"Zombie Safe Sex" organizer jailed - the state of free speech in Canada

Canadian court allows ‘hate crime’ charge against Christian activist
Excerpt:

Christian activist Bill Whatcott is out on bail and out of a job after turning himself in to Calgary police June 22 to face a criminal charge in Toronto of wilfully promoting hatred against “the gay community.”

Toronto Police Service issued a Canada-wide warrant for Whatcott in May for the indictable hate crime offence after a two-year investigation into complaints made against Whatcott in 2016.

Whatcott and several others marched in the 2016 Toronto Pride Parade dressed in skin-tight green bodysuits with face masks as members of the Gay Zombies Cannabis Consumers Association.

They distributed 3,000 pamphlets on “Zombie Safe Sex” that included a flyer warning of the physical and spiritual dangers of homosexual activity.

The pamphlet featured graphic images of anal warts, a corpse described as an “AIDS fatality,” and another image of “genital warts in the mouth” set next to a headshot of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. 

It excoriated the “homosexual activism” of Trudeau, former Liberal Defence Minister Bill Graham, and former Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne.

Whatcott’s criminal prosecution for promoting hatred is highly unusual, and required the authorization of Ontario’s former Liberal Attorney General Yasir Naqvi, according to Daily Xtra.

Naqvi’s deputy attorney general Paul Boniferro green-lighted the criminal charge in April, Crown counsel Jennifer Epstein told LifeSiteNews.

In 2013, the Supreme Court deemed two of Whatcott’s flyers hate literature when it ruled on his appeal of a Saskatchewan human rights tribunal judgment against him.

However, Whatcott’s criminal charge is significantly more serious.

“If I get convicted of this, it’s going to be a very low bar of what anyone can say,” he told LifeSiteNews. “Because they’re going to use it, they’re going to use it as a precedent for what the next Christian can say.”

Comment: Free speech is not protected in Canada

The Assault on Free Speech

The aftermath of me helping a guy after being jumped by thugs. The police and 100's of civilians stood and watched. pic.twitter.com/7hN2iJ4kkf

— Jake Shields (@jakeshieldsajj) February 2, 2017

Jake Shields Reportedly Saves Man From Masked Attackers During UC-Berkeley Riot

Excerpt:

Former Strikeforce champion Jake Shields reportedly came to the aid of an unidentified man who Shields said was jumped by masked attackers during the riotous scene on Wednesday night at UC-Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, Calif. The riots erupted in response to the scheduled appearance of a controversial speaker, Milo Yiannopoulos, whose appearance at the university was later canceled due to the chaos. “Amid an apparently organized violent attack and destruction of property at UC Berkeley’s Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union, the UC Police Department (UCPD) determined it was necessary to evacuate controversial speaker Milo Yiannopoulos from campus and to cancel his scheduled 8 p.m. event,” according to UC-Berkeley officials.

Comment: The Intolerance of Tolerance (good book)

"If you think free speech is assault but assault is free speech you’re a moron of world-historical proportions."

HT @JonahNRO

— James Peet (@jrpeet) February 3, 2017

How to deal with protesters in 3 seconds. #flashbackfriday pic.twitter.com/OyXiwgmx4S

— ForAmerica (@ForAmerica) February 3, 2017

.@MikeOzanian: "Education is supposed to be about hearing different opinions." pic.twitter.com/mXoFL2fDNI

— Fox News (@FoxNews) February 4, 2017

"@Sean_McDowell : The Berkeley Riot Expresses Dominant Anti-American Campus Culture | Important @FDRLST https://t.co/OM7hrQAeYc

— Mark Goodnight (@Martyrtek) February 7, 2017

The Intolerance of Tolerance

'He did nothing wrong': Florida principal ousted after defending Texas cop
Excerpt:

A Florida high school principal, who defended the Texas police officer at the center of that infamous pool melee, has become the latest victim of radical speech police hell-bent on trying to silence public discourse. Alberto Iber lost his job as the principal at North Miami Senior High School after he wrote a comment about the McKinney, Texas incident on the Miami Herald’s website. “He did nothing wrong,” Iber wrote. “He was afraid for his life. I commend him for his actions.” Three sentences. Sixteen words. Sixty-two characters. Miami-Dade County Public Schools released a statement on June 10 announcing that Mr. Iber had been removed from his position at the high school and reassigned to an administrative position. The district said they require their employees to conduct themselves “in a manner that represents the school district’s core values.”

A nice YouTube video

Comment: The old "intolence of tolerance". Image source. "1984-Big-Brother" by Frederic Guimont ; Original uploader was ChemicalBit at it.wikipedia - 1984comic.com (former Art Libre licence stated here) ; Transferred from it.wikipedia. Licensed under FAL via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1984-Big-Brother.jpg#/media/File:1984-Big-Brother.jpg

On the A Redefinition of Tolerancehttps://t.co/lUtruBDCFw pic.twitter.com/hiQapY3w0Z

— James Peet (@jrpeet) January 18, 2019

Global Warming: "Where's the beef?"

'Global Warming is Baloney' Signs Put the Heat on Burger King

Excerpt:

The franchisee, a Memphis-based company called the Mirabile Investment Corporation (MIC) that owns more than 40 Burger Kings across Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi, has described Burger King as acting "kinda like cockroaches" over the controversy. MIC says it does not believe Burger King has the authority to make it take the signs down.

The dispute began to sizzle last week, when a local newspaper reporter in Memphis, Tennessee, noticed the signs outside two restaurants in the city and contacted the corporation to establish if the message represented its official viewpoint. Burger King's headquarters in Miami said it did not, adding that it had ordered MIC to take the signs down.

But a few days later readers of the Memphis paper said they had seen about a dozen Burger King restaurants across the state displaying the signs and that some had yet to be taken down. Media attempts to contact MIC to establish why it was taking an apparently defiant stance were rebuffed, but the Guardian managed to grill MIC's marketing president, John McNelis.

"I would think [Burger King] would run from any form of controversy kinda like cockroaches when the lights get turned on," said Mr McNelis. "I'm not aware of any direction that they gave the franchisee and I don't think they have the authority to do it."

McNelis added: "The [restaurant] management team can put the message up there if they want to. It is private property and here in the US we do have some rights. Notwithstanding a franchise agreement, I could load a Brinks vehicle with [rights] I've got so many of them. By the time the Burger King lawyers work out how to make that stick we'd be in the year 2020."

He continued: "Burger King can bluster all they want about what they can tell the franchisee to do, but we have free-speech rights in this country so I don't think there's any concerns."

Comment: Also:
'Global warming is baloney' signs put the heat on Burger King

“Conservative hate speech”?

Doctor’s Killer Is Not Alone in the Blame, Some Say

Excerpt:

Within nine hours of Dr. Tiller’s death, Salon magazine had catalogued references to him on 29 episodes of “The O’Reilly Factor” from 2005 to 2009. In one, Mr. O’Reilly talks about him and the lawmakers who supported his “business of destruction,” saying, “I wouldn’t want to be these people if there is a Judgment Day.”

Bloggers quickly found new examples of Mr. O’Reilly’s condemnation of Dr. Tiller. A commenter on Daily Kos noted that Mr. O’Reilly once sent a producer to ambush the doctor at his home in Kansas. After the producer told him that some people called him a “baby killer,” the doctor tried to leave his house and called 911. The camera crew ended the confrontation.

On Monday, Media Matters for America, a left-wing group that catalogs what it calls “conservative hate speech,” published a 2006 clip from Mr. O’Reilly’s radio show in which he said, “If I could get my hands on Tiller,” followed quickly by: “Well, you know. Can’t be vigilantes. Can’t do that. It’s just a figure of speech.”

Mr. O’Reilly draws wide attention because he has ranked as the top-rated host on cable news for the past seven years. Inherent in the criticism were questions about media responsibility; the blogger Andrew Sullivan suggested that the case “could be the end to O’Reilly’s dangerous, demonizing game.”

On Monday night, Mr. O’Reilly rejected those questions, saying instead that “far-left zealots” and “Fox News haters” were exploiting Dr. Tiller’s death by taking aim at his commentary. Citing estimates published by The Washington Times that Dr. Tiller had performed 60,000 abortions, he wondered why his critics were not writing about “the 60,000 fetuses who will never become American citizens.”

The exhaustive blog posts and video montages of Mr. O’Reilly’s comments about Dr. Tiller were rooted, analysts said, in a familiar yearning to assign blame, particularly in the fierce debate over abortion.

Burt Neuborne, a professor of law at New York University and a former legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union, said that while the debate was not new, “the ability to technologically call up snippets of speech” is.

Mr. Neuborne said that a commentator’s language, no matter how colorful, generally cannot be treated as an incitement unless it directly instructs individuals to commit violence.

Comment: I'm not a Bill O’Reilly (I don't think I've watched one broadcast all the way through and in the last handful of years have not watched him at all) fan. But his speech is protected under the first amendment. My own thoughts on the murder of Dr Tiller are expressed here: In unqualified terms: the killing of Dr. George Tiller is murder!

Text of first amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Meanwhile .... the DHS hit job on conservatives

The Obama DHS hit job on conservatives is real

Excerpt:

Yesterday, Roger Hedgecock and the Liberty Papers posted an unclassified DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis report titled:

Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment.

The “report” (PDF file here) was one of the most embarrassingly shoddy pieces of propaganda I’d ever read out of DHS. I couldn’t believe it was real.

I spent the day chasing down DHS spokespeople, who have been tied up preparing for a very important homeland security event later today: The First Lady is coming to visit their Washington office. Priorities, you know.

Well, the press office got back to me and verified that the document is indeed for real.

They were very defensive — preemptively so — in asserting that it was not a politicized document and that DHS had done reports on “leftwing extremism” in the past. I have covered DHS for many years and am quite familiar with past assessments they and the FBI have done on animal rights terrorists and environmental terrorists. But those past reports have always been very specific in identifying the exact groups, causes, and targets of domestic terrorism, i.e., the ALF, ELF, and Stop Huntingdon wackos who have engaged in physical harassment, arson, vandalism, and worse against pharmaceutical companies, farms, labs, and university researchers.

By contrast, the piece of crap report issued on April 7 is a sweeping indictment of conservatives. And the intent is clear. As the two spokespeople I talked with on the phone today made clear: They both pinpointed the recent “economic downturn” and the “general state of the economy” for stoking “rightwing extremism.” One of the spokespeople said he was told that the report has been in the works for a year. My b.s. detector went off the chart, and yours will, too, if you read through the entire report — which asserts with no evidence that an unquantified “resurgence in rightwing extremist recruitment and radicalizations activity” is due to home foreclosures, job losses, and…the historical presidential election.

In Obama land, there are no coincidences. It is no coincidence that this report echoes Tea Party-bashing left-wing blogs (check this one out comparing the Tea Party movement to the Weather Underground!) and demonizes the very Americans who will be protesting in the thousands on Wednesday for the nationwide Tax Day Tea Party.

Comment: I guess being for gun rights and against abortion might someday put one on terrorist watch list! Wake up America. Our freedoms could soon be compromised!

Peaceful assembly and free speech called "despicable"

Schakowsky: Tea parties 'despicable'

Excerpt:

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) blasted "tea party" protests yesterday, labeling the activities "despicable" and shameful."

"The ‘tea parties’ being held today by groups of right-wing activists, and fueled by FOX News Channel, are an effort to mislead the public about the Obama economic plan that cuts taxes for 95 percent of Americans and creates 3.5 million jobs," Schakowsky said in a statement.

"It’s despicable that right-wing Republicans would attempt to cheapen a significant, honorable moment of American history with a shameful political stunt," she added. "Not a single American household or business will be taxed at a higher rate this year. Made to look like a grassroots uprising, this is an Obama bashing party promoted by corporate interests, as well as Republican lobbyists and politicians.”

Comment: Coincidentally I ordered Kathee tea from Peet's Coffee and Tea this week for her birthday (on Saturday)

Pro-Life speaker banned from St Thomas

Did St. Thomas reject a group, a speaker - or range of ideas?

Excerpts:

Star Parker is a bestselling author who travels the country speaking to young audiences about the harmful impact of abortion, especially in minority communities. What better place than the University of St. Thomas -- an urban, Catholic campus -- for this dynamic African-American woman to bring her prolife message?

For almost two months, St. Thomas' Students for Human Life organization looked forward to sponsoring Parker's planned appearance on campus April 21. Her fee was to be split by the St. Thomas Standard, a conservative student newspaper, and the Young America's Foundation, a Herndon, Va., group that brings conservative speakers and ideas to college campuses.

Students for Human Life applied to the university's Student Life Committee for a campus site where Parker could speak. But the committee turned thumbs down. Star Parker, it seems, was not welcome at St. Thomas.

...
St. Thomas seems comfortable with speakers from the liberal side of the political spectrum. In 2007, for example, the school hosted DFL senatorial candidate and satirist Al Franken, who is known for harsh attacks and raised eyebrows in January at Carleton College for mocking the speech and gestures of a conservative student. Last year, the university also showcased transgender activist Debra Davis, a former male high school librarian who "transitioned," as she says on her website, to the female gender and now speaks nationally about the experience.

In 2006, James Fetzer, a University of Minnesota Duluth professor and 9/11 conspiracy theorist, spoke to a standing-room-only crowd under the auspices of the St. Thomas Justice and Peace Studies program. "The attacks of September 11 were orchestrated on the American people by their own government," he told the audience, according to the Aquin newspaper at the university.

St. Thomas opens its arms to folks like these but appears to have serious qualms about YAF speakers. YAF works with more than 100 prominent conservative figures, including William Bennett, Harvard Prof. Harvey Mansfield, and commentators John Stossel and Michael Medved. According to Kieffer, differential treatment of YAF and its speakers by St. Thomas would cripple students' ability to bring big-name conservatives such as these to campus.

"This 'clarification' by Doug Hennes is not sufficient," she said. "It suggests broad and vague restrictions that impose special rules for conservative students. We need written assurance of equal treatment."

In 2007, St. Thomas got egg on its face when it rejected an opportunity to invite Archbishop Desmond Tutu to speak on grounds that his appearance would offend the Twin Cities Jewish community. Later, the university reversed itself, but Tutu spurned its offer. Instead, he spoke here last week under the auspices of Metropolitan State University.

Parker won't be so easily dissuaded. "I've got St. Thomas on my calendar, and I plan to come on April 21," she said. "If they won't let me on campus, I'm willing to talk out on the street."


Comment: So much for a Catholic-values education!

Professor Wichman's email

Professor Indrek Wichman email to Muslim students

Excerpt:

The story begins at Michigan State University with a mechanical engineering professor named Indrek Wichman. Wichman sent an e-mail to the Muslim Student's Association. The e-mail was in response to the students' protest of the Danish cartoons that portrayed the Prophet Muhammad as a terrorist. The group had complained the cartoons were "hate speech." Enter Professor Wichman.

In his e-mail, he said the following:

Dear Moslem Association:

As a professor of Mechanical Engineering here at MSU I intend to protest your protest. I am offended not by cartoons, but by more mundane things like beheadings of civilians, cowardly attacks on public buildings, suicide murders, murders of Catholic priests (the latest in Turkey ), burnings of Christian churches, the continued persecution of Coptic Christians in Egypt , the imposition of Sharia law on non-Muslims, the rapes of Scandinavian girls and women (called "whores" in your culture), the murder of film directors in Holland, and the rioting and looting in Paris, France. This is what offends me, a soft-spoken person and academic, and many, many of my colleagues. I counsel you dissatisfied, aggressive, brutal, and uncivilized slave-trading Muslims to be very aware of this as you proceed with your infantile "protests." If you do not like the values of the West - see the 1st Amendment - you are free to leave. I hope for God's sake that most of you choose that option. Please return to your ancestral homelands and build them up yourselves instead of troubling Americans.

Cordially, I. S. Wichman

Professor of Mechanical Engineering


Comment: Sent to me by Pastor Dennis G. Link above is to Snopes.com.

Indoctrinate U

Katherine Kersten: The pariahs of our college campuses

Excerpt:

It's become a common complaint that U.S. campuses are home to a stifling liberal orthodoxy where contrary beliefs are persecuted. Doyle says it's no illusion.

A new film, "Indoctrinate U," documenting that atmosphere, opens near campus tomorrow.

Bethany Dorobiala, a senior political science major at the U of M, knows just what Doyle is talking about. Dorobiala was one of the few students who agreed to speak on the record about the problem.

In many courses, Dorobiala says, professors load up reading lists with books that reflect their ideological agenda. "If you speak up in class and present an alternative view, you may risk being ridiculed by a professor twice your age with a PhD.," she said. "Students who agree with the professor's politics are regularly praised and encouraged."

Dorobiala has encountered this disregard for intellectual diversity in classes outside of political science. "In geology class, I had a teacher who made side comments bashing President Bush," she said. A rigid orthodoxy prevails on issues as disparate as the death penalty and global warming, she says, and some professors regularly pontificate on topics outside their discipline.

"I definitely know of students whose grades have suffered because they became identified as a conservative in class," said Dorobiala. If this happens, it's "very difficult to defend yourself. The authorities -- your adviser, department chairs -- think you're complaining because you didn't do your work."

The university rarely receives official complaints about ideologically motivated grading and follows a regular investigative process when it does, says Jan Morse of the U's Student Conflict Resolution Center.

Dorobiala's only solace is her work with College Republicans, where she can trade war stories without having to look over her shoulder.

Norman Fruman, an eminent professor of English at the U, now retired, believes that political correctness has gained a stranglehold in the humanities and social sciences.

"In recent decades, we've seen a relentless assault on American and Western history and values as the primary source of wickedness in the world," he said. "Literature no longer explores universal human experience, but instead has become a branch of politics, with a focus on often-second rate works about the victimhood of favored groups."Contempt and insults are regularly leveled at one group: white, heterosexual males," he added.

Doyle and Fruman see this rigid orthodoxy as self-perpetuating. "Birds of a feather hire together," quipped Doyle. Politically correct ideology is quasi-religious in nature, he explains. "You're not going to hire someone who seems like an infidel."



Official Site: Indoctrinate U

Wikipedia: Indoctrinate U

Comment: "Indoctrinate U" is coming to the Twin Cities for a week-long run at Minnesota Film Arts' Oak Street Cinema! The screenings are sponsored by the Minnesota Association of Scholars and the Tocqueville Center at the University of Minnesota.

I'd like to see this but it won't fit my schedule this weekend. If you go ... take a coat! The Oak Street has been freezing every time I've been there!