Mark Steyn's interview with Jordan Peterson

Free speech under assault:



Conclusion: It's time to dismantle the university humanities departments and fire their professors.  They are destroying Western civilization.  The billion$ saved can be productively reassigned to  STEM subjects.

Is this a picture of Mohamed?

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

U of T debate: Free speech and Bill C-16

Jordan Peterson debates a hostile pair of radical social justice warriors:



Christie Blatchford's summary of the event began: "My God, if that thing at the University of Toronto on Saturday was a debate about free speech, then the battle is already well and truly lost.

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.

Jealousy of power motivates social justice warriors

So says Professor Jordan (shove your stupid pronouns) Peterson. Plus, a fascinating dissection of pure SJW bullshit.  Professor Peterson is clearly feeling harassed and bullied and won't stand for it:




The original debate in full, on The Agenda with Steve Paikin, is well worth watching.

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:

Government joke critic fines comedian $42,000

The Quebec "Human Rights" Tribunal ruled that Mike Ward's humor was offensive and fined him $42 grand, thereby boosting his already high popularity.  This will probably make him a millionaire, and good for him.   Here's Mike Ward with Gavin McInnes shortly after the ruling:



As always the truly offensive joke in these cases is the "human rights" bureaucracy.

Jacques Frémont - another of Islamism's useful idiots

Barbara Kay:

[We can defend ourselves against Islamists] so long as we exercise our freedom of speech to denounce Islamism and shame those who support it. Which is why Islamists invented the myth of Islamophobia in Western countries to justify their call for a tightening of the noose on this precious freedom. They certainly can’t do it alone, but they have “useful idiots,” ...

One of these useful idiots, Jacques Frémont, president of the Quebec Human Rights Commission (QHRC) and president-elect of the University of Ottawa, is the father of Quebec’s Bill 59, which will give offended individuals the power to have writers they perceive to have criticized Islam censored and punished by onerous fines. This dreadful initiative marks a Canadian watershed in Islamist appeasement, but attention paid to it in English Canada has been shamefully sparse.

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. 

Megyn Kelly exposes more American head-in-the-sand cluelessness on free speech

Yesterday, Megyn Kelly attempted to school Bill O'Reilly on free speech saying that he was, siding with those who want to silence the critics of Islam - ie. siding with the jihadists.

On tonight's The Factor, O'Reilly doubled down on his cluelessness, saying that what Pamela Geller and her organization were doing and saying is "stupid".  Kelly's response:

"The relevant question is not: Did those under attack say something offensive? The relevant question is: What do we do about a group that wants to kill us for exercising our constitutional rights?"

O'Reilly and Fowler (and most of his lib/left ilk) are equally dense on the notion of free speech. All they want to debate are the wisdom, or otherwise, of what Geller is saying and how she says it.  That's fine, it's a debate they can have with Geller but it's entirely irrelevant to this incident.  What they don't want to talk about are: Geller's freedom to say what she said, and; how to deal with those who mark her for murder for saying it.  But what O'Reilly and Fowler say they want is for Geller stop saying what she said (or to say something else) to avoid upsetting her wannabe killers - which is exactly what the jihadists want. That other, non-violent Muslims may be upset by Geller's speech is also irrelevant.  They are free to criticize her and to try to convince her to take a different approach.

Update: More from Megyn Kelly this evening

Media clueless on free speech

The Muslim jihadist attack on the Garland Texas Mohammed cartoon event hosted by Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer proved once again that the leftist media (which is to say nearly all of it) is completely out to lunch on the meaning of free speech.

Megyn Kelly's interview with Robert Spencer:


Even Bill O'Reilly comes off thick as a post on the subject:



Here's Pamella Geller with a clueless CNN host:

Major networks collude in attempt to limit free speech

Brian Lilley provides all we need to know about the latest Media Party attempt to
a) smear the Harper government
b) protect its candidate, Justin Trudeau, and
c) limit free speech





Hmmm, to me this smells like illegal collusion by the Media Party network weasels. (Update: Apparently it does to others, too. See BC Blue.)

Here's Brian's column on the history of this dating back to 1988 when the Liberals took the opposite position:

In November 1988, the Liberal Party of Canada went to court to force CBC and CTV to carry their attack ads against Brian Mulroney and his Progressive Conservatives.

... The networks claimed they owned the video footage in question and said the Liberal party’s use of it infringed on their copyright. The networks lost and were forced to run the ads; they were also turned down on appeal by the Supreme Court.

So now the networks are trying to pull the same bullcrap, this time supported by the Liberals?  Outrageous! 

My only question is, if the SCOC has already ruled on this, what do the Conservatives want to change? PM Harper and others have already stated that the Copyright law, as is, is sufficient.

Speaking of outrageous, here's that twit, Don Martin, accusing the Conservatives of "flirting with fascism".

More here and here.

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]

"Universities are islands of repression in a sea of freedom"

So said Dr. Arnold Aberman in an excellent convocation speech in which he cited several recent instances of prominent people, like Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Condoleezza Rice, being prevented from speaking at convocations because of their "controversial" views.  Dr. Aberman went on to cite four examples from science and medicine in which proponents of "controversial" new ideas that ran counter to prevailing "settled science" were ridiculed and shunned but were eventually vindicated and honoured.  Dr. Aberman's conclusions and advice:

... claiming “settled science” is a statement, not an argument. Truth is not discovered by voting. What is “settled science” today may be labelled a mistaken belief tomorrow.

You can’t learn in an echo chamber, welcoming only your ideas. Listen to those who you do not agree with – in fact, I urge, seek them out. 

Oppose their theories with facts, not with censorship.  

Be very suspicious of those who want to cut off debate with “this is against settled science.” Appealing to authority is a sign of weakness, not strength.

Steyn and Levant

It's too easy for thin-skinned hypocrites to sue for "defamation"

Mark Steyn reviews the defamation lawsuits brought against him (by Michael Mann) and Ezra Levant (by a touchy Muslim lawyer):

... the urge to litigate disagreement is never far from the surface in contemporary discourse. So both Ezra Levant and I find ourselves back in court yet again. 

... In that sense, Dr. Mann is, indeed, a fraud. It is a fascinating legal question whether a man guilty of serial misrepresentation can, in fact, be defamed. But it’s not that fascinating, and certainly not worth the court’s time and seven-figure legal bills. 

...  it’s a pretty basic free speech case. Dr. Mann, whatever his other gifts, is an inveterate name-caller.  

... In court, our notably unimpressive judge Natalia Combs-Greene declared, even before we got anywhere near the trial, that she was with Dr. Mann: “The court agrees with the arguments advanced by Plaintiffs. To place Plaintiff’s name in the same sentence with Sandusky (a convicted pedophile) is clearly outrageous.” 

... Mann is entitled to insult me ... and anyone else who has the temerity not to prostrate themselves before him. It is remarkable that an American jurist is too obtuse to grasp this 

... Mr Awan said something that was not so and was exposed in court for so doing, and in a free society Ezra ought to be well within his rights to characterize such a person as he pleases. 

... What else? Awan complains that Levant called him an anti-Semite. Big deal. Awan called Levant a racist. He’s called me and my book racist, Islamophobic, virulent and hateful. Likewise: big deal. 

...  If you’re going to be a partisan warrior in the public arena you need, as the Toronto blogger Kathy Shaidle likes to put it, “insensitivity training.” Miss Shaidle also argues that the matter of honour was better handled before the libel laws replaced dueling. When a fake Nobel laureate and a frontman for a terrorism-sympathizer are suing for their “reputation,” I’m inclined to agree. If Dr. Mann’s up for it, how about hockey sticks at dawn?

However you cut it, being sued in a real court is far better than being persecuted by a kangaroo "human rights" tribunal.  But either way it's expensive and, with clueless and/or ideological judges and juries, risky for defendants. The bar seems to be set way too low for getting these anti-free-speech and hurt-feelings lawsuits into court in the first place.

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.

Legal jihad - Ezra in court next week

Remember Mark Steyn's wanna-be censor, Khurrum Awan?

The case goes to court on October 15th.

Go get 'em Ezra!

Steyn returns a favour and defends Richard Dawkins' freedom of speech

After Tweeting a truth about Islam, Dawkins is attacked by the UK media:

... in a throwaway Tweet, Professor Dawkins observed that “all the world’s Muslims have fewer Nobel Prizes than Trinity College, Cambridge. ...” ... Almost every London paper ran at least one story on the “controversy.” 

 ... “How dare you dress your bigotry up as atheism. You are now beyond an embarrassment.”
... “It’s time someone turned Richard Dawkins off and then on again. Something’s gone weird.”
... “Please be quiet, Richard Dawkins, I’m begging.”
... “we must consign Dawkins to this very same pile of the irrational and the dishonest.” 

... Whatever its virtues, Islam is not a culture of inquiry, of innovation. You can coast for a while on the accumulated inheritance of a pre-Muslim past ...but it’s not unreasonable to posit that the more Muslim a society becomes the smaller a role Nobel prizes and translated books will play in its future.  

... Maybe I’m wrong, maybe Dawkins is wrong, maybe the U.N. Human Development chaps are wrong. But the ferocious objections even to raising the subject suggest we’re not. ...