Oh, and the bit at the top about the space lizards? That’s a chap called David Icke, former Coventry City goalie and BBC sports anchor turned …well, “turned” pretty much covers it. One day, David was anchoring the World Cup. The next, he’d called a press conference to announce he was the Son of God. Shortly thereafter he concocted a grand conspiracy theory to explain everything that happens anywhere in the world. David believes in a secret world government run by child-abusing Satanist Illuminati controlled by the Queen and the Bush family who are, he says, reptilian humanoids descended from the blood-drinking space lizards of the star system Alpha Draconis. As I recall, a friend of the late Princess of Wales has confirmed to him Her Royal Highness’ belief that the Royal Family are shape-shifting space reptiles. I apologize to David if I’ve lost a bit in translation. It has been many years since he and I shared a BBC talkshow sofa together, and our paths have diverged somewhat. At any rate, Richard Warman took against him and decided to shut him down, telling The Independent On Sunday in London:
He has taken all the conspiracy theories that have ever existed and melded them together to create an even greater conspiracy theory of his own. His writings may be the work of a madman, or of a genuine racist. Either way, they are very dangerous. There is an unpleasant anti-Semitic undercurrent in his work that must be brought to people’s attention. If he’s unstable, then so are his followers, who hang on to his every word. What benefit can there be in allowing him to speak?
If you want to know what’s gone wrong with the Canadian state’s conception of human rights, it’s perfectly distilled in that one line from the Canadian “Human Rights” Commission’s longtime investigator and current serial plaintiff: “What benefit can there be in allowing him to speak?”
Look, if David Icke was a racist, he wouldn’t find it prudent to give seven-hour speeches in Brixton. Icke isn’t a racist, he’s a kook who believes the world is run by shape-shifting space lizards. Why should it be illegal to advance that theory? Has the Queen or any other shape-shifter filed a “Human Rights” Commission complaint alleging that Icke has exposed her to “hatred or contempt”? No. I should imagine Her Majesty is laughing the socks off her sinister reptilian feet over it. Which is the healthy reaction. But instead Richard Warman decided to get affronted on her behalf. And this is the standard that the Canadian government’s former senior speech investigator sets:
What benefit can there be in allowing him to speak?
Who died and made Richard Warman Speech God? Er, well, the Canadian government did the latter. And it’s freedom of expression, in any meaningful sense, that’s died. A longtime “human rights” officer thinks that it’s the state’s role to “allow” citizens to speak if they can demonstrate some “benefit” in doing so. With human rights like that, who needs lack of human rights? The question is not whether I’m “disentitling” Canada’s human rights nomenklatura, but who entitled them in the first place, to the point where Mr Warman and Ms Eliadis think the state commissars should be determining who should be “allowed” to speak. Sorry, but that’s not my definition of human rights. And I’d rather take my chances with a shape-shifting space lizard than an endlessly morphing, ever expanding star chamber that shames Canada.
In his way, Richard Warman is nuttier than David Icke. Icke has flown the coop. He’s out there in Alpha Draconis having a ball. But Warman is still more or less in the real world, and the assumptions underpinning that rhetorical question to The Independent have advanced dramatically, from neo-Nazi losers in basements to conspiracy-theorist gurus and now to Canada’s leading news weekly. In such a world, how many more of us will discover the state can find no “benefit” in “allowing” us to speak?
TRUDEAUPIA ABROAD
The Witchpointer-General
ONE OF THE striking features of my current troubles with Canada’s “Human Rights” Commissions is the way, in the name of ersatz “human rights”, these pseudo-courts trample on one of the bedrock human rights: the presumption of innocence. Instead, you’re presumed guilty unless you can prove that you’re not. That’s why Section 13 has a 100 per cent conviction rate. So I’m sorry to see the Aussies going down the same grim path. According to the Melbourne Age:
Race Discrimination Commissioner Tom Calma wants the burden of proof in cases of racial discrimination to fall on the alleged offender, instead of the person making the complaint.
Mr Calma said Australia’s laws made it difficult to prove there had been discrimination.
Well, you never know: That might be because there hasn’t been. But best not to take any chances. Australia’s Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission looked at how the system works in Britain, America and, inevitably, Canada, and found that “the onus of proof shifts to the person who has been accused of discrimination once the complainant has established an initial case”, whereas down under “the burden of proof rests on the person making the complaint”.
Oh, dear. As The Age reported, “Mr Calma said if people were forced to defend themselves, it might make them think twice before offending.”
The Herald Sun’s Andrew Bolt has an excellent response:
OK, Calma – I’ll start your ball rolling to hell. I accuse you of being a damn racist. Which, under your new regime, means a racist you are until you can prove you are not. In the meantime you should stand down, because a racist can’t hold your job, surely?
Indeed. I’m shocked to find that that damned filthy racist Calma hasn’t resigned yet.
THE FIRST VERDICT
Drive-by justice
WHEN THE CANADIAN Islamic Congress decided to get belatedly affronted by an excerpt from my book, they took their complaint to no less than three of these cockamamie “human rights” commissions. So we were facing potentially three trials, before the Canadian “Human Rights” Tribunal, the British Columbia “Human Rights” Tribunal and the Ontario “Human Rights” Tribunal. As we know, in any civilized justice system, double jeopardy is a no-no, but triple jeopardy is apparently fine and dandy. Today, the Ontario “Human Rights” Commission announced that they’d decided not to hear the case. That’s the good news. The bad news is they decided to issue a verdict anyway. So they added the following:
While freedom of expression must be recognized as a cornerstone of a functioning democracy, the Commission strongly condemns the Islamophobic portrayal of Muslims, Arabs, South Asians and indeed any racialized community in the media, such as the Maclean’s article and others like them, as being inconsistent with the values enshrined in our human rights codes. Media has a responsibility to engage in fair and unbiased journalism.
So in effect the Ontario “Human Rights” Commission, the world leaders in labiaplasty jurisprudence, have decided that, even though they don’t have the guts to hear the case, they might as well find us guilty. Ingenious! After all, if the federal “Human Rights” Commission hadn’t been so foolish enough to drag Marc Lemire to trial, their bizarre habits of playing dress-up Nazis on the Internet and posting their own hate messages using telecommunications fraud and identity theft would never have come to light. If they’d simply skipped the trial and declared Mr Lemire guilty anyway, they wouldn’t be in the mess they’re in.