Civilization under siege, Canadastan-style

If you haven't been following a very disturbing attack on free speech in Canada, let me clue you in. Mark Steyn, an internationally known writer, journalist and author of "America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It," has, along with Maclean's magazine, been hauled before a so-called "human rights tribunal" because some Muslims took offense to excerpts of Steyn's book that Maclean's published.

These self-same "human rights tribunals" have, in fact, stolen the very "human rights" from thousands of people they claim to protect. Some examples:

* A bus company, trying to cut down on excessive absenteeism (one driver missed as many as 200 sick days in one year), enacted a policy whereby "Employees identified may be monitored, asked to provide a medical assessment or in the most serious of cases, told to meet an attendance target. Failing to meet that target could result in being fired.

"As a result of the ruling, the company has been ordered to pay six employees damages between $5,000 to $6,000."

* A woman who worked for McDonald's developed a skin condition, allegedly from working 23 years at McDonald's, and found she couldn't comply with the company's once-an-hour hand-washing policy. Allegedly, she sought to work with the restaurant to find a job that didn't require hourly hand-washing, and the company was unhelpful. She was awarded a total of $75,000.

(She couldn't, er, find another job? There ARE no jobs at McDonald's restaurants that DON'T require hand-washing. Does anyone think their patrons are going to put up with someone handling their food or work spaces with unclean hands?)

These are but two of the more well-known cases. There are hundreds of cases of "little people" getting fined, like landlords who try and evict unclean, obnoxious tenants who, by accident of birth, belong to a "victimized minority," so claim "human rights abuses." Many of these people lose their savings, assets and any chance of a happy life -- at least for a long, long time.

At issue, here, are some very fundamental rights. Freedom of speech, anyone? The right to face your accuser in a court of LAW, anyone?

Since when did any "human right" involve discrimination? "Discrimination" is a civil matter at best, and common court at that. Judge Judy stuff. If it's alleged to be institutionalized, then take it up in state or provincial, or federal, civil court.

Human rights are, by their nature, FUNDAMENTAL. The rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The basics. Parsing, hair-splitting and other forms of redressing wrongs are for the COURTS. By setting up some kind of "tribunal," with no accountability to law, but which carries sanctions that INFRINGE on people's ability to pursue life, etc., you are spitting in the face of everything thinkers have been trying to accomplish for Western civilization since the Magna Charta.

Think about it. Please.

We here in the U.S. have been increasingly dismayed to see the lengths to which our brother democracies (Canada) and mother ones (Britain, France) have caved in the face of threats by a culture so diametrically opposed to it in terms of REAL rights.

Actually, we see similar stuff going on here, on a smaller scale (for now). Muslims are using bully tactics like Canada's "human rights tribunals" (which ought not even to exist) to force Western people to put up with erosion after erosion of some of their most cherished beliefs -- equality of women, accommodating religious habits at taxpayers' expense (women-only swim time at public pools, etc.) and accommodation of so-called "sharia law," which "requires severe punishments. These include pre-marital sexual intercourse, sex by divorced persons, post-marital sex, adultery, false accusation of unlawful intercourse, drinking alcohol, theft, and highway robbery. Haram sexual offenses can carry a sentence of stoning to death or severe flogging. An eyewitness account of Soraya M, a woman executed by stoning, can be read on an anti-Iranian web site."

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So -- rather than debate these things in their proper forums -- the editorial sections of newspapers, talk shows on TV and radio, etc. -- Muslims in Canada have chosen the sneaky, bully-boy (and largely unaccountable) "human rights tribunal" route.

Me, I've met -- and read the opinions of -- a LOT of Muslims who see things in exactly the right light. In short, to use a tired cliche, "they" are "just like us." But they are way too few, and way too far between.

If you're Canadian, I urge you to contact your legislators via letter or e-mail and protest not only the treatment of Maclean's and Mark Steyn and the assault on free speech, but the very existence of those kangaroo courts they call "human rights tribunals."

If you're American, take note. And be prepared.



(For a very good perspective from a Canadian, please visit Covenant Zone.)


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Okay -- what about no-go zones in Britain?