Thursday, June 05, 2008

Malice in Wonderland

The great myth is that Canada is like America but with effective socialism, politeness, and no litter. Don't get me wrong. I like Canada. My favorite place to vacation is Toronto.

But all is not well in Wonderland:

After spending a day crammed into a subterranean Vancouver courtroom to witness the start of the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal's bizarre and troubling hearing into the Islamic Congress of Canada's human-rights complaint against Maclean's, a sensitive soul is compelled to look to the great books for solace and, perhaps, some insight into the nature of the tragicomic event.

Given the circumstances, one's thoughts turn to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, a work noted not only for its depiction of a world turned upside down but also for some rather telling insights in humanity's foibles. "Everything's got a moral," Lewis Carroll writes, "if you can only find it."

Of course! In the "curiouser and curiouser" world of the Tribunal, the task at hand is not—and, actually, cannot be—to deliver true justice; it is to teach the defendants a lesson. If only they can find it.


This is the Mark Steyn human rights trial, of course. And by "trial" I mean something akin to applying the float or sink test to accused witches.

These tribunals, with the belated scrutiny of the Canadian press developing, may possibly yet teach Canadians a lesson in how their good intentions to fight discrimination have resulted in intellectual midgets acting as judges, juries, and executioners, turning their progressive mandate into a tool to suppress freedom of speech in Canada.

But only if they can find it.