The spirit of '76 and the joy of Egyptian cotton

Here's a sign the Ontario Human Rights Commissioner Barbara Hall overlooked, at the summer '06 Hezbollah rally in Toronto, one that equates Israel with Nazisim. We know that no hatred was expressed here because the OHRC gave this one a pass.

In a column that could best be headlined, “Move along folks, be about your business, nothing to see here”, the Toronto Star’s Haroon Siddiqui is again swimming against the current, applauding the Canadian human rights organizations and defending the status quo. His dissent from those of us who believe in justice and due process of law is breathtaking. His disinformation is amazing.

I disagree with almost everything that he says, but I can’t be bothered fisking him.

However, there are two things that jumped off the page

First, this one:

Ontario deals with hateful signs and pamphlets. You may be dragged before
the commission for holding up a sign, "Kill all Muslims," but you won't be
if you were to write that in a newspaper or a magazine (even though you
would have reached a wider audience).

This is posited a few short paragraphs after he refers to the Muslim human rights complaints against Maclean’s magazine for publishing an alleged Islamophobic article written by Mark Steyn. A reader unfamiliar with the case might get the impression from this train of thought that Maclean’s called for the killing of all Muslims.

Very sly, Mr. Siddiqui.

On page 204-05 of America Alone (first hardback edition), Mr. Steyn discusses three possible options for the west in dealing with Islam: Submit, Destroy, or Reform. His exact words with respect to option number two: "It doesn't bear thinking about." Hardly a call to kill all Muslims.

Siddiqui also fails to mention that publishing such a call to action in the media would provoke a criminal charge under the Criminal Code of Canada which specifically penalizes language advocating genocide based on religion. Of course, he would refrain from mentioning that one because that is the proper channel for dealing with hate speech, not human rights bodies.

This was the other pants-dropper courtesy of Bernie Farber, the head of the Canadian Jewish Congress:

Bernie Farber, says the anti-hate laws have helped make Canada "the warm,
tolerant and accepting nation that it has become."

He must be thinking of post-1977 Canada, since that is when the HRCs began to sprout like mushrooms across the land.

I must confess this comment does bring back fond memories of a Canada that is now just a distant memory.

How I miss that summer of '76, with the monthly Ku Klux Klan parades down Yonge Street in downtown Toronto. The public lined the streets, cheering us on. Those gay pride folks should have been here when a parade really meant something. Hundreds of right-thinking guys all in white sheets, marching shoulder to shoulder, in perfect step!

I had a great sheet. I used only purest white Egyptian cotton, light, strong; cool, with a noticeable sheen to it.

Oh, who could forget the glorious rallies?

Standing together with our neo-Nazi skinhead brothers, we filled the old Exhibition stadium, shouting slogans until we were hoarse. The media just couldn’t get enough of us. The picnics, the free beer, the hotdogs, the racial superiority lectures, followed by the most spectacular midnight cross burning you could imagine on some brown or black guy’s front lawn.

Yes, we stood on guard for Canada.

Good times. Good times.

But along came that French guy, Trudeau. He pussified Canada and put an end to our fun.

Thanks to the diligent work of the human rights commissions, we raucous, racist, pig-headed, opinionated, white Canadians have dragged kicking and screaming into a warm and tolerant people.

I always kind of wondered how that happened, and now that Mr. Farber has let me in on the secret, I guess a part of me really wants to reach out and thank those nameless, faceless, unelected, unaccountable, pencil-necked, bureaucrats for making our country into the harmonious envy of the world it has now become. Clearly, we needed a firm hand to guide us and could not have done this without the government's big stick beating us into tolerance. Truly an instance in which the beatings continued until morale actually did improve, as the saying goes.

I for one would like to wish those left-minded people well, if I knew who they were, just to show there are no hard feelings now that I am a warm and fuzzy tolerant person.

Aw shucks, you guys know who you are -- here’s to you, you unsung heroes.

Now I know how Murray McLaughlin must have felt when he composed The Farmers’ Song.