Quote of the day

This one comes to us from Rajendra Pachauri, the jet-setting head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. He once flew from New York to Delhi, over a weekend, to take in a cricket match.

He defended climate research in the face of a controversy over e-mails pilfered from a British university, which global warming skeptics say show scientists have been conspiring to hide evidence that doesn't fit their theories.

"The recent incident of stealing the emails of scientists at the University of East Anglia shows that some would go to the extent of carrying out illegal acts perhaps in an attempt to discredit the IPCC," he told the conference.

Pachauri seems unconcerned that the scientists on whom his panel relies have lost the original data, so fudged the data they have that it is incomprehenisble, and that they conspired to defeat freedom of information laws and corrupted the peer review process to hide their incompetence. The fact that these same folks beat themselves up because they could not explain the last decade of static or cooling temperatures with the AGW theory to which they cling (like religion and guns), seems not worth considering to our globe-trotting Chairman.

The next time somebody tells you what we need is a world government, keep this quote in mind.

Creeping world government

Following on my last posting is an appeal by a European for America to stand steadfast behind its Consititution. And the second link takes you to a commentary on how that Constitution could be eroded to infect the United States with the same anti-free speech laws that prevent criticism of Islam in European states, and nearly in Canada.

Learning from the mistakes of others, or not

The battles in Canada with the forces of multi-culturalism and political correctness to preserve free expression have been well publicized in the United States, the one country in the world that truly enshrines in its laws the unfettered right of free speech (unfettered by government fiat).

So you would think Americans would have learned something from us.

Nope.

The Obama government appears to be going down the same path that we took nearly two decades ago that has left us today with a tattered and nonsensical notion of human rights as they apply to free expression.

As part of Obama’s outreach program to Muslims, the U.S. has joined the odious United Nations Human Rights Council, dominated by the Islamic states who regularly engineer resolutions condemning the state of Israel and who have supported resolutions in the General Assembly calling for members of the U.N. to criminalize the “defamation of religion”, meaning the defamation of Islam, since Islam regularly defames other religions and non-religious beliefs.

As a counter to that resolution the U.S. has initiated a resolution that says the following, among other things:

Also expresses its concern that incidents of racial and religious intolerance, discrimination and related violence, as well as of negative stereotyping of religions and racial groups continue to rise around the world, and condemns, in this context, any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence, and urges States to take effective measures, consistent with their international human rights obligations, to address and combat such incidents.

The resolution was passed at the Council and presumably is sent up the ladder to eventually be passed into U.N. law.

This poisonous stew is understood by Islamic nations to be a prescription whereby Muslims can use the government organs of non-Islamic states to prosecute criticism of Islam within those states, or they wouldn’t have supported it.

The key phrases in this paragraph for Muslims are “negative stereotyping of religions” and “advocacy of … religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination…”

Religions ought not to be exempt from criticism, especially a religion that is also a political ideology like Islam.

Consider these words in Canada’s Human Rights Act.

13. (1) It is a discriminatory practice for a person or a group of persons acting in concert to communicate … any matter that is likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt by reason of the fact that person or those persons are identifiable on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination.

Religion is one of the prohibited grounds of discrimination under this statute.

These words justified several human rights agencies in Canada taking action against two news publishers; one who published the Danish cartoons and the other who published an excerpt from a book by author Mark Steyn who wrote about the rise of Islam in Europe. These actions were prompted by Muslim activists who claimed they were “likely to be exposed to hatred or contempt” because of these publications.

It would be easy to contemplate exactly the same actions being processed by the human rights regimes here on the grounds that these publications were advocating religious hatred that constituted incitement to discrimination.

It may also have unintended consequences. For example, if a secular advocacy group wanted to challenge the ritual of prayer in government legislatures, could that group be accused of inciting discrimination because it hated the idea of religion mixing with government? Would complaining about the separation of church and state become off-limits?

This is a slippery slope Mr. Obama’s “feel good” diplomacy has led America to and we know better than anybody what is at the bottom of it.

Three cheers for the Right Honourable Stephen Harper

It is not often I find something coming out of my country that makes me want to stand up and cheer, but our Prime Minister, Stephen Harper’s, principled decision to boycott the appearance of the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, before the United Nations’ General Assembly is one of those occasions. I could not say it better than Harper said in this video today.

Obama, don't do it!

Now here is a truly bad idea. The EU is pressuring Obama to surrender control over the Internet to some as yet to be organized international organization that will make the decisions. The U.S. invented the Internet and so far hasn't done a half bad job of keeping it running and organized. I see no compelling reason to surrender control and a good one for not. Increasingly, international organizations, at the state level, are proving to be ineffective in achieving common goals, simply because the world no longer has common goals. We have seen this in the United Nations (a misnomer in the 21st century). No country has shown more dedication to freedom of expression than the United States. Once other countries get their hands on the levers you will begin to see censorship raising its ugly head.

The march of Islam and the destruction of free speech

PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Nathan Bupp
Phone: (716) 636-4869 x. 218
E-mail: nbupp@centerforinquiry.net


Center For Inquiry Condemns United Nations Resolution on "Defamation of Religions"

UN Human Rights Council statement prepares the way for international criminalization of religiously offensive speech

March 26, 2009 (New York)—The United Nations Human Rights Council has handed another victory to Islamic states in their decade-long push to limit freedom of expression out of “respect” for religious beliefs.

A new Council resolution decries a “campaign of defamation of religions” in which “the media” and “extremist organizations” are “perpetuating stereotypes about certain religions and sacred persons,” and urges UN member states to provide redress “within their respective legal and constitutional systems.” Capitalizing on concerns about racial profiling and discrimination in the era of the war on terror, the language conflates criticism of Islam with anti-Muslim bigotry and seeks to stifle peaceful speech in the name of “dialogue” and “diversity.”

Similar resolutions have been passed at the Council since 1999 and by the General Assembly since 2005. The resolution passed with 23 in favor, 11 against, and 13 abstentions, gaining one additional no vote since the last time it was adopted by the Council.

“The concept of ‘defamation of religions’ is both absurd and dangerous.” said Ronald A. Lindsay, CFI’s president and chief executive officer. “Legally speaking, it’s gibberish, and any ban on so-called ‘defamation’ would effectively prevent any critique of religious beliefs or practices.”

In the opinion of a broad range of civil society organizations, these pronouncements do nothing but lend legitimacy to the repression of political and religious dissent around the world, particularly in Islamic countries. Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, for example, which carry mandatory sentences of death or life imprisonment, are frequently used against members of the Ahmaddiya community, a peaceful minority Muslim sect.

Through its UN representative, Dr. Austin Dacey, CFI participated in the negotiations over the resolution during the March session of the Council in Geneva, and delivered an oral statement before the plenary meeting on March 24. Most worrisome, according to CFI, is that the present language equates religiously insulting speech with “advocacy of religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility, or violence,” a category of speech that is prohibited by existing treaties such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which have the force of law.

“Now the argument becomes very awkward for Europe,” said Dacey, “since many European states have laws against hate speech, Holocaust denial, and even blasphemy (for example, in Austria) that have been upheld by their regional human rights courts. The Islamic states will say they simply want to extend the same protection to all beliefs.”

The Center for Inquiry has submitted a written briefing to the Tenth Session of the Human Rights Council detailing a reading of the case law that separates criticism, satire, and insult from incitement.

The Center for Inquiry/Transnational is a nonprofit, educational, advocacy, and scientific-research think tank based in Amherst, New York. Their research and educational projects focus on three broad areas: religion, ethics, and society; paranormal and fringe-science claims; and medicine and health. The Center's Web site is www.centerforinquiry.net .

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Valentine's Day, and "The times they are a changing"

Valentine’s Day is for lovers.

This Valentine’s Day should be dedicated to the lovers of free speech who are living in cultures that are committing suicide.

It seems hard to believe, but it was 20 years ago today that the world was shocked to learn that some bearded cleric in Iran, the Ayatollah Khomeini, could issue a death warrant against an author in Britain, Salman Rushdie, that would cause that writer to go into hiding and receive police protection for the next decade. Because the alleged offense was dressed up in the guise of insulting a religion, the leaders of other religions rushed to condemn the author for causing the trouble.

What have we learned from this?

Considering the history of the conflict between Islam and western liberal-democracies since that day, I would have to conclude very little.

Each time somebody raises their head to say or write or cartoon something about Islam, out come the religious fanatics in terrifying displays of violence and threats. But more frightening than this is the reaction of the authorities in western societies. They have taken their cue from the “leadership” displayed by the Christian and Jewish clergy towards Rushdie and have applied it to those who question either Islam or the wisdom of permitting large scale immigration from Muslim countries.

I saw Kathy Shaidle on TVO’s public affairs program, The Agenda, this week, making a point that the decline of Christianity as a popular religion has “caused” its replacement by Islam in western Europe. Not exactly. Large scale immigration of young Muslims contributes to this phenomenon, as well as aging, non-reproducing Europeans.

In Britain, it is the mouthing of the Christian clergy suggesting that Sharia law should be incorporated into Britain’s legal system that is contributing to the robustness of the Islamic project. The Christian and Jewish clergy continue to be an obstacle to understanding the threats to liberal democracy with all their nattering on about “the commonality of the faiths” and their inter-faith dialogues.

To parapharase the old Bob Dylan anthem:

Come priests, rabbis
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There’s a battle outside raging
It’ll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a changin’

In Sweden, Belgium, France, Britain, Spain, Germany and especially the Netherlands, the “troublemakers” are suppressed to appease the angry Muslims. Muslims parade through the streets of European cities with posters and banners calling for the downfall of western societies and the replacement of their liberal-democracies with Islam and the odious Sharia law -- these would be the non-troublemakers, by the way, if you forgot to buy a program before the parade.

Politicians who speak on behalf of their constituents against this rising tide of Islamic hegemony are beaten by police or criminally charged with “disturbing the harmony” of the community. Their homes are invaded by police without warrants to remove symbols Muslims claim are offensive. At least one Dutch politician, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, fled to the United States when the state turned on her for raising issues that affected Muslim women in the Netherlands. Another, Geert Wilders, has been denied entry to a fellow member state of the EU, Britain.

Publishers in Britain have been forced to shred books about Muslims that might subject them to financially ruinous lawsuits from wealthy Arabs. One American publisher refused to print a novel about one of the wives of Mohammed for fear of reprisal by Muslims.

In Canada, the shameful human rights tribunals have been turned into state-supported fatwa-issuing organs for Islamic activists. Even reform-minded Muslims have been threatened with death by Muslim extremists (to date, nobody charged with the crime) and told to tone it down so that “harmony” will prevail. Despite the increasing boldness of Islamic advocates to choke off any rational discussion of Islam, Barbara Hall, Ontario’s Human Rights Commissioner, foolishly proposes even more legislation to provide better tools for Islamists to crush free speech.

Internationally, the Organization of Islamic Countries (57 members) has promulgated its own human rights code that declares the supremacy of Sharia law, notwithstanding their members prior agreement to the 1948 Declaration of Human Rights. As well, the OIC has obtained a resolution of the United Nations General Assembly to criminalize criticism of religion.

This step has enabled the state of Jordan to issue a warrant for the arrest of Geert Wilders for insulting Islam should he travel outside the territory of the Netherlands.

The mainstream media has been generally unhelpful to the cause of free speech. In Canada, they woke up very late in the game when the charade conducted by human rights tribunals against Mark Steyn and Maclean's magazine was well underway. The blogosphere was ahead of the curve on that one, and remains ahead of it.

When the MSM are not asleep at the switch they are thoughtlessly dismissing Islamic critics as a bunch of Islamophobes (bigots) – a term coined by Islamists as an aid to the politically correct police to further stifle commentary about Islam.

And they wonder why they are losing market share!

Even today, you will see pundits and columnists writing stuff like this: “Well, I don’t much like or agree with Mark Steyn or Geert Wilders, but I do support free speech.”

Why the Pontius Pilate posturing of washing your hands before making the statement about free speech? Can’t you just say that they are being unfairly targeted for their opinions, which, in a free liberal democracy they are supposed to be able to voice, without this politically correct preamble? What are you afraid of – Islamic retribution – other people in society who think there shouldn’t be free speech (people you should be shunning anyway) -- Barbara Hall?

Hmmm. On reflection, perhaps you should be afraid of Barbara Hall.

I see no silver lining.

Proportional response

Here is a perfect example of what I was musing about in my last post. The writer of this piece is Michael Byers, a far left, and in my opinion, a hair short of being classified as a wingnut, university professor from lotusland (B.C.). Maybe it's something in the water on the west coast.

He writes often on the subject of war and what I have gleaned from reading him is that his operational bias (we all have one) is that war itself is a crime. He sent a letter to the International Court in the Hague asking that Canada be investigated for war crimes in Afghanistan.

Now war is a terrible thing and ought not to be initiated lightly. As one famous American General put it, "It is a good thing war is so terrible, else we may become overly fond of it." But the action is not itself a crime.

We find Byers waxing on about "proportionality" and how Israel is not practicing that because: the IDF is shelling and bombing in densely populated districts; the IDF is using white phosphorus shells; the IDF has hit deliberately U.N. assets; the IDF does not consider the possibility of civilian casulties when it strikes. He also dismisses the years of rocketing of Israel, contenting himself with only the attacks that have occurred since the end of the ceasefire.

If Byers wrote the rules of war in accordance with foregoing, Israel would have no defence.

What Byers doesn't say is that there is no evidence that white phosphorus has been used on human targets -- believe me, if it had, we would certainly have heard about it by now. Israel says it uses it to illuminate targets. One would think that a guy who is passionate about proportionality would endorse such a use rather than decry it, since accurate targeting would clearly reduce the possibility of civilian casulties.

Byers does not consider the new, smart weaponry used by Israel, that can look through walls of buildings and that can take out a building without seriously damaging the nearby structures. He sucks and blows at the same time: the IDF is so good at targeting that it can murder U.N. personnel; and, at the same time they are so careless with their bombing and shelling that they kill civilians indiscriminately. Well, which is it?

Byers might be surprised to learn that soldiers die from something called "friendly fire", an accident of war in which your own troops are killed by you. The fact is that once a war is launched people who ought not to get killed will. Some factors simply cannot be controlled to the precision that Byers advocates -- war is not a video game.

George Jonas says proportionality means what it takes to stop the rockets and mortars falling on Israel. In short, the right to self-defence means the right to stop the enemy from attacking you and if that proves to be bloody rather than neat and precise, then so be it.

Anything less is not a right of self-defence.

Given the population density of Gaza, it is remarkable that the death toll for Gazas after more then 3 weeks of sustained fighting is only about 1,000. By comparison, the United States invaded and occupied Iraq in 2003 and the campaign took 19 days. In that period, 9,200 combatants were killed and 7,300 civilians lost their lives.

I don't believe Israel is going over the top here and if the U.N. doesn't want to risk its personnel, it should get the hell out of Gaza until the shooting stops. It does that in other hotspots in the world.