Mark Steyn Humbles Canadian GroupThink "Thought Police"

Mark Steyn is peerless at describing the mindless Orwellian dungeon which our neighbor to the North has imprisoned itself:

Then come two sections - one in which "human rights agent" Shirlene McGovern quizzes him on his intent in publishing the cartoons, and another in which she raises the fear that his publishing them could lead to violence against Muslims “particularly in today’s world post-9/ 11 that has made a number of Muslims more vulnerable to hatred and contempt”.Ezra's answer speaks for itself, but Ms McGovern's question reminds me of a passage from Melanie Phillips' book Londonistan:

Minority-rights doctrine has produced a moral inversion, in which those doing wrong are excused if they belong to a 'victim' group, while those at the receiving end of their behaviour are blamed simply because they belong to the 'oppressive' majority.

Ms McGovern, a blandly unexceptional bureaucrat, is a classic example of the syndrome. No "vulnerable" Canadian Muslim has been attacked over the cartoons, but the cartoonists had to go into hiding, and a gang of Muslim youths turned up at their children's grade schools, and Muslim rioters around the world threatened death to anyone who published them, and even managed to kill a few folks who had nothing to do with them. Nonetheless, upon receiving a complaint from a Saudi imam trained at an explicitly infidelophobic academy and who's publicly called for the introduction of sharia in Canada, Shirlene McGovern decides that the purely hypothetical backlash to Muslims takes precedence over any actual backlash against anybody else.

Thus the unending valse macabre of our times, as the supposedly progressive forces of tolerance are whirled around the floor by the avowedly intolerant. Ezra is rightly contemptuous of these "human rights commissions". Canadians should be ashamed of this show trial.

Of course, shame is a function of intelligence and moral conscience, so we won't be expecting an outbreak of compunction North of the border any time soon.

Samizdata
has a link which shows Eric Levant eloquently depantsing and spanking the preposterous moronic twaddle-twit responsible for putting him in front of an inquisition called The Alberta Human Rights Commission for daring to publish the Danish cartoons of Muhammed.

Canadian comedy is nothing so hilarious as its governmental functionaries pursuing some sort of Guinness cup of cretinism.