Canadian intellectual freedom news roundup: (If you don't think that intellectual freedom in Canada matters, why are you even reading The Post-Darwini

Surprisingly, intellectual freedom in Canada is still percolating.

The book that Pete Vere of Soo Today and Kathy "Five Feet of Fury" Shaidle are writing on the collapse of civil rights in Canada is soon to appear. Its title is The Tyranny of Nice, which means it will rip off the veils created by legacy Canadian media, including Christian media.

I will provide information on how to buy it as soon as I have same.

Meanwhile, here is a link to Vere's interview on Joe Banister's "We the People" radio show (August 16, 2008) . The idea, "We the People" sounds so American. Perhaps Americans do not live only to support the government and its current advisors and pets, as we do.

But here in Canada our government is not the only problem. Canadian Christians are a big part of the problem.

I have written a summary of the situation here in the September/October edition of SEVEN Magazine. For example,

One outcome of the commissions targeting media has been limited information from traditional sources about their activities. Critical information is now disseminated through the blogosphere and on YouTube. Most of the “Freespeechers,” who lead the fight for restoring traditional law to media, are blogger journalists. Ezra Levant videotaped his interrogation and posted it on YouTube. Hundreds of thousands of people have already watched it. The commissions have responded by dropping some of the most egregious charges.

[ ... ]

Most seasoned observers do not consider these developments simply positive. The commissions are free to resume their activities against anonymous citizens once the furor around high-profile accuseds dies. The single biggest challenge is one that astonishes American observers—the apparent indifference of most Canadian Christians to the individuals who are targeted, even though so many of them are Christians.

Yes, it's true! Fatuous hollering for Jesus is apparently all that is required of a Christian in Canada nowadays. Not justice, not mercy, not social responsibility. Just fatuous hollering for Jesus somewhere.

Unbelievably, the Canadian Church Press has been conflicted about whether to speak out about the attacks on Christian media and Christian or Jewish journalists.

And they celebrated their 50th anniversary in 2007. I would rather there not be a 100th, if they continue as they are.

I have been an associate member for many years but there is only so much cowardice I can deal with.

Catholic Insight has been charged again, as has civil rights lawyer Ezra Levant (for operating a blog about the collapse of civil rights).

Remember, Canada no longer has a normal Western world system of justice. So anyone, anywhere can decide that their rights have been violated. And for all practical purposes, defendants can be charged again and again indefinitely for the same offense. Even if the defendant who allegedly violated someone's rights manages to get cleared, with loss of life savings, the nightmare can start all over tomorrow.

Meanwhile, various state functionaries live very well indeed. And those who would get on in the world will doubtless join their numbers speedily.

Also, Deborah Gyapong has posted on the current "human rights" demand that Ontario doctors forego all conscience rights in dealing with their patients. First doctors and then everyone else, of course.


Here's The Ottawa Citizen's David Warren on this topic:

But a much more significant advance has now been proposed by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, to bring the tyranny of “political correction” to bear on its own membership. As usual, the process was being advanced in the dark, away from the possibility of public discussion -- and was only pried open in the course of the last week when a large number of physicians, surgeons, and even politicians found out about it.

As I’ve written before, the “human rights” revolution that has been sweeping through Canada’s law schools and legal establishment, depends on an Orwellian inversion of the term, “human rights.” For human rights were traditionally conceived as the individual’s legal and moral resort against the arbitrary power of unaccountable organizations. In the new, inverted definition, “human rights” become a device by which unaccountable organizations may crush that individual. “Human rights” have been ideologized, and collectivized. They now belong to groups, exclusively, and include principally the right not to be “offended” by the existence of an individual with a mind of his own.

The part that bothers me the most is the silence/whinging of most Christian leaders.

Honestly, they weren't always like this. (But - equally honestly - they have been like this for a long time.)