Carol Swain: "The Inconvenient Truth About the Democratic Party"

Supreme folly

In its decision of June 15, 2018 the activist Supreme Court of Canada ruled against Trinity Western University in its bid to establish a law school.

In doing so the Supreme Court turned the Charter on its head, running roughshod over the rights of a private institution.  The Charter was intended to protect private actors (TWU) from an overbearing state (the law societies and the SCOC).

These two excellent columns discuss this decision at length:

           Bruce Pardy: The Supreme Court's TWU ruling is a cruel joke played on all Canadians

           Chris Selley: Supreme Court strikes a blow against religious freedom

Is this a picture of Mohamed?

Jordan B. Peterson offers some  thoughts about anti-Islamophobia Parliamentary motion M-103:

PC tyranny

Mark Steyn:

... There are more and more areas of debate in which the authorities take the view that "there is only one correct answer". A free people should be free to argue, whether they take the right side or the wrong side of the question. But, as I always say (he says wearily), when you're arguing that only one side is allowed to have a side, you're on the wrong side.

"Bloody neo-Marxists have invaded the campuses and the rest of the culture"

Must watch! - Gavin McInnes interviews Prof. Jordan Peterson:



This is just one segment of Gavin's most AWESOME show last Friday which also featured Ann Coulter and Janice Fiamengo.

BC Court of Appeals upholds freedom

In a five to zero decision the BC Court of Appeals upheld the right of graduates of the faith-based Trinity Western University (TWU) Law School to practice law in BC.  In a supposedly free society, this shouldn't come as a surprise; but in this time of rampant political correctness, with basic freedoms frequently coming under attack, it certainly gives cause for celebration.

Trinity Western's lawyer, John Carpay, discusses the victory with Ezra Levant:

Sadistic feminist bullies use courts to criminally harass critic

Political activists Steph Guthrie and Heather Reilly, with the cooperation of the "justice" system, are  putting Gregory Allan Elliott (and family) through legal, financial and emotional hell.

Christie Blatchford has been covering Elliott's trial.

The verdict is due on October 6, 2015 and has huge implications for Elliott's personal freedom and for free speech in general. Any "criminality" here is that of the complainants and the legal system for participating in prosecuting this clearly bogus case.

#IStandWithGregoryElliott

George Jonas on Alan Borovoy

George Jonas: When my old leftist friend, Alan Borovoy, saw the light

A few days ago I reminisced about an old friend in this space, the founder and General Counsel of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, A. Alan Borovoy, who passed away last weekend.

... I noted that he and I agreed on almost nothing, except the importance of liberty.

... Central to our debates were Canada’s human rights commissions: The laws and institutions Borovoy and like-minded civil libertarians, mostly leftwing activists, created, or at least played a major role in creating, ... Alan and his friends couldn’t imagine how civil liberties had anything to fear from laws and organizations they themselves, champions of civil liberties, were bringing to life.

... In the 1980s, with civil liberties already halfway down the throat of the voracious state, Alan was still dismissing the slippery slope as a shopworn myth. It took him another decade and a half to change his mind.

... By 1998 he did. “Ever since the government embarked on a course of trying to outlaw expressions of hatred, it’s shown that there is a slippery slope. One thing has led to another,” he said in relation to a proposed “hate speech” legislation in British Columbia. ..

... once he saw the light, Alan didn’t pull his punches. He was as outspoken in defending freedom against his own creation, the human rights bureaucracy, as he had been defending it against its traditional enemies. 

Bill Maher on Islam

Bill Maher may hold an ugly, profane, intolerant disrespect for Christianity (and most other religions except maybe atheism, socialism and climate change) but at least he gets it right when he calls out his fellow "liberals" for their hypocritical defense of Islamism and their ideological (and cowardly) refusal to honestly condemn Islamist atrocities:



[h/t: The Blaze]

New Brunswick Law Society bigots vote 137/30 to ban Trinity graduates

Today at a Special General Meeting of the Law Society of New Brunswick:

"...members of the Law Society of New Brunswick passed a resolution by a vote of 137 to 30 directing Council not to approve Trinity Western University’s Law school as a faculty of law."

 [via]

Update (brought forward from the comments):

When the BC College of Teachers tried to pull a similar stunt the Supreme Court of Canada ruled (8/1) in favour of Trinity. See para 35 of the ruling where it is stated:  

"... there is nothing in the TWU Community Standards that indicates that graduates of TWU will not treat homosexuals fairly and respectfully. Indeed, the evidence to date is that graduates from the joint TWU-SFU teacher education program have become competent public school teachers, and there is no evidence before this Court of discriminatory conduct by any graduate. ..." 

So, extrapolating that ruling to the NB case (there's no basic difference), the NB Law Society's anti-Christian bigotry is illegal, a violation of Charter Rights and Freedoms. For more discussion read this article.

Steyn and Levant

Ezra Levant needs help in the fight for freedom

Ezra is being sued by a Muslim waging legal jihad:

... Today in a Toronto court, Khurrum Awan is suing me for critical comments I wrote at the Maclean’s hearing in 2008. I said nothing that hadn’t been said by many critics across the political spectrum, who universally condemned the nuisance suit. But the rest of the media soon dropped the free speech cause. I turned it into an ongoing campaign.  

... Maclean’s spent [huge sum$]. And every other media company was sent the message: Don’t you dare talk about radical Islam, or you’ll face a nuisance suit, too. 

... Khurrum Awan ... later boasted: “We attained our strategic objective — to increase the cost of publishing anti-Islamic material.” 

... So time to apply the “strategic objective” to me. 

So, it's also time once again to Stand with Ezra.

Comedian Guy Earle loses appeal of BC "Human Rights" Tribunal ruling

National Post:

In a ruling that could carry implications for comedy clubs across Canada, the Supreme Court of British Columbia has upheld the right of a bar patron to receive five-figures in damages from a comedian whose performance she alleges gave her post-traumatic stress disorder.

... ruled Justice Jon Sigurdson, while comedy clubs may swirl with “offensive, irreverent and inappropriate” language they are not operating in “zones of absolute immunity from human rights legislation.” [You mean "fake human rights" legislation, don't you judge?]

... In addition to Mr. Earle’s $15,000 penalty, the restaurant was also ordered to pay $7,000 to Ms. Pardy on the grounds that since the owner had given Mr. Earle a small bar tab to host the event, the comedian was legally an employee. Restaurant owner Salam Ismail had already spent at least $13,000 in legal fees defending himself before the tribunal. ...

Thereby, sadly, upholding the fake "human right" not to be offended, strengthening the mandate of "Human Rights" Commissions and Tribunals to continue punishing those who allegedly hurt others' feelings, and encouraging sensitive souls and opportunists to file more complaints.

Update:

More strikes against the Supremes' Whatcott decision

Rex Murphy: Choosing self-esteem over freedom of speech

Andrew Coyne:

... where has the Court been the last twenty years?

Supreme Court twists the Charter of Rights in its haste to limit free speech

George Jonas: Debating free speech

Ezra Levant:

Supreme Court's "Whatcott" ruling "a terrible decision"

Ezra Levant:

Supreme Court distributes anti-gay literature world-wide

Bill Whatcott personally distributed printed copies of his anti-homosexual flyers.  Distribution of his supposed "hatred" was, therefore, extremely limited.

The Supreme Court expanded that distribution enormously by publishing its Whatcott decision, including  Whatcott's flyers (see below), on the internet.

A Supremely contemptible decision

In its cowardly, politically correct "Whatcott" decision today, the Supreme Court has delivered a blow against free speech.  Ezra Levant predicts a surge in "hate" speech complaints to "human rights" commissions and tribunals:



Right now I'm feeling hatred and contempt for our Supreme Court justices.  In other words ...

You didn't choose that!!

The Universe made you choose it!  That's what Sam Harris argues in his new book 'Free Will', excerpted in yesterday's National Post.  Harris believes that we don't make choices freely, but that we are compelled by our genetic makeup and our environment to make the choices we do - that free will is an illusion.

It must be a progressive thing.  It sounds an awful lot like Barack Obama's recent declaration to Americans: "You didn't build that!!"

Anyway, I don't buy it.  I like Raymond Smullyan's approach to the problem in "Is God a Taoist?", a dialogue between God and a mortal which opens with:

Mortal:
And therefore, O God, I pray thee, if thou hast one ounce of mercy for this thy suffering creature, absolve me of having to have free will!

God:
You reject the greatest gift I have given thee?

..
..

And concludes with:

Mortal:
You said a short while ago that our whole discussion was based on a monstrous fallacy. You still have not told me what this fallacy is.

God:
Why, the idea that I could possibly have created you without free will! You acted as if this were a genuine possibility, and wondered why I did not choose it! It never occurred to you that a sentient being without free will is no more conceivable than a physical object which exerts no gravitational attraction. (There is, incidentally, more analogy than you realize between a physical object exerting gravitational attraction and a sentient being exerting free will!) Can you honestly even imagine a conscious being without free will? What on earth could it be like? I think that one thing in your life that has so misled you is your having been told that I gave man the gift of free will. As if I first created man, and then as an afterthought endowed him with the extra property of free will. Maybe you think I have some sort of "paint brush" with which I daub some creatures with free will and not others. No, free will is not an "extra"; it is part and parcel of the very essence of consciousness. A conscious being without free will is simply a metaphysical absurdity.
..
..

  See also, Barbara and Jonathan Kay's reponses to Harris.

Michael Bloomberg - Nanny of the Month

[h/t - Xanthippa]

An attack on Aussie freedom of the press

The Australlian Labour government's recent Report of an Inquiry into the Media and Media Regulation proposes draconian measures for regulating the press.  Andrew Bolt covered his and others' reactions in a series of blog posts.  The titles speak for themselves:

A foot on our throats

Even an online site read just by your relatives is threatened

Media inquiry wants to control even blogs with a reader a day

Finkelstein: dodgy excuse for dangerous power

Finkelstein’s media council: will sceptics be censored?

Why journalism academics are so hostile to our free press

The rise of the totalitarians

The totalitarian instinct in Finkelstein’s report

Next Finkelstein will quote Chomsky and Che

Your right to speak and read freely is in danger

To be “unbiased” would be to print government lies

An attack from the Left on the freedom of Gillard’s critics to speak

Another reason to fear the News Media Council

How dare the Press Council censor even politicians?

Freedom is our best defence against abuse of power

Stifling free speech won’t guarantee good speech

Good stuff.  If that doesn't kill the report, I don't know what will. More here.

[via]