The definition of insanity
According to the web it is Albert Einstein who defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
I'm afraid this definition popped into mind after I popped in to the tail end of the B'nai Brith news conference today releasing the annual audit of anti-Semitic incidents.
The news is depressing indeed. 2007 is the worst year ever since the human rights organization started doing this audit 26 years ago. Back then they recorded 63 incidents. In 2007 they counted 1,042, an 11 per cent increase over last year. Yet you would think if our human rights commissions were doing such a good job that anti-Jewish hate would not keep growing and growing. But it is, and the solution is not to expand their powers and add more investigators. Definition of insanity again.
The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal gets lauded in this report for its work on stopping the spread of internet hate and some cases conservative bloggers will now be quite familiar with are mentioned.
The scary thing about this audit is that it not only brings to light hate speech and incidents of harassment, but also acts of hate like vandalism and violent attacks. I would rather see more money and effort put into stopping that kind of criminal thuggery than in trying to stop pre-crime hateful speech. Because what is hateful keeps on getting expanded. Now conservative opinion is being attacked as hateful.
I'm admittedly innumerate, but looking at the bar graphs showing the rise in incidents, it appears to be at least five times greater now than it was in 1998.
The report says:
The report still focuses mostly on right-wing neo Nazi hate, and Holocaust Denial.
There's a paragraph about "anti-Israel" hate fests on university campuses, but it's odd that it is sandwiched in between talk of how right wing extremists use words like anti-Zionism to cloak their anti-Jewish hatred.
The anti-Israel hate fests are coming from the LEFT, not the right. The report says there is an alliance between the left and the right on this. I dunno. I don't spend time on right wing hate sites so I don't know if they are in bed with the Left-wing anti-racist factions that equate Zionism with racism.
What I find so ironic about all this is the fact that the human rights regime has started to turn against the very people in Canada who have been most vocal in defending Jews and Israel. And now, someone who has been part of the human rights industry either as an investigator or a frequent complainant against the anti-Semitic right, has launched lawsuits that could silence these pro-Israel, pro-Jewish conservative voices.
And the very human rights apparatus that has obviously not been successful for years in staunching the rise of anti-Semitism if it keeps growing by leaps and bounds is now being used by illiberal activists that want to silence anyone's ability to criticize them.
Had some good discussions with a couple of the lawyers who attended the news conference. For the most part, they still defend human rights commissions and other state-sponsored means to stop racism. The old "don't throw out the baby with the bathwater" if the system needs some tweaking argument.
I'm afraid this definition popped into mind after I popped in to the tail end of the B'nai Brith news conference today releasing the annual audit of anti-Semitic incidents.
The news is depressing indeed. 2007 is the worst year ever since the human rights organization started doing this audit 26 years ago. Back then they recorded 63 incidents. In 2007 they counted 1,042, an 11 per cent increase over last year. Yet you would think if our human rights commissions were doing such a good job that anti-Jewish hate would not keep growing and growing. But it is, and the solution is not to expand their powers and add more investigators. Definition of insanity again.
The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal gets lauded in this report for its work on stopping the spread of internet hate and some cases conservative bloggers will now be quite familiar with are mentioned.
The scary thing about this audit is that it not only brings to light hate speech and incidents of harassment, but also acts of hate like vandalism and violent attacks. I would rather see more money and effort put into stopping that kind of criminal thuggery than in trying to stop pre-crime hateful speech. Because what is hateful keeps on getting expanded. Now conservative opinion is being attacked as hateful.
I'm admittedly innumerate, but looking at the bar graphs showing the rise in incidents, it appears to be at least five times greater now than it was in 1998.
The report says:
The Jewish community makes up barely 1 per cent of the total Canadian population, according to the 2006 Census released by Statistics Canada. Despite such a small demographic profile, the Audit findings once again mirror those of police reports, illustrating a disproportionate targeting of the Jewish community compared to other ethnic and religious groups, a trend that has been steadily intensifying in the past ten years.The report discusses the ugly racism that erupted in Quebec during the Bouchard Taylor commission hearings on reasonable accommodation. Lots of disturbing information about negative attitudes towards Jews in that province.
Interestingly, the FBI's Hate Crime Statistics Report for 2006 indicates that of the 1,462 anti-religion hate crimes reported in the US, 967 cases (65.4 %) were caused by the offenders anti-Jewish bias. The next closest group was the Muslim community: 156 cases (11.9%) involved an anti-Islamic bias.
The report still focuses mostly on right-wing neo Nazi hate, and Holocaust Denial.
There's a paragraph about "anti-Israel" hate fests on university campuses, but it's odd that it is sandwiched in between talk of how right wing extremists use words like anti-Zionism to cloak their anti-Jewish hatred.
The anti-Israel hate fests are coming from the LEFT, not the right. The report says there is an alliance between the left and the right on this. I dunno. I don't spend time on right wing hate sites so I don't know if they are in bed with the Left-wing anti-racist factions that equate Zionism with racism.
What I find so ironic about all this is the fact that the human rights regime has started to turn against the very people in Canada who have been most vocal in defending Jews and Israel. And now, someone who has been part of the human rights industry either as an investigator or a frequent complainant against the anti-Semitic right, has launched lawsuits that could silence these pro-Israel, pro-Jewish conservative voices.
And the very human rights apparatus that has obviously not been successful for years in staunching the rise of anti-Semitism if it keeps growing by leaps and bounds is now being used by illiberal activists that want to silence anyone's ability to criticize them.
Had some good discussions with a couple of the lawyers who attended the news conference. For the most part, they still defend human rights commissions and other state-sponsored means to stop racism. The old "don't throw out the baby with the bathwater" if the system needs some tweaking argument.
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