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Is Guy Earle the ‘next George Carlin’?
April 5, 2010 — xanthippaOr, 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’?
How a 13-year-old rape victim’s execution is being reported
November 1, 2008 — xanthippaAll right, we’ve all heard the gripes about how ‘things’ are distorted and what ‘gets reported’ is not always a factual, unbiased account of the events. But this, this has got to be some of the most bizzare collection of distortions I have seen so far.
Or, at least, that I am aware that I have seen…
As far as I can piece this together (and I am NOT certain of the complete facts), it would appear that 13-year-old girl-child, Aisha Ibrahim Dhuhulow, was gang-raped. She went to register the crime with the courts, presumably expecting the police to find and arrest her rapists.
However, last August, Aisha’s home town of Kismayo – a port in Southern Somalia – had been taken over by Islamist forces and Sharia law had been imposed. When the child came to file her complaint with the police, she was asked ‘if she is sure this is what really happened’. Aisha confirmed that she had, in fact, been gang-raped and asked for justice.
This last bit came back to haunt her, her family, and anyone with a conscience! At this ‘admission of engaging in extramarital sexual intercourse’ and ‘demands to be punished’, the police officials had ‘no choice’ but to arrest her. The ‘Sharia Court’ (if you can call it a court) had heard the case and had ‘no choice’ but to sentence her to death by stoning. After all, she herself ‘freely admitted her guilt’ and ‘demanded justice to be done’!!!
Dressed in black, with a green veil (green – the colour of Islam and peace), she was brought into a large stadium filled with about 1000 people. Reporters, based on her ‘appearance’, guessed her age to be about 23 yearsof age, were forbidden to use their cameras, but radio broadcasts were permitted.
Here, the child was bound hand and foot and – while screaming and pleading for her life – Aisha was buried up to her neck in a hole in the ground.
It would appear that the crowd – or at least some of the people within the crowd – tried to intervene and save the unfortunate child. The ‘guards’ opened fire on the crowd, shooting a child dead.
50 men then started to throw stones at Aisha’s head (the only part of her above ground). When they thought she was dead, they dug her up – but a check showed she was still alive, so they burried her again and continued to throw stones at her. They had dug Aisha up 3 times to check if she is dead yet….and then burried her again to stone her some more…
Her family is distrought and angry. Her father confirmed her age to be 13 years.
This, in itself, is a horrible story. It is a nightmare!
I truly don’t know if there are words strong enough to express my anger and outrage!
But, it would appear, my reaction is not all that usual. At least, if one were to go by what is being said in the many ‘official’ reports of Aisha’s suffering and murder lawbreaking and execution.
Please, consider the following:
AFP (Agence France Presse), the oldest news agency in the world, carries this report:
MOGADISHU (AFP) — Thousands of people gathered Monday to witness 50 Somali men stone a woman to death after an Islamic court in the southern port of Kismayo found her guilty of adultery, witnesses said.
Aisho Ibrahim Dhuhulow, who had been found guilty of extra-marital intercourse was buried in the ground up to her neck while the men pelted her head with rocks.
“Our sister Aisha asked the Islamic Sharia court in Kismayo to be charged and punished for the crime she committed,” local Islamist leader Sheikh Hayakallah told the crowd.
“She admitted in front of the court to engaging in adulterous sexual intercourse,” he added.
“She was asked several times to review her confession but she stressed that she wanted Sharia law and the deserved punishment to apply.”
The execution was carried in one of the city’s main squares.
…
Did you notice the mention of the fact she was a rape victim? No, because this was not mentioned. But you might have noticed how her ‘demand for justice’ was explained by the local Islamist leader Sheikh Hayakallah!!!
Good reporting, AFP, making sure we hear the ‘proper’ side of the story! Good reporting, AFP, for ‘digging for the details of what really happened there’! Bang-up job, you are doning! Truly!
But they are not the only ones reporting on this murder of Aisha along these lines…
Surely, that ‘most extreme-right-wing-media outlet’, Fox News, will have done a bit of digging around to find out what was happening, right? If so, it was not mentioned in their article, ‘Somali woman stoned to death for adultery’!
No verification with her family, or Amnesty International, which also seems to have had no trouble learning Aisha’s true age – 13, not the 23 admittedly arrived at by a reporter’s ‘guess’….
No explanation that the ‘adultery’ in question consisted of being gang-raped….
WHAT THE F$*&Q^#$*&!!!!!!
How about other sources?
The ‘neutral’ and award winning Sky News reported: ‘Cheating’ woman stoned to death. I suppose the ‘Cheating’ – being in quotation marks – constitutes ‘neutrality’ (also in quotation marks). And, they do report that while the officials explained she demanded this punishment herself (!), they do quote witnesses that heard her scream and saw her struggle….and they hint that only the guns of the guards – who killed a child in the process – kept the crowd from freeing poor Aisha. But, not the correct age, not a peep about the fact that she had been the victim of rape….except those quotation marks around ‘cheating’, that is…
Why is it that one has to go to blogs (A New Dark Age Is Dawning) and non-mainstream media like ‘Islam: the religion of peace’ to find out information, and only then can kernels of it be seen in the ‘respectable news-outlets’ reports?
It was not until today, 5-or-so days after her murder execution, that there is even a peep about the true story…. CNN carried the little mention.
What are we doing? Are we ‘normalizing’ Islamist violence against women? Are we all headed for the burka?
Nike (among others!!!) is already working to normalize such attitudes!
‘Blue Planet in Green Shackles’ – the ISBN#
May 28, 2008 — xanthippaThis is the mystery of the disappearing planet….as in – where in the world can one purchase a copy of the English-language version of ‘Blue Planet in Green Shackles – What is Endangered: Climate or Freedom?’
The English translation of this book by Czech Republic’s President, Vaclav Klaus, was released this week in Washington, D.C. – as I have learned from ‘The Reference Frame’, and wrote about earlier. I must admit, I was rather exited! Finally, I could get my hands on it and read what all this excitement is about.
Yet, I could not find how to get my hands on it! Judging from some of the responses I got, I am not alone…
My Mom always used to say: “If ever you are in doubt, ask a physicist!’ (Well, she said something like that – I think…) So, I did – and Mr. Motl from ‘The Reference Frame’ was kind enough to send me this reply:
Dear Xanthippa, the book is now printed in 17,000 copies only so it will disappear rapidly.
bn.com, http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Blue-Planet-in-Green-Shackles/Vaclav-Klaus/e/9781889865096/
has its ISBN codes:
* ISBN: 1889865095
* ISBN-13: 9781889865096
* Format: Paperback, 100pp
* Pub. Date: May 2008
Thank you, Mr. Motl!
Finally, here is a head of state who has actual scientific credentials! O.K., he’s not a physicist like Mr. Motl, but, Vaclav Klaus is pretty close: he may have been a mere economist (though a respected professor thereof), but he did spend most of his life at the Czech Academy of Sciences. Once politics no longer shackled his career (oh, I love how I worked that ‘shackled’ word in…sorry, it does not take much to amuse me…), he worked at Prognostics at the Academy of Science…. meaning, his professional expertise is in looking at scientific theories, understanding their implication, and then evaluating their long-term economic impact.
This means that President Klaus, more than any other world leader today, is eminently qualified to assess the IPCC report, both in what it says and in what the ‘remedial measures’ currently being implemented will have. I, for one, am very curious to read what he has to say. I wish that the World’s leaders would be, too!
Here is a link to Mr. Klaus’ speaking notes for the Washington D.C. release of his book:
“The whole process is already in the hands of those who are not interested in rational ideas and arguments.”
“The real debate should be about costs and benefits of alternative human actions, about how to rationally deal with the unknown future, about what kind and size of solidarity with much wealthier future generations is justified, about the size of externalities and their eventual appropriate “internalization”, about how much to trust the impersonal functioning of the markets in solving any human problem, including global warming and how much to distrust the very visible hand of very human politicians and their bureaucrats. Some of these questions are touched upon in my book. “
I, for one, am very curious to read what he has to say. Excuse me, I have to go talk to my local bookstore now…. in the meantime, here is Glenn Beck’s interview with Mr. Klaus on the topic of Global Warming activism:
Blue Planet in Green Shackes
May 22, 2008 — xanthippaFinally, there is a release date for the much-awaited English version of Czech President’s Vaclav Klaus’ book,
‘BLUE PLANET IN GREEN SHACKLES
What is endangered: Climate of Freedom?’
President Klaus will be presenting it on May 27th, 2008 at the National Press Club in Washington D.C..
Thanks to Lubos Motl from ‘The Reference Frame’ for the tip!
Athletes vs Human Rights
April 9, 2008 — xanthippaWhen you put it this way, many athletes might feel kinda baaaad…
Many people are justifying ‘not boycotting’ the Olympic games in Beijing by calling attention to the plight of the athletes: these people have trained and sacrificed, to be at the pinnacle of their form, so they could perform at these games! Denying them the chance to go could dash their Olympic hopes forever, because it is unlikely that most of them will be able to remain at their highest performance level for four years.
So, what should one say to an athlete who has perhaps sacrificed a lot, instead of investing in a career and a home, they have invested in training and now it will all be for naught? I have an answer!
Get a life!
Sports are a hobby! It is something we do for fun and pleasure – and to keep ourselver healthy. It is ‘self-care’.
How do I know it? Because if I want to buy a membership in an athletic club, go swimming in a public pool, ride a bicycle, play ball on a sports field – I have to pay for it! Just like I have to pay for my haircut, my facial, my manicure… and these are also necessities for a competition! A different competition, to be true, but a completition based on physical attributes, their training and presentation! Except that the other beauty contests are nowhere near as politicized as the Olympic Games are, were, and always will be.
Are you getting angry yet?
Good! You should be.
Comparing the preparation and dedication necessary to compete at the Olympic games to those of a beauty contest is ludicrous (though some little girls might differ). Yes, beauty contestants also need it – but the degree of magnitude is somewhat lower. Importance, and all that…
Now imagine the degree of dedication it takes to stand up for human rights against an opressive, callous, arrogant giant like the Peoples’ Republic of China!
Yes, a few degrees of magnitude greater than the athletes need to get ready for the Olympics!
So, now, perhaps you can understand the anger that decent people feel rise up within them when someone worries about dissapointing the athletes… or places their desire for self-validation above the very survival of a peoples threatened with genocide!
Fitna
April 7, 2008 — xanthippaThe birthplace of Islam is in Arabia. In Arabic, this word, Fitna , is said to be difficult to translate – but Wikipedia (not the end-all for learning, but an awesome place to start) explains is as “all-encompassing word referring to schism, secession, upheaval and anarchy at once”. It also notes that ‘First Fitna‘ and ‘Second Fitna’ are terms used to describe the first and second ‘civil wars’ within Islam itself.
Even though many people are not aware of this, the most populous Muslim country is Indonesia. In Indonesian, the term ‘Fitnah’ means ‘defamation, slander, libel’…
Is it not fitting, then, that Geert Wilders chose this word as the name for his very controversial documentary movie? It may be his 15 minutes of fame (that is the duration of the movie), but it has certainly created a bit of an uproar.
Even prior to the movie’s release, individual Dutch people made little videos, to put onto YouTube, apologizing to the Muslim ummah (world family) and begging them to please not kill them because of it. Really. But, it would not be long and others would post ‘apologies‘ that are somewhat more imbued with deeper meanings…
But that is not all – Network Solutions, the company which was going to host the movie, even before the movie came out, pulled the site. Sorry, decied to ‘investigate it’! And all before the movie even came out! And when the movie finally DID come out, it was quickly pulled, because of threats of violence against the employees of Liveleak.com, the company that hosted it.
So, WHAT is so horrible about Fitna, the movie? Don’t let anybody tell you – see it for yourselves: Part 1, Part 2.
And what is the POINT of it, anyway?
In my never-humble-opinion, the name of the movie says it all. There is a war of ideas WITHIN Islam. The Umma is being torn apart by very powerful forces. And this movie, it is meant to be an exposition for the moderate Muslims, who wish to live in harmony with the rest of us, a wake up call to them: these violent people, who themselves believe they are following the teachings of the Qur’an, they are the ones who bear false witness to your faith!!! And you are the only ones who can set it right.
It is not, nor do I think it was ever meant to be, an indictment of all Muslims. Not even a little bit. Yet, it is meant to show how some Muslims are abusing their holy book, taking verses out of context (which they do in order to justify the violence), and how they are perverting their religion. It is no coincidence that so many violent riots happened on Friday afternoons, after some men pretending to be religious men, and acting as Imams, used their perverted version of Islam to inflame hatred in their worshippers.
That is why, at the end of the movie, the filmmaker asks all ‘real’ Muslims to please reclaim their good and peaceful religion from these violent people who consider themselves to also be Muslims!
Christians have had the same problem, and, to a great degree, they HAVE taken their religion away from the violent people who used it to make war and oppress people. The filmmaker made this movie to show proper Muslims what is being done in the name of THEIR religion, and to ask THEM to do them same with Islam.
Or, do you think I am really off the mark?
What is ‘Fascism’?
February 6, 2008 — xanthippaThank you for indulging me in a purely fun philosophical musing on the nature of thought and existence…which, if I am not mistaken, established a consensus that my own existence is defined by ‘being annoying’ rather than by ‘thinking’ … implied feedback loop, and all – and don’t go saying that it’s an infinite loop… :0)
So, please, let me move now to other topics: less abstract, but hopefully no less thought provoking…. I promise to stay as annoying as ever!
Children say the ‘darndest’ things…and ask the toughest questions. Except that I didn’t realize this one would be a ‘tough question’.
After all, ‘everyone’ knows what ‘fascism’ is, right? Jackboots and swastikas and Italian right wing dictators – images of WWII appear before our eyes and we know EXACTLY what ‘fascism’ is. Except…when I got asked this question, I found verbalizing the answer was nowhere as easy as my mental picture made me think it would be.
Italian fascism (under Mussolini) was a ‘right wing’ dictatorship. So were the ‘fascist’ dictatorships that plagued South America. So, many people think that ‘fascism’ is a synonym for a right-wing dictatorship. Except that it isn’t… Yes, we also think of Hitler’s Nazi Germany as being a ‘right wing dictatorship’ – except that … it wasn’t.
Not exactly, anyway. The word ‘Nazism’ is a short form of ‘national socialism’ – and that is decidedly a ‘left wing’ terminology. And even a cursory look at the policies instituted in Nazi Germany will demonstrate that Hitler’s dictatorship was ‘left wing’ in practice, as well as in name. He nationalized many industries, and established more of a ‘nanny state’ than constitute most of today’s western socialist’s wet dreams. He even said his two idols were Lenin and Stalin… So, how could Nacism also be ‘fascist’?
Some reading and thinking shows that the definitions and descriptions vary, based on the time and social climate and political views of the commentator…yet there are always a few features that are common across the definitions/descriptions. Now, here are my own little observations:
1. In its deepest core, fascism is the ‘dictatorship of the majority/privileged minorities’.
It does not matter if the government is left-wing, right-wing, or whatever. It invariably ‘clips the wings’ of its citizens, and makes them feel special for it! How? By either turning ‘wing-clipping’ into a matter of ‘national identity and pride’, and justifying it in the most reasonably-sounding terms, at first… and the ‘moral majority’ is either ‘impassioned’ or ‘guilted’ into supporting them…and tramples down anyone who does not ‘run with the flock’…. After all, if your wings have been clipped, you can either ‘run with the flock’ or ‘be trampled’ – because soaring high in the skies is no longer an option and the very desire for it will be vilified.
As such, fascism elevates the rights of groups over the rights of individuals who make up these groups. This feature is the unmistakable mark of ‘fascism’.
2. Fascism often gains control gradually and insidiously.
Remember, even Hitler was voted into power… So how can fascism gain control ‘gradually and insidiously’? By becoming indispensable to the individual, to force its citizens to ‘go along’ with things… It does this by appealing to a call for unity (be it racial, social, religious or ‘under attack by an outside enemy’) and by forcing the citizens to ‘buy-in’ into government sponsored social programs to such an invasive degree, the citizens will no longer be able to exist independently (either because these services become government monopolies, or because the citizens no longer know HOW to take care of themselves).
Anybody see the ghost of a ‘nanny state’?
These are my ever-humble (or is that ‘never-humble’?) opinions….though this ‘sketch’ seems rather ‘rough’, in need of refinement.
Xanthippa's Chamberpot 