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In a career that has seen a lot of
surprises, it takes a lot to surprise
me, but I could only gape when I read an
editorial in The Vancouver Sun recently
on the subject of freedom. It seems that
they don't have it in places like
Pakistan, Gabon, the Congo, and
thePhilippines. But we do have it here.
The editorial was headed "A
right worth fighting for". Yes, get
your shields and fasten your bucklers,
men, and "fight for that
right" we were told. "Express
yourselves" and be glad of the
glories of our Canadian freedoms while
bearing in mind that lesser breeds do
not enjoy such delights.
We were even told how to do it.
"Write a letter, then send it to
the newspaper editor, the mayor, the
premier, the prime minister. Take your
pick...[and] for that blessing, count
yourself lucky that our country respects
freedom of expression," said the
Sun, using a form of expression more
suited to innocent infants than to
adults.
Count ourselves lucky? Pardon me,
Sun. Haven't you heard about the
demonized Ernst Zundel, who has spent
about fifteen years before courts and
human rights tribunals for expressing
himself, but who has never been
convicted of a crime as such? How about
Malcolm Ross - an impeccably respectable
teacher who wrote books the Jews didn't
like? With an assist from human rights
tribunals and the Supreme Court of
Canada he found himself out of a job;
Paul Fromm is another teacher who fell
foul of his critics for making
politically incorrect statements out of
school. Those guys expressed themselves,
all right, but Big Brother didn't like
what they were expressing. So they bit
the dust.
And then I thought of me. Regular
readers of my expressive efforts will
know that with me in mind a law called
the Amendment to the Human Rights Act
was passed by our morally corrupt
socialist government because some people
didn't like my columns in the North
Shore News. I've been on the barricades
ever since. I am now trying to have that
lousy law declared unconstitutional.
With no support at all, I might add,
from the freedom-loving Vancouver Sun.
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Here
is a newspaper that doesn't seem to know
that on the "human rights"
circuit in B.C, truth is no defence and
that you can't write anything that some
member of a powerful pressure group like
B'Nai Brith claims will bring him into
"hatred or contempt", even if
he hasn't been mentioned. So I am
challenging that. But before being
allowed to fight those NDP bastards in
the real courts I must go back to the
tribunal that found against me for
expressing the wrong views and ask it
whether what it did was constitutional!
When I had recovered from my surprise
at learning we were all free to express
ourselves I wrote a letter to the
Editor-in Chief of the Sun, advising him
that in fifty years in the news business
I had not seen a more sharply honed
piece of hypocrisy. I also gave him the
facts about our laws and asked him why
it was that B.C. didn't figure on his
list.
The letter was by way of being a
private advisory since, in spite of the
editorialist's invitation to express
myself, my letters to that newspaper are
never printed. Communists, nutters,
transit riders and termagants can get
letters published, but menaces like me
(racists, bigots, and holocaust deniers,
you know!) might as well be monks who
have taken the vow of silence. This even
though I was once a leading columnist on
that paper.
Pointing out that fines are inflicted
on sinners who may cause professional
whiners to have "hurt
feelings", I asked also how such an
ignorant exegesis as that editorial
could be written. It was always
possible, I said, that its author was
blind, deaf or dumb, particularly dumb.
It was also possible that he or she had
an eye on who was upstairs (meaning
Hollinger/Southam, whose Jewish element
has let it be known that I am not its
choice for the Order of Canada).
Whatever the reason, the Sun has never
even reported the B.C. Press Council's
block-busting analysis of the rights
racket as it affects the media, nor its
statement that you could be hauled
before a tribunal for telling a Newfie
joke..
Funny old world. But how, you may
ask, does Afghanistan come into this?
Well, when a newspaper railed against
the evils afflicting other places but
ignored local ones, it used to be called
Afghanistanism. Haven't heard that for a
long time. But it's worth reviving.
Especially when reading Sun editorials. |
