversy over Fitna, like all such controversies, renders one fact about our world especially salient: Muslims appear to be far more concerned about perceived slights to their religion than about the atrocities committed daily in its name. Our accommodation of this psychopathic skewing of priorities has, more and more, taken the form of craven and blinkered acquiescence.

There is an uncanny irony here that many have noticed. The position of the Muslim community in the face of all provocations seems to be: Islam is a religion of peace, and if you say that it isn't, we will kill you. Of course, the truth is often more nuanced, but this is about as nuanced as it ever gets: Islam is a religion of peace, and if you say that it isn't, we peaceful Muslims cannot be held responsible for what our less peaceful brothers and sisters do. When they burn your embassies or kidnap and slaughter your journalists, know that we will hold you primarily responsible and will spend the bulk of our energies criticizing you for "racism" and "Islamophobia."(*)

When Conservatives Attack: On The Left, Telling The Truth Is Called 'Vilification'

Have you ever caught one of those nature programs with the lions stalking unsuspecting zebras on an African savanna? As much as you feel sorry for the poor zebras, you can't help but admire the grace of a predator in action.

I have to admit, those shows have absolutely nothing on this smackdown that Ezra Levant provides Miss Andrea Calver in the following video. The words 'ass' and 'clown' may be involved.

Consider it an early-in-the-week palate cleanser.



(*)

Exit Question: Am I the only person in Canada who didn't know that Michael Coren was British?

Sorry, Ezra, But We've Got Miles To Go Before We Sleep

After a year that has been defined by argument over the limits to free expression in Canada, the controversial section 13.1 of the Canadian Human Rights Acts - the section that has been used by Canadian Human Rights Commissions to try Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn for 'inciting hatred and islamophobia' - has finally come up for debate in parliament.

CTV:

The controversial section of the Canadian Human Rights Act governing hate speech comes under scrutiny today when federal politicians decide whether to debate the limits it places on freedom of expression.

Brian Storseth, a Conservative MP, has asked the Commons justice committee to review Section 13 of the act, which contains provisions that deal with hate messages. Mr. Storseth also wants the committee to review the mandate of the commission itself.

It is imperative that the Canadian government initiates a massive overhaul of its policy on hate speech. Unfortunately, this is still a long-term goal since removing section 13.1 will only be the first step - albeit an important first step - towards restoring the complete freedom of expression in Canada.

If this long-term goal is to be realized, however, it will require solidarity on the part of Conservative MPs and a certain degree of non-partisan and cultural support for free speech as well. I'm not at all convinced that either of these conditions have been fully satisfied at this juncture.

Proponents of Section 13 argue that hate speech should remain under the umbrella of human-rights legislation. The Canadian Jewish Congress, for instance, expressed disappointment in Prof. Moon's position, saying the Jewish community knows how devastating hate propaganda can be.

Members of the Canadian Jewish Congress ought to be ashamed of themselves and their organization. The implication of their support for section 13.1 is that propaganda was a contributing factor to the horror of the Holocaust. In fact, Hitler was a strong advocate for hate speech laws. When the government is allowed to limit the expression of ideas in the citizenry, it is only a matter of time before one false idea or another achieves an advocate in power and then that idea becomes government policy. The safest way of protecting a minority is to allow the completely free exchange of ideas. This way, unreasonable ideas are met with reasonable ones. Bad speech is met with good speech.

As Alan Borovoy explains:

Remarkably, pre-Hitler Germany had laws very much like the Canadian anti-hate law. Moreover, those laws were enforced with some vigour. During the 15 years before Hitler came to power, there were more than 200 prosecutions based on anti-Semitic speech. And, in the opinion of the leading Jewish organization of that era, no more than 10 per cent of the cases were mishandled by the authorities. As subsequent history so painfully testifies, this type of legislation proved ineffectual on the one occasion when there was a real argument for it.

Unsurprisingly, the Liberal Party of Canada once again missed its cue to convince Canadians that it hasn't sunk into the depths of moral relativism and evil.

Liberal MP Brian Murphy said his party is not in favour of removing Section 13 from the Canadian Human Rights Act. "It is a unique tool for people who are being discriminated against and it's an added protection," he said.

Unique. That's one way of putting it. The Human Rights Commissions are able to trample over the individual rights of Canadian citizens, forcing them to pay thousands upon thousands of dollars in legal fees, for making statements or republishing cartoons that offend the perennially offended. Yes, I suppose that is rather unique. Unique for a free country, at least.


Ezra Levant appears to have relatively high hopes for the elimination of 13.1 now that it has achieved attention from the federal government. After all, hasn't Harper condemned the section personally and explicitly?

The Canadian Human Rights Commission is under massive scrutiny for its misbehaviour. Its own hand-picked consultant, Prof. Richard Moon, recommends that its censorship provisions be scrapped. And Prime Minister Stephen Harper tells Maclean's magazine in a year-end interview with him that Canada's HRCs are "abusive" and their conduct is "egregious".

That sounds great, Ezra, except you're dropping the context of the Prime Minister's comments completely.

Here is what PM Harper actually said:

The government has no plans to do [anything about 13.1] ... And it is a very tricky issue of public policy because obviously, as we’ve seen, some of these powers can be abused. But they do exist for valid reasons, which is obviously to prevent public airwaves from being used to disseminate hate against vulnerable members of our society. That’s a valid objective. It’s probably the case that we haven’t got the balance right, but I’m not sure the government today has any answer on what an appropriate balance would be.

I'm sorry, Ezra, but don't you think that your representation of Harper's position on the HRCs is giving him way too much credit?

The fight for free speech must continue to intensify if we are to secure real change. The solution will not be found in deceiving ourselves into thinking that the government is more ideologically committed to securing our freedoms than it has time and again proven to be.

All of that being said, however, it is a good sign that the issue is at least being debated by federal politicians, even if the NDP and Liberals have unambiguously decided to support the section and even though Harper has patently refused to take a stand on the issue.

Conservatives have miles to go before they sleep if they wish to achieve real freedom of speech in Canada in the near future. Not to worry, though. I've got plenty of coffee stored up to get me through this long night.



(*)

The Anti-Human Religion Of Environmentalism

I don't know much about Michael Crichton beyond the fact that he is a relatively famous author and a physician but I stumbled across the following question and answer session in which he responds to a question about environmentalism. I was pleasantly surprised to learn of his take on the matter.

Environmentalism rather precisely maps a lot of Judeo-Christian beliefs about the origin of the world and so on. In environmental thinking there is the view that there used to be a sort of Eden and then people came and ruined that Eden and that we are therefore original sinners because we are destroying this planet. What we can do, however, is get salvation through sustainability. If you're a good person you will seek salvation and if you're a bad person you will drive SUVs.

H/t Red Planet

Meanwhile, On The Road To Recovery ...

Government intervention: making everything worse since 3,000 B.C.



H/t Evil Conservative Radio

There Is Nothing To Fear But Fear Itself

One of the most dependable by-products of a recession is fear. You can count on it rearing its ugly head every time. But if the recession is serious enough, as is the case right now, that fear allows otherwise reasonable people to look at the economy with clouded judgment. One is tempted to seek out, and accept unthinkingly, the easiest and most comforting answers to the urgent questions we have about our finances. These are the circumstances that allow a person to consider the possibility of a massive federal deficit with a shrug of their shoulders. "Well," they rationalize, "we have to do something to stimulate the economy and I don't hear many people claiming that a stimulus package won't have that effect."

Please allow me to assure every Canadian citizen that Stephen Harper will unquestionably fail to heal our ailing economy no matter how much money he is willing to steal from Canadians. In fact, the actions that he is taking are fundamentally counterproductive to his explicitly stated goal of promoting economic health.

Unfortunately, those who are itching to defend the Prime Minister for his allegedly savvy political move in supporting deficit economics in the recent budget are the loudest members of the conservative movement at the moment. Although many of these individuals are otherwise quite reasonable, they have been so stentorian in their defence of the Conservative Party of Canada that they have nearly drowned out the voices that are patiently reminding Canadians that the government's plan is based on profoundly unsound and dangerous economics.

So forget whether the budget was a clever political move for a minute. The purpose of having a government is to secure the liberty of a people. It is not to watch competing parties exchange blows by using citizens and their money as they wish.

As Peter Schiff notes, "Where there should be an historic clash of ideas, there is only blind resignation and an amorphous queasiness that we are simply sweeping the slouching beast under the rug." The 'slouching beast' to which Schiff is referring is, of course, the dramatic rise in support for government intervention in the economy and the perceived acceptability of incurring massive federal deficits.

Schiff continues:

Individuals, companies or cities with heavy debt and shrinking revenues instinctively know that they must reduce spending, tighten their belts, pay down debt and live within their means. But it is axiomatic in Keynesianism that national governments can create and sustain economic activity by injecting printed money into the financial system. In their view, absent the stimuli of the New Deal and World War II, the Depression would never have ended.

On a gut level, we have a hard time with this concept. There is a vague sense of smoke and mirrors, of something being magically created out of nothing. But economics, we are told, is complicated.

It would be irresponsible in the extreme for an individual to forestall a personal recession by taking out newer, bigger loans when the old loans can't be repaid. However, this is precisely what we are planning on a national level.

Basic economics isn't nearly as complicated as the statists on the left or on the right would have you believe. In fact, it is mostly common sense, like the idea that something cannot come from nothing. Wealth is produced by individuals and not by governments. Accordingly, when states inject 'stimulus' money into the economy, it is merely removing funds from the pockets of those who have earned it and preventing them from spending and, more importantly, saving. It is saving that this economy direly needs. We are in our current economic situation because of unreasonable borrowing and spending which has been facilitated and in large part perpetrated by our governments. Only a return to production and saving can correct our economy's fundamentals and restore us to a position of financial stability and strength.

Schiff puts it quite clearly:

Governments cannot create but merely redirect. When the government spends, the money has to come from somewhere. If the government doesn't have a surplus, then it must come from taxes. If taxes don't go up, then it must come from increased borrowing. If lenders won't lend, then it must come from the printing press, which is where all these bailouts are headed. But each additional dollar printed diminishes the value of those already in circulation. Something cannot be effortlessly created from nothing.

We are currently heading down a dangerous road towards hyperinflation. If this inflation reaches the levels that some economists fear, we will be looking at the prodigious diminishment of our money's value and, as a corollary, a major upwards spiraling of prices.

By borrowing more than it can ever pay back, the government will guarantee higher inflation for years to come, thereby diminishing the value of all that Americans have saved and acquired. For now the inflationary tide is being held back by the countervailing pressures of bursting asset bubbles in real estate and stocks, forced liquidations in commodities, and troubled retailers slashing prices to unload excess inventory. But when the dust settles, trillions of new dollars will remain, chasing a diminished supply of goods. We will be left with 1970s-style stagflation, only with a much sharper contraction and significantly higher inflation.

So what should the Harper government have done? The answer is obvious: absolutely nothing. Anything that the government does will only make matters worse. And considering that government intervention is largely to blame for the severity of our recession, don't you think that they've done enough already?

As Schiff reminds us, in a recession "belt tightening is required by all, including government." I may be inclined to put the point a little more strongly. In a recession, "belt tightening is required by all, especially government." You see, when it comes down to personal finances, individuals mostly possess the requisite sense to understand that borrowing and spending and then borrowing more and spending more is not an intelligent or healthy habit. Unfortunately for us, governments possess no similar common sense and so it is up to citizens to sound the alarm when the state oversteps its bounds. And, as of this moment, the Canadian state is miles and miles passed its bounds.

Harper's stimulus is not merely unconservative. It is unconscionable. So, yes. Be afraid. Be very afraid. But don't allow that fear to prevent you from thinking rationally. We must immediately stop sanctioning Stephen Harper's non-pragmatic pragmatism and begin condemning, as loudly as possible, the Canadian government's actions with regards to the question of 'stimulus'.