I’ll be brief.
Today is a sad, sad day for all Canadians – and a tragic one for all freedom loving people.
The jury foreperson giggled as she said: “The answer is 42!”
As in, $42,000 awarded to Mr. Warman in damages…
In addition, Mr. Warman is seeking an injunction against Free Dominion – a gag order – that would see the Fourniers thrown into jail if anyone even mentions his name on FD, no matter how quickly it would be taken down. If that happens, Free Dominion will cease to exist…
I’ll have some details later – am too upset to write more now.
UPDATE:
CodeSlinger has expressed eloquently what I feel – so, I’d like to share his comment here with you:
This is a sad day, but not a surprising one.
Being tried by “a jury of your peers” sounds right, and good and just… until you look closely at who these “peers” really are – by which I mean what values they have absorbed from their schooling and the mass media, both shaped by the cultural Marxist apparatchiks of the corporocratic state.
Especially in Canada.
Canadians, in general, have no concept of rights.
They speak of rights, but they really mean privileges.
Regarding the right to bear arms, they ask “what kind of arms should we be allowed to carry?”
Regarding the right to free speech, they say “what kind of things should we be allowed to say?”
And so on. It’s pathetic.
Canadians, in general, cannot imagine not being ruled.
To paraphrase what I wrote in another comment, cultural Marxists seek to breed independence and self-reliance out of us. They want to make us into Eloi. And their masters, the globalist Morlocks, are very pleased with their progress.
Especially in Canada.
In Canada, people like the Fourniers don’t have the option of being tried by a jury of their peers.
Eloi are not their peers.
Xanthippa's Chamberpot 
October 2, 2013 at 14:54
Well what did the Fourniers honestly expect? They and the FD crowd have been in a bubble for years, listening only to their echo chamber and those who wanted to manipulate them like Paul Fromm and Marc Lemire. If they’d talked to a real lawyer, rather than an ideologue they would have gotten proper advice – and I suspect they did get proper advice initially and ignored it until they found a lawyer who told them what they wanted to heare.
October 2, 2013 at 17:23
I tend to think that is pretty much what happened. FD is an echo chamber populated by Canadian and American tea party types. They chased away all the moderates and anyone with a dissenting opinion and then claimed they were all about “free speech”. What a joke.
October 4, 2013 at 14:24
FreeDominion is a discussion forum which clearly labels itself as catering to ‘Principled Conservatism’.
One can be sure that many members there will consider it an honour to be seen as ‘tea party’ types from either nation, even as they argued against any particular ‘tea party’ (or worse, CPC) initiative.
The level of discourse on FD is remarkably courteous for an online forum, and the variety of topics covered is immense.
The Fourniers of FreeDominion have provided an online discussion forum for more than a decade.
Mr. Warman himself is one of the many FreeDominion members, and still enjoys looking in on FD from time to time..
Which echo forum do you now post your potent and dissenting commentaries to, after excommunication from FD ?
October 4, 2013 at 16:05
Maikeru, for sure there are much less courteous places on the Internet. Doesn’t mean that there are not problems with “courtesy” on FD occasionally.
October 4, 2013 at 10:54
All of these comments are defamatory. You are lowering the Fourniers in my estimation. Prepare to be summoned.
October 4, 2013 at 11:01
You may joke, but, over at Free Dominion, they are considering raising the money to pay Mr. Warman’s $42K by suing anyone who says something defamatory about them. So, it is safe to presume they’ll be looking through things with a fine-toothed-comb, so to speak. And saying someone threatened you would definitely fall into that category!
October 4, 2013 at 11:57
Well, here I am. Come and get me.
But, I thought they were the vanguard for free speech in Canada. Surely they wouldn’t try and prevent my free speech.
October 4, 2013 at 12:26
Well, you may be OK, as you claim you have the proof.
But, your comment has also left ME in danger.
It would be very callous of you to use my platform for your speech, expose me to legal action through that speech, and then refuse to give me the means of defense you avail yourself of.
What kind of a person are you?
October 7, 2013 at 13:38
xanthippa, I wasn’t joking at all.
October 7, 2013 at 13:56
Fair enough!
October 4, 2013 at 11:51
Delbian, you said: “If they’d talked to a real lawyer, rather than an ideologue”
I have learned during this trial that disparaging the reputation of a lawyer is much, much worse and much more subject to defamation than if you did it to an ordinary person, because lawyers depend on their reputation for work. Mr. Warman went on about that for a long time – and he was very persuasive!
You may wish to retract that statement, with an apology with your real-life name, and hope it’ll save you from a lawsuit. I’ll be happy to publish it prominently.
October 2, 2013 at 15:50
For years and years the Fourniers and their friends were carping about human rights enforcement in Canada being kangaroo courts. They should now be happy that this matter was finally decided in a “real court.” Also they must have been told from the very beginning, that although the human rights legislation wasn’t their favourite thing, as long as it’s still on the books, then anyone who goes to legislation and tribunal processes to apply for relief isn’t doing anything illegal or unethical. So vilifying them for doing so isn’t a fair go. Also I never thought it was a good idea for them to repeat statements already found to be defamatory and by an especially disreputable character. There were all kinds of opportunities to clean up the blog. They really only have themselves to blame. Looking forward to seeing the decision. I’m sure it will make a fun read…
October 2, 2013 at 18:38
Harry, I’m pleased you brought attention to the ‘carping about human rights enforcement’ at FreeDominion.
Please feel free to bring attention to the ‘carping about Harry Abrams’ which has also been a constant therein…=)
October 2, 2013 at 21:01
Individually, and taken out of context, each might be considered defamatory. However, collectively they aren’t.
I think if a Jury were allowed to see what the comments were referring to they would have decided differently. It is ripe for appeal.
October 2, 2013 at 21:14
Anomaly,
I quite agree with you.
If one or two people say it, it could, possibly, be ‘defamation’.
If 69 people you have admittedly named in lawsuits say it (plus numerous others who had settled out of court or not been caught in the net of ‘maximum disruption’ yet – it just might constitute a ‘reputation’!
October 3, 2013 at 17:24
A “real court” ? You have got to be kidding me. No you are not. You are just one of the great mass of the ‘unaware’ who know nothing about the bias of our courts until you are in one yourself. Then you understand. its all very sad how many people believe the rhetoric. Very Sad indeed. The Fourniers are the nicest people you would find anywhere. Quintessential good Canadians and believers in the Charter and of Free Speech -the same values that allow you to say what you said about them. They never DID “repeat” anything on the message board and none of which was found to be defamatory at all anyway. Not until the leftist judge led them by the hand into making the defamation decision. Sadly you are completely out of touch with the reality of the case and you might need to find out the facts before you rush in and post all of the bilge. It did NOT happen that way at all. I hope and pray for your sake you never find yourself in the same position. Now that you and others have allowed this to happen, you might actually find yourself there sooner rather than later. You will not like what you find out. This I can assure you. I remember once years ago seeing a newspaper cutting from 1946 wherein the report on the preparation of the Nuremburg trials was mentioned. The last sentence recorded “It has not yet been decided on the method of execution” All this before the trial had even started. And this was how this case was approached by justice Smith unfortunately. He talked openly to the Jury before their decision about the fines and about the costs and treated the Jury as if they were mere vassals there to pretty much make a decision the way the political bench felt it to should be. And vassals they were unfortunately. But there you have it. Again I remind you that you will never know any of this until you find yourself in court. Equal justice? justice? Bah humbug. there is NO law in Canada. Only politics, And only the politics of the left. If you are conservative then don’t look for justice there. its not for you in court. the court dispense Liberal law only.
October 4, 2013 at 21:29
Fatherscan, in your response comment to Mr. Abrams you said:
“You are just one of the great mass of the ‘unaware’ who know nothing about the bias of our courts until you are in one yourself.” and “Sadly you are completely out of touch with the reality of the case and you might need to find out the facts before you rush in and post all of the bilge.”
I believe you’re quite mistaken, as Harry knows full well the bias of the courts, and is fully aware of the case at hand.
Harry opened the floodgates of ‘human rights’ hate-speech persecutions across Canada when Mr. Warman was just a kid with a dream, studying for his Master of Law degree at McGill U.
In fact, Harry the layman succeeded, where lawyers had failed, in squelching the columns of Journalist Doug Collins, grrr, back before the 90’s were over.
Harry is yet another former member of FreeDominion, and had the courage to post his opinions there even after Mr. Warman had let his displeasure with FreeDominion be known to the Courts.
Mr. Abrams also had a CHRC Sec 13.1 Complaint ‘in the pipeline’ when the wheels fell off the gravy train, and has recycled the mass of data necessary for a 13.1 kiddie court complaint, against serial worderer Arthur Topham, into a fully mature CCC 319 Complaint, alongside Mr. Warman and Det. Const. Wilson of the BC ‘Hate Crimes’ division in BC.
Calling Harry ‘unaware’ of court bias is akin to calling a honey badger unaware of honey, and I urge you to apologize to my keyboard comrade Mr. Abrams for your indiscretion.
Unlike an ex-FreeDominion member also posting to this thread, I am perfectly willing to post links to my comments where applicable, to ensure that our gracious host Xanthippe remains safe from any litigation flowing from my remarks.
October 4, 2013 at 21:39
Maikeru,
much appreciated.
Thank you!
October 4, 2013 at 22:18
Thanks for the invitation to apologize (for what exactly?) ‘but I don’t think so. I know the courts and its bias rather well actually and I was THERE in the Courtroom to witness the bias inherent in that particular case. Where were you and your er… “keyboard buddy” ? Good Luck with your endeavours.
October 2, 2013 at 15:57
Their real problem is they conflated defamation/slander law with human rights. Their case was never before the human rights tribunal and was not an HR case but a clearcut case of defamation and the plain fact is no matter how much you dislike someone you’re not allowed to lie about them. Free speech does not give anyone the right to lie and defame.
October 2, 2013 at 16:59
Delbian:
No, the real problem is that name-calling is being conflated with defamation.
For example, it’s one thing to call someone a bastard; but it’s quite another to seriously claim that someone is illegitimate, when they aren’t.
So what, exactly, was said about Warman that crosses that line?
October 2, 2013 at 17:13
Here’s a good rule of thumb – if something has already been found defamatory by a court of law, don’t repeat it. Unfortunately the Fourniers and Free Dominion thought that somehow just because Paul Fromm lost a defamation case against Warman and they repeat the exact same thing it won’t be defamatory.
October 2, 2013 at 17:08
I was unable to attend the trial but I’ve had a look at Freedominion and haven’t been able to figure out what exactly would be considered defamatory. Much of what Warman considered defamatory is true, depending on one’s definition.
You say it’s a “clearcut case of defamation”. Can you point me towards any or provide an example?
I do agree that people should not be allowed to make statements they know to be false about other people. If there were any in this case I can’t find them.
Specifically, what one statement was found to be defamatory?
October 2, 2013 at 17:14
Sounds like you’re trying to get Xanthippas sued.
October 2, 2013 at 18:25
“Sounds like you’re trying to get Xanthippas sued.”
Of course not. I like Xanthippa. But I considered that might be the answer I get when I posted,
I’m left to guess from your previous post that the Fourniers were sued for posting something that Paul Fromm had written that was previously found to be defamatory.
I’m also guessing that the Jury didn’t find posting details of that case to be fair comment.
It’s to be expected that, when someone is sued for defamation, interested people will want to know what was said and so the alleged defamation will be repeated while noting whether or not it was found to be defamatory.
Imagine a law blog with such restrictions.
October 2, 2013 at 18:37
Anomaly,
YOU are not allowed to KNOW what you are not allowed to SAY!
October 4, 2013 at 10:55
Yes, you will find out what you are allowed to say at the end of your trial.
October 2, 2013 at 16:19
Xanthippa:
This is a sad day, but not a surprising one.
Being tried by “a jury of your peers” sounds right, and good and just… until you look closely at who these “peers” really are – by which I mean what values they have absorbed from their schooling and the mass media, both shaped by the cultural Marxist apparatchiks of the corporocratic state.
Especially in Canada.
Canadians, in general, have no concept of rights.
They speak of rights, but they really mean privileges.
Regarding the right to bear arms, they ask “what kind of arms should we be allowed to carry?”
Regarding the right to free speech, they say “what kind of things should we be allowed to say?”
And so on. It’s pathetic.
Canadians, in general, cannot imagine not being ruled.
To paraphrase what I wrote in another comment, cultural Marxists seek to breed independence and self-reliance out of us. They want to make us into Eloi. And their masters, the globalist Morlocks, are very pleased with their progress.
Especially in Canada.
In Canada, people like the Fourniers don’t have the option of being tried by a jury of their peers.
Eloi are not their peers.
October 2, 2013 at 16:41
So when is someone going to tell the members of Free Dominion? They’re still posting as if the verdict hasn’t come down. http://www.freedominion.ca/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=70&t=164937&start=175
October 2, 2013 at 16:45
I don’t know – I am not a member there.
October 2, 2013 at 17:25
I would … but I am banned by the free speech warriors! My speech is clearly too potent for their sensitive eyes.
PD just posted and linked to this site. The flood gates will open.
October 2, 2013 at 17:25
Sorry, I take that back, there is no link.
October 2, 2013 at 20:40
politicallyincorrectandnotadumbredneck, FreeDominion bans free speech worriers whose potent comments deserve their own blogsite, funded by themselves and catering to the like-minded.
October 2, 2013 at 18:12
FreeDominion members following that thread have now been informed by Peter O’Donnell.
You’re display of raw cyber-courage in linking to a FreeDominion thread is commendable.
October 3, 2013 at 10:00
The judge ruled that a “link” is not defamatory or Libellous.
October 2, 2013 at 17:06
Harry Abrams:
Do not conflate “illegal” with “unethical.”
A good many of Canada’s laws are so blatantly unethical that it has become almost impossible to do what is morally right without breaking the law, and vice versa.
As a result, what we call “real courts” in this country have themselves become kangaroo courts of the worst kind – as proven by this verdict.
See my remarks about a jury of your “peers.”
October 2, 2013 at 17:11
I hope they appeal – Barbara K needs the money and I’m sure the suckers at FD will line up to pay.
October 2, 2013 at 17:30
Wow, they are already talking appeal over there.
How much more money are they going to throw down the drain. Surely it must keep getting harder for them to fund raise.
October 2, 2013 at 17:45
My understanding, and someone feel free to correct me, is that appeals rack up the bills but they don’t come due until the end of the whole process. Connie is probably just trying to delay the day of judgement.
October 2, 2013 at 17:54
Interesting. So you can use to it to buy some time. Sounds like a dangerous gamble for working class folk.
October 2, 2013 at 18:12
Barbara Kulaszka argued Paul Fromm’s appeal of the Warman judgement – that went really well, didn’t it? The Fourniers shouldn’t be concerned, the sheeple on Free Dominion will dig into their pockets to bail them out of the mess their stupidity has landed them in.
October 4, 2013 at 10:59
You’re in a lot of trouble now Delbian. I feel sorry for you. You blew it.
October 2, 2013 at 18:31
Wow. You’re already talking about what they’re already talking about on FreeDominion.
Surely you didn’t expect that either side wouldn’t consider alternatives to the alternate outcomes of this trial ?
October 2, 2013 at 17:33
Delbian:
I take it from your remarks about “getting Xanthippa sued” that the right to free speech is so badly violated by Canadian law, that WE CAN’T EVEN DISCUSS THE FACTS of the case!
But just go ahead and keep telling yourself that the systematic infringement of our unalienable individual rights – by the very government whose duty it is to protect those rights – is not at issue here.
Remain in your cell… for your own safety… remain in your cell.
October 2, 2013 at 17:37
None of your “Rights” are absolute. They all have limitations. Name a “right’ and I will give you an example of its limits.
October 2, 2013 at 17:54
Well, that brings us to the fundamental question of the origin of our ‘rights’ – something that individualists and collectivists most vociferously disagree on.
The collectivists believe that ‘rights’ are something the society grants to individuals, and is thus free to regulate or even suspend them at their whim.
Individualists believe that ‘rights’ are innate in each and every individual and that said individual only voluntarily limits the exercise of these rights while in the company of others.
This is why there is such an unbridgable (if you excuse the expression) gap between the two groups’ entrenched views on how rights ought to be exercised in society.
October 2, 2013 at 18:13
No CodeSlinger, what you should take from my comments is the expensive lesson that the Fourniers just learned – repeating something that has already been found to be libellous by a court of law is libellous. Do you really not understand that?
October 2, 2013 at 20:26
Well, if you look at hos this has been handled in other cases: reproducing the ‘notice of libel’ is pretty much the standard on the internet, both in Canada and in the US. After all, once filed in court, they are public documents and it is in the public interest (if there is such a thing as ‘public interest’) to publish them.
It is impossible to mistake statements that are part of ‘notice of libel’ for ‘statement of fact’ – and if it is not a ‘statement of fact’, then it ought not, under any circumstances, be considered libelous.
P.S. If this was simply a ‘notice of libel’, then these statements are under dispute and not ‘already having been proven to be libelous’.
October 2, 2013 at 17:58
Xanthippa, you are stuck on the theory/philosophy of freedoms and rights. In practice, rights have limits.
Example, I am a free man in a free country. But I am not allowed to enter you home and raid your refrigerator any time I choose.
October 2, 2013 at 18:11
The point is not about the absoluteness of rights, but about where their limitations originate from: within or without.
Of course, in our society, the example you have used is, in practice, happening: my property is being confiscated (with the threat of force) to provide food (among other things) to other people.
October 2, 2013 at 18:15
politicallyincorrectandnotadumbredneck:
See my reply to bigcitylib.
That ought to clear things up for you.
October 2, 2013 at 18:12
bigcitylib:
Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’, because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.
— Thomas Jefferson
It is not the function of the government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error.
— U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson
Must a citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then? … It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.
— Henry David Thoreau
And that is what is really at issue here: the egregious discrepancy between what is right and what is legal in Canada.
But I don’t expect you to understand that; you seem to be one of those who can’t tell the difference between a right and a priviledge.
October 2, 2013 at 18:16
Not only can he tell the difference but, unlike you, I think he can spell it too.
October 2, 2013 at 18:24
My apologies – as I wrote earlier, English is not my first or second language.
Plus, my education is in Physics, not linguistics.
Please, forgive me my mistakes…
October 2, 2013 at 18:48
Xanthippa, it was I who misspelled “privilege.”
He thinks pointing that out will draw attention away from the thrust of my argument, which he obviously can’t rebut.
October 2, 2013 at 18:34
Whatever. I still think Connie is considering an appeal as a way to delay paying Richard Warman. As long as she can cover her lawyer’s bill she can keep fighting.
October 2, 2013 at 18:46
Makes sense, why pay $42K now when you can appeal and end up having to pay $84K tomorrow. Stupid is as stupid does. Maybe, just maybe, they should talk to a lawyer who doesn’t have an ideological log in the fire and can give them clear, objective advice that isn’t based on wishful thinking and self-interest? Nah, who are we kidding.
October 2, 2013 at 20:22
Why not convert that thought into one of your ongoing ‘Daily Nazi’ commentaries ?
October 4, 2013 at 11:24
I hope you didn’t call anyone a Nazi, Delbian. Or you’re really screwed.
October 2, 2013 at 18:37
politicallyincorrectandnotadumbredneck:
If your are a Canadian, then you are not a citizan of a free country, and any rights or freedoms you have are garnered in spite of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and not because of it!
If you doubt me, read the Charter!
The Canadian legal system does not even acknowledge your right to bear arms or your right to own property – just for starters.
And those rights it does acknowledge, it treats like privileges by the legal language in which it expresses them.
You need look no farther than the weasel-words in Section 1 of the Charter:
1. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.
What does that really mean? It means
1. We grant you the following privileges, and call them rights and freedoms, until we figure out how to rationalize taking them away.
What a FRAUD!
October 2, 2013 at 18:54
bigcitylib:
“Whatever” ???
That’s the best you can do?
You think you can sweep what really matters under the carpet with a snotty, flippant one-word non-reply?
Sad. Just… sad.
October 2, 2013 at 19:03
Yes, it is, CodeSlinger.
Yet, soon, words like ‘whatever’ may be the only ones we will be permitted to use – without substance, meaning or passion.
October 2, 2013 at 19:15
X, you and codeslinger are kooks.
Delbian, not having to pay now is still not having to pay. Someone could always die in the meantime. And in fact some legal cases are decided when one side passes away. But the Fourniers are playing out the string now. This may not be quite the end of the line, but its getting alot closer.
October 2, 2013 at 19:26
Ah, yes – cannot refute our points, so resort to dismissive name-calling: the ‘progressive’ way!
October 2, 2013 at 20:40
A bit ironic that you would say dismissive name-calling is the “progressive way” when you’re defending a conservative who just lost a *defamation* suit. Manifestly, defamation is the conservative way.
October 2, 2013 at 20:58
I am still convinced that not a single one of the things that the jury had found to be defamatory actually was.
For a number of reasons – but, primarily, I do not think that Mr. Warman actually CAN be defamed.
Through his actions, Mr. Warman has succeeded in making himself a public figure – and, as such, has lost the ability to claim ‘defamation’. It is one of the most important principles of our society that ‘public figures’ can, indeed, be ‘badmouthed’ and publicly insulted in precisely the way a private citizen could not be due to libel laws.
That is my never-humble-opinion and it is my sincere belief that had the jury been clearly instructed on this point of law, the verdict would have been very, very different.
October 2, 2013 at 21:05
You’re wrong X, a public figure can sue for defamation but the threshold for a successful prosecution is higher, that’s all. eg John Munro successfully sued the Toronto Sun in the 1980s for wrongly accusing him of having mob ties.
October 2, 2013 at 21:23
Point well taken, Delbian!
You are quite right…
…of course, I disagree with the verdict.
In other words, I am expressing what I think the law ought to be (in my never-humble-opinion) rather than what it is. I should have made that clear, not doing so was my error, and I thank you for pointing it out.
Now that we have identified that the problem is with the law, we can work to fix it!!!
October 3, 2013 at 04:56
Well then it’s bogus for you to claim that the jury was not “properly instructed in law” just because they were not informed of the way you want the law to be, as opposed to how it actually is. BTW, what were the judge’s instructions to the jury? (And how can the defence object since their lawyer was informed of what his comments would be ahead of time and signed off on them?)
October 3, 2013 at 11:50
the Jury was not properly instructed in defamation law. And the defence lawyer was absolutely NOT advised in advance of wehat the judges comments would be. What makes you say that past presumption?
October 3, 2013 at 11:24
The judges’ instruction focused on how to assign monetary compensation for Mr. Warman as opposed to how to understand the defense.
As to the defense lawyer: it is a fact that the one case where the Fourniers won completely was the one at which they self-represented and Connie spoke for the defense.
Also, Mr. Katz – Mr. Warman’s lawyer – is, frankly, brilliant!
October 3, 2013 at 14:20
I do not believe Katz was “brilliant” I thought he was nothing more than an average lawyer.
October 3, 2013 at 14:15
FathersCan – the fact that the judge put his charge to the jury in writing first and sent it to both lawyers beforehand and received no objection from the defence.
October 3, 2013 at 15:12
Actually the Jury Questions were made up by the Plaintiff and the defence and almost all of the plaintiffs ‘questions’ were later refined and changed after complaints from the defence. the judge relied almost exclusively on the ‘advice’ from the plaintiffs lawyer. the defence lawyer was largely ignored by the judge in terms of what she could add. it was blatant bias.
October 2, 2013 at 19:22
politicallyincorrectandnotadumbredneck
and bigcitylib:
You two keep focusing on the legalistic and tactical details of this trial, while studiously ignoring the real and vitally important issue it brings to light.
Those details really only matter to Warman and the Fourniers. But the underlying issue affects the rights of every Canadian.
What is that issue?
The entire system of Canadian jurisprudence, beginning with the Charter, systematically infringes the inalienable individual rights of each and every Canadian.
That’s what really matters about this case.
Why are you so afraid to discuss it?
Could it be that you are in complete agreement with the treacherous “progressive” agenda that results in such travesties as this verdict?
Could it be that you want to draw attention away from the relentless, grinding machinery of lawfare by which Canadians of are “progressively” stripped their rights and rendered helpless before that cold, soulless, formless abomination, the collective?
October 2, 2013 at 19:53
“The entire system of Canadian jurisprudence, beginning with the Charter, systematically infringes the inalienable individual rights of each and every Canadian.”
Maybe its all the fault of those alien Jewish lizards? Cuz that’s the direction you’re leaning, buddy. All aboard the crazy train!
October 2, 2013 at 21:34
A ‘Human Rights’ hate-speech investigator considered ‘freedom of speech’ to be a concept alien to Canada, BCL – but you know that.
Cameras were disallowed in the venue where that comment was made, so it’s unclear whether the speaker was actually a lizard, Jewish or otherwise.
Your ‘Prime Time’ interview with Michael Coren (@4:40) stands as testimony to your own crazy training:
http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/video/1777317105001
October 3, 2013 at 17:58
There are no “Prime Times” on Sun News. Nobody watches that channel.
Might as well just show a log burning in a fire on a 24 loop. They might actually make money with that concept.
October 2, 2013 at 20:16
I think that the Fourniers SHOULD appeal. AFTER they’ve covered the estimated cost of the proceedings and projected settlement in the event of a loss. (Putting their home in escrow might serve) Incidentally, no one in Canadian, USA or UK jurisprudence has ever yet won an appeal after reproducing material already found defamatory. And all this drama about not being able to run a blog is so much hot air. If they own the keys to the blog then they can simply do their housekeeping & edit the blessed thing to ensure that the plaintiff doesn’t get libelled again. Or does that make too much sense?
October 2, 2013 at 20:40
This will clearly go the same way as the Fromm appeal.
October 2, 2013 at 21:14
Well there was the McLibel case in the UK. The defamers were awarded 53,000 pounds from the UK government for not getting a fair trial. The comments, defamatory and non, can now be seen on wikipedia.
October 2, 2013 at 22:05
Oh Harry pls grow a pair and start a blog where I can comment. What, no, to dangerous, you could get sued, you say! That is what this case is about. Something free people love, not being afraid to speak.
October 3, 2013 at 15:02
Harry, lets just say you are right. (And I believe you are.) Would you contribute to their defence financially? No I thought not.
October 2, 2013 at 21:56
bigcitylib:
“alien Jewish lizards” ???
What are you smoking?
By the way, here’s another quote on the subject of rights, which belongs together with the other ones I posted here:
A right is not what someone gives you, it’s what no one can take away from you.
— U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark
But I don’t expect you to address the actual substance of these points, any more than you’ve addressed the verbatim text of the Charter of Rights which I posted here, or the actual substance of any single thing I’ve said.
You can’t, can you? That would take coherent thought and rational argumentation.
It’s much easier to flip me off with “whatever” and name-calling and bizarre rants about “alien Jewish lizards.”
Keep it up, pal. You’re making a perfect example of how shallow and venal the progresssive way of “thinking” really is.
October 6, 2013 at 14:56
You keep posting a series of quotes, that is not an argument for anything it’s a list of people’s opinions.
To claim there are some inalienable, a priori rights based on individual preferences and desires is fine in theory. But each of those individual ideas on rights and preferences will come into conflict with those of others and then both sets will be accused of infringing on the rights of the other and therefore wrong. A person’s rights are what a community agrees they are especially if the community has the power to enforce what it says. It really doesn’t matter whether that community is based on a moral system or an ethical system they will create laws limiting behaviour because my idea of what constitutes freedom will be different to yours. Giving up absolute freedom is the price we pay to live in Canada because we have to live with others.
October 6, 2013 at 15:22
Individual freedoms are the cornerstone on which our society is built – just read up on our history.
While Americans valued equality, Canadians have always cherished individual freedoms – until, that is, Cultural Marxists re-wrote our textbooks and educated the last generation in revisionist history, depriving it of even the knowledge of its true heritage.
Historians like Professor John Robson have written extensively on this.
But, if you wish to go into some detail here, let me give you a very, very short version:
Canada is a Constitutional Monarchy: this is a form of democracy which is not an absolute democracy ( ‘absolute democracy’ is also called ‘the tyranny of the majority’, as exemplified by two wolves and a lamb taking a vote over what to eat for dinner).
This form of democracy recognizes that each and every citizen has inalienable rights which, no matter how large a percentage of the majority votes to take away, must not be violated. The only legitimate role of government is to protect these rights, so that each and every citizen may exercise them freely.
One such basic right – one we can most easily understand – is the right to bodily integrity. This means that if there are 4 people who need a kidney, a liver, a lung and a heart each, the government cannot arbitrarily appoint a 5th person to be the organ donor, on the grounds that ensuring 4 citizens live outweighs the 1 citizen’s right to live.
(There are very good books by much more intelligent people than I that explain this well – I do urge you to read up on our history.)
In other words, our society is based on the proposition that the majority must not be permitted to harm minorities – even the smallest minority of one citizen. To the contrary, when a government begins to strip citizens of their human rights, that government becomes illegitimate and loses it justification to govern.
It is sad that this was not covered in your civics class in high school…
October 6, 2013 at 16:47
Well put, Xanthippa. This is especially pertinent:
“In other words, our society is based on the proposition that the majority must not be permitted to harm minorities – even the smallest minority of one citizen.”
Over time that concept was perverted to favour citizens from select groups. And the perverted concept was ingrained in our Charter. That eventually led to this court case.
October 23, 2013 at 17:29
Xantippa
I agree with you that we are supposed to be a constitutional monarchy with all the protections that that system is supposed to confer. But reality is that we are that in name only especially if the Charter continues to be ignored by many on the right.
The most recent example is the attempt by the Harper clowns to play to the peanut gallery by seeking to suspend the three Conservative Senators before a proper investigation has been completed.
So back to how the world really plays out now
” A person’s rights are what a community agrees they are especially if the community has the power to enforce what it says.”
October 23, 2013 at 18:10
Harebell,
you make a compelling point.
What if I took your statement and tweaked it a little?
“A person may currently only exercise those inalienable rights that the community s/he resides in permits.”
I mean this as a statement of our lamentable reality, not of principles – because, if we were going down to core principles, no person’s inalienable rights would need to be limited in order to live in a volutaryist society. (And here I would like to stress the difference between volunteerist and voluntaryist.)
When I was in high school, I thought very highly of the Charter – even went down to the Parliament Hill to see it signed by the Queen. And, yes – I had a copy of it hanging on my bedroom wall… But, teenage girls are supposed to hang things they idolize on their bedroom walls, no?
But, the older I grew and the more I learned about the world outside of the core physical sciences, the less happy I was with our Charter…and now that I am an anti-slavery fundamentalist, I think we had more rights and freedoms before that danged thing ever came along then we do now!
October 2, 2013 at 22:40
Delbian:
You write “… you’re defending a conservative who just lost a *defamation* suit. Manifestly, defamation is the conservative way.”
That the Fourniers lost does not mean that anything published on their blog was defamatory in fact.
It means that the verdict is a travesty of justice.
How does it come to pass that such a deeply flawed verdict can be aligned with the main stream of Canadian jurisprudence?
What is the fundamentally unsound and thoroughly illiberal understanding of the word “rights” that underlies the constitutive documents of this country?
And how do we remedy this dangerous weakness in the essential structure of the Canadian social contract?
These are the truly important questions that grow out of this trial.
But neither you, nor politicallyincorrectandnotadumbredneck, nor bigcitylib will touch those questions with a ten foot pole.
I wonder why?
Could it be that you want to avoid, at all costs, an open and honest examination of these questions, because you know how damaging it would be to the progressive agenda?
October 3, 2013 at 04:58
Actually,being found guilty of defamation in a court of law means their message board was defamatory in fact.
October 3, 2013 at 14:59
Re: > actually, that is not even close to the truth. You were not there and probably have never been in a Canadian Court of Law. A ruling in a Canadian “court of law” actually means nothing as far as truth is concerned. I can absolutely assure you of that. The Fourniers are being held responsible for the posts of others and they did not make any defamatory posts themselves. Indeed they stood up for YOUR Right to speak freely. believe me when I tell you that their message board was not defamatory in fact.
October 3, 2013 at 16:09
Delbian:
Go look up the difference between de facto (in fact) and de jure (in law)… before embarrassing yourself further.
October 3, 2013 at 18:40
Codeslinger, I think you should look up de facto and de jure as you obviously don’t understand how the terms are used i.e. ” In law, it often means “in practice but not necessarily ordained by law” or “in practice or actuality, but not officially established.” It is commonly used in contrast to de jure (which means “concerning the law”) when referring to matters of law, governance, or technique (such as standards) that are found in the common experience as created or developed without or contrary to a regulation. When discussing a legal situation, de jure designates what the law says, while de facto designates action of what happens in practice.”
October 3, 2013 at 18:43
In other words, before you lecture others on the meaning of words you really should look them up yourselves as you’ve just embarrassed yourself by not doing so and getting the meaning entirely wrong.
October 3, 2013 at 19:12
Delbian:
How does what you just posted contradict what I posted?
Oh, wait, it doesn’t.
You have just confirmed my statements.
Thank you.
October 3, 2013 at 21:40
Oh boy, you guys are all in deep trouble and you don’t realize how badly. Wait until you find out that the Charter you think protects you and gives you certain inalienable rights doesn’t do anything of the sort. Its a shock folks I tell ya. It struck me badly in terms of the blow of realization. Really.
October 3, 2013 at 20:25
It’s clear you didn’t understand the meanings because if you did you’d know that you weren’t actually making a point.
October 3, 2013 at 20:53
Delbian:
I hope you’re looking in the mirror when you say that…
October 3, 2013 at 05:24
“And how do we remedy this dangerous weakness in the essential structure of the Canadian social contract?
These are the truly important questions that grow out of this trial. But neither you…will touch those questions.”
I’ll touch them. At no time in history, anywhere, has freedom of speech been understood to confer the right to malign, revile and vilify an individual by publically stating untruths about him/her, especially with a malicious motivation. Not anywhere. I am shaking my head in amazement at how people wallowing in the muck of egregious, repeated personal defamation can convince themselves they are white knights trying to free a people enslaved by an oppressive class that is so widespread, it even includes an entire jury of their peers.
October 3, 2013 at 17:06
The trial wasn’t about freedom of speech. And repeating over and over that there was defamation while not allowing the evidence is hardly convincing. However the court has ruled that there was defamation and so, for now, we have to accept that.
October 3, 2013 at 17:20
Well, actually…
No, we don’t ‘have to accept that!
It is the duty of each and every one of us to lobby our elected representatives to bring Canadian libel laws into line with those of other Magna Carta countried and strengthen the innate right of people to speak their honestly held opinions without fear of a lifetime gag order.
October 3, 2013 at 17:30
The only “egregious, repeated personal defamation” I have observed over the years that this case has been dragged out, has been against the Fourniers from progressive bloggers and internet trolls. Mark and Connie are the ones who have been maligned, reviled, and vilified with malicious intent by the kind of people who are now gloating.
October 3, 2013 at 18:25
Quite right!
When I first attended the trials, I did not know either Mr. Warman nor the Fourniers. I had no contact with them or other knowledge than that this was the lawsuit and I was interested because Michael Geist’s group was there, and I do follow his blog.
Having observed both Mr. Warman and the Fourniers, in various courtrooms, over the 3+ years that I’ve been following this, I have come to admire the Fourniers greatly and have great affection for them.
Mr. Warman does not even meet my eyes when he walks past me…
October 4, 2013 at 11:37
calling somebody a doofus windbag nickleheaded jerk is not defamation, it’s chit chat
October 3, 2013 at 19:44
Xanthippa, I agree. I said we have to accept it’s defamation for now because I haven’t quite given up on Canadian law yet and a Canadian court said it was. The more I learn about this the more I think that defamation as written in Canadian law should not be illegal. I’ve yet to see a comment deemed defamatory in this case that met the dictionary definition of ‘a false statement that harms the reputation of an individual’.
If someone tries to have books removed from a public library or tries to prevent someone from speaking in public and someone tells me that I will seek out confirmation. When I find it’s true I do think less of that person. That should not be illegal. In my world, it should be encouraged.
Good discussion here. Thanks for the forum.
October 3, 2013 at 19:50
I think we need to start petitions to all our PMs to bring our libel laws into line with other Magna Carta heritage countries.
October 7, 2013 at 13:38
I’ve been told that libel laws are a provincial jurisdiction. We would have to appeal to the MLAs of Ontario.
October 7, 2013 at 14:03
Well, I don’t see why we should not target both levels of government.
Freedom of speech is a charter thing – so, we ought to lobby our federal MPs to pass laws giving greater protection to this basic human right.
Libel laws are a provincial matter so we ought to lobby our provincial representatives to reform these. Especially important bits, in my never-humble-opinion, is that a person be presumed to be innocent and not have to have the reverse true, as is now the practice, and that actual damages to the plaintiff must be clearly demonstrated before any monetary award is made. It should also be made clear that insults are insults, not defamation…
October 3, 2013 at 16:41
Guest:
Thank you. At least now we can begin a rational debate.
You write “At no time in history, anywhere, has freedom of speech been understood to confer the right to malign, revile and vilify an individual by publically stating untruths about him/her, especially with a malicious motivation.”
And you are quite right. The core offence in defamation is maliciously causing harm by publishing lies.
But under Canadian defamation law, the plaintiff is required to prove neither malice, nor harm nor falsehood. What a travesty!
Malice and harm are presumed — the onus is on the defendant to prove otherwise! And truth is no defence. All that is required is to convince a jury that the statements in question lower the reputation of the plaintiff in the eyes of some hypothetical “right-thinking person” – whatever that means. And anything communicated, even if only to one third party, is considered published.
Thus, what constitutes defamation under Canadian law bears no resemblance to what constitutes defamation in fact.
And that is the problem.
That is why the law has nothing to do with justice and everything to do with violating the right to free speech.
That is what reduces the law to nothing more than a bludgeon for use by sleazy shysters to silence their critics.
Here are some excerpts from an excellent article in The Lawyers Weekly by Dan Burnett (emphasis added):
“For all the lofty quotes about free speech in Canadian jurisprudence, the reality is that our libel laws are the least protective of free speech in the English-speaking world.
…
It is rooted in 16th and 17th century criminal statutes protecting nobility from criticism.
…
in the past dozen years or so, the highest courts in England, Australia and New Zealand have all recognized that the traditional law of libel fails to adequately protect free speech, and they have all issued decisions which begin to right the balance. Every one, that is, except Canada.
…
Why should we care if Canada has more restrictive libel laws than elsewhere? One reason is that libel law, by attaching punitive consequences to expression, plainly infringes the Charter guarantee of free expression
…
Mostly, we should be concerned about the state of our libel laws because freedom of speech – including the pain it sometimes causes – is the means by which we discuss, debate and grow as a society. The clash of ideas is at the heart of our adversarial justice system and our democracy.”
Why does he call it a “Charter guarantee” instead of a “right?” Well, being a lawyer – and apparently a good one – I guess he knows full well that section 1 of the Charter is a legal land mine that completely eviscerates the concept of a “right” in Canadian jurisprudence.
So the extreme injustice inherent in Canadian defamation law is only the tip of the iceberg.
To repair the fatal flaws in Canadian jurisprudence, we must go right back to the Charter and correct its flawed treatment of rights in general – along the lines of what I posted here.
October 3, 2013 at 17:43
Well put CodeSlinger. That the burden of proof is essentially on the defense is the most egregious aspect of these defamation laws. You quoted Dan Burnett as having stated “It is rooted in 16th and 17th century criminal statutes protecting nobility from criticism.” At the time, what they wanted was to replace duelling. If your words damaged the “honour” of another gentleman, he could challenge you to a duel that would end in the death or serious injury of at least one party. Providing recourse in the courts was deemed to be more civilized and so defamation laws came in as duelling was outlawed. In the present, it is apparant that this system can be used to abuse and harass people and that we need more protections for the defense along the lines of those in place under criminal law.
October 3, 2013 at 17:54
Take a good look at the comments section on YOUTUBE gentlemen. Just go there and take some perspective from it. Choose a post. Any post.
October 3, 2013 at 18:01
Or you can just be careful not to defame people … or maybe hit the delete key once in a while.
I don’t see the law as something that is regularly abused and it really did put an end to most dueling.
October 3, 2013 at 18:19
No, I suppose you would not…
That does not mean that the rest of the world is as wilfully blind!
October 4, 2013 at 11:39
This is important information Codesinger. We need to keep track of it for future reference.
October 3, 2013 at 17:41
Guest:
To address the rest of your post…
You speak of “people wallowing in the muck of egregious, repeated personal defamation” yet, under Canadian defamation law, you are not even allowed to post evidence that this is a fair description of what actually happened without opening Xanthippa to a lawsuit!
Thus, not only does the law enable any unprincipled chiseller to silence people he dislikes, but it enables him to ensure that we are not even allowed to know what we are not allowed to say!
As for a “jury of their peers,” the only way a jury could bring down a just verdict in this legal context would be to nullify the law outright – under the overarching moral principle that an unjust law is no law at all.
But few, if any, Canadian juries have the courage and independence of thought to do that.
See my remarks above about how the idea of being tried by “a jury of your peers” is rendered vacuous in Canada.
October 3, 2013 at 17:59
And by the way I would think the jury needs to be thoroughly ashamed of themselves for 1) being blatantly led to judgement by an obviously leftist judge. 2) For ruling on Defamation to a point where it would affect the just and their friends and family themselves and to the point where it affects every single person writing and posting on this blog alone. To paraphrase that famous Canadian band: “you aint seen nothing yet”
October 3, 2013 at 18:28
Xanthippa, the rest of the world doesn’t see this as an issue. There are a couple dozen people angry about this ruling… tops.
This is part of the problem at FD. They think they are in the majority. They are most certainly not.
October 3, 2013 at 18:41
The reason that “the rest of the world doesn’t see this as an issue” is because there is such a chill in speech that nobody dares to report on anything to do with Mr. Warman. As it stands now, we are not even allowed to publish what it is that he finds libelous – and thus have no idea if our honest observations of his behaviour would expose us to the danger of a defamation lawsuit.
Which only demonstrates how our current libel laws corrupt the nature of public discourse.
And that is something we all should wish to correct!
October 3, 2013 at 18:51
Anybody or any news organization are free to report this news. You are totally exaggerating. Nobody is talking about it because it is boring and quite frankly the people who the Fornier’s aligned themselves with are bizarre.
Its personal for you, you are biased into thinking it is an atrocity of great significance. It is not. It is a minor thing on a small message board which has only a couple dozen regular posters.
This train wreck could have been prevented, Some folks are too stubborn I guess.
October 3, 2013 at 19:02
You are, of course, quite correct.
This trainwreck could have been prevented if Canadian libel laws were in line with those of other Magna Carta heritage countries…
October 3, 2013 at 21:58
Unreal. that one reply right there above should have alerted everyone as to the ID of the poster but…. no-one cares to see a thing.
October 3, 2013 at 22:04
Gee I wonder who you really are-outside of your avatar name? Not really for me, but not many people need to guess for too long I don’t think. But hey.. nice try.
October 3, 2013 at 18:57
You are absolutely correct. Over the years I have bored my co-workers, fellow parishoners, family, friends, and anyone else who would listen trying to “raise awareness” – as the progressives would say – about this case. Not once did I encounter someone who had even heard of Richard Warman.
October 4, 2013 at 07:36
X, the UK’s libel laws are even stricter than Canada’s. They’re a “magna carta heritage country”, aren’t they?
October 4, 2013 at 08:04
Sadly, you are quite right.
Like Canada, the UK has allowed its society to be corrupted by Cultural Marxism to a degree when one would find it difficult to recognize it as a ‘Magna Carta heritage country’…
Hopefully, our efforts to return to our roots will inspire people in the UK to do likewise!
October 4, 2013 at 11:41
I dare any news outlet to publish a negative view of Warman’s victory.
October 4, 2013 at 18:42
Oh please, X, give me a break. The UK”s libel laws have nothing to do with “cultural Marxism” (a meaningless buzzword from the conspiracy minded right), they long predate Gramsci and the Frankfurt School.
October 4, 2013 at 19:28
I am not educated enough to comment on this.
However, I will ask CodeSlinger to do so.
October 3, 2013 at 19:13
A couple of Dozen people angry about the ruling? Fanciful thinking but I think not. not in my world.
October 3, 2013 at 18:44
politicallyincorrectandnotadumbredneck:
The law as written is an open invitation for sleazy shysters to engage in malicious lawfare.
The only thing you demonstrate by replying to all my detailed arguments with a flippant “I don’t see it” is your own wilful blindness.
I wonder what motivates your obstinate refusal to see the obvious…
And your refusal to engage my arguments openly and honestly…
October 3, 2013 at 19:18
CodeSlinger, You wonder about the refusal of politicallyincorrectandnotadumbredneck to engage in any debate? Really? You don’t know? You can’t guess? Think about it.
October 3, 2013 at 19:44
FathersCan:
Actually, I did make some guesses.
Here and here.
By asking these questions I am indeed inviting people to think about it.
October 3, 2013 at 21:36
I saw your guesses and well done but no you are not close to the answer as to why the dumb redneck fellow will not debate you or address you properly. Think laterally.
October 3, 2013 at 22:53
Sleazy? Is that necessary.
Sorry, I fail to fear a flood of Interwebs lawsuits in the near future.
October 3, 2013 at 23:45
“politicallyincorrectandnotadumbredneck Says:
October 3, 2013 at 18:51
and quite frankly the people who the Fornier’s aligned themselves with are bizarre.”
Careful, defamation definitions are now quite broad.
October 4, 2013 at 01:17
Politicallycorrectandnotadumbredneck:
We’re talking about standing on the letter of an unjust law in order to bludgeon people whose views you don’t like into silence.
If you don’t find that to be the epitome of sleaze, then I shudder to think how low a person would have to sink to be considered sleazy by you.
And it doesn’t take a “flood” of these things to put a chill on free speech and stifle healthy debate. All it takes to shut most people up is to know that it could conceivably happen to them.
That’s what these sleazy shysters are counting on.
October 4, 2013 at 10:12
Fred, notice I did not single anyone out. . You just have to be careful and clever with what you post. Like always.
The definition of defamation has not changed.
The exaggerations of the implications of this lawsuit are hilarious. Nobody cares, no politicians are ever going to take up this cause, the sky is not falling. The people who lost had many, many chances to avoid losing big. They chose the route to an expensive jury trial, they chose to hide the IP addresses, they chose not to delete posts .. on and on. Every step of the way they made this the worst possible outcome for themselves. I would feel sorry for them but they criticized, mocked and threatened me when I pointed out it is a very bad idea to have a legal battle with a lawyer. Well… I was correct.
October 4, 2013 at 10:23
When did you point this out to them?
Do you know them?
What specific threats did they make against you? This is a serious matter – it is not appropriate for someone to threaten you over speech!
But, for my own protection, if you say they threatened you and they did not – following this ruling, I could be sued for libel by publishing your word, because saying someone threatened you would lower a right-thinking person’s opinion of them.
Therefore, I must request proof of your statement!
October 4, 2013 at 17:01
“notice I did not single anyone out. . You just have to be careful and clever with what you post. Like always.”
I disagree. I think your username indicates which person you’ve had an issue with.
October 4, 2013 at 18:32
“they chose to hide the IP addresses”
In the case at hand Warman wanted identifying information on dozens of individuals. The Fourniers fought that. Warman was then unwilling or unable to convince a Judge that a wrong had likely been committed and so the Fourniers did not release the IP addresses or any other information that might help Warman identify these members.
It’s worth noting that a Judge at that time found there was no obvious libel involved. It’s also worth noting that Warman subsequently dropped all but 2 of those members from his suit.
It means that no one can just demand to know someone’s identity. They have to show just cause. I hope you can understand how important that is for internet users privacy and protection, including yours.
You should be grateful to the Fourniers for taking that principled position at great personal expense and sacrifice. I know I am.
October 4, 2013 at 19:27
I, for one, understand the full implications of this!
As does Michael Geist – the foremost authority on Canadian internet laws.
It is precisely because the Fournier’s battle is SO important to all of Canada that, in his 2012 ‘dedication’, Michael Geist said ‘F’ is for Free Dominion!!! Precisely because they have financed the protection of anonymous speech on the internet…
…and, anonymous speech, so there can not possibly be any reprisals for it, is necessary for any free society to exist!
October 3, 2013 at 19:01
Xanthippa:
“As it stands now, we are not even allowed to publish what it is that [Warman] finds libellous – and thus have no idea if our honest observations of his behaviour would expose us to the danger of a defamation lawsuit.”
“Which only demonstrates how our current libel laws corrupt the nature of public discourse.”
EXACTLY SO!!!
And the only reason the Canadian public is not up and in arms about it is because they are kept utterly oblivious of its true implications by that insidious progressive echo chamber, the Canadian mass media.
The average Canadian stares in shocked amazement, for example, when shown that the Charter of Rights doesn’t even mention the right to own property.
If our schools actually educated people, as distinct from inflicting progressive indoctrination, and if our mass media actually reported news, as distinct from disseminating progressive propaganda, the average Canadian would be much less complacent!
October 3, 2013 at 19:21
<>>
Still can’t see it?
October 3, 2013 at 21:00
Xanthippa:
You write “I think we need to start petitions to all our PMs to bring our libel laws into line with other Magna Carta heritage countries.”
I think that’s not enough.
Legal reforms in those countries only begin to move in the general direction of correcting some of the flaws.
They don’t actually solve the real underlying problem.
What we need to do, first and foremost, is demand that our constitution must explicitly recognize the supremacy of individual rights in all matters of law.
Then it will be relatively straight-forward to bring the bulk of the law into line.
This means acknowledging that all other legal principles rest on the foundation of the equal and inalienable rights of each and every natural person, and accepting once and for all that the guarantee of those rights is the overarching purpose of government which necessarily supersedes all other functions of government.
This is what progressives fear and loathe above all else, because it recognizes that any rights a collective may have are derived from and subservient to the rights of its constituent individuals.
This is the exact opposite of what progressives want to progress toward: a state in which the collective is everything and the individual is nothing.
So this is the real battleground between progressives (often mistakenly called liberals) and true classical liberals (often mistakenly called conservatives).
This is the big picture.
Libel law, gun law, family law, and all the other laws which violate our individual rights…
These are all important battles, but the war is between the individual and the collective.
Are we going to consolidate the rights and freedoms we have bled and died for over the last thousand years?
Or are we going to throw it all away in a collectivist orgy of political correctness?
Will we be free?
Or will we be assimilated?
October 4, 2013 at 10:17
“You write “I think we need to start petitions to all our PMs to bring our libel laws into line with other Magna Carta heritage countries.”
Ya, a petition with 50 signatures will be a very powerful statement. Good luck with that.
October 4, 2013 at 10:48
Xanthippa, they can be a very surly crowd over at FD. Like I said .. my free speech is far too potent for their delicate eyes. 😉 When some of them lose a political discussion, they don’t react like gentlemen.
I am not going to provide any links. What I say is true. Connie likes to say, “I have screen captures” of the threats. Go back a few years in the threads and take a look at how they treat people with a different opinion. The vast majority of their members fled FD for basically the same reasons. They are really down to just a few dozen regular posters at this point.
October 4, 2013 at 10:54
Their behaviour or interests are not in question here – mine are.
You have stated, in a comment on my blog, that they have threatened you.
This is a potentially defamatory statement – especially following this ruling. As such, it is essential that you provide the proof so that I may defend myself.
I presume you have such a proof to defend yourself, though, following this ruling, truth may end up being inadmissible into evidence….
Still, you have now, through your speech, exposed me to the danger of a defamation lawsuit and I want you to provide me with the material I will need to try to protect myself!
October 4, 2013 at 11:03
I am not going to name names. I am not going to detail the nature of the threats. Nobody is going to sue you or I. Chill out.
You really have not spent much time on FD, have you?
October 4, 2013 at 11:09
Of course I have not spent a lot of time on the Free Dominion forum – it is a ‘conservative’ discussion forum and, as I am not a conservative, much of what they discuss there is outside of my sphere of interest. As I wrote earlier, they only came up on my radar because of the freedom of speech issue. And, as I am an anti-slavery fundamentalist, I must necessarily also be a free speech absolutist.
But, as for the lawsuit – Mr. Warman had successfully sued the Fourniers for statements much less defamatory than an accusation of uttering threats, which, unless I am mistaken, is a criminal offense!
So, yes – your statement does very much expose me to threats of a defamation lawsuit!
And since the onus in courts is on the defendant to prove the truth of the statement, I will need that proof, for my own self-protection.
Now, please!
October 4, 2013 at 11:14
<>
Never a truer word as above eh Xanthippa?
October 4, 2013 at 11:21
I am not going to provide links. Clearly you are not aware of what has happened on that site in the last decade. Take it from me, some of the members don’t play very nicely. I was not really that surprised when all the legal troubles started based on my own experience at FD.
You want to delete my posts, go for it. But I think you are way over-reacting to a generalized statement. Which I can back up if I was ever forced to.
October 4, 2013 at 11:31
As I told you before – this has nothing to do with what went on at FD. And, if the people there ‘don’t play very nicely’, then I have that much more of a reason to demand to be protected.
I have sat there, in the courtroom, and saw for myself exactly how the laws are applied in practice.
Even if I DO take down your comment – I don’t know who has already managed to take a screenshot of it and, if I remove it, if it will have been ‘fast enough’ for their liking!!!
What if people have copied it and pasted it elsewhere?
Mr. Warman won considerable damages for exactly that – people copy-pasting things that somebody else posted!!!
And, no, I am not over-reacting! The very real-life implications of this ruling are that anything posted that might lower a person’s opinion of somebody is defamatory and that no matter how quickly I take things down, it might not be fast enough!
So, I repeat: provide me with the proof of your assertion that the Fourniers had committed the crime of uttering threats!
Alternately, please, post a full, honest apology for having accused them of having committed a crime and I will publish it prominently. Hopefully, they’ll be satisfied with this.
They might require your real-life name for it to carry weight, though…
Now, please!
October 4, 2013 at 12:02
I never said anything about a crime. I never said anything about the Forniers.
Read what I wrote again.
October 4, 2013 at 12:22
Uttering threats is a crime, is it not?
And you wrote that you told them not to pick a legal battle with a lawyer – which clearly identified the Fourniers and John Does involved in the lawsuit – and ‘they’ threatened you…
Am I getting this wrong?
Because the proof is regarding how a non-legally trained people would understand it and have their opinions of someone lowered as a result!
October 4, 2013 at 14:18
Yup, Right ON Sister Xanthippa
October 4, 2013 at 13:30
Xanthippa, you are mixing up several issues.
Some of their members threatened me. Which I laughed off and will never pursue. It’s all still there on their server, by the way.
Yes, I feel that it was an error for the Forniers to enter into a legal battle with a lawyer. I felt at the time they could have just resolved the issue by deleting posts, issuing an apology and making a rule not to mention the other party’s name on their website. Mainly because I had seen other websites crack down on that kind of thing after they were served notice. But no, they stood “principal” and entered into a lengthy legal battle. That, I feel was a mistake.
(hate how this blog software prevents me from responding directly to your post, that is why it looks like I am jumping around)
October 4, 2013 at 14:49
So, now you are saying that people who post on FD threatened you – which, if I am understanding the legal implications of Wednesday’s ruling, means that anyone who regularly posts there can now claim to have been defamed by that statement.
(After all, Mr. Warman had such tenuous connections in his claim: that even if he were not named directly, the comments might have referred to him and were therefore defamatory.)
Thanks for increasing the pool of potential litigants!
October 4, 2013 at 15:51
“But no, they [FreeDominion] stood “principal” and entered into a lengthy legal battle. That, I feel was a mistake.”
Someone had to stand on principle, and when Mr. Warman referenced 35 different poster’s comments in his original 2007 notification, there was ample reason for the Fourniers of FreeDominion to take that stand.
Speech on FreeDominion is already so potent that it has attracted plenty of litigation without even trying.
Beyond that, potent posts on FreeDominion have been referenced by the CHRC as cause for holding a CHRT Hearing ‘in camera’, and as cause to exclude a specific Canadian from attending the March 25, 2008 CHRC/Warman v Citizen/Lemire Hearing.
I heartily agree with your advice that folks visit FreeDominion archives, especially those which deal with the topic under discussion.
October 4, 2013 at 15:50
What do you mean “now you are saying”. I said the same thing from the very beginning.
This is my direct quote:
” I would feel sorry for them but they criticized, mocked and threatened me when I pointed out ”
Nobody is going to sue me. Not worried at all. Relax. Chill. Continue with your life.
October 4, 2013 at 16:13
You said: ‘ they criticized, mocked and threatened me ‘
The ‘they’ could be understood to be either the Fourniers or people who post there regularly, especially the John Does.
And the ‘threatened me’ implies a criminal act.
How is this not defamatory, under the new rules following this verdict?!?!?
P.S. If I am to go to their back files and look for these posts in order to prepare my defense, I’ll need to know what name you were posting on Free Dominion under, so that I can find the relevant passages. Please, let me know.
October 4, 2013 at 17:00
He won’t tell you what name he posted under at FD. It would be far too ‘telling’
October 5, 2013 at 08:39
Good. Spend a few hours reading posts between 2007 and 2012. Look for threads with lots of posts and lots of views.
You are going to be surprised at the level of discourse.
October 5, 2013 at 08:43
Not all threats are criminal. I understand English is not your first language, perhaps that is why you fail to understand what I am saying here.
October 7, 2013 at 14:32
I have the screenshots should anyone need them to get justice after dumbrednecks public defamation of those fine people:-)
October 7, 2013 at 14:34
I know, I know what name he posted under, oh what fun we are having in Besilentland LOL
October 7, 2013 at 14:39
He will not tell me – and without it, I cannot possibly find factual evidence to defend myself with…
Sad…
October 7, 2013 at 15:30
I didn’t defame anyone. If you are talking about me.
October 7, 2013 at 15:40
Well, just in this thread, you have said more defamatory things about people than Mr. Warman had won his case with…in our current Canada, you must self-censor your words or expose all of us to danger!
And, if you are just blowing steam – you might want to consider taking up jogging!
October 7, 2013 at 15:48
I don’t believe I identified anybody specifically or even came close to defamation xanthippa. I was very careful. I wouldn’t want to hurt anybody.
If I was wrong anywhere, let me know and I will delete it and apologize profusely. Because I am Canadian!
October 7, 2013 at 15:50
Thank you. I will let you know if that shall become necessary. And, of course, should it, we will both hope that we will have taken it down ‘fast enough’!
October 7, 2013 at 16:15
I can’t even figure out how to delete a post. Perhaps that is only a function you have as Admin on this blog.
If you see something you don’t like, nuke it. I won’t be offended.
October 7, 2013 at 16:29
You are correct – only admin can delete comments.
However, were I to just start deleting comments just because I did not like what was said in them, my reputation in the eyes of any free-thinking person would be significantly lowered and I would like to prevent that.
October 4, 2013 at 18:22
politicallyincorrectandnotadumbredneck:
You write, “The definition of defamation has not changed. The exaggerations of the implications of this lawsuit are hilarious.”
What’s hilarious is your double-talk.
The crucial implication of the verdict in this lawsuit is precisely that the definition of defamation has not changed.
This is so important that it cannot be sufficiently stressed, let alone exaggerated.
Because we desperately need it to change… along with many other things that make malicious lawfare possible in this country.
Which is why the cultural Marxist apparatchiks are out in full force, dissembling, distracting people with minutiae, and trying to convince people that there is no big picture, and if there is, it doesn’t matter, and if it does, it’s not a problem.
Your own posts follow the same strategy. You keep focusing on how the Fourniers should have behaved to mitigate their losses and save themselves from being mauled by the legal system.
Everything you’ve written rests on the tacit presupposition that there is nothing wrong with the law. In short, you are doing everything in you power to prevent people from realizing what really matters about all this:
It is the law which needs to change, not the Fourniers’ behaviour!
October 5, 2013 at 08:41
Nothing is wrong with the law.
Simple rule, never enter a legal battle with a lawyer. Unless you are very wealthy.
October 5, 2013 at 11:07
So, you are saying that people who are uneducated and poor don’t deserve equality before the law? That it’s OK for the powerful, educated or wealthy to manipulate the law so as to deny justice to those members of society who are less fortunate?
That’s not very nice!
October 5, 2013 at 16:21
No. I am saying I would pick a fist fight with Mike Tyson either.
October 5, 2013 at 17:03
So you are acknowledging that in our legal system, a poor non-lawyer person has as much of a chance of receiving justice as you or I would have in a fistfight against Mike Tyson…
Sounds like the system is broken and all of us should work hard and diligently to fix it so that all of us would be equal before the law!!!
And yet, you say the laws are fine as they are?
Where is your conscience?
October 5, 2013 at 19:47
A more fitting analogy might be suing for damages after picking a fight with Mike Tyson.
October 5, 2013 at 18:19
Politicallycorrectandnotadumbredneck:
I have described in detail exactly what is wrong with the law!
And you have posted another glib and vacuous non-reply.
Your posts in this thread fall into two categories: dismissive sniping and categorical pronouncements.
You haven’t presented a single cogent argument to support anything you have said.
In short, you are posting at a kindergarten level.
For you to criticize the level of discourse on Free Dominion or anywhere else is… the height of irony.
October 5, 2013 at 03:26
Delbian:
First you couldn’t tell the difference between a matter of fact and a matter of law.
Now you write, “The UK’s libel laws have nothing to do with ‘cultural Marxism’…, they long predate Gramsci and the Frankfurt School.”
That’s about as logical as saying “the killer couldn’t have struck the victim with a rock, because the rock existed long before the killer.”
The fallacy is pretty obvious when phrased in simple, concrete terms, isn’t it?
Cultural Marxists seek to destroy Western culture – what they call the White Hetero-Patriarchy – by applying pressure to its inevitable internal contradictions, and not letting up until something breaks.
The survival of a feudal serf-gagging law in our classical liberal legal system is one such contradiction. Thus they work to preserve it, exacerbate it as much as they can, and then exploit it for their own destructive ends.
You want to dismiss that idea by claiming that “cultural Marxism” is just “a meaningless buzzword from the conspiracy minded right.”
But it isn’t.
Let me refer you to an article entitled Cultural Marxism and Cultural Studies by Dr. Douglas Kellner, who holds the Philosophy of Education Chair at UCLA. In the abstract of this article, he writes
“Many 20th century Marxian theorists … employed the Marxian theory to analyze cultural forms … Traditions of cultural Marxism are thus important to the trajectory of cultural studies … in the present age.”
A brief glance at his home page will show that he is about as progressive and politically correct as they come. Indeed, he got his Ph.D. at Columbia in the 1950’s, which is where the Frankfurt School was centred at the time.
So, obviously, “cultural Marxism” is a term used by cultural Marxists to refer to themselves and what they do. Other roughly equivalent terms are “Cultural Studies,” used by the Birmingham School, and “Critical Theory,” used by the Frankfurt School. This latter further breaks down into such edifying fields as Critical Race Studies, Critical Gender Studies, Critical Queer Studies, and so on.
Okay. Cultural Marxism exists. So what, exactly, is it?
Well, in a nutshell, it is political correctness. Or, rather, it is the rationale behind inflicting political correctness on the West, and provides the required supporting rhetoric.
I give a detailed explanation in What is cultural Marxism? To begin with…
Cultural Marxism is not Marxism-Leninism (which we usually just call Communism).
Marxism-Leninism is a system of political economics, which results from applying the so-called Marxist dialectic, developed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, in a process called critical analysis, which it uses to deconstruct Western democracy and capitalism, and to rewrite history in terms of economic class struggle (and we all saw how that turned out).
In the 1920’s, Antonio Gramsci and György Lukács adapted the methods of the Marxist dialectic and critical analysis to the cultural sphere and applied it to the task of undermining Western science, philosophy, religion, art, education, and so on. The result is called the quiet revolution, the revolution from within, the revolution that cannot be resisted by force. This is cultural Marxism.
Now, that was quite bad enough, but then along came a group of sociologists and psychologists – chief among whom being Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, Erich Fromm, and Jürgen Habermas – and they combined the Marxist dialectic with Freudian psychology to produce an exceptionally corrosive concoction called Critical Theory, which they use to deconstruct Western culture and values, and to rewrite history in terms of sexual and racial power struggles (and we can all see how that is turning out).
Read the rest here: What is cultural Marxism?
October 5, 2013 at 03:39
Delbian:
Having described cultural Marxists as destructive, I should add that I think the vast majority of them are not deliberately destructive.
To be sure, there are some rather vile and abhorrent spiders who weave far-flung webs and sit at the centre, pulling strings. People like Willi Münzenberg, who, as chief propagandist for the Comintern in the 1920’s and 30’s, formed a plan to “organize the intellectuals and use them to make Western civilisation stink. Only then, after they have corrupted all its values and made life impossible, can we impose the dictatorship of the proletariat.”
But most people who call themselves cultural Marxists (or something equivalent) don’t think like that. In their own eyes, I’m sure, they are only trying to help. And many of them are highly intelligent.
Yet the more they try to help, the worse things get.
This is because they suffer from pathological altruism, meaning “altruism in which attempts to promote the welfare of others instead result in unanticipated harm.”
Pathological altruism often manifests as “the false belief that one’s own success, happiness, or well-being is a source of unhappiness for others.” This often results in wilfully blind self-righteousness and “impulsive and ineffective efforts to equalize or level the playing field.”
In short, a dead-ringer for the progressive mind-set.
Barbara A. Oakley has just published an excellent article about it in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, entitled Concepts and implications of altruism bias and pathological altruism.
October 5, 2013 at 10:18
Xanthippa, a separate matter. Go over there and read the thread entitled “Dear Jury”.
Now put yourself in a position as one of the Jurors in that case who reads that thread. How would you feel about what is posted in that thread?
October 5, 2013 at 11:09
I’ll go and take a peek – but, I suspect that when these jurors find the things that were kept from them in the trial, they will deeply regret their verdict.
In other words, it is my opinion that the jury was unaware of the implications of their verdict.
UPDATE: I went and read the whole thread – there is nothing there, as of now, that I think is in any way mean-spirited. It’s just a bunch of people discussing the implications of this ruling and, quite rightly, expressing the desire that the ruling the jury had made will have to apply to them and their families.
By the way – do hope the jury reads it. They should be aware of what they’ve done – if only to warn their families what the rules of life have now become…
October 5, 2013 at 13:51
I would be of a different opinion if I just spent 3 weeks on the jury.
October 5, 2013 at 12:30
“Now put yourself in a position as one of the Jurors in that case who reads that thread. How would you feel… ”
Not as bad as the Trial Respondents is my guess.
“Freelings just another word for nothing left to lose
Nothing, I mean nothing honey if it ain’t freel, no no”
– Maikeru covers Janice Joplin –
October 5, 2013 at 13:29
October 5, 2013 at 13:50
Go ahead and mock me. I don’t care.
You have apparently learned nothing this week.
October 5, 2013 at 16:13
politicallyincorrectandnotadumbredneck:
What we have learned is that Canada’s legal system is more badly broken than we thought.
October 5, 2013 at 16:06
politicallyincorrectandnotadumbredneck:
Any juror with a speck of intelligence and conscience would feel remorse at his own actions and resentment at having been used by the system.
October 5, 2013 at 19:54
Ref: <>
Could you please explain exactly how the jury is going to find this out? By what process?
October 5, 2013 at 23:10
fathersCan:
He asked how the jurors would feel if they read the “Dear Jury” thread over at Free Dominion.
That was my answer.
October 6, 2013 at 10:50
You are looking at it through your bias.
Clearly the jury is aware of the FD domain. I would not be surprised if they visited the website to see what was happening.
October 6, 2013 at 11:16
FathersCan, people know how to use the Google. They will find FD and they will find this discussion with just a little bit of searching.
Coder, I would not be surprised if some of the insults thrown their way make it into the Judges inbox by Monday morning. That Judge is still working on the injunction and the costs. So.. good luck with that FD’ers.
October 6, 2013 at 11:30
Is this a threat?
P.S. Having engaged with online conversations with him for years, I would be very, very surprised if CodeSlinger were a member of FD… You ought not make presumptions like that.
The comments are simply an honest reaction of any civic-minded citizen to an unreasonable restriction of our freedoms and liberties.
And, of course, they reflect a dose of healthy outrage at a system where, as you so accurately expressed it, people who are not lawyers or are not rich enough to afford a very expensive lawyer stand as much chance as winning a fistfight against Mike Tyson of receiving justice from our judicial system!
October 6, 2013 at 14:52
politicallyincorrectandnotadumbredneck:
You write “I would not be surprised if some of the insults thrown their way make it into the Judges inbox by Monday morning. That Judge is still working on the injunction and the costs. So.. good luck with that FD’ers.”
Aha.
Now your pugnacious posting style adds up.
You’re trolling for ill-considered replies.
How… Warmanesque.
Too bad, can’t help you.
Expressions of disappointment and disapproval, even outrage, over this verdict are not insults.
Exhortations to consider how this law and this verdict violate freedom of speech are not insults.
On the other hand, extrajudicial meddling of the type you’re contemplating is unethical in the extreme.
No judge worth his salt would allow it to prejudice his deliberations.
It would, however, do him good to reflect on how defamation law, as currently written and interpreted, brings the administration of justice into disrepute.
October 6, 2013 at 18:44
I don’t care about ill-considered replies. I know I would find it interesting and/or concerning if I were them. Maybe I am just too sensitive. Who really knows, I could be completely wrong.
FD appears to be taken down. Tried looking at it twice today and it is gone.
October 6, 2013 at 18:56
This is indeed a sad day!
October 6, 2013 at 18:50
Give it a break, politicallyincorrectandnotadumbredneck. You’ve given it your best, and eloquently so, but the fact that types like CodeSlinger and (no more than) several dozen other bloggers who agree with him/her can face down 35, 999, 950 of their fellow citizens and say “You don’t understand” says it all.
October 6, 2013 at 20:26
Guest:
His posts have been confined to not much more than
“Whatever,” “You’re wrong,” and “You’re a kook.”
And you call that eloquent.
Now that says it all!
And as for those “35,999,950 fellow citizens,” the vast majority do understand.
They understand all too well.
Which is why they are cowed into public silence.
I repeat:
Consensus, to be productive, requires that each individual contribute independently out of his experience and insight. When consensus comes under the dominance of conformity, the social process is polluted and the individual at the same time surrenders the powers on which his functioning as a feeling and thinking being depends.
— Solomon A. Asch
October 6, 2013 at 21:13
““Whatever,” “You’re wrong,” and “You’re a kook.””
I don’t believe I posted any of those words or phrases.
October 6, 2013 at 21:24
It is my opinion that these ‘sentiments’ were posted by ‘Delbian’ – but, you and ‘Delbian’ seem to be playing ‘tag’….
October 6, 2013 at 21:56
Politicallycorrectandnotadumbredneck:
I stand corrected. That was Delbian.
Your posts are somewhat above that level.
The rest of my comment stands.
October 7, 2013 at 06:57
Ok,
October 6, 2013 at 19:27
harebell:
You write “To claim there are some inalienable, a priori rights based on individual preferences and desires is fine in theory.”
Well, no. It’s not. It’s a contradiction in terms. Rights, being a priori, are derived from first principles and therefore cannot be based on individual preference.
You also write “A person’s rights are what a community agrees they are especially if the community has the power to enforce what it says.”
This, too, is a contradiction in terms. A person’s rights are derived from what kind of creature a human is, and therefore cannot depend on anyone else’s agreement.
Like most Canadians, you have been taught to confuse privileges with rights, and lulled into accepting the poisonous lie that the collective supersedes the individual – in other words, that might makes right. As soon as you accept that, you have enslaved yourself: you cease to be a free individual and become a ward of the state.
The whole idea that rights can somehow be based on consensus is fundamentally flawed.
Consensus, to be productive, requires that each individual contribute independently out of his experience and insight. When consensus comes under the dominance of conformity, the social process is polluted and the individual at the same time surrenders the powers on which his functioning as a feeling and thinking being depends.
— Solomon A. Asch
This concept, “powers on which [a person’s] functioning as a feeling and thinking being depends,” is the core of what we mean by a right. To clarify this, let’s go back to basics. Let’s start with some definitions:
privilege: a special advantage, benefit, or exemption, selectively granted to some but denied to others.
right: a freedom, entitlement, or immunity, so fundamental to human nature it cannot justly be taken away or given up.
See the difference? See how you are disempowered by confusing privileges with rights? See how the government benefits at your expense by using the schools it runs to confuse you in that particular way?
When we speak of “inalienable individual rights,” by the way, the words “inalienable” and “individual” are added only for emphasis and clarity. Strictly speaking, these qualities are already inherent in the definition of “rights.”
Okay. So, what are these inalienable individual rights? They are:
Life, liberty, property, privacy, self-defence, and self-expression.
Why these and only these?
Well, the rights to life and liberty are the essential primary rights and the rights to property, privacy, self-defence, and self-expression are necessary and sufficient to guarantee life and liberty. By necessary and sufficient, I mean that nothing more is needed, and anything less would not be enough.
These six rights form an irreducible core: you either have all of them, or you may as well have none of them.
The inalienable individual rights give form and substance to the idea that every individual is inherently entitled to live and to act in his own self-interest and is immune from being interfered with in so doing. Further, since man is a rational animal, mental life and liberty are as important as physical life and liberty. Neither has value without the other.
Now, these ideas are crystal clear and incontrovertible when people live alone in a state of nature. It is when they come together in groups that confusion often starts – but it need not, if we think carefully and ignore those who have a vested interest in confusing us.
After all, the whole reason individuals form communities is to increase the benefits they derive from exercising their rights in return for accepting some responsibilities to the community – be it a family, village, city, province or nation. This, in a nutshell, is the social contract.
The crucial concept of a contract is quid pro quo: you give something in return for receiving something. Meaning, unless the community increases the benefits you derive from exercising your rights, you owe the community nothing at all.
Thus we must never allow the collective to take precedence over the individual, otherwise we negate the whole reason for forming a collective in the first place! Unless we hold inviolate the principle that the rights of the collective are derived from – and subservient to – the rights of its constituent individuals, the entire social contract becomes null and void, and any attempt to enforce a it amounts to tyranny.
From this we can immediately see that the primary duty of the state must be to equally guarantee the equal rights of each and every individual. Whenever the government oversteps the boundaries defined by this primary duty, it breaches the social contract and thereby forfeits its legitimacy.
The whole foundation of the legal system follows just as immediately: a crime is committed whenever any person’s rights are violated and harm results. The severity of the crime is proportional to the harm which results. Thus, where there is no harm, there is no crime. Any law which is incompatible with these principles is unjust, and an unjust law is no law at all.
In other words, your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose, and vice versa.
The whole purpose of the law and the state is to guarantee that to both of us equally, and anything else it does is unnecessary or illegitimate.
Yes, it really is that simple.
And it all rests on the absolute primacy of inalienable individual rights.
The quotes I posted say all that much more clearly and eloquently than I ever could – and also give proper credit to the great men I learned it from. Read their words again, and you will see what I mean:
A right is not what someone gives you, it’s what no one can take away from you.
— U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark
No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another, and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him.
— Thomas Jefferson
Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’, because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.
— Thomas Jefferson
It is not the function of the government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error.
— U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson
Must a citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then? … It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.
— Henry David Thoreau
October 7, 2013 at 06:59
We are discussing rights in Canada. All your quotes are from Americans.
This I believe a part of the problem. Canada has has more limitations on rights.
October 7, 2013 at 07:50
Until the last few decades, and for most of our history, Canada has been much more pro-freedom than the US, which was more concerned with equality than freedom. This is a historical fact.
It is precisely because Canada was a much more free society than the US that, until recently, Canadians did not have to struggle to exercise their freedoms.
October 7, 2013 at 09:40
I disagree.
a. We have only had our Charter of Rights for a few decades.
b. Our rights are more restricted. Free speech is way more absolute down there.
Examples:
Talk radio, Americans can say whatever they like on the radio. They can call their President a foreigner. You could not get away with floating BS like that on Canadian radio. You could lose your radio license if somebody filed a compliant and they didn’t retract it and apologize.
Firearms, in Canada ownership is a privilege. In the USA it is a right.
The FD case would never fly in the US. Defamation, libel and slander is something that is taken more seriously up here.
When I was a kid, nothing happened on Sundays. In downtown Toronto, Eatons and the Bay were forced to put black curtains on the showroom windows. This was only in the 60’s. Up to the early 80’s, you had to fill out a little form in the Liquor Store in Ontario with your name just to buy a bottle of booze. Now that the Sunday laws are all shot down (thank you Charter of Rights) we actually have more rights now than we did in the past.
These are just four examples. Unfortunately, because we are bombarded with American media. Many Canadians do not understand the difference between our rights and the rights an American has.
October 7, 2013 at 13:24
re: <>
I think that should read “….and the rights an American THINK he or she has”.
October 7, 2013 at 09:57
Another example.
Porn. It was legal in the USA long before it was legal in Canada. Again, thank you Charter of Rights.
October 7, 2013 at 15:33
Politicallycorrectandnotadumbredneck:
The problem is that Canada’s Charter of Rights treats rights as though they were privileges.
I quote Americans to begin a dialog leading to a solution.
October 7, 2013 at 18:04
Do you remember the Yahoo messageboards where people could post comments on news stories in real time? They were wild and very popular. Yahoo discontinued them when a few people sued for defamation. They didn’t want the headache. That’s called libel chill. The US is not immune.
It’s foolish to compare American law to Canadian law anyway, when many of the laws differ by state and province. Canada has always allowed firearms ownership with restrictions added over time. The same can be said of the US.
October 7, 2013 at 13:59
I am going out to buy a unicorn so I can ride in the back of the shiny pony parade, we all got rights man, we all got rights, my unicorn too, it has the right to be the bestest unicorn EVER. Like totally. Now where can I sign up for the quadruple hydro bill, I want to save like the WORLD on my unicorn.
(OMG, he was in Ottawa too long)
October 7, 2013 at 14:58
As I am married to a Unicorn I find your remarks very offensive and have taken screenshots of all these posts and DNA samples. I intend to sue you all for mega billions unless you settle now for $19.95 each and agree to wear a gag over your mouth for the next 7 years, and hand out copies of the Marxist Manifesto to all passer-byers at Bloor and Young every Saturday till Unicorns get the vote in Shhland. I am beginning to like this new precedent setting trail. Think I will change my name to ShutupIOwnYou.
October 7, 2013 at 15:34
Is your wife related to the Houyhnhnms?
October 7, 2013 at 15:33
Put the bong down!
October 7, 2013 at 15:38
Are you accusing someone posting here of partaking of illegal drugs?
Or of having the intelligence of a person on drugs?
Because either comment could lower a right-thinking person’s opinion of them and thus open me up to yet another potential lawsuit – for your words! After all, Mr. Warman won his case with less defamatory statements than being accused of illegal drug use.
By the way, if you have proof of said claimed drug use, please, provide it now!
If you have said this simply to ‘blow off steam’ – that is no defense. I understand jogging is the court-recommended method to ‘blow off steam’…
October 7, 2013 at 15:41
No, certainly not. That would be wrong.
I figured he was quoting the Beatles or Hendrix, I was speaking of them.
October 7, 2013 at 15:43
So, now you are goading their estates to sue me?
October 7, 2013 at 15:43
I believe cdnailed may have called peterodonnell a Marxist or something.
They must be talking in code or something.
October 7, 2013 at 15:44
Do you have any idea how many books detail their drug use?
😉
October 7, 2013 at 15:48
Ah, but that would be in countries where ‘truth’ is still a valid defense!
In Canada, they only have to prove that saying that somebody used drugs would lower a right-thinking person’s opinion of them. Which it would – most of those people on the right are prohibitionists!
So, all it would take is somebody who wanted to make easy money and boom – you and I are doomed!
October 7, 2013 at 15:55
You are way over simplifying things.
October 7, 2013 at 15:59
No, I don’t think I am…
October 7, 2013 at 16:09
I guess the only way to solve this.
Call your lawyer, make an appointment and ask the question.
I know I won’t be paying a lawyer to find out the answer.
October 7, 2013 at 16:19
I did hear the brilliant Mr. Katz explain it in court to the jury – and that is how, obviously, the jury, understood his meaning.
Just look back to the court case – but, I guess if you weren’t there and did not see it for yourself, you are not exactly up to date with how this law is now being interpreted.
October 7, 2013 at 18:15
You may have just cost me my professional career. Now everyone here thinks I am a druggie. I am calling my shyster. Hope you are loaded.
October 7, 2013 at 18:20
I never said Peter was a Marxist, more defamation of my once upstanding character. And now the MSM has picked the false drug allegations, I am ruined…and you too buddy boy dumbredneck!
October 7, 2013 at 20:11
I didn’t call you a “druggie”.
Did you just out yourself? I am confused by your post(s). Please to be clarifying. Or perhaps not. I am losing interest.
October 7, 2013 at 20:17
I suspect part of the confusion is caused by this dranged software that does not allow more than a couple of nested replies…..
My apologies, but it is beyond my skills to fix that.
October 7, 2013 at 16:36
Xanthippa:
I have to agree with Politicallycorrectandnotadumbredneck for once.
Canadians are less free than Americans, and always have been – precisely because we are more equal. Equally subjugated.
The story is told that, when Pierre Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act in October 1970, Richard Nixon said to him, “We would never get away with that down here.” Trudeau replied, “That’s because you have citizens. We have subjects.”
America’s recent love affair with equality is corrosive to freedom, which they should have foreseen by looking at Canada.
Where freedom is real, equality is the passion of the masses. Where equality is real, freedom is the passion of a small minority.
— Eric Hoffer
And that nicely sums up the historical difference between America and Canada.
That’s why it’s so alarming to see the progressive agenda pushing America towards the Canadian model, even as it pushes Canada towards the Chinese model.
Not de jure, but de facto. Three different formal structures, same practical outcome:
The totalitarian collectivist corporocratic state.
totalitarian: cradle to grave intrusion of the state into people’s private lives.
collectivist: oppression of the individual to serve the collective.
corporocratic:big government and big business collude to privatize profits and socialize losses.
The only antidote is the primacy of inalienable individual rights.
Which is why progressives hate it so much.
October 7, 2013 at 16:49
It chagrins me to no end that I can’t remember the name of the book or the author, but he is another professor of history (other than John Robson, whom I have mentioned earlier) but he was at the last pre-summer event of the Free Thinking Film Society with his latest book – if anyone reading this thread remembers, please let me know…he is also often on CFRA’s ‘Lunvh Bunch’.
Anyhow, I got another book of his for my father-in-law and read it an in it, he argues quite persuasively that this is a fallacy and that historically, Canadians had been more free than Americans and that this had only changed post WWII… As I am not particularly well informed on history in general, this book (whose name I can’t recall – so much for a good reference) informed the whole of my opinion on this subject.
I am not arguing against you (obviously, I have no valid reference) – just explaining where I got the notion…
October 7, 2013 at 21:03
Xanthippa:
Well, Canada is a very large country and, up until that time, the Canadian government was so small that it simply could not effectively project force to most of its own territory. Thus Canadians were much more free in practice than they were by law.
Nowadays, the exact opposite is true, but it’s hard to tell. Unless you read the law very carefully, Canadians seem much more free than they really are in practice.
And therein lies the problem.
October 7, 2013 at 20:57
politicallyincorrectandnotadumbredneck:
You write, “Firearms, in Canada ownership is a privilege. In the USA it is a right.”
No.
Use of arms is a right everywhere in the world.
Some governments admit it, others don’t.
Not admitting it violates the individual rights.
Rights inhere in the individual, simply by virtue of existing.
Rights cannot be granted by government or any other authority, because anything granted by authority is by definition a privilege.
Let’s take a closer look at this question of firearms and the broader question of self-defence.
It’s a prime example of everything that is wrong with the concept of rights in Canadian jurisprudence.
To begin with, only certain rather ineffectual firearms are legal to own in Canada. And you cannot own a firearm without forfeiting your right to privacy, because a Firearms Officer needs no warrant to enter your home and inspect how you store your firearm. And the restrictions on the storage of firearms make them utterly useless for self-defence. And even though carrying a concealed firearm is theoretically legal in Canada, the Chief Firearms Officers of all the Provinces have simply colluded amongst themselves, never to issue a carry permit to anyone – except off-duty police and politicians.
This is a perfect illustration of the fundamental duplicity of Canadian law. Even if you are granted the privilege, you are effectively prohibited from exercising it for all serious intents and purposes.
Now, firearms are a particular kind of arms.
The right to own, carry, and use arms follows directly from the right to act in defence of the person and property, not only of oneself, but of others.
But the Canadian Charter of Rights does not recognize this right – which is yet another reason why it is a fraud.
The closest it comes is section 7, which states:
Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be
deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.
Of course, just what these “principles of fundamental justice” might be is left undefined. These are weasel words in that they undermine the cited rights in unpredictable ways, depending on future interpretation under unknown circumstances.
But the problems with this clause are more immediate than that, because “security of the person” means nothing whatsoever unless someone has the right and bears the responsibility to defend that security.
Who is that someone?
Certainly not the government or the police. Indeed, section 18 of the RCMP Act states that the duties of an RCMP officer are to keep the peace, to prevent crime, to enforce the law, and to apprehend criminals and offenders.
Put aside, for now, the serious concern that the whole idea of crime prevention is an open invitation to progressive totalitarianism. And put aside, for now, the disquieting implication that non-criminals can be treated like criminals simply by calling them offenders.
We are left with the fact that the RCMP is not responsible for defending the security of any person. And neither are the Canadian Forces; indeed, the National Defence Act seems to make no clear statement at all of the purpose of the Canadian Forces.
Well, then, people must be responsible for defending themselves and each other. And if they bear that responsibility, they must have that right. Otherwise the right to security of the person, under Canadian law, is completely empty and meaningless.
Well, that question is not addressed by the Charter – which is another one of its fatal flaws. Instead, it is left to the Criminal Code. Sections 34 to 37 deal with Defence of Person and sections 38 to 42 deal with Defence of Property.
The former uses close to 400 words of legal language to place ridiculously strict limits on a person’s right act in self-defence, and the latter devotes almost 600 words to place even more ridiculously strict limits on a person’s right to act in defence of property. And nowhere does the Criminal Code recognize a person’s right to act in the defence of others, unless those others are under his protection – another phrase which is left undefined.
So a person has to think through the detailed ramifications of 1000 words of complex legal jargon, complete with the often-bizarre nuances rooted in legal precedent and case law, before knowing whether and how he may act in defence of his own person or property, not to mention someone else’s!
To make matters worse, everything is qualified by ill-defined conditions like “minimum necessary force” and “reasonable expectation,” which leaves everything open to interpretation and susceptible to distortion by a clever lawyer. What seems necessary and reasonable to one person at one time may seem excessive and unreasonable to another person at another time. In particular, almost any use of force seems excessive and unreasonable to the fanatical progressives who infest the Canadian legal system.
All things considered, the net effect of the law is this: never defend your property; never defend anyone else; and never, never defend anyone else’s property. If you do, you will almost certainly go to jail. And when it comes to defending yourself, anything that is likely to work is almost certainly illegal, and anything legal is highly unlikely to work.
What, then, does the right to security of the person mean in Canadian law?
Security of the person means nothing whatsoever.
The Canadian Charter of Rights is a complete fraud.
October 8, 2013 at 09:16
Dude, write shorter posts. It is way more effective because people will actually read everything you post.
You do not have a right to own or use a firearm in Canada. It is a privilege that is granted by the government and can be taken away by the government. It is not even worth arguing about because everybody knows what I say is true. You can write all the philosophy and theory you want. Doesn’t mean I am wrong.
October 8, 2013 at 15:47
A right that is granted by the government is the definition of privilege. I know it’s semantics but it’s important because in a society where all are considered to be treated equally, privilege is problematic. I think you’re trying to say it’s not inalienable.
October 8, 2013 at 18:47
Willful ignorance is still ignorance.
October 8, 2013 at 13:55
politicallyincorrectandnotadumbredneck:
So you think you were born without rights?
You think people had no rights before government was invented?
What exactly do think a right is, then?
October 9, 2013 at 13:24
The trial was really all in code, and the code has been cracked:
Guilty of being conservative and not liberal. In Ottawa, aye there’s the rub.
Notice how the media party reporters swarm around CSEC officials to find out more about the alleged spying on Brazil, but nobody in that group cares to find out anything about the motivations of various Canadian public servants and law enforcement officers to infiltrate Canadian political discussion forums. Apparently as long as they don’t infiltrate leftist blogs and forums, no harm no foul.
After all, freedom of speech is an “American” concept according to the CHRC.
The verdict must be appealed, everyone who took time to observe this farce knows that the emperor has no clothes.
October 9, 2013 at 21:35
My apologies for taking so long to moderate – life sometimes gets in the way of internet…
I, for one, would like to extend my deepest thanks to you for fighting this battle and will support you to the best of my abilities in this war for our freedoms!
Today, as part of his high school civics project, my son had a meeting with his school’s principal and, as a result, their school paper will add a ‘Free Speech Page’ where students will be invited to share perspectives on why freedom of speech is important. Immigrant students from oppressive regimes will be invited to share their stories of just what exactly life without freedom of speech was like and why we must protect it.
A small step, but we have to start somewhere!
October 10, 2013 at 15:41
… Crickets chirping…
Funny how quiet it gets when you ask progressives to justify their views.
October 10, 2013 at 19:14
are you kidding? “progressives can’t justify anything besides their unshakeable believe that they are right and conservatives are always wrong. its been like that since the 60’s. If not before.
October 16, 2013 at 16:38
VN
October 17, 2013 at 23:13
FC
October 24, 2013 at 07:10
harebell:
You write “a person’s rights are what a community agrees they are…”
But this leaves me with no idea what you think a right actually is.
Suppose a community agrees that “a person’s rights are little fuzzy green balls.”
You would presumably say this is nonsense, and of course it is, but there is no way to tell that from your definition. Therefore your definition is not really a definition at all – it leaves too much unsaid.
Even so, it’s clear that you mean something very different by the word “right” than Xanthippa and I do.
No communication is possible between people who use the same word to mean different things.
So please give us your explicit definition of exactly what you think a right is, and how it differs from a privilege.