Saturday, March 22, 2008

Enough Is Enough

Warren Kinsella has finally succeeded in provoking me. I know, I know, it's not usually worthwhile to feed the trolls. Up until now I have managed to avoid tackling any of his pro-CHRC, pro-Warman, pro-Steacy, pro-dirty investigative practices, pro-thought control screeds. But Mr. Kinsella has overstepped the mark today.

In a post about the rather sad 'march' by 25 (or thereabouts) white supremacists in Calgary today, Kinsella has the audacity, the gall, to tell me what my father fought for in the Second World War. According to Kinsella, my father didn't fight for freedom of speech, or freedom from state tyranny, or freedom from state control over every aspect of human existence. No, what he was actually fighting for was to stop those 25 sad muppets from marching in Calgary today.

How dare he tell me, and the millions of other children and grandchildren, what their forbears sacrifice was about? How dare he presume to set himself up as the arbiter of what such a momentous and complex event as the War was about? It's an insult and a slight on every single veteran and every single member of their families.

Now, since I knew my father in person, at least until I was 14, let me tell you what he fought for. He fought for the right to true freedom. Freedom of thought. Freedom of association. Freedom to question. Freedom to judge. Freedom to own and protect property. Freedom to create and publish. He fought for freedom from state control of thought, property, reproductive rights, political views and association.

Now, Kinsella always avoids dealing with the fundamental double standard he espouses. Those of us who recognise that freedom is indivisible, that your freedom is my freedom and vice versa are not debated by Kinsella, but simply labelled Nazis, because today's target of the HRCs and their supporters happens to be the neo-Nazis. It's convenient that an unpopular and undesirable group is under attack by the HRCs, but it is of no reassurance to any right thinking person. Because yesterday the HRC target was white supremacists. Today it's Macleans magazine and Ezra Levant. And tomorrow, well, tomorrow who knows?

My father didn't fight against Nazism just because it is an odious and repellant belief system, although it is. He fought against the tyranny that underpinned Nazi Germany at a deeper level too - that tyranny that exists anywhere a state controls the thoughts and actions and very beliefs of its citizens. It doesn't matter whether the code of belief was drawn up by Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Castro, Trudeau, Warman or Kinsella. State enforcement of a code of belief (or a code of non-belief) is tyranny, plain and simple, and it's the enemy of freedom. It was my father's enemy, and he saw it regaining the upper hand in the years before he died. Not long before then, he said to me that there is nobody less tolerant than a liberal, and what prophetic words those have turned out to be.

So don't you dare tell me that my father fought on your side of this issue, Kinsella. You're everything that's wrong with the Canadian political system. You're what Jason Cherniak wants to be when he grows up. You're all about winning and nothing about values. You're all about labels and nothing of substance. You're all about using the HRCs to silence people with whom you disagree. You're all about freedom for you and censorship for them. One rule for you and one rule for them. One rule for Liberals taking taxpayer dollars and another for those poor people who pay the taxes in the first place. You're just as elitist, just as tyrannical, and just as much a dictator as those you profess to despise.

As for those 25 idiots in Calgary today? I'm willing to bet the 200 counter demonstrators shouted them down pretty well, and that's what freedom is all about.