timeimmortal

What happens when an ex-employee of the human rights commission (HRC) attempts to sue someone for defamation, having previously only had experience with the legal fiction of the human rights kangaroo courts in Canada (where evidence is meaningless and where a person can be found guilty if it can be established that he has, or might one day, hurt the feelings of someone else)? Especially when the someone being sued is a defamation lawyer with a “take no prisoners” attitude?

See for yourself:

I’m a defamation lawyer myself, and if I had to sum up Canadian law in four words, it would be this: get your facts straight. If your facts are correct, you have the right to your opinions on those facts — even extreme or radical opinions. So [Richard Warman]’s complaint isn’t really a lawsuit. It’s a letter to the editor.

And that’s the problem here. Warman is so used to operating in kangaroo courts — so used to human rights commissions that are run by non-lawyers, with arbitrary procedures, no fixed rules of evidence, no meaningful standards of guilt, where truth is not a defence and fair comment doesn’t exist — that he thinks he can take his Orwellian thinking out from the cloister of these star chambers into the real world. That’s my earlier point: I don’t think Warman even knows how ridiculous he looks.

The doctrine of fair comment

Warman may not share my opinion that he wastes taxpayers dollars, or acts as a censor, or that human rights commissions are a joke, etc. And his opinion might even be more reasonable than mine (it’s not). But it’s not unlawful for me to have my views. Not that my views are particularly radical — many of my exact words are echoed in the language used by PEN Canada, the CAJ, the head of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, Noam Chomsky(!) and a dozen newspaper editorial boards across the country. That might hurt Warman’s feelings, but hurt feelings aren’t the test of defamation law.

Most everything in those blog posts was my political opinion. I did assert a few facts: I wrote that Warman encouraged some young ruffians to assault a man with a pie. That’s not a matter of fair comment, it’s either factually accurate or not. Gentle reader, click here and tell me whether that fact is true or not. I’m just not sure how Warman can deny that, but it will be interesting to watch him try.

The other factual assertion I made is that Warman himself planted anonymous posts on the internet sites that he was stalking for a complaint. Again, it’s pretty tough for Warman to take issue with that, given that both he and commission staff admit under oath that’s how they operate.

Well, Warman has tried to deny it in the past. But that didn’t really work. Here is an interesting exchange before the tribunal: at first Warman denies that he posted anonymous, provocative comments to a website he took to the commission; then, when confronted with the fact of it, he sheepishly admits to that practice. If you’re bored, you can read this lengthy affidavit by the webmaster proving that the bigoted remarks about Sen. Anne Cools were made by Warman himself. Here’s a timeline of facts related to the Anne Cools remarks.

Give ‘im hell, Ezra.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

Now, the Reader will know that I don’t tend to post to the blog on Sundays (or, as a general rule, on weekends period), but this was important.

Richard Warman is a former employee of the Canadian Human Rights Commission. He is also currently using it as his own personal inquisition/bank account — nearly half of all complaints brought before the commission have been filed by Richard Warman. It seems that nothing fails to offend Richard Warman.

And also, as it turns out, Richard Warman acts like a racist. FreeDominion, ironically facing a Warman complaint at the HRC themselves, has the evidence. Assuming that their confidence in their evidence is justified, it is alleged that Richard Warman wrote:

“Not only is Canadian Senator Anne Cools is a Negro, she is also an immigrant!
And she is also one helluva preachy c*nt.
She does NOT belong in my Canada. My Anglo-Germanic people were here before
there was a Canada and her kind have jumped in, polluted our race, and forced
their bullshit down our throats.
Time to go back to when the women nigger imports knew their place…
And that place was NOT in public!

Unfortunately for Richard Warman, there are ways to detect information about forum users and comment posters, information that can be used to more or less conclusively identify the person making the offensive statement. Oh, there are ways to spoof these detection schemes as well…but it would appear that Richard Warman is not technically savvy enough to know about those.

Kathy responds to this discovery with the perfect suggestion — make this information go viral:

Guess that’s what happens with a Drama queen foolishly takes on an accused anti-semitic computer techie, eh — don’t tug on “Ubermensch’s” cape next time, Richie boy.

Be sure to read the whole thing, and, please tell your MP what you think of this use of your tax dollars — funding employees and ex-employees of the HRC in these dubious “undercover” activities.

Another suggestion: that everyone who reads this and has their own blog post a link to the original post at FreeDominion, and use the words “Richard Warman” as often as possible in your post.

Use tags. Use Digg etc.

That way, when self-googler Richard Warman (or someone else, say a potential future employer) googles “Richard Warman,” the chances that this unflattering information about Richard Warman will show up near the top of the results will be greatly increased.

Take this and run with it, O Reader. Richard Warman is a bully and a censor, and a threat to the legitimate right to that every Canadian enjoys. With the above information, we can shut the man down. So pass it on.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

Update II - The Update Strikes Back: Let’s be clear on something here, O Reader. Essentially, what posts like this help to indicate is that Richard Warman (and possibly others like him) is creating online aliases for himself at websites with which he disagrees, or which he finds offensive. Using those aliases, Richard Warman is posting arguably racist, arguably offensive statements. He is then filing complaints against the operators of those sites for the racist or offensive content that he himself has left. And in each instance where he does this, he is being rewarded by the CHRC with thousands of dollars in settlements.

It’s really the online equivalent of cops gunning down a kid and then planting a piece on him, and then charging the kid’s family for the ammunition used. A combination, if you will, of a digital “drop piece” and the finest bureaucratic methods of Red China. And it’s illegal, kids. Highly illegal, not to mention fraudulent.

Jay Currie weighs in:

Three observations: first, this is profoundly corrupt. Fake posts written by a serial complainant who then complains about the fake post should be enough to prompt a full scale, judicial, inquiry into the CHRC. How many other bigot-bots has Richard Warman fired into forums and comment sections and then complained about. At a minimum every one of Richard Warman’s complaints to the CHRC - and he has won all of them - should be re-investigated for fraud.

Part of that judicial inquiry should focus on how complicit the CHRC or its staff have been in this Richard Warman fraud and any others which may have occurred.

Second, Richard Warman is a lawyer. As such he is not supposed to be defrauding quasi-judicial bodies such as the CHRC. As this story gains traction it will be interesting to see if, for example, the proprietors of Free Dominion, ask the Benchers of the Law Society of Upper Canada to investigate.

Third, the losing parties in Richard Warman CHRC complaints would be well advised to seek legal advice as to the possibility of re-opening their complaint and/or looking to real courts for damages against Richard Warman and the CHRC.

This is the sort of thing that could sink the CHRC. No, let me correct that statement: this is the sort of thing that should (must?) sink the CHRC.

Update III - Return of the Update: Kathy apologizes for her haste, and in hindsight I apologize for mine as well. Proper decorum would demand that the above all be treated as allegation instead of confirmed fact, and in my haste I too forgot myself. I apologize, and have modified the text above to reflect the nature of due process and presumed innocence, legal principles which Canadians ostensibly value (at least in forums outside of human rights inquisitions).

So apparently the Senate, already being expert in the field of national governance, have expanded their knowledge base to include cutting-edge theology. Or perhaps “bleeding heart Theology” — I can’t really tell anymore.

My respect for Senator Anne Cools has gone up a few more notches, however. Though a member of the unelected portion of the Canadian government, she displays a level-headedness and clarity of principle that the and NDP seem completely devoid of, that the Bloc Quebecois sometimes displays but limits in focus to Quebec, and that the Conservative Party could display if they ever stopped trying to placate both the Liberal government and the liberal media.

I wonder exactly where the fundamental understanding of Jesus and His message goes wrong with Senator Marilyn Trenholme Counsell. On the surface, it seems she thinks of our Lord as some sort of hip swinger, someone who’d permit anything in the name of being “fair”.

Not exactly the picture of Jesus painted in the Gospels, is it? Certainly, Jesus’s message was one of peace and understanding, and certainly He tore down many barriers between Jew and Gentile, man and woman, slave and master, invader and invaded. He preached that all were equal in God’s eyes, and never turned away those who sought him.

Okay, that part sounds kind of like the picture our Senator paints. But is that the whole picture of Jesus?

As I recall it, if people came to Jesus as sinners, one of the first things He would do is ask them to repent and sin no more. If people came to Jesus who were sinners but did not realize it, or thought their actions permissible/moral/justified, He would correct them, often in a very direct and sometimes harsh way. He was especially harsh with the self-righteous authorities, those convinced of the correctness of their ways because of their status in society (not unlike, I would wager, a certain Senator I could name).

When he stopped the stoning of the adulterous woman, He did not condone her sin. He stood up not in support of her right to fornicate herself silly — instead, He stood up against the hypocrisy of those would would overlook their own sin in their zeal to condemn her, since all sins are equal in magnitude before God. And when her would-be executioners had left, He turned to her and (much more gently, but firmly nonetheless) told her to end her sinful practice.

When Jesus met the woman at the well in Galilee, He treated her as an equal, a valued child of God and a person. He did not condone her five (or was it six? Curse my memory…) marriages, nor the fact that she was shacking up with someone she was not married to (note: tacit condemnation of common-law relationships, people!). In fact, He pointed these things out to her as an example of her sin, and His frankness with her inspired her to repent.

Would Jesus support gay-marriage legislation? I think anyone who claims to speak for Jesus, as our Senator has done, is guilty of blasphemy, and so I won’t come out with a “yes” or “no” answer. But I will leave this parting thought:

Christian moral philosophy teaches that proper sexual relations have two seperate but indivisible parts: unification and procreation. If a couple engages in sexual union that is open to one but blocks the other, this is a sin, because it violates the natural order and God’s intention for humanity. Proper sexual relationships should be a joining, strengthening force in the lives of the couple, but the couple should always be open to the possibility of bringing forth a child. (And no, this isn’t the Monty Python conflation that “every time they have sex, they have to have a baby”.)

Bearing that in mind, and assuming for just a moment that the Church has got something right in its understanding after 2000 years of ministry, one has to ask whether a homosexual union qualifies. Certainly, I will be the first to concede that homosexual sexual relations, like heterosexual relations, can be unitive in nature. I admit that’s speculation on my part, having never had a homosexual affair myself, but I would wager it likely. But even in that case, that’s only part of the puzzle, isn’t it? And we could start the debate over artificial insemination and surrogacy, but let’s cut to the chase on that one: procreation, in its natural state, involves one zygote from each partner in the sexual union, so that the child will be biologically related to both of the people it will come to know as “parents”. Wake me when that’s possible in a non-heterosexual setting.

And really, given that same-sex marriage is already a morally contentious issue, do we really need to open the “embryos debate” can of worms too?

Do I support “equal rights” for homosexuals? That depends on what you mean. As I understand it, they are human too, and as such already have equal rights under the law in Canada, even before the various related Supreme Court filings. Should they not be discriminated against on the basis of their sexuality? My first answer is yes. But I think even there I need to disclaim. I think respect is a two-way street, and I think that homosexual lobbyists should not force their agenda on those whose personal beliefs hold the homosexual lifestyle as immoral. That means no bullying town mayors who don’t want to take part in “Pride” days. That means accepting that religions institutions may not condone promotion of that lifestyle in their classes. That even means accepting that some churches, mosques, synagogues, and temples will refuse to perform marriages for homosexual couples…not because they are discriminatory, but because for them the morality of the issue is anything but settled. And in return, I say that yes, homosexuals should not be targets of hate crimes, should not be denied employment (see caveat above), and should continue to enjoy the same full legal protection of the that they have since its institution in 1982.

But, as Anne Cools noted in the Senate debate: “Marriage is not now and has never been a right…No sacrament of the church has ever been a right.”