Left Doesn't Like Free Speech

Everyone is properly outraged at the quasi-legal proceedings of the British Columbia Human Rights Commission in the case brought by Muslim extremists against Mark Steyn and MacLean’s, the Canadian newsmagazine.

Some Muslims disliked the excerpt from Steyn’s book America Alone published in MacLean’s a while back. But they didn’t think to sue in regular courts. Oh no, that would cost money. Instead they brought MacLean’s up on a charge of hate speech at three separate Canadian human rights tribunals. Last week their complaint was heard before the British Columbia Human Rights Commission.

Today, the editors of National Review properly express their outrage against the proceedings of the Commission last week in Vancouver, BC. You can get a flavor of their outrage from this:

Andrew Coyne, a journalist with Maclean’s, live-blogged the farce; his dispatches were as amusing as they were harrowing. The proceedings had no evidentiary rules — new evidence was routinely introduced without warning. Commissioners routinely recessed to determine the eligibility of evidence; legal representation would dash off mid-hearing to print Internet material to introduce as evidence; an “expert” witness was called whose chief credentials were academic papers on Buffy the Vampire Slayer; and still other witnesses were called under the prejudicial direction that “we anticipate that success in this case will provide the impetus for prohibiting discriminatory publications in the other provinces.”

At the granddaddy Human Rights Commission of them all, the Canadian Human Rights Commission, they have what you might call a remarkable record in the fight against the violation of human rights: “in 31 years, the CHRC has not once dismissed a charge that has been brought before it.”

It’s fun and enjoyable, isn’t it, when you can gin up your own private witch-hunting tribunal to punish people for opinions you don’t like. It confirms what we all know, but are usually too polite to say.

Lefties really don’t like free speech. Indeed, they way they see it, anything they don’t like comes under the rubrick of “hate speech,” and they have an ethical obligation to stamp it out. Why not? If you have the power, use it.