Yesterday we had a little bit of good news. Today we return to our usual format with a tour d'horizon of the bad news:
~First up, my own troubles - and the wider context. As you know, Mann vs Steyn is staggering on to its next half-decade. It's not just me and my three new motions (you can read them in full here); victorious climate mullah Michael E Mann is appealing his own big win in order to get National Review and the Competitive Enterprise Institute back in the case and pull off an even bigger win.
There's a lot of this about. In The American Mind (published by the Claremont Institute), former federal prosecutor T J Harker provides what he calls a taxonomy of lawfare:
The regime controls all the country's institutional power centers and should be able to dominate political discourse. Much to its chagrin, however, dissident Right outlets continue to crop up where "wrong think" and regime criticism are routine. But now the regime has learned to weaponize defamation law to crush free speech.
In Michael Mann v. Mark Steyn, et al., the well-known climate hysteric Michael Mann sued after Steyn challenged the legitimacy of Mann's "hockey-stick graph," calling it "fraudulent." The court ordered Steyn to pay $1,000,000 even though Mann suffered no reputational damage and Steyn's comments were obviously his opinion. Read page 5 of the verdict form to see the statements that gave rise to this chilling outcome.
Defamation law has also now been perverted to force regime opponents to choose between the right to free speech and the right to a fair trial. New York Democratic Judge Lewis Kaplan refused to dismiss a second case brought by former magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll, who complained that Donald Trump had defamed her by denying that he had raped her. Setting aside that Trump was not found to have raped her in an earlier trial (as that term is defined under New York law), you're forgiven if you thought that defendants were still permitted to profess their innocence. Not any longer. This "defamation" case culminated in an award to Carroll of more than $80,000,000. It is apparent that defamation law has been perverted to punish those who deny the regime's dogmatic narratives (Steyn) or seek to displace them (Trump).
Just so. Presumably, under that New York standard, if I were to insist on my innocence, Mann would be entitled to re-sue me for defamation on the grounds that, by saying I hadn't defamed him, I was defaming him all over again. (Many readers have asked how they can support my efforts to resist this filleting of the First Amendment. We have some suggestions below.)
~The are, alas, no permanent victories. So, north of the border, my now long-ago triumph in getting the Canadian state out of the "hate speech" business is about to be overturned. Justin Trudeau's ministry has pried open the coffin of the repealed "Section 13" of the Human Rights Code and is proposing to set its rotting corpse loose on the populace again. Brian Giesbrecht, a retired judge from Manitoba, writes in The Grizzly Gazette of Swan Hills, Alberta:
Another famous case under Section 13 involved author and media personality Mark Steyn. It centred around discussions on Islamic topics. Although he ultimately won, the victory required significant effort and finances.
The Harper government repealed Section 13 primarily due to the fallout from these incidents. The underlying issue was that a commission, holding specific opinions on Islamic issues, had aggressively pursued legal action against two men who legitimately held different views.
This is precisely the scenario anticipated with this resurrected version of Section 13.
The contentious points might range from Islamic topics to numerous other subjects where opinions diverge.
Take, for instance, the topic of transgender rights. The prime minister's famous tweet, "Trans women are women." is considered a core principle of modern progressivism. Yet, this viewpoint is not universally accepted. According to Professor Eric Kaufman, author of the study "The politics of the culture wars in contemporary Canada," only a third of Canadians agree with these progressive ideals, while the remaining two-thirds disagree. This division mirrors trends in both Britain and the United States. Those in the minority, passionate about their perspectives, feel compelled to reshape societal norms to reflect their views, insisting that the majority who disagree must be enlightened, even if coercively.
You will be coercively enlightened!
~By contrast, the perversion of the "justice" system into one where the process is the punishment does not afflict the shock troops of the New Utopia. They can loot and destroy and smash without fear of retribution.
In Cambridge, a "pro-Palestinian" lady destroyed Philip de László's fine portrait of Lord Balfour - because as British Foreign Secretary he issued in 1917 the "Balfour Declaration", the first support by any major power for a Jewish "national home". In response, Trinity College, with an eye to the monsters stalking its campus, could rouse itself to no more than tepid "regrets" over the destruction.
~In St Louis, a white schoolgirl was pummelled to within a quarter-inch of her life - and, as at Trinity, the controlling "educational" institution was too craven to offer anything other than "our sincerest condolences to everyone involved", including the would-be killer. Because, as Joe Biden has just reminded us, America is not a land in which you want to be caught disrespecting a (non-white) murderer.
~We are not yet Haiti, where things are so bad that the airport's been closed so people can't even hop a flight to the Rio Grande and walk into the United States at Joe's invitation. Yet, among the more excitable types, the same blood-lust is in the air. President Trump famously characterised Haiti as a bleephole country. But, in decadent non-bleephole societies, passive non-judgmental "regrets" about destroyed paintings and statues soon advance to passive non-judgmental "regrets" about destroyed children. Here is my friend Eva Vlaardingerbroek on a topic we (and very few others) have discussed many times before:
It happened again. Another European girl was killed at the hands of a migrant in Vienna and she wasn't the first one this week. And tomorrow it will happen again, because white lives don't matter to our globalist leaders.
But they matter to me, so I'm making you a promise. 👇🏻 pic.twitter.com/fAS93ux8CQ
— Eva Vlaardingerbroek (@EvaVlaar) March 6, 2024
The west has become a society of child sacrifice - whether to the gods of multiculturalism, the gods of racial equity, or the gods of transgender re-invention is not terribly relevant: a remarkable number of contemporary obsessions appear to require the slaughter or mutilation of little girls.
~Notwithstanding the verdict in the District of Columbia Superior Court, my first and second Statements of Claim against the UK media censor Ofcom have been accepted for judicial review by the High Court of England. The King's Bench Division will hear the case in June. Many readers have inquired about how to support my case, this time over Ofcom's throttling of honest discussion of the Covid and the vaccines. Well, there are several ways to lend a hand, including:
a) signing up a friend for a Steyn Club Gift Membership;
b) buying a near-and-dear one a SteynOnline gift certificate; or
c) ordering a copy of my latest book, The Prisoner of Windsor (you won't regret it - ask Kathy Gyngell).
With the first two methods, one hundred per cent of the proceeds goes to a grand cause - and, with the last, a significant chunk thereof. And, in all cases, you or your loved one gets something, too.
