Political Correctness in Canada

[_Ray A]

There's nothing politically correct in the comments of former (Australian government) Federal Treasurer Peter Costello in a Lateline interview in 2005:

TONY JONES: On the morning of the Prime Minister's Islamic summit, Mr Howard was greeted by his Treasurer's surprising contribution to the debate on the front page of The Australian newspaper. The headline read: "Costello tells firebrand clerics to get out of Australia".

Well, early in the day Peter Costello was not suggesting that any of the firebrands be deported. But by the time he spoke to us, that notion appeared to have matured.

His latest intervention into topics of national interest comes only days after his speech to the Australian-American leadership dialogue in which he focussed on growing anti-Americanism in the world. "That phenomenon", he later told the Sunday program, "Can easily morph into anti-Westernism, which picks up and encapsulates Australia and threatens our interests as well."

So was he suggesting that our close relationship with America makes us more vulnerable to terrorist attacks? I spoke to Peter Costello in our Melbourne studio earlier this evening.

Peter Costello, thanks for joining us.

PETER COSTELLO: Good to be with you, Tony.

TONY JONES: Now, over the past 24 hours you've been repeating the notion that migrants, evidently Islamic migrants, who don't like Australia, or Australian values, should think of packing up and moving to another country. Is that a fair assessment?

PETER COSTELLO: What I've said is that this is a country, which is founded on a democracy. According to our Constitution, we have a secular state. Our laws are made by the Australian Parliament. If those are not your values, if you want a country which has Sharia law or a theocratic state, then Australia is not for you. This is not the kind of country where you would feel comfortable if you were opposed to democracy, parliamentary law, independent courts and so I would say to people who don't feel comfortable with those values there might be other countries where they'd feel more comfortable with their own values or beliefs.

TONY JONES: It sounds like you're inviting Muslims who don't want to integrate to go to another country. Is it as simple as that?

PETER COSTELLO: No. I'm saying if you are thinking of coming to Australia, you ought to know what Australian values are.

TONY JONES: But what about if you're already here and you don't want to integrate?

PETER COSTELLO: Well, I'll come to that in a moment. But there are some clerics who have been quoted as saying they recognise two laws. They recognise Australian law and Sharia law. There's only one law in Australia, it's the Australian law. For those coming to Australia, I think we ought to be very clear about that. We expect them to recognise only one law and to observe it.

Now, for those who are born in Australia, I'd make the same point. This is a country which has a Constitution. Under its Constitution, the state is secular. Under its constitution, the law is made by the parliament. Under its Constitution, it's enforced by the judiciary. These are Australian values and they're not going to change and we would expect people, when they come to Australia or if they are born in Australia, to respect those values.

TONY JONES: I take it that if you're a dual citizen and you have the opportunity to leave and you don't like Australian values, you're encouraging them to go away; is that right?

PETER COSTELLO: Well, if you can't agree with parliamentary law, independent courts, democracy and would prefer Sharia law and have the opportunity to go to another country which practises it, perhaps then that's a better option.

TONY JONES: But isn't this the sort of thing you hear in pubs, the meaningless populism you hear on talkback radio? Essentially, the argument is if you don't like it here, you should go back home.

PETER COSTELLO: No. Essentially, the argument is Australia expects its citizens to abide by core beliefs - democracy, the rule of law, the independent judiciary, independent liberty. You see, Tony, when you come to Australia and you go to take out Australian citizenship you either swear on oath or make an affirmation that you respect Australia's democracy and its values. That's what we ask of people that come to Australia and if they don't, then it's very clear that this is not the country - if they can't live with them - whose values they can't share. Well, there might be another country where their values can be shared.

TONY JONES: Who exactly are you aiming this at? Are you aiming it at young Muslims who don't want to integrate or are you aiming it at clerics like Sheikh Omran or Abu Bakr both from Melbourne?

PETER COSTELLO: I'd be saying to clerics who are teaching that there are two laws governing people in Australia, one the Australian law and another the Islamic law, that that is false. It's not the situation in Australia. It's not the situation under our Constitution. There's only one law in Australia. It's the law that's made by the Parliament of Australia and enforced by our courts. There's no second law. There's only one law that applies in Australia and Australia expects its citizens to observe it.

TONY JONES: But you're not moving to the next stage, as they have in Britain, of actively seeking out clerics who teach what they regard as dangerous philosophy to young Muslims and forcing them to leave the country?

PETER COSTELLO: The only thing I would say - and let me say it again - is we can't be ambivalent about this point. Australia has one law, Australia has a secular state and anybody who teaches to the contrary doesn't know Australia and anybody who can't accept that, can't accept something that is fundamental to the nature of our society.

http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/ ... 444603.htm

Urban Legends: http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/australia.asp

[_Coggins7]

Interesting how Jones tried to derail the main point, apparently intending to imply that, as with media elites here, any attempt to control borders and preserve indigenous political and cultural institutions, is "mindless populism' from the pubs, or, in the American case, from 'flyover country"; everything between New York and Los Angeles.

Those wascally conservatives. Closet Klansmen all.

[_moksha]

Oh no, they've agreed to hear the case? Next they will be ordering falafel for lunch.

Hi Moksha,

What do you think about the following passage:

As David Warren put it, the punishment is not the verdict, but the process--the months of time-consuming distractions and legal bills that make it easier for editors to shrug, "You know, maybe we don't need a report on creeping sharia, after all. How about we do The Lindsay Lohan Guide To Celebrity Carjacking one more time?" Canada is not unique in the urge of its bien pensants to pre-emptive surrender: Australian publishers decline books on certain, ah, sensitive subjects; a French novelist was dragged into court to answer for the "Islamophobia" of one of his fictional characters; British editors insist books are vacuumed of anything likely to attract the eye of wealthy Saudis adept at using the English legal system to silence their critics.

Nonetheless, even in this craven environment, Canada's "human rights commissions" are uniquely inimical to the marketplace of ideas. In its 30 years of existence, no complaint brought to the federal Hillary Clinton under Section XIII has been settled in favour of the defendant. A court where the rulings only go one way is the very definition of a show trial. These institutions should be a source of shame to Canadians.

Is that what we want in the US (I realize that we have some valuable posters from outside the US but most are from America).

Hey, we are a Country who does God knows what at Guantanamo Bay. We still have training centers for foreign terrorists (we call them freedom fighters) in our Southern States. Our Appellate Court Judges are hosted on paid junkets, by lobbyists, to the Caribbean to reinforce training for their non-activism against monopolies. With all this going on, there is little danger of being swamped by the ethical, moral or political correctness.

[_Ray A]

Interesting how Jones tried to derail the main point, apparently intending to imply that, as with media elites here, any attempt to control borders and preserve indigenous political and cultural institutions, is "mindless populism' from the pubs, or, in the American case, from 'flyover country"; everything between New York and Los Angeles.

The problem is that it's ("mindless populism") not only popular in the pubs, but everywhere. The media have been referred to as "the chattering classes". In other words, they chatter to themselves and pump each other's egos about how smart they are, while being a million miles from public opinion. It's sort of like Internet forums.

[_Coggins7]

We still have training centers for foreign terrorists (we call them freedom fighters) in our Southern States. Our Appellate Court Judges are hosted on paid junkets, by lobbyists, to the Caribbean to reinforce training for their non-activism against monopolies. With all this going on, there is little danger of being swamped by the ethical, moral or political correctness.

1. Its called waterboarding, at the very worst, and if it saves American lives, especially innocent lives on our own shores, more power to them. Foreign terrorist thugs were eating better at Gitmo that our own soldiers, had Korans, prayer mats, and three hots and a cot.

Good Grief educate yourself people.

We have never trained foreign terrorists if by that you mean trained people with the intention that they become "terrorists"(Close the Chomski book, turn off Link TV, and flip that switch on your forehead that says "frontal lobes: ON"). We have indeed trained certain individuals, in particular Latin American leaders, who did misuse that knowledge and beat up their own people. That was not our intention. This is a very complex issue that was part of the calculus of Cold War geopolitics which there is no point in going into now.

Econ 101 for American leftists: There are no real monopolies in a free market economy except monopolies of one kind--government monopolies. Monopolies cannot exist, at least, not for very long, in an open, competitive market and without the connivance of the state. When leftists start being concerned with the plethora of government back scratching schemes that make a number of industries or economic entities (labor unions, for example (or a most egregios example, public teachers unions)) creatures of the state on a gravy train at society's expense, then we can talk.

[_Coggins7]

The same kinds of people (mentalities such as this do not dot only the Canadian landscape) react in a similar fashion to incorrect thoughts and the people who think them.



No Conservatives, Dammit!!

By Harry Stein
City Journal | 1/4/2008

Here is just a tiny, tiny sample of the reaction on the Huffington Post to the announcement that William Kristol will be writing a weekly column in the New York Times:

* “William ‘the Bloody’ Kristol is a beady eyed warmonger.”
* “Worthless suck up Kristol should be cleaning toilets in public restrooms for his GOP ‘friends.’”
* “I will never, ever, buy another issue of the newspaper, I will never again be a subscriber to your newspaper and I will do my level best to avoid any purchases from any NY Times advertiser.”
* “If the New York Times is going to hire a liar and a racist like Bill Kristol then they might as well hire Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Michael Savage, Bill O’Reilly, and Ari Fleischer.”
* “Kristol is an arrogant warmongering prick. I can’t stand the sight of him.”
* “Listening to Kristol, that war mongering crater face, is worse than listening to Bush, Cheney, and Richard Pearle all rolled up in one . . . I hate that decision and I will do everything I can to discredit this decision until they finally flush him down the toilet like the turd he is.”

And so it went, on this and dozens of other left-of-center sites. Sputtering fury. Vicious name-calling. Denunciations of the Times for this unspeakable act. Threats to cancel subscriptions and otherwise exact revenge.

For conservatives, long accustomed to self-serving liberal pieties about tolerance, the orgy of outrage at having to face an alien point of view was wonderful to behold, and no one enjoyed it more than the man at the storm’s center. As Kristol put it to Politico.com, with the obvious relish of the skinny guy on the beach who gets the girl in the fourth panel, “I was flattered watching blogosphere heads explode.” (This provoked a new round of outrage: “Lawd, this is one son of a bitch I detest,” a typical posting hissed. “Smarmy prick. I’m sure that amuses him even more.”)

In fact, about the only one seemingly surprised that Times readers would respond with such vehemence was the man most responsible for the appointment: editorial page editor Andy Rosenthal. Noting that he had trouble understanding “this weird fear of opposing views,” Rosenthal observed in an interview that Kristol “is a serious, respected conservative intellectual—and somehow that’s a bad thing. How intolerant is that?” There’s something almost touching in the naïveté behind those words. Can Rosenthal truly be so unaware of the character of his own core readership? Does he actually believe that they’re open to challenge, or even reasonable back-and-forth? Doesn’t he read his own paper’s letters page? “David Brooks can write the mildest column in the world,” Bernard Goldberg observes, “and the letters to the editor act like he’s Hitler.” Now, to their horror, letter-writers face the prospect of regularly waking up to a leading exemplar of a far more aggressive conservatism—a muscular supporter of the war who has characterized the Times itself as “irredeemable.”

According to The Nation’s Katha Pollitt, “What this hire demonstrates is how successfully the right has intimidated the mainstream media. Their constant demonizing of the New York Times as the tool of the liberal elite worked.” What the appointment really suggests, however, is a degree of desperation at the Times that only its worst enemies have wished on that venerable institution. Always remarkable for the arrogance with which it brushed aside criticism, the paper has long cast itself as the unimpeachable arbiter of reality; and no one has proven less inclined to admit error (or give conservatives a fair shake) than that determinedly leftist child of the sixties, publisher Arthur “Pinch” Sulzberger. Yet after plummeting ad sales and circulation cut the stock price steeply enough to put even a family-controlled board on edge, Sulzberger was moved to do the hitherto unthinkable in a belated effort to broaden the paper’s appeal and reclaim its once-vaunted reputation for balance.

Will it work? Don’t count on it. Dramatic as the gesture is, it is as unlikely to impress those on the right hostile to the paper as it has those up in arms on the left. Perhaps the most amusing reaction to the news was posted by Web pundit Steve Boriss, who speculated that Kristol would serve as a Trojan horse for his Weekly Standard boss, Rupert Murdoch, weakening reader commitment to the Times and so helping Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal. “Murdoch may understand Times readers better than the Times does,” Boriss wrote, “recognizing it is contrary to human nature for audiences to enjoy columns written by those with whom they disagree. . . . for Times readers who can easily avoid daily exposure to conservative views, Bill Kristol will not only seem wrong, but also selfish, mean-spirited, and morally deficient.”

Kristol’s arrival may have a bigger impact on morale in-house, since in their political sensibilities Times staffers are pretty much a microcosm of the Upper West Side. Already there had been much newsroom grousing about the ideological transgressions of the gentlemanly Brooks and Book Review and now Week in Review editor Sam Tanenhaus, who has opened up the book coverage somewhat to conservative thought. As Brooks once wryly put it, “Being the house conservative at the New York Times is like being the chief rabbi in Mecca.”

The conservative website TheNoseOnYourFace.com offered an inspired take by imagining Sulzberger sending his staff a memo detailing the paper’s newly instituted “Neo-Con Sensitivity Training Program.” It read in part:

Like you and I, Bill Kristol puts his pants on one leg at a time—he’s just thinking about dead Iraqi babies, single malt Scotch, and his Haliburton dividends checks while he’s doing it. My point is that we should try to view him as just another staff member, and try to find common ground and mutual respect. Also, as a general rule, try to avoid startling him and limit direct eye contact to less than two seconds.

Mr. Kristol is a neo-con, as in neo-conservative. Your NCSTP training will offer a more in-depth explanation of the difference between a standard-grade conservative and neo-con, but for now, imagine the difference between a really bad case of the flu and full-blown AIDS.

Perhaps most telling in the response to Kristol’s hiring, almost no one seems to have taken it the way that Rosenthal hoped—as a chance to engage with an alternative point of view. In a liberal universe where the other side is wrong—evil—by definition, that’s simply not how things are done. Over and over on the Web, one found variations on the following: “I never read William Saphire [sic], and I never read David Brooks. I will take great pleasure in never reading Bill Kristol!”

Harry Stein is a contributing editor of City Journal. A journalist and novelist, he is the author of How I Accidentally Joined the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy (and Found Inner Peace) and The Girl Watchers Club. He will be teaching this summer at the Brouzils Seminars in France (brouzils.org).
[/b]

[_Coggins7]

Sputtering fury. Vicious name-calling

the orgy of outrage

Sounds not at all unlike what happens when Boyd K. Packer mentions spaghetti straps or tattoos.

Those Church standards are so very un-PC, after all.

[_Ray A]

The same kinds of people (mentalities such as this do not dot only the Canadian landscape) react in a similar fashion to incorrect thoughts and the people who think them.



No Conservatives, Dammit!!

By Harry Stein
City Journal | 1/4/2008

Sounds like what happened with The Sydney Morning Herald, long accused (rightly in my opinion) of left-wing bias (note my bold emphases).

Gerald Tooth: One criticism often made of the paper, which is a criticism that the ABC shares, is that the news is approached with a left-leaning bias. What do you say about that constant criticism?

Alan Oakley: Well it's not something that I accept. The Herald proudly and traditionally is independent, an independent voice. I've been in the job a short time; I've been accused by both sides of politics, of having bias, of the paper showing bias, both Left and Right. Now I kind of figure that that means that we're probably doing our job. We call things as we see it, we are fiercely independent, we're not beholden to any political ideology, to any political party. I think we advocate on behalf of our readers. Sometimes we upset governments, sometimes we upset oppositions. And often both at the same time, at State level and at Federal level. I think it is not now a relevant criticism, I think you might look to other media and question bias more than you would The Sydney Morning Herald.

They brought Miranda Devine on board to "level things out": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miranda_Devine

Her father Frank was one of the most hated right-wing columnists in the country, pumping out columns in Murdoch's The Australian, and sitting on the board of directors of Quadrant (a journal which Noel loves).

[_richardMdBorn]

Oh no, they've agreed to hear the case? Next they will be ordering falafel for lunch.

Hi Moksha,

What do you think about the following passage:

As David Warren put it, the punishment is not the verdict, but the process--the months of time-consuming distractions and legal bills that make it easier for editors to shrug, "You know, maybe we don't need a report on creeping sharia, after all. How about we do The Lindsay Lohan Guide To Celebrity Carjacking one more time?" Canada is not unique in the urge of its bien pensants to pre-emptive surrender: Australian publishers decline books on certain, ah, sensitive subjects; a French novelist was dragged into court to answer for the "Islamophobia" of one of his fictional characters; British editors insist books are vacuumed of anything likely to attract the eye of wealthy Saudis adept at using the English legal system to silence their critics.

Nonetheless, even in this craven environment, Canada's "human rights commissions" are uniquely inimical to the marketplace of ideas. In its 30 years of existence, no complaint brought to the federal Hillary Clinton under Section XIII has been settled in favour of the defendant. A court where the rulings only go one way is the very definition of a show trial. These institutions should be a source of shame to Canadians.

Is that what we want in the US (I realize that we have some valuable posters from outside the US but most are from America).Hey, we are a Country who does God knows what at Guantanamo Bay. We still have training centers for foreign terrorists (we call them freedom fighters) in our Southern States. Our Appellate Court Judges are hosted on paid junkets, by lobbyists, to the Caribbean to reinforce training for their non-activism against monopolies. With all this going on, there is little danger of being swamped by the ethical, moral or political correctness.

Moksha, check out http://www.meforum.org/pf.php?id=1828

The Islamist movement has two wings -- one violent and one lawful -- which operate apart but often reinforce each other. While the violent arm attempts to silence speech by burning cars when cartoons of Mohammed are published, the lawful arm is maneuvering within Western legal systems.

Islamists with financial means have launched a legal jihad, manipulating democratic court systems to suppress freedom of expression, abolish public discourse critical of Islam, and establish principles of Sharia law. The practice, called "lawfare," is often predatory, filed without a serious expectation of winning and undertaken as a means to intimidate and bankrupt defendants.

Forum shopping, whereby plaintiffs bring actions in jurisdictions most likely to rule in their favor, has enabled a wave of "libel tourism" that has resulted in foreign judgments against European and now American authors mandating the destruction of American-authored literary material.

At the time of her death in 2006, noted Italian author Orianna Fallaci was being sued in France, Italy, Switzerland, and other jurisdictions, by groups dedicated to preventing the dissemination of her work. With its "human rights" commissions, Canada joins the list of countries, including France and the United Kingdom, whose laws are being used to attack the free speech rights and due process protections afforded American citizens.

The litany of American publishers, television stations, authors, journalists, experts, activists, political figures, and citizens targeted for censorship is long and merits brief mention. There is an obvious pattern to these suits that can only be ignored at great peril. And we must expect future litigation along these lines:

*

Joe Kaufman, chairman of Americans Against Hate, was served with a temporary restraining order and sued for leading a peaceful and lawful ten person protest against the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) outside an event the group sponsored at a Six Flags theme park in Texas. According to ICNA's website, the group is dedicated to "working for the establishment of Islam in all spheres of life," and to "reforming society at large." The complaint included seven Dallas-area plaintiffs who had never been previously mentioned by Kaufman, nor been present at the theme park. Litigation is ongoing.
*

The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) sued Andrew Whitehead, an American activist, for $1.3 million for founding and maintaining the website Anti-CAIR-net.org, on which he lists CAIR as an Islamist organization with ties to terrorist groups. After CAIR refused Whitehead's discovery requests, seemingly afraid of what internal documents the legal process it had initiated would reveal, the lawsuit was dismissed by the court with prejudice.
*

CAIR also sued Cass Ballenger for $2 million after the then-U.S. Congressman said in a 2003 interview with the Charlotte Observer that the group was a "fundraising arm for Hezbollah" that he had reported as such to the FBI and CIA. Fortunately, the judge ruled that Ballenger's statements were made in the scope of his public duties and were protected speech.
*

A Muslim police officer is suing former CIA official and counterterrorism consultant Bruce Tefft and the New York Police Department for workplace harassment merely because Tefft sent emails with relevant news stories about Islamic terrorism to a voluntary list of recipients that included police officers.

These suits represent a direct and real threat to our constitutional rights and national security. Even if the lawsuits don't succeed, the continued use of lawfare tactics by Islamist organizations has the potential to create a detrimental chilling effect on public discourse and information concerning the war on terror.

And we have Supreme Court justices such Breyer who want to cite foreign laws in their rulings.

[_Bryan Inks]

Keene, is there code in here to check for keywords and bring up specific ads? Or is it just coincidence that MuslimSingles.com is the ad that keeps popping up?

The google-ads are completely handled by Google. They do pick up on keywords for them, but beyond that, their code is proprietary and unknown (as far as I know).