Thought Police - Sister Sage Lost the Narrative

Or probably never actually had it in the first place

Readers of the Nexus may have begun to think that Chickenwanker CK of Sister Sage's Musings was getting a free ride of late.

Were that the case, it certainly wasn't by intent.

The most recent dispatch smuggled from the far side of the Blogging Iron Curtain has CK complaining about the ongoing Conservative-sponsored Senate inquiry into free speech in Canada that has been so splendidly covered by Blazing Cat Fur and shows that CK has a very different take on Canada's Human Rights Commissions than their most reasonable proponents.

The most reasonable propnents of HRCs treat them as an institution dedicated to fighting against and remedying matters of clear discrimination. CK, apparently, has a different vision in mind for Canada's HRCs: that of making bigotry illegal.

That is, frankly, what one feels most temped to take away from something like this:

Contrary to what CK may believe -- and desperately want others to believe -- Canada's Human Rights Commissions do not, by any means, make it not OK to be a bigot.

Rather, existing social norms are what make it OK to be a bigot.

Rather, Canada's Human Rights Commissions -- and their tribunals -- have been abused by a number of activists who would love nothing more than to censor people with bigoted attitudes.

The problem is that such censorship doesn't render bigoted attitudes non-existent. Nor does it even reduce the prevalence of such bigotry. All censorship does is obscure that bigotry from public view.

But as with so many things, one is utterly unshocked to learn that, to CK, this is really just about her hatred of conservatives, and of conservatism:

For someone who is so keen on human rights law, one is actually surprised to learn the full extent to which CK is actually ignorant of it.

For one thing, remarks such as "let's torture the Brown people" and "let's kill all Gays" both meet the definition of hate speech under the criminal code. Complaints over remarks like this would actually have no place in an HRC. Rather, they're a matter for criminal courts.

Likewise, one is surprised to find that CK doesn't seem to understand that just because a school teacher believes that the Holocaust never happened doesn't mean that he can teach that to school children. The curriculum, after all, is decided not by individual teachers, but rather by provincial ministries.

The belief that the Holocaust never happened would certainly challenge the qualifications of a teacher -- particularly in fields such as history. Further, that would be a matter for licensing authorities, not for HRCs.

But in the end, apparently CK's ignorance isn't to blame for her outrage over the notion that her precious institutions of censorship may be eliminated. Rather, we're supposed to blame "evil" Stephen Harper.

As per usual, when CK has lost the narrative, she simply makes up her own.

Individuals like Ezra Levant -- who she also accuses of "selling out" his own people by defending Marc Lemire -- have complained not that the protesters made use of their freedom of speech. Rather, they have complained that the University of Ottawa acted preemptively to cast a chill over the free speech of Ann Coulter, and that the protesters themselves made the event itself unmanageable and unsafe -- even going so far as to set off a fire alarm.

As for Coulter and George Galloway, CK may be shocked to learn that the difference between the two is that Coulter has never directly provided funds to an organization that is listed on Canada's registry of banned terrorist organizations. George Galloway has.

Moreover, CK seems to have omitted the fact that is a bureaucrat at Public Safety Canada -- a public servant -- that ruled Galloway inadmissable to Canada.

In the end, CK concludes, none of this could possibly because conservatives cherish freedom and want to preserve it against the tender mercies of an encroaching thought police-like institution. Rather, it's just because conservatives are hateful, and want to facilitate hatespeech.

But considering that CK herself has an unfortunate history making bigoted comments, one expects that she'll find that to be an awfully tough sale.