Ezra Levant writes:
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the need for Canadian bloggers to form a mutual aid society to protect themselves from unwarranted attacks on their freedoms.
The common thread amongst all of these threats is that they’re not legitimate legal actions to remedy a real tort committed by bloggers. The blog posts in question all contain true facts and fair comments; no real defamation action lies against any of them. These threats are intimidation tactics — bullying — dressed up in legal robes.
And, unfortunately, they often work. Not because bloggers make a thoughtful decision, with competent legal advice, that they ought to retract a truly false and defamatory statement, but because bloggers make a panicked decision, without legal advice, in fear of the cost and hassle of a lawsuit, and in the hopes of appeasing the threatener.
When I mused about a mutual aid society for bloggers, I immediately received several requests for help. Even though I haven’t set up the structure for the Union of Bloggers yet, I’ve accepted two of them, and I have permission to write about one of them: It’s Warren Kinsella’s absurd threat against a blogger named Blazing Catfur.
What did Blazing Catfur do? He engaged in satire, which is the deadliest weapon against humourless censors. He demonstrated the foolishness of Kinsella’s logic that:
* Dr. Keith Martin — a Liberal MP, human rights activist, and visible minority — wants to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act;
* Some white supremacists want to amend the CHRA too;
* Therefore Martin’s idea is tainted by association.I thought Blazing Catfur’s satirical deployment of that absurd guilt by association logic was far more powerful than any stern criticism. And I think Kinsella did, too, or else he wouldn’t have threatened a lawsuit against Blazing Catfur and another blogger, Mike Brock, who engaged in a similar satire.
So the Union of Bloggers — before we’re formally incorporated — has a case.
But that’s not the most interesting part of the story…
And regular readers know what happens here whenever Kinsella advises a blogger to “retain counsel”…
(video via Ministry of Burlesque)
PS: no, none of us have been served yet.
