I’ve Moved!
November 20, 2008
So I’m sure that most people have noticed that the site has been offline for a few days. There’s a reason for that, which I will get to shortly. But first, let me just say this:
In fact, I am blogging at a new site I have just finished setting up: kennethhynek.net. A full explanation for the reasons behind the move can be found here
.
That said, this is not the end of Time Immortal. My wife Grace has expressed interest in taking over blogging at this domain, and I am working to make sure that she gets set up here as soon as possible.
Also, my profound apologies for the modification to the site face; the move was not as seamless as I would have hoped, and many of the image files for this theme, and in the gallery, were corrupted during the course of their evacuation from my previous web host’s servers. Until such time as I have repaired them, I’ve put a clean-looking template in place of the previous one.
Update: for the purposes of further traffic shaping, new posts from kennethhynek.net will be excerpted below. Full articles can be read at the new blog.
Reader Mail: recent CRTC ruling
January 14, 2008
John David Beck — the man recently fined $6,000 by the Canadian Human Rights Commission for operating a racist website (bcwhitepride.com) — offers a response to the article I wrote which makes mention of him:
For the record, I’m innocent of these charges. The CHRT case against me was based soley on hearsay and speculation. These these so-called “human rights” courts have balance of probabilities as their standard of proof, NOT reasonable doubt! All the prosecution had to do was show a 51% chance that I was guilty, and that was good enough. Combine that with the fact that these tribunal members are biased to start with and that they desperately wanted a scapegoat for this site, I had no chance whatsoever right from the word go.
John Beck
I confess that I know very little of Mr. Beck’s case, apart from that he was fined for the operation of, or association with, the website bcwhitepride.com, ostensibly a racist website. Nor do I know to what level Mr. Beck was involved in the website itself; WHOIS information for the domain name that is still available shows that the domain is registered to a corporation, not to a person.
The website itself is offline.
Regardless, this author maintains, O Reader, that it was illegal and a shame that Mr. Beck, regardless of how distasteful the opinions he may have expressed on his website were, was hauled before the Canadian Human Rights Commission. As ugly a thing as racism is, we must allow even racists the freedom to speak their opinions, because all evil withers in the light of day. We can only demonstrate opinions to be hateful tripe by allowing them to be heard, and them allowing Canadians to form their own opinions about what is said.
That is another danger of Canada’s regime of HRCs, the death of objectivity. Canadians need to be encouraged to think for themselves; they do not need the government to tell them via legislation what opinions to hold to, and what opinions to reject. That an organ within the Canadian government which is attempting to do exactly that — reward Canadians who think or speak “properly”, and financially punish those who think or speak “improperly” — is illegal under the stipulations of the which Canada is purportedly governed by. Furthermore, it is a dangerous thing to allow to persist, because it is a weapon which anybody not currently happy with the state of affairs in Canada could — and would — use against even the Canadian government.
It is not so impossible, I think, to imagine a scenario wherein a sitting Canadian MP — that is, a member of Canada’s elected government — could be hauled before the HRC specifically because s/he voted for, or against, a certain bill. Is it so impossible, for example, to imagine a feminist group hauling an MP before the HRC because he voted against some new bit of legislation pertaining to abortion?
