Is Guy Earle the ‘next George Carlin’?

April 5, 2010 — xanthippa

Or, perhaps, Lenny Bruce….

Actually, the ‘Lenny Bruce’ comparison works well – in some ways…

October 4th, 1961: Lenny Bruce performed a stand-up comedy routine (during which he tended to ‘riff-on-the-fly’) at a night club in San Francisco. He was promptly arrested and charged with violating Section 311.6 of the Penal Code of California – the clause which claims that banning ‘obscene speech’ is a ‘reasonable limit’ on ‘free speech’.

May 22, 2007: Guy Earle performed a stand-up comedy routine (which he adjusted to talk back to some hecklers in the audience) at Zesty’s in Vancouver.  He was promptly charged with violating Section 13 of the Human Rights Code of Canada – the clause which claims that banning ‘hurt-speech’ is a ‘reasonable limit’ on ‘free speech’.

Yet, like George Carlin, I suspect Guy did not expect such a vicious censorship attack form ‘the left’…

And – yes, we are banning ‘hurt speech’!

By now, the very people in charge of protecting human rights fail to recognize that the ‘right to be offended’ is essential in any healthy society!  Instead, they seem to be under the unjustifiable impression that there is some ‘right NOT to be offended’….silly bunnies…

Punishing people for saying things that offend is not just silly, it is contrary to the fabric of our society!


It was not justifiable when Lenny Bruce and George Carlin and Richard Pryor were persecuted for words that offended some within their audience and it is not justifiable when Guy Earle is persecuted for using words that offend some within their audience…

Hey!  Doesn’t this sound a little similar?

But, there ARE differences!

When Lenny Bruce and George Carlin were charged for saying stuff people found offensive (and, yes, regarded ass ‘dangerous’ to ‘morality’ the ‘fabric of society’), they faced an actual real court:  one where their rights as citizens who are innocent  until found guilty were respected.  Guy Earle – well, he is not that lucky.

Guy Earle is facing a ‘Human Rights Tribunal’….one which can try people not for their actions, but for how others might, perhaps, react to their words.

One where the investigators actively search out ‘thought crimes’, demanding ‘intentions’ are as actionable as ‘actions’.

One where the defendant, if found innocent, has no means of recouping the cost of his/her defense…which can run into tens, even hundreds of thousands of dollars.

One where the ‘process’ of being investigated and prosecuted is the punishment itself!

Even though the fateful night when Guy Earle talked back to his hecklers in Vancouver may have been almost 3 years ago, the ‘trial’ (it’s more of a semi-star-chamber thing than a real trial) is only taking place now.  After all, it takes a while to financially exhaust the HRC’s victim properly prepare the case!

Well, last week, to be exact….as Mark Steyn comments:

It ended a day early, due to Mr Earle’s inability to pay for a flight to Vancouver to defend himself in person and his lawyer’s decision to withdraw from the proceedings after pseudo-judge Heather MacNaughton, Chief Commissar of the British Columbia “Human Rights” Tribunal”, opted to ignore the BC Supreme Court’s ruling on potential jurisdictional overreach and carry on with the trial. It remains to be seen whether the defence’s actions were the right thing to do.

‘The ‘right’ thing to do”…

The right thing for WHAT???

Let us consider the implications of withdrawing one’s defense from the HR Tribunal:  unless I am mistaken (and I am certainly no legal expert), this means he is forfeiting his right to appeal any ruling they may pass against him.  And, once passed and registered with a real court, an HRT ruling is as legally binding as if it had been issued  by a court.

Among past rulings of various HR Commissions, lifetime speech bans have been know to be included….hardly something conducive to making a living as a cutting-edge comic!

Yet, it was not until after people like Lenny Bruce, George Carlan and Richard Pryor got their asses (the term seems appropriate, given the topic) tossed into jail that ‘people’ woke up – and began to fight against being oppressed by their own governments.

Last week, I had lamented what had happened when a bunch of thugs were permitted to use threats of violence to cancel the planned speech by Ann Coulter at the University of Ottawa.  While the condemnation of the thughs (both the students who threatened violence and the provost who had whipped them up into a frenzy) and of Alan Rock, the president of U of O has been very well covered, the criticism of the role the Ottawa Police played (or, rather, were either unable or unwilling to play) was not.

George Jonas put it rather well:

Resisting any temptation to enforce the law, Ottawa’s finest exemplified Canada’s definition of moral leadership by observing neutrality between lawful and lawless.Coulter later wrote the police “called off” her speech because they couldn’t guarantee her security. Interesting, if true. Will it start a trend? Will police call off property rights at the scene of robberies-in-progress? “Look, lady, it’s just a cash register. If they want it so badly, how about letting them have it?”

 

My own attempt to state this, phrased as a letter (and sent, among others, to the Chair of the Ottawa Police Services Board – the civilian body in charge of supervising the Ottawa Police) has been much, much clumsier.  The Chair – Mr. El-Chantiry (whom I had had great respect for) has sent me back a very brief reply, telling me in no uncertain terms that it is not the job of the Police to police.

His full response – along with my reply letter to him (sent just as the Easter long weekend began, so he really has had little or no chance to reply and defend his position) were the subject of my last post, found here.

The reason I mention this?

Aside from the obvious one, denial of freedom of speech,there is another connection.  In the comments to that post, CodeSlinger and I got into a bit of an extensive discussion about what happened, how, why – and what the best remedy is.  CodeSlinger suggests that it was wrong for Ann Coulter to permit her speech to have been canceled:  some things are worth fighting for, even if one must put himself or herself into potential danger of injury or arrest.

What does Mr. Earle plan to do – should the verdict of the BC HRT be unreasonable?  Oppressive?  Will he continue to behave in accordance with his innate rights, instead of submitting to the unreasonable intrusion of quasi-legal busibodies?

If he does, he will be arrested and his ass will be tossed into jail…

Is Mr. Earle showing he has the courage to be the next ‘George Carlin’?

Posted in freedoms, opression, politics, society. Tags: , , , , , , . 3 Comments »

Chair of Ottawa Police Services Board: “It’s not our job to ‘police’!”

April 1, 2010 — xanthippa

Last week, I sent this email to the Mayor of Ottawa, my Councilor and the Head of the Ottawa Police Services Board, expressing my dissatisfaction with the failure of Ottawa Police to police the demonstration protesting Ann Coulter’s appearance.  This failure to police was so severe that, at the ‘strong suggestion’ of the Ottawa Police, the event was canceled.

My main point of was that it is inappropriate for the police in general, and Ottawa Police in particular, to dictate (through either direct action or through inaction) who does or does not have the freedom of speech!

Mr. El-Chantiry – the Chair of Ottawa Police Services Board – was the only one to reply.  Here is his response – in full:

Hi Ms. Belaire,

This event was not cancelled by the Ottawa Police. This was a University of Ottawa event. Please contact them for clarification.

Regards,

Eli El-Chantiry

Chair, Ottawa Police Services Board

Councillor, West Carleton-March

http://www.Ward5Eli.com

Here is my reply to Mr. El-Chantiry:

Dear Mr. El-Chantiry,

thank you for your prompt – if brief – reply to my letter of concern. I will be posting it on my blog.

It has now been a full week and neither Mr. O’Brien, the Mayor, nor my Councilor, Mr. Hunter, have replied. So, I do appreciate that you, sir, do care!

Still, your letter did not address my concern…

If my poor wording had misled you into thinking I was complaining about insufficient security at the University of Ottawa event where Ann Coulter had been invited to speak, I apologize and clarify: the University of Ottawa did indeed provide sufficient security to ensure the people attending the event (all of whom had to pre-register) did not breech any laws or bylaws. No problems or complaints there.

It was regarding the failure to provide sufficient ‘supervision’ and/or security at two additional events – both protest demonstrations (one opposing, one supporting Ann Coulter’s right to speak) – that my complaint is about.  Neither of these two outdoor demonstrations were organized by Ann Coulter, her sponsors or the University of Ottawa.

This would be comparable to, say, you hiring an entertainer to come to your home for your child’s birthday party….and, for some reason, this entertainer had earned the wrath of some people who gathered outside your home to protest this entertainer’s presence. Would it be your responsibility to provide the ‘supervision’ and ‘security’ at the protest gathering outside your home, against your will?

Your response would suggest that yes, it would be the homeowner (or the event’s organizer) – not the protest’s organizer – who is responsible…

With whom does the responsibility really lie?

From the official City of Ottawa website (the emphasis is mine):

Definition: For our purposes, a demonstration is a spontaneous or planned collection of people using the road allowance as a place to express an opinion. This type of event can be stationary (confined to a specific location) or one which moves from one point to another (commonly referred to as a “march”). Both types of demonstrations are subject to the criteria outlined in this section.

This seems clear enough: both of the protest demonstrations were indeed ‘demonstrations’, as defined by the City of Ottawa. As such, they were subject to very specific rules and regulations.

The City of Ottawa imposes very significant limitations (I might even argue these rules and restrictions are ‘unreasonable’ and ‘counter to common-sense’ – but, as long as they are the law of this land, we must all abide by them… ) on both organized and spontaneous demonstrations. Through imposing these limitations, the City of Ottawa unequivocally claims the sole jurisdiction – and thus responsibility for – over all outdoor demonstrations – for the Ottawa Police alone!

Point #9 of the bylaws governing ‘demonstrations’ states:

    Police supervision is required for a demonstration. It is the responsibility of the demonstration organizer to contact the Ottawa Police to arrange for supervision. The demonstration organizer may be responsible for any costs associated with the provision of this service.

Let’s take it one sentence at a time:

Police supervision is required for a demonstration.

This one single sentence states that it is the police – the Ottawa Police – who has the sole responsibility for the ‘supervision’ of any and every ‘demonstration’ within the City of Ottawa.

What is more, this one sentence also quite unequivocally denies the University of Ottawa the right – yes, the very right – to ‘supervise’ any ‘demonstrations’ which take place outside the walls of its buildings!

This one sentence, Mr. El-Chantiry, also puts the failure to provide adequate security at these ‘demonstrations’ squarely onto the shoulders of Ottawa Police – the civilian oversight board of which you, sir, are the chair!

If this is insufficient to convince you, let us consider the next sentence of point #9 of the City of Ottawa bylaw:

It is the responsibility of the demonstration organizer to contact the Ottawa Police to arrange for supervision.

If nothing else, this clearly states it is the organizers of the demonstration and the police – not the organizers of the event which sparked it – who are responsible for the ‘security’ at the demonstration!  And, it places the responsibility solely onto the Ottawa Police.

On the night of the ‘Ann Coulter’ fiasco at Ottawa University, the Ottawa Police were either unable or unwilling to fulfill their part of our social contract.  Therefore, it is essential that the Ottawa Police Services Board investigates this failure in governance and ensures that it does not occur again.

What is even worse, the context in which this happened – forcing the cancellation of a speech by a speaker whose views are known to be unpopular with many labour unions, including the one Ottawa Police officers belong to – opens the Ottawa Police to charges of ‘selective policing’ to further the political interests of their labour union.  I very much hope this is not so!  Still, this issue must also be thoroughly investigated, if only to remove the cloud of suspicion which is currently marring the reputation of the Ottawa Police even more that the simple failure to act did.

Mr. El-Chantiry,  please, find out what happened, and let me know.  Fix the problems – and restore the good reputation of the Ottawa Police!

Sincerely yours,

Alexandra Belaire

Posted in about, freedoms, opression, society. Tags: , , , , , , . 7 Comments »

“I trust in free speech to expose your sorry ass!”

March 26, 2010 — xanthippa

Thunderf00t, like ZOMGitsCriss, is a free speech advocate on the internet (specifically, YouTube).  He is a scientist with a mostly left-wing political bend….but, what he says about the freedom of speech is something I definitely agree with.

It is only when people from all bits of the political spectrum will agree to unite in the fight to preserve our fundamental rights and freedoms that we can ever hope to succeed…  So, let’s start building some bridges:  I am sure that you can agree with what the spirit of what Thunderf00t says in “Is Islam a Hate-Crime?’.

Posted in atheism, freedoms, opression, religion. Tags: , , , , . 1 Comment »

ZOMGitsCriss on Ezra Levant and Macleans and Fitna

March 26, 2010 — xanthippa

ZOMGitsCriss is somewhat of a presence among the ‘pro-free-speech’ crowd on YouTube…

She is a part of what I think is a small but growing international group of young people (most of whom are quite ‘left-wing’ – though, I have no idea where Criss stands politically) who are fighting the anti-censorship, pro-free-speech attitudes and policies which are beginning to creep onto the Internet and which threaten the impartiality of this medium to carry all kinds of information and all kinds of messages without outright censorship or some of them nebulous, non-transparent machinations through search-engine algorithm-manipulation which seem to make some information on the internet easy to find while making other ‘stuff’ so hard to find, it is, for all practical purposes, inaccessible!

Anyhow….

When I saw that the latest video of this Romanian free-speech activist mentions Ezra Levant, Mcleans (the Mark Steyn thingy) and Fitna – well, I though I ought to share it with you.

So, without further ado, here is “Islam is so wonderful and sciency and peaceful”:

Posted in atheism, freedoms, opression, religion, science. Tags: , , , . Leave a Comment »

When the POLICE choose who gets to speak – and who does not…

March 24, 2010 — xanthippa

Lat night, Ann Coulter’s speech event thingy at the University of  Ottawa was canceled  at the last moment….  Here is the letter I sent my City representatives, asking for some answers…and actions:

Dear sirs!

I am writing to you, Mr. O’Brien, as my Mayor.

I am writing to you, Mr. Hunter, as my elected representative at the City of Ottawa.

And, I am writing to you, Mr. El-Chantiry, as the Chair of the Ottawa Police Services Board.

If you have not had the opportunity to hear about this already, last night, the City of Ottawa has abdicated its duties, responsibilities and obligations to provide ‘core services’ in a very public manner, which is likely to draw a very large amount of international criticism to our beautiful city. And – rightly so!

Let me cut through the niceties and get to the core of the issue:

Last night, 23rd of March, 2010, an American media pundit – Ann Coulter – was scheduled to speak at the University of Ottawa.

First, let me stress that I am not a fan of Ann Coulter: rather, I am rather vocal in my criticism of her.

Still, that does not excuse what happened….

Sponsored by International Free Press, Ms. Coulter had been booked to speak at the University of Ottawa last night. Even prior to her entry into Canada, M F. Houle – a provost at the University of Ottawa – had sent Ms. Coulter, a letter warning her ahead of time to self-censor her expression, else she will face prosecution. While this letter has received international condemnation (and, Ms. Coulter is apparently considering legal action of her own against M Houle due to this letter), this condemnation of Ms. Coulter for a presumed pre-crime is nowhere as explosive as what had happened last night.

According to Macleans, the ‘police’ had – at the last moment – refused to provide an adequate security response to this event and, as Ms. Coulter is reported to have said, ‘pulled the plug’ on the event! Yes – the University of Ottawa was the primary organizer, and had the primary responsibility. Still, Macleans is reporting that it was the Ottawa Police – not campus security – who canceled the event, claiming they could not provide sufficient security.

Since when is it the role of the police to decide who is – and who is not – permitted to speak at a previously booked, properly vetted event? And – let’s be clear on this: had the Ottawa Police been capable of supplying sufficient security, the event organizers would not have felt ‘threatened’…

The job of the police is to provide security: the event was well publicized in advance and any failure to staff it sufficiently enough, to not be able to provide adequate security – especially following the publicity from Ms. Coulter’s Monday night’s appearance at UWO, is an admission on the part of the Ottawa Police Services that either they failed to plan – or they planned to fail!

Either way, the result is unacceptable (to say the least)! When the police are the ones permitted to decide (through failure to adequately prepare ahead of time, fear of public reaction, or for any other reason) who may or may not be permitted to exercise our Constitutional freedoms, to dictate the tone of public debate – well, the implications are unspeakable!

I am an immigrant, who came to Canada seeking a better life of freedom and opportunity. Opportunity for myself, and, now – my children. I was forced to flee an oppressive police state, where peoples’ rights and freedoms could only be exercised when and where ‘permitted’ by an oppressive, totalitarian regime. And, I came to Canada because this WAS a great place!

Now – seeing police shut down events at the last minute because they chose not to provide adequate protection for a legal event where they presumed ‘unpopular speech’ would occur – well, it brings back nightmares! Very bad nightmares!

Nightmares of a place where only those whose words were approved ahead of time were permitted to speak.

Nightmares of a place where the police could choose what people had rights – and what people did not.

Nightmares of a place where only one point of view was permitted to be uttered in public: one which the police approved of – whether their reasons for approval were ideology or convenience!

Now – Ottawa has become such a place… Shame on all of us for permitting things to come to this!

As I said earlier, I am no fan of Ms. Coulter. Frankly, I find her to be an offensive git. And, I am a member of one of those ‘unpopular minorities’ this silly person really does not like – a lot – and is quite vocal about it…

But, that really is not the point.

A person’s a person, no matter how silly….and if THAT person’s civil rights can be stripped away at the whim of the police, so can mine – and yours!

This is a serious blight on the reputation of our city – as well as a serious threat to all our civil liberties. I would like to know what each one of you, gentlemen, will personally do to both find out where the failure occurred (and ensure the individuals responsible do not remain in the City’s employ) and what you yourself will do to ensure no such abrogation of civil rights and liberties can ever again occur in our fair City of Ottawa – ‘University campuses’ or otherwise!

Sincerely yours,

Xanthippa

H/T : BlazingCatFur

Posted in freedoms. Tags: , . 8 Comments »

A ‘Houle’ in the moral fabric of Ottawa University

March 22, 2010 — xanthippa

Goodness knows, I am not a fan of Ann Coulter.  My dad thinks she’s cute – I’m unconvinced.  Rather, I find her offensive, ill informed, un-objective and, well, not very bright.

Still, a person’a a person, no matter how brash!

This week, Ann Coulter is going to be embarrassing conservatives in Canada by speaking at 3 Universities.  You’d think that after the ‘Bash-a-Jew’ week most Canadian Universities held in March, they’d let up a bit on the anti-Jewish rhetoric on campus…

But no, no such luck!

Ms. ‘Jews-are-unperfected-Christians’ Coulter has been invited to demonstrate her ‘selective intelligence’ at 3 Canadian Universities this week.

And why not?

Why should ALL the anti-Semitism at our Universities come exclusively from the left of the political spectrum?  A little right-wing anti-Semitism brings ‘diversity’ to those institutions we entrust with shaping our young, bright minds!

Still, I do think that it is great that she gets to give her speech, do her bit.  I may not like her views – and diss her mercilessly for her open contempt for anyone not Christian, but, she has just as much right to speak her mind (if you can stretch the meaning of the word ‘mind’) as you or I or anyone else.  Freedom of speech must be given the greatest possible precedence because, just like with an infected cut: when you hide odious ideas out of sight, they don’t just ‘go away’ – they fester.

Therefore, anything short of immediately and directly inciting violence (notice I did not add ‘hate’ there) must be permitted. If – and only if – the speaker had already said/written things which were ‘slanderous/defamatory’ or in breech of a law in another way (revealing state or trade secrets, etc.), legal action (criminal and/or civil) can and should be taken against him/her.  Not before!

What is interesting, though, is the reaction from the Universities themselves!

While all care was taken to ‘protect’ the left-wing ‘JewsZionists-are-baby-killers’ anti-semites who were left-wing and/or Muslim from any criticism of their rhetoric and from putting limits on their freedom of speech, making sure nobody was permitted to say anything which might hurt their feelings as they call for the murder of citizens of Israel, the right-wing Christian anti-Semite has been threatened with legal action – should she not self-censor her words sufficiently to some unspecified level – before she even got here!

A Houle in the moral fabric of Ottawa University – François Houle, Vice-recteur aux études / Vice-President Academic and Provost, Université d’Ottawa / University of Ottawa, 550, rue Cumberland Street, Ottawa (ON) K1N 6N5, téléphone / telephone : 613 562-5737, télécopieur / fax : 613 562-5103, e-mail: francois.houle@uottawa.ca – that Houle, to be specific, has sent Ms. ‘Jews-have-to-obey-religious-laws-but-Christians-don’t-because-Jesus-will-Fed-Ex-their-souls-right-to-heaven’ Coulter, bullying her with the threat of lawfare if he does not approve of her message.

I’m not sure if you have picked up on my subtle hints:  I think that Ms. Coulter is a personification of  much of what is wrong with the ‘right wing’.  Voices like hers drown out sane voices, like, say Thomas Sowell, and cause many, many people to reject any and all messages coming from the right’.  But…

Freedom of speech is freedom of speech!

Posted in debate, freedoms, opression, religion. Tags: , , , , . 7 Comments »

TechnoViking: a study in positive alpha-male body language

March 21, 2010 — xanthippa

This classic (10-year-old) video has become a meme of its own.

For Aspies, as well as everyone else, this is an excellent study in alpha-male body language and its use to skillfully dispel a potentially violent conflict.  A worthy subject of observation!

(That is an objective statement and the fact that the TechnoViking is uber-hot is most likely a simple side effect of this subject’s effective projection of super-concentrated male energy (constructively, not destructively channeled) and has not been influential in the selection of this specific video for observation and study!)

I call special attention to the classic, metllic Mjolnir-shaped amulet around the TechnoViking’s neck (which identifies him as a worshiper of Thor – NOT Odin) and the theological significance of both his socks and the colouring of his shorts:  all of which have led to the subject’s identification with the Viking theological heritage.

Thor – whose hammer (and symbol) Mjolnir is – used to be considered the ‘father’ of all the Viking gods, the head of the Norse Pantheon.  Mjolnir itself played an extremely important role in spring and fertility rites!  (Happy spring equinox!)

It was only following the influence of the Mediterranean theologies – and the rise of an affluent upper class among the Vikings – that Odin began to rise to the prominence we are accustomed to see him in.  It was Thor who had been firmly in charge during the ‘classical’ era of Norse religion!

The rise in Odin’s (and that of the ‘upper class’) influence  and status only began well into the ‘common era’ and could only succeed through diminishing the image of Thor:  thus, in later times, Thor is increasingly marginalized and, since he could not easily be maligned, ridiculed ….  Just as the ‘upper classes’ considered themselves to be much more ‘clever’ (though not ‘wise’ – in my never-humble-opinion), Odin began to thirst for more ‘knowledge’ (not ‘wisdom’) and Thor became depicted as increasingly dull and dull-witted…

What an interesting commentary on the nature of humanity:  even centuries ago, the ‘upper-middle-class progressives’ saw the unpretentious ‘conservatives’ as ‘dull and dumb’!  How little some things change… But, I digress…

By the time of Christian conquest of the Norse, Odin had risen to such prominence that he had not only de-throned Thor as the head of the pantheon, Odin had been elevated to the status of Thor’s father – reversing their original roles!

In order to join Odin’s cult, a young man had to go through a ritual of mystical ‘death and re-birth’, which was – according to the descriptions from that era, very similar to the Biblical account of the mystical initiation of Jesus’s brother-in-law… and, later, Jesus himself: a ritual ‘hanging’ (either using a rope or crucificction) to almost the point of death and ritual wounding with a sharp spear in very specific spots – identical to the places Jesus was to have been wounded by Roman soldiers while crucified – followed by 3 days of seclusion and healing….and the the joyful welcoming of the ‘re-born’ person!

But – that is NOT the focus of this video!

Nor is it the reason I embedded it.

Rather, I would like to go further back in the Norse mythology, to the time when Thor – with his ‘oak-power’ – was the alpha male god.   This is exactly the mythology of  ‘the oak’ which, for centuries, motivated European women to wish to give birth to male children ‘beneath’ or ‘in the shadow of’ an oak tree!

It is also why there are so many ‘oak-groves’ in Europe which are considered ‘sacred’ and why two days of our week are named in honour of Thor’s ‘mainland incarnations’, Tiwan and Woodin!

With the coming of the spring equinox, it is difficult to look around to see ‘all of nature waking up’ without being reminded of all the ancient spring fertility rituals (from Luprenalia to Easter) without remembering (even in some long-hidden recesses of our sub-conscious) the significance of the birch, the oak, and – with the help of TechnoViking –  Mjolnir!

So, I repeat:  this video is not just ‘eye-candy’ – it is a serious study in successful projection of ‘Mjolnir/oak/Thor-channeled’ alpha male energy and body language!

Now that you have all this in your mind – go watch the video again!

Observe and enjoy learn!

Posted in religion, society. Tags: , , . 2 Comments »

Really Neat Video!

March 19, 2010 — xanthippa
Posted in perceptions. Tags: . Leave a Comment »

Is a Canadain Government agent attempting to ‘influence’ a court?

March 17, 2010 — xanthippa

Read it and weep…

When I first read this – that the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) is retaining a lawyer who is attempting to intervene in a private lawsuit between two citizens, and that the CHRC may have been giving quite a lot of legal advice to only one of the parties in the lawsuit, making us the taxpayers pick up the tab, I was angry.  And, I started to write this up as exactly that.

Ezra Levant exercises his freedom of speech to ridicule another lawyer, Mr. Vigna.  Mr. Vigna sues Mr. Levant for damages to his reputation.  A court will decide whether the line between ‘fair comment’ and ‘slander/libel’ has been crossed:  and so it should be.  The CHRC ought to butt out and it is wrong of it to meddle and to pursue its vendetta against Mr. Levant simply because he dared to stand up to them.

In other words, I was angry – but focused on this  ‘Serene Queen‘  case.

But, the more I thought about it…

The CHRC is an arm of the government.   As such, any lawyer retained by the CHRC and acting on the CHRCs behalf is, legally speaking, an agent of the state.

Now – IF I understand this correctly – this agent of the state has just disregarded proper legal procedures (not filing for an intervenor status prior to the case and therefore being bound to give the defender access to what they will argue, so the defender can prepare a defense) and has inserted herself into the proceedings, approached the judge and attempted to influence the course of the court case!

Please, consider the implications!

An agent of the  state can influence the courts, without following proper legal procedures!

Is this not a thing that only happens in states so corrupt that there is collusion between the courts and the government?

Our judiciary is there as a check on the power of the government – to ensure the government is not able to circumvent the constitution and rob citizens of their rights and freedoms.  Is it  not?  I am not a lawyer, but, this is what we were taught in our civics class…

So, for the government agent to be able to CIRCUMVENT follow proper law and procedures and all that, and INFLUENCE A JUDG in case where the government is not an interested party (as in, they are not doing either the suing or the defending) – that is a really, really dangerous thing!

This is much bigger than just some government agency wasting taxpayer dollars.

This could very well constitute an attempt by the government (through this agent) to corrupt our courts!

As such, I think we need an immediate police investigation of this!

Posted in freedoms, opression, politics, society. Tags: , , , , , , . 2 Comments »

Genetic Modification: What defines you as ‘human’?

March 17, 2010 — xanthippa

This is a discussion we really, really ought to have had long before we developed the technology to do this.

It is not a good situation when ‘public debate’ – for whatever reasons, be it cultural, religious or just because it is easier to control an ignorant population – does not keep up with our technological abilities.

This all comes down to the whole ‘knowledge’ versus ‘wisdom’ thing…

What prompted this?

We have long been served plant-foods which contain artificially spliced in genes from other plants – or, possibly, animals.  And, we are not permitted to know (legally) what is what.  Now, we are about to be presented with meat which contains the genes of several animals…. (H/T: BCF)

We may know what we are doing – technologically.  But, do we understand what we are doing, both morally and legally?

* * *

We can no longer even agree on what defines ‘male’ versus ‘female’.

Really – do think about it.

It used to be easy:  the external presentation was sufficient.  And, any hermaphrodites were either so successful at passing themselves as one or the other sex that the question was really mute.  Even that really, really weird case in some isolated pacific islands where ‘every generation’,  some ‘clearly female children’ would, during puberty, develop into males.  To the islanders, it was clear:  while the child ‘appeared’ female, it was ‘a female’.  When the external presentation changed and the child began to look like a man, the (now) youth became ‘a male’!

But, now….

It is no longer so simple!

At first, it looked like our scientific knowledge actually simplified things:  females have two X chromosomes while males have one X chromosome and one Y chromosome.  Simple, right?

Except that….

Back in the late 1980’s, we learned that there are many men who have the required XY combination – plus another X chromosome!  Sometimes, as many as 5 or more ‘scrunched’ looking X chromosomes were found!  (Not important here, but they also found that the men with the extra ‘scrunched’ X chromosomes had a propensity for becoming very, very violent criminals.)

The question then becomes:  is a person with two X chromosomes legally female?

Or, is the presence of a Y chromosome that which defines a person as ‘male’?

We never really had that public debate….when we learned that one’s self-perception as ‘male’ or ‘female’ is set by specific hormones affecting our brain development while we are still fetuses!  If a particular chemical gets released during a very specific point of our fetal development, we will think of our selves as ‘male’.  If it does not get released – or gets released late, or in too small amounts, we self-perceive as ‘female’, regardless of our genetic makeup or our sexual orientation!

Then we learned how to perform ‘sex change’  operations….

…which opened a whole new debate!

If a person is born female – double X chromosomes – and undergoes a sex-change operation, that person is now legally male:  regardless of ‘genetic makeup’.  So, we are back to ‘external presentation’ as being the key defining element.

Except for the case of Caster Semenya…

(Aside:  this case would be mute if we did not practice strict sexual apartheid in sports – another issue we should really, really take a look at … but that is not the focus of this post.)

What I am trying to point out is that where  ‘male’ and ‘female’ used to be defined easily (more or less), using ‘common sense’, the scientific advances we have led to technology which muddles the debate, to the point where different countries around the world have irreconcilably different legal definitions of ‘maleness’ and ‘femaleness’!

* * *

Still, this is a minor debate compared to the ‘what defines ‘humanness” debate!

In my never-humble-opinion, this debate is more charged with religious pitfalls than just about anything else!  After, all, the whole ‘abortion’ debate is only a sub-section of this greater debate of  ‘where’ we draw the legal – as well as moral, as it is wrong to legislate morality, so the two ought not necessarily be the same – line of what defines who/what is or is not human!

(This is NOT meant to be an ‘abortion debate’ –  please, don’t turn it into one!  I only mentioned it because I wanted to underlie both  just how important and charged this debate is ….and how bizarre it is that we are NOT having this ‘greater’ public debate!)

For many years, I had a neighbour whose daughter was born missing a pair of chromosomes.  Still, she was completely human!  Disabled, yes.  But, she WAS a human being!

Yet, because she was missing two whole chromosomes, she was genetically more different from ‘average human’ than most primates are….and we certainly don’t consider THEM human!  ALL primates are used as ‘live meat’ – without any regard to anything else – in all the vaccination-producing and other ‘medical’ labs in the world!

So, what defines YOU as ‘human’?

Just how much genetic damage and/or mutation do you have to suffer before you and your children  are no longer defined as ‘human’?  Legally or morally?

We share 98% of our DNA with chimpanzees – yet, legally, they are ‘live meat’.

And people missing  way more than 2% of human DNA, like my ex-neighbour,  are still ‘human’!

This is a really, really important public debate we ought to be having now!  OK – we should have been having it long ago….  Still, delaying it now is dangerous to the very core of our society!

Why?

Because now that we have the technical ability to swap genes between species, we are putting our ability into practice without having defined how we will ‘consider’ the ‘results’!

We can take genetic material from one species, splice it into another – and have the ‘spliced’ genes passed on to the next generation!

And,  we have not had the public discussion about this.  About what makes one species unique – and how that uniqueness is or is not affected by splicing in genes from another species!

Yes, this has been going on for a long time.  Animal genes were spliced into plant genes, genes from one animal are being spliced into another – we have the technical ability!  Yet, we have not really – really – had the public debate about it…

Oh, sure – we have talked about ‘Franken foods’!  About plants which have been genetically modified in one way or another.  Still, much of the  public debate has been stifled – and, perhaps more ominously, there is actual legislation that forbids produce labels which would identify whether the food one is about to purchase has – or has not – been genetically modified!

WHY?

“To prevent  prejudice against genetically modified foods!’ – we are told…

No – I don’t mean to get into weird conspiracy theories here.  I think the answer is very simple:  money.  If a genetic manipulation is financially beneficial to the ‘genetic manipulator’, that ‘genetic manipulator’ will consider investing in ‘product-favourable legislation’ to be no less important a component of their investment in ‘bringing the product to market’ as  ‘scientific research’  how to do it actually is.  That is not a ‘conspiracy theory’ – that is simply ‘good business sense’.

Again – the mechanics of this are not the point of this post.  Let’s just accept the current state of things as they are now – not as they ‘ought to be’ – and get to the greater issue.

Just how MUCH genetic material from one species does a living organism have to contain (or be missing) before it is legally considered (or no longer considered) a member of a particular species?

We do now have mice which have had ‘human breast cancer’ genes spliced in – and pass them on to their offspring.  That means that human genes (OK – ‘broken’ human genes, but human genes none-the-less) are present in sentient beings which do not enjoy any of the rights and freedoms of fully-human beings.  Just how MUCH of our ‘human’ DNA should a creature contain before it is ‘human’?

Legally?

Morally?

What about my neighbour, born missing a few chromosomes?  If a child is born with ‘sufficiently large’ genetic disorder, will it no longer have the legal protections of other humans?

* * *

OK – let’s consider the story I linked: ‘ pork’ which contains mouse genes is now being proposed for sale, without any labels informing the customers that they are buying (presumably for consumption) meat which contains both pig and mouse genes.  We also know there are ‘genetically designed’  mice out there, which contain human genes…

And fish are about to enter our food markets which contain ‘beef-genes’…tip of the proverbial iceberg!

How long before we are being served ‘animal meat’ which contains ‘some’ human genetic material?

How MUCH human genetic material does a meat have to contain before it is considered ‘cannibalism’ to consume it?

Will it be illegal for us to even know we are consuming ‘flesh’ which contains ‘some’ human DNA?

What I am trying to say is….before we physically blur the lines between species – something our technology today permits us to do with impunity – we ought to remember that we, humans, are just a species ourselves!

Any ‘genetic pollution’ we permit, any ‘genetic-line-smudging’ we allow, will, necessarily, set a precedent for all ‘species-specific’ blurring of lines – even the lines of the human species.

I do NOT pretend to have any of the answers.  I freely admit I am deeply conflicted on the issue….

Really – we ought to talk about this!

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