Rushfeldt to Cosh: "We wuz stonewalled!"

We have another pulse! In today's National Post, there's more socon mewling and whining as Canada Family Action Coalition's Brian Rushfeldt responds to Colby Cosh's article last week in which the CFAC and their complaint against Justice McLachlin were given a good shitkicking. Cosh called the complaint "ludicrous", and pointed out that, among other ridiculousness, it cited completely irrelevant sections of the OC constitution. Rushfeldt fires back that any stupidity only occurred because they were unable to get the correct information:

"We thank Colby Cosh for reclarifying comments Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin made regarding her role on the Order of Canada Advisory Council. However, notably absent in his column ("A ludicrous attack on McLachlin," Aug. 22) were several key facts.

Canada Family Action Coalition (CFAC) operated with the best evidence available to us on Aug. 13 when we filed the complaint with the Canadian Judicial Council. Some information came from news stories (one from the National Post), some from past council decisions and some from the Constitution of the Order. All attempts we made to confirm the accuracy of information were stonewalled. We were stonewalled by the Governor-General's office and the judge. Requests for information under the Access to Information Act failed. We were informed the Governor-General is exempt from requirements of the act, which allows her to operate in a code of secrecy. Additionally, a one-liner on the Governor-General's Web page states: "All deliberations of the Advisory Council for the Order of Canada, as well as for any Canadian honour, are confidential.""

... so they went ahead and filed the complaint anyway, with whatever information they had. From news stories? What, like lifesite?? DUH! (Funny that Cosh didn't seem to have any trouble getting the facts straight, but I digress.)

It's unlikely that CFAC is too concerned about the facts anyway -- if they were, they might have addressed Cosh's scoffing ridicule of the "42 groups" that signed the complaint. Nah, they don't want to go there (and who can blame them?). What probably sent them into a furious foaming spittle-flecked lather was the last sentence of Cosh's article:

"Could it be that Morgentaler's appointment was in fact perfectly in line with the "social norms" of today?"

Read it and weep, fetus fetishists. And learn to live with it, because that's the Way It Is.

Collective sigh of relief at FD

I'm almost afraid to post this, but given that I posted about it a few times at the outset it's only fair to follow up: the CHRC complaint against Free Dominion has been withdrawn.

I'm not sure how these things work, but my guess is that in the time that's elapsed since the site owners received the complaint there's been plenty of back-and-forth between them and the CHRC. Without taking any sides here (sometimes it's necessary to state the obvious), I would venture that this is probably what should have gone down before the complaint was issued in the first place. Rather than immediately firing off a formal complaint that seems to come out of nowhere, which in my view is almost Kafkaesque, some preliminary dialogue would have saved everyone involved a lot of grief.

In the meantime, it'll be interesting to see if there were any lessons learned from this little exercise in aggravation. We'll know the answer to that question if Whatcott starts posting there again.

Last word on FD (then I go back into ridicule mode)

I'm losing hope (and empathy). I've never seen anyone go so completely opposite to the way they should be going than FD and how they're dealing with their CHRC difficulties.

They're planning a rally... fine, good for them. I like to see people out protesting, whether I agree with the issue or not. It's one of our rights, no, obligations as participants in a democratic society, to get out there and protest the shit we don't like. So they're planning a rally for the site owners... great... "and Bill"!??. Oh, that's a fine idea, give that fruitcake the stage so he can blather and foam away, maybe hand out some flyers with 4-colour pictures of anal warts and prolapsed rectums (recta?)... that's the face they want to show the media and the rest of Canada? I had a hard time maintaining sympathy for their plight when I found out they'd published the complainant's personal information, but a "rally for Bill" is a deal-breaker.

And now...
...they're collecting "incriminating evidence" from lefty sites and blogs. Yeah, they've been here (I know who's who on the sitemeter), although I wouldn't think they'd have to look far to find something that offends their tender sensibilities. It is, after all, "What I Do" (she said proudly). Predictably, someone is even threatening to file complaints with the CHRC. Good way to fight for Free Speech, guys -- gather up all the stuff that you think should be censored and make your own complaints.

I give the fuck up, seriously.

FD's CHRC woes - is anybody happy?

Like a lot of people, I've been watching with interest Free Dominion's situation with the Human Rights Commission complaint that was laid against it, and one poster specifically. My initial response was that it was a steaming crock of bullshit -- freedom of expression trumps all else, and if someone found something objectionable (it's a smorgasbord, ha!), surely it could be handled without government interference.

The nature and source of the offending post made me grudgingly concede that in this particular case the complaint might not be quite the steaming load I'd originally thought. Even I can admit that there are limits to what we have to accept in the interest free speech, and it's possible, especially in light of the recent increase in anti-Muslim bigotry, that this crossed the line. (Although I still maintain that even if I was filing a complaint, which I personally wouldn't have, I wouldn't have done it without any preliminary dialogue with the site owners.)

Some FD posters aren't helping: publishing the complainant's personal information serves no purpose other than to incite some whacko to make contact, or at the very least, make the board look like the drooling, bullying mouthbreathers they're accused of being. Dragging up the offending thread and keeping it bumped up for awhile wasn't too bright either. This is the kind of stuff that I can't help laughing at. But it's kind of a horrified, "what are you doing!?" laugh. I don't want them to lose this thing, but sometimes they seem intent on doing so.

Site owner Connie Wilkins was on the Coren radio show yesterday and impressed me as sounding very reasonable... until the question about Bill Whatcott, the source of the complaint, came up -- then there was a momentary stumble into the gutter of homophobia. Again, it was another one of those "Oh shit, what are you doing!?" moments.

None of this makes me particularly happy. Popcorn in hand, I'm watching how this plays out, as I think anyone wary of hate speech laws should be. But I'm certainly not cheering for FD's downfall -- quite the opposite, I'd be appalled if the site were shut down. We need more voices out there, not less. (And I don't want to lose a rich mine of conservative comedy gold.) I hope FD wins this and learns something from it ("don't let extremists hijack your site" maybe?), and from what I've seen many of us on the leftish side feel the same way.

And yet I find this on one of the "SoCon Blogs":

"The cackle of the Left is almost deafening."

Where the fuck does that come from? What cackle? I don't think anyone finds this situation particularly funny. It baffles me that right-wing blogs and FD itself go on about how gleefully happy "the left" is about FD's troubles. Other than a couple of isolated snarky comments, I've seen nothing but support for FD -- some of it given grudgingly, but support nonetheless. Even on Babble the general consensus is that they hope FD will win this. And yet the right seems totally clueless about all the support coming from this side of the aisle. That's what's so frustrating about them, their knee-jerk response that wherever they're at, the left must be 180 degrees away. Things aren't always that black and white.

Of course there's the possibility that the reason they can't conceive of us being supportive of them is because if the situation were turned on its head, they wouldn't be supportive of us. Sadly, I think that's probably closer to the truth.