More reaction to Jennifer Lynch's speech

The National Post has an editorial today reacting to Jennifer Lynch's speech to the so-called 'human rights' industry's annual conference, where the chief commissioner of the Canadian Human Rights Commission accused people like Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant of chilling their freedom of speech. The Post says:

But claiming that the commissions have overstepped their original purposes and outlived their usefulness is a legitimate argument. It is clearly one Ms. Lynch disagrees with, but she does not get to be the final arbiter of what is and isn't acceptable in debates about the commissions' future.

Still, she can be forgiven for believing she is. The CHRC acts as investigator, prosecutor and judge in complaints of racism and hate speech. Moreover, it gets to decide what constitutes hatefulness in print or the spoken word. No wonder Ms. Lynch cannot understand why she should have to tolerate those who advocate the end of human rights commissions. In her daily working life, she gets to define away those she disagrees with, so why not in the broader public debate on rights and who should protect them, too?

She also claimed that those who accused the CHRC and its provincial counterparts of "chilling" free expression with the prosecutions of writers such as Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant were themselves guilty of "reverse chill." Harsh criticism of the commissions in the media had discouraged many of their supporters from coming forward to defend their missions, she said. Others who had been brave enough to speak out had been subjected to withering personal criticism in opinion pieces and letters to the editor -- so much so that "50% of interviewees for an upcoming book on human rights have stated that they feel 'chilled' about speaking up."

There is a significant difference, though-- one Ms. Lynch seems unwilling to acknowledge -- between criticism and prosecution. It is the difference between name-calling and sticks and stones.

Kathy Shaidle is having a "words fail" experience. After making this observation:

Lynch reveals that the bullies on her staff are, like all bullies, really just cowards -- and completely unable to detect irony...

She can only respond:

Awwwww! Gooo-gooo, gaaaa-gaaaa!!

But on a serious note, until this speech I was one of the few people on the free speech side of the blogosphere who urged people give Jennifer the benefit of a doubt. I also recognized publicly that under her watch there have been some incremental improvements in the administration of the ghastly Section 13, which is so broad that anyone could run afoul of it for whatever reason any bureaucrat cooks up. I saw her as a bit of a Gorbachev of 'human rights.' Of course the whole regime has to come down, but she was at least a reformer. Well, now I wonder if her efforts at reform were merely pure self-preservation, akin to Gorbachev's trying to modernize just enough so the Communism could remain firmly in place.

Mark Steyn spent thousands of dollars of his own money and countless hours of his precious time fighting the triple jeopardy of jurisdiction shopping, enduring the process which is the punishment. He is the victim here, not Jennifer Lynch. But somehow Jennifer Lynch entirely lacks the ability to put herself in his shoes. Instead, as commonly happens with people who wrong others, she tries to demonize him without having the courage to name him. I'll let Mark explain in more detail what she did in that speech.

I didn't know Jennifer Lynch, QC until she decided to insert herself into my life. And, for most of last year, I tried to keep an open mind about her personal motivations, etc. But I regard the speech she gave to her fellow pseudo-rights enforcers at the "CASHRA" knees-up in Montreal as deeply dishonest. One assumes that she was aware that two-thirds of the statements she quoted were made not by "the media" in general, but rather by the target of her investigation: me. That makes her attribution of them profoundly misleading. Likewise, her mischaracterization of the "drunken pedophile" line. To be kind, it may be that the speech was written for her by some minion while she was off lunching a visiting delegation from the Iranian Human Rights Commission. But neither alternative - disingenousness or laziness - is acceptable. Even if you thought it a good idea to give the state extensive powers to regulate speech, Jennifer Lynch's speech makes plain that she's either too dishonest or stupid to be entrusted with the task.

Compare Commissar Lynch's remarks with those of Commissioner Denton at the CRTC, and decide for yourself who has the greater historical perspective and philosophical understanding. "Human rights" are about rights for humans, citizens, individuals - and about restraints on government. When a "human rights" commissar complains about citizens insulting the government, it would seem to be a near parodic example of how an obtuse and ugly nomenklatura has precisely inverted the principles of human rights and turned it into a vehicle for government power and bureaucratic self-preservation. When Queen Jennifer talks about the "human rights system", she gives the game away: It's about the "system", not human rights.

Take a look at the CASHRA program. Look at the array of speakers and their concerns.

Check out this on "demographics and human rights:"

Canada is facing major challenges in connection with demographic change. An increase in the number of new arrivals has created an ethnic, cultural and religious mosaic, sometimes seen by the majority as a threat to their “shared values”.

The "scare quotes" around "shared values" is what this crew thinks of our Western heritage folks, the same heritage that brought us freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of conscience. It is a heritage that is mindful of the dangers of tyranny and sought to limit the powers of the state. The relativistic, multicult mindset, reeking of identity politics, is a cancer eating away at real civil rights. AND WE'RE PAYING FOR THIS WITH OUR TAX DOLLARS.

Martin Luther King Jr. must be spinning in his grave at this nonsense. He appealed to our Western heritage to widen its inclusiveness so that black people were treated fairly within that context. He helped us to better understand the heritage to ensure that it includes us all, whatever race, whatever ethnic background we bring. If human rights commissions were about this kind of justice, I would not have a problem with them.

But they are not. They are against equality of opportunity and equality before the law. They are against judging on the content of characters and on merit. When Alan Borovoy and others first set them up, they had a Martin Luther King Jr. type vision to widen the application of civil rights, to ensure that all races and classes were treated equally before the law. That is no longer the case. This post-modern, living tree version of rights is soft totalitarian and creating a burgeoning bureaucracy of ideological enforcers who think our shared values belong in scare quotes. We must bring them to an end.