The quality of your argument is only important if you want to win by persuasion. But it’s irrelevant if you want to win by intimidation. I’m personally very happy to defend my columns in robust debate, but, if Canada believed in robust debate, we wouldn't have these "human rights" commissions or university administrators like the wretched M Houle in the first place. The morons who shut down Ann Coulter last night don't care that they made her point for her, anymore than those Muslim agitators in the streets of London fretted about the internal contradictions of threatening to kill anyone who says they're violent.
Freedom of speech is in grave peril in Canada. In the Coulter fracas, almost all the major societal institutions behaved poorly:
1) François Houle symbolizes a decadent academy that is the very antithesis of honest enquiry and intellectual debate that the university is supposed to represent.
2) The Ottawa Police have declared that there is no equality before the law. If you belong to certain groups, they'll stand by as the mob shuts you down.
3) The dinosaur media are vast lumbering eunuchs too cowed by political correctness to do even elementary research. Fatima Al Dhaher, the poor wee thing traumatized by Ann Coulter's camel joke, turns out to be a Jew-hater who wants to eliminate the State of Israel, and belongs to a group who regard Jews as "subhuman" "zionazis/kikeroaches". But that's too complicated for the media to fit into their Sesame Street narratives.
Some insight into the Muslim girl insulted/outraged/called out/ect. By Miss Coulter:
Fatima Al Dhaher that poor thing who was offended by Ann Coulter's camel comment, just happens to be a fan of a Facebook group that offends everyone - It's Called Palestine Not Israel!
A nice little snapshot of Miss Al Dhaher's Facebook page.
As I've said before, Miss Coulter will leave Canada with vindication and scads of cash but where does that leave us? How will the people who have paid to see Miss Coulter speak be reimbursed? Are the noise-makers ready to pony up the cash necessary to compensate them? Will a country allegedly reeling from Europe's poor estimation of our "barbaric" seal hunting season and oil sands be able to say with conviction that we allow the fundamental right to express ourselves? What qualifies as hate speech (I've asked that and have not, as of yet, gotten an answer)? Spell it out. I would like to hear what words, phrases and topics are considered by the government and/or special interest groups as "improper" for public discourse. Let's put this all out there. After all, we can offend Christians but we can't offend Muslims who seem to be offended by everything (RE: Danish cartoons). Is this reasonable or did this fall through the cracks?
What victims of censorship look like.
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