Predictions for 2008

Well, it seems to be the thing to do today, so I’m going to give it a go:

1) Canadian Politics:

There will not be a General Election in 2008. Instead, Stephane Dion will continue to die a slow death, withering away in front of our very eyes. Both parties will fail to gain traction in the polls, absent some outside defining issue. The Liberals will be afraid to go, the Tories will be afraid to go – fear of the unknown will keep everything frozen for another year.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper will again confound conventional political wisdom by agreeing to a request that Canada increase the size of its mission in Afghanistan as, with Iraq fading from the news and Pakistan spiralling into chaos, international support coalesces for emulating the Iraqi “surge” strategy in Afghanistan and possibly even northern Pakistan.

My MP, James Moore, will finally become a member of the Cabinet.

Carole Taylor will run for and win the job of Mayor of Vancouver and, quite promptly, discover what she should have already known: that it’s an incredibly frustrating job in which doing anything of value is pretty much impossible.

The other BC Carole, Carole James, will be forced out by a panicked BC NDP in the summer/fall when they see the 2009 Election coming and no chance of her beating Gordon Campbell. Coming full circle, she will be replaced by Adrian Dix.

With it broadly expected that Gordon Campbell will retire sometime after the 2010 Olympics, a number of people will begin manoeuvring for the Premier’s job in earnest. Despite her “exit” from Provincial politics, Carole Taylor will be the early front-runner, if she can avoid being dragged down by the Vancouver Mayor’s job and if she can avoid a conservative revolt. She will probably be successful on the first count – and unsuccessful on the second. With the end of Campbell’s tenure in sight, MLA’s from the old Reform/Social Credit wing of the BC Liberal Party will begin to express their concerns about the party’s leftward drift more openly. Will they find a champion? Probably.

The one name missing from the list of people lining up to be Premier of British Columbia will be former Deputy Premier and current CKNW Radio Personality Christy Clark (full disclosure: once upon a time, I was a member of her riding association). She’s a smart woman and both a provincial and Federal liberal. Whatever her husband’s current job, she’ll know that there are going to be two Liberal leaderships opening up in the next few years. She’ll also know that there’s an appetite among the estrogen-heavy Liberal membership for a woman leader. After all – lack of Federal experience seems to be no bar to the job. Gerard Kennedy nearly won the job last time and his principal accomplishment in life up until that point (prior, I suppose, to being Education Minister of Ontario) was running a Food Bank. But for the timing of her ill-fated run for Mayor of Vancouver, she could have been a formidable candidate last time around. This time…

Forget what the polls say: Ed Stelmach will call a General Election in Alberta and he will either lose or nearly lose. The Alberta PC’s have the stench, even across Provincial borders, given off by all decaying and defeated regimes.

2) World Politics:

There will be no General Election in Britain in 2008. Like James Callaghan three decades ago, Gordon Brown will hold on and pray for a miracle. He might wait all the way into 2010 looking to change things around. It probably won’t work. But, mind you, David Cameron is no Maggie.

After nearly a decade in the wilderness, Benjamin Netanyahu will return to power as the Prime Minister of Israel. However, his return to power will be no cause for celebration…

…because his return to power will be triggered by Iran’s public declaration – a surprise to no honest person with an IQ higher than room temperature – that it either has deployed or will soon deploy nuclear weapons. With that Olmert’s government will come tumbling down and, like Britain in the terrible spring of 1940; Israel will turn to the man who turns out to have been right all along.

Contrary to expectations, the Beijing Olympics will prove to be an embarrassment for the Chinese regime. They will be disrupted by activists. Frantic efforts will be unable to hide the terrible state of the Chinese environment, which will injure the health of some of the athletes. Entering the country en masse after years of stories about China’s rise, the international media will prove very eager to tell the contrarian story of how China is blighted by extreme poverty and generally filthy conditions.

Pakistan will continue to teeter on the brink. It may fall over. If it does – if, for example, something terrible happens to Musharaff and an Islamist takeover beckons – the world will be treated to the most frightening days since September 11th, or possibly the Cuban missile crisis, as an alarmed India threatens war and the U.S. Armed Forces launch a desperate operation to either capture or disable Pakistan’s nuclear weapons before they fall into the wrong hands.

Iraq continues to improve. The momentum there towards a fairly decent civil society is becoming irreversible. As this happens, the smarter Democrats try and claim credit for forcing the course change.

3) American Politics:

The world will be treated to the most confusing American Presidential election – and perhaps the most critical – since 1860. Barak Obama will win the Democratic nomination for President – after surprising Hillary Clinton in the early primaries and winning the endorsement of John Edwards.

John McCain will be the Republican nominee for President, after Mitt Romney defeats Huckabee in Iowa, but by a small enough margin to fail to get a bounce. McCain wins New Hampshire thereafter, as the many, many Republicans who despite Mitt Romney but merely dislike McCain gather around the latter.

In March, Ron Paul will be defeated for re-nomination in his own House seat by local City Councilman Chris Peden. His devoted followers will blame this on “neocons” or, when they think people aren’t looking, simply on “the Jews.” Shortly thereafter, Paul will announce an independent campaign for the Presidency.

At roughly the same time, Michael Bloomberg also declares for the Presidency as an Independent, putting a billion dollars behind his campaign.

Thus, we’re going to left with a four-way race for the Presidency, with three candidates who can potentially win the Presidency – and probably with all four polling high enough to make it into the debates.

The race will be ugly and chaotic. Indeed, I would not be at all shocked if it was the first Presidential race in a very long time to be marred by actual violence.

Bloomberg will take either Chuck Hagel or Sam Nunn as his running mate. Obama, looking to burnish his foreign policy credentials, will follow the model of inexperienced candidates for the Presidency in recent years and choose a gray-haired insider as his running mate. Chris Dodd or Joe Biden both seem plausible. Depending on the environment, John McCain can go four ways. He can reach out to Evangelicals by taking Huckabee as his running mate. He can choose the best-polling Republican and take Giuliani. He can try to mollify movement conservatives and take someone like Fred Thompson, John Kyl, or South Carolina Mark Sanford. Or, recognizing that the race is out-of-control he could make a bold decision and attempt a fusion ticket of sorts by taking Joe Lieberman as his Vice President. I happen to prefer the final option, simply because it enjoy the idea of the 2000 Democratic Vice Presidential candidate being elected as a Republican in 2008.

In the end, despite erratic polling, John McCain is elected as the 44th President of the United States. He wins only a plurality of the popular vote, but a smashing Electoral College majority. Democrats spend the next four years pointing out that a majority of Americans voted for candidates on the left of the spectrum.

Democrats keep the Congress. They hold the House by a very narrow margin – but pick up one seat in the Senate (the Republicans, though, partially offset their losses by electing John Kennedy to the Senate in Louisiana).

4) Everything Else:

The Writer’s strike drags on longer than anyone expected. This is one of those unfortunate cases where justice is on both sides – the writers deserve to be paid for all of their work, but the studios don’t have more money to give. This disrupts the pilot season, resulting in the renewal and even the revival of many on-the-brink shows.

Further, studios put a number of remakes and the like into production – in addition to scripts coming off the shelf after many years.

Reflecting the mood of the day, “No Country for Old Men” wins the Oscar for Best Picture. In a divided verdict, Paul Thomas Anderson wins Best Director for “There Will be Blood.” Meanwhile, Ellen Page wins Best Actress for “Juno” and Daniel Day Lewis wins Best Actor for “There Will be Blood.”

Tom Kratman’s novel “Caliphate”, due to be published by Baen in a few months, causes a stir on the blogosphere and draws a human rights complaint against Indigo/Chapters for carrying it in Canada.

Leftists Steals iPod, Leaves Note

Maybe it's because I'm tired, but I almost fell out of the chair after reading this story.

In summary, a girl opened her iPod box on Christmas to find a note denouncing "capitalist garbage" and encouraging her, instead, to go and read a book.

What happened to the iPod isn't mentioned but, if I was asked to bet, I would guess that whichever freakish doped-up left-wing "culture jammer" decided that it was good enough for me but not for thee.

British Couple Forced to Take in Criminal

This is government at it's finest.

In summary, a British couple - both of whom have "learning disabilities" and are under the care of social workers - have been forced to take a criminal into their home upon the order of a court because, when he was given house arrest, he wrote down their address as his own (allegedly because he had the permission of the couple's sixteen year-old daughter to do so). Neither they, nor the police, can get rid of him, because he's been confined to these people's house by the court.

As a side note, for a couple under state care, they seem to have a fairly nice TV.

The State of Play (Part Two)

This continues to be the closest and most interesting Presidential race in living memory.

What's the state of play today? Well, looking at the reports, we see the following trends.

1) Huckabee's Support is Peaking.

Rasmussen has him in the lead nationally - at 22%. These numbers are likely to be reflected elsewhere. This may well place him in first, nationally, but it doesn't seem likely that he's going to pick up much more support beyond that. Indeed, most reports show his negatives going up.

Huckabee is a charming guy and a brilliant campaigner - but, the more Republicans learn about his economic and foreign policies, the less traction he's going to get. I just don't see a path for Huckabee to win the nomination.

2) Mitt Romney is in Trouble.

Romney's path to the nomination depended heavily upon the well-trod path of previous years. Win Iowa, win New Hampshire, and then take the nomination from there. But, as of today, he's behind in Iowa and bleeding in New Hampshire. Romney's biggest problem is that his appeal, really, is as a choice acceptable to pretty much all factions in the Republican Party without any real downside and with a clear path to the nomination, but...

3) John McCain Has a Clear Path to the Nomination:

It would seem that John McCain is pretty much everyone's second or third choice - and perhaps more (in the interest of full disclosure, as my Facebook friends already know, I've endorsed McCain). With Rasmussen showing him - without organization or ads - in a strong third in Iowa, that path is becoming all-the-more-clear.

McCain overperforms in Iowa, while Huckabee wins. McCain wins New Hampshire. That knocks Romney out of the race. Thompson drops and endorses McCain. That leaves, heading into February 5th, McCain, Huckabee, and Giuliani still standing - of those three, there's only one who doesn't threaten to tear the GOP coalition apart.

4) Giuliani is in Trouble:

As Rich Lowry said the other day - he needs a miracle. In retrospect, the problem of the Giuliani candidacy is that it asks too much of supporters - it asks that not only they have faith that a social liberal can win the GOP nomination, but that they sit and wait for a month while that same liberal loses primaries, keeping faith that they'll win the big Republican primaries.

Indeed, that's not even all that solid an arguement. How liberal is the GOP Primary electorate in, say, California? After all, they prefered Bill Simon to Dick Riordan for Governor in 2002.

5) Hillary Clinton's Chances are Fading:

The problem may well be that, in all reality, the Clintons haven't had to face a tough campaign since 1992. After all - with Dole in 1996, the Republicans pretty much gave the election away. The media has been absolutely on their side throughout the years. All she's faced since then are two Senate races - in New York - one of which was a gimmie anyways.

The problem with Clinton is, as I've said before, that for all of the money and organization and marketing - in the end, the Dogs just don't like the food. People don't like her - and they don't want her to be Presdent. Further, it seems that the inner circle of Clinton advisors is as thoroughly dysfunctional as the Clinton marriage.

6) Obama is George McGovern:

Let's get real, folks - the American people aren't going to elect a black ultra-liberal named Barak Hussein Obama as the President of the United States. This is a truth so obvious that it will seem self-evident even to the left, in retrospect. Indeed, for many liberals it's probably a secret source of psychological comfort - when they lose, they can blame it on racism rather than liberalism.

Obama is a candidate without experience. He has an ultra-liberal record. He has an interesting past - including his youthful Islamic education and possible faith - which will be fully explored during a general election campaign. He won't win - and I'm sure that the Democratic brass knows it. But, as in 1972, they might be forced into a disasterous choice by the unhinged faithful.

The Province Gets it Half Right on Illegal Alien

The editorial board at the Vancouver Province get it at least half right, when it comes to the case of illegal alien Labair Singh. Allowing protestors to block the deportation of Singh as a shameful and spineless capitulation to the mob. However, just as surely, it was – at least in part – a product of the climate of anti-police hysteria that the Province and its confederates in the media have stoked and fed.

Realistically, how many border services officials or politicians are really going to take the risk of using force of any kind against a crowd of largely foreign-born protestors at the Vancouver Airport after what happened two months ago? One can only imagine what the Province editorial board and many of the other spineless and hysterical little girls in the Vancouver-area media would have had to say if one of the members of the mob had gotten their teeth knocked out or whatever else.

Moreover, the Province –and others – endorse the pathetic idea that the stroke that Singh had after he came to Canada is a reason why we ought to allow him to stay here. That’s about as illogical as granting clemency to a parricide on the grounds that he’s now an orphan. Only a soft-minded Canadian liberal could argue that the fact that a now-paralyzed criminal alien will require extensive medical care at public expense is a reason for allow them to stay. If you feel so bad for the guy, then you pay for him – but don’t volunteer my wallet.

In any case, the whole notion of “refugees” from India to Canada is absurd. India is a democracy and an ally. Why are we even considering any claims originating from there at all? Ditto Mexico which, somehow, is apparently the top source of “refugees” to Canada.

Lord, for leaders with some common sense. It wasn’t so long ago when the lawful authorities would have known exactly what to do to a mob whose avowed aim was to obstruct the execution of the duties of servants of the Queen.

Liveblogging the GOP Debate

Over at the Western Standard.

Why Pander to Hollywood?

The Government appears to be on track to strengthen Canada’s copyright laws. While I understand the impulse – Conservatives are, after all, naturally disposed towards law and order – I believe that doing so would blow a historic opportunity for the Tories to scoop up the youth vote. Moreover, in failing to thoroughly overhaul the laws which govern Canada’s cultural and communications industries, the government is missing a chance to simultaneously strike a powerful blow against its opponents and to improve the lives of ordinary Canadians.

Now, obviously, it would probably be a bad thing (and counter-productive) if the government simply went and threw out all copyright laws. After all, they protect all sorts of trade secrets and, without them, we would soon find ourselves with the same sort of anarchist intellectual property climate as China, where car companies unveil their new models at tradeshows only to find that they have already been reverse-engineered and copies by their competitors. However, a loosening of present copyright laws (in reality, a legalization of the existing situation) would deal almost exclusively with the entertainment industry. Time-shifting, personal use, and so forth exemptions, if codified into law, would simply formalize what already happens in Canada and prevent the sort of abusive lawsuits against individuals filed by the RIAA in the United States.

Such a move wouldn’t change any facts on the ground in this country – but it would do two very useful things. First, it would give the government an achievement which it could sell to young people. For all that they profess to care about the environment, peace, and blah, blah, blah, avoiding RIAA lawsuits against themselves is an issue which might actually motivate people in their teens and twenties to show up at the polls. Second, it would piss off Hollywood and, so far as I know, no government has ever lost votes by picking a fight with vapid, preening, and stupid Tinseltown gasbags.

Trying to stop file-sharing is futile anyways. Middle-aged women in my office swap television shows burned to DVD’s. My former roommates have several terabytes of Japanese anime and other crap (once, over drinks, we tried to estimate the potential bill if the RIAA were ever able to sue them under U.S. Copyright law and finally gave up after concluding that it would run into either the hundreds of millions or potentially billions of dollars).

In any case, massive file sharing is largely a transitory matter – a temporary stage whose existence will encourage a lazy industry to produce things people actually want to pay for and to deliver them to individuals in a convenient way. Personally, I buy most of my own music through Apple’s iTunes because, at $.99 a song, the price is fair and, more to the point, I am able to buy from my own music player (and from my iPhone) without any of the hassles which historically accompanied other forms of music acquisition.

In other words, to the degree such a move would hurt anyone, it would mostly hurt people we don’t like (and who don’t like us) and would be a momentary affair which would actually encourage innovation and better service in the long-term.

Indeed, a plan to liberalize Canada’s copyright laws could be packaged as part of a broader “Digital Agenda” which, like the above proposal, would improve the services received by Canadians while wounding people who, for the most part, are opposed to the government anyways.

At the core of any future-oriented technology agenda for Canada would be the thorough reform of the CRTC into an organization with a much-narrower mandate resembling that of the Federal Communications Commission in the United States. The cultural protection racket ghettoizes and cripples good Canadian cultural output (like, for example, the brilliant Slings & Arrows) while forcing taxpayers to subsidize crap. At the same time, limits on foreign ownership in the cultural and communications industries allow, to pick one entirely random example, mobile phone providers to continue to set their rates by the same code of gentlemanly conduct which governs inter-inmate relations in prison showers.

It’s absurd that I’m not able to subscribe to HBO, Showtime, FX, and the rest and am instead forced to pay for bastardized Canadian versions of the same and, in some cases, to wait months for episodes to air in this country. It is insane that I had to drive one hundred miles into another country to buy an iPhone, and then to carefully modify its software in order to be able to use half of its features. It is beyond ludicrous that the DISH Network satellite installed by one of my friends is, literally, criminal. All of these injustices are a product of a deeply flawed cultural policy which ought to be flushed down the crapper of history.

In this way – admittedly a small way – the government could continue to demonstrate to Canadians that there is a real alternative to the sort of dime-store totalitarianism to which we’ve been subjected to for so many years.

The Candidate for 2008: John Ellis Bush?

Over at the National Review, David Freddoso discusses the possibility that, instead of giving the GOP an early nominee, the front-loaded primary schedule might lead to a brokered convention. Obviously, that’s the kind of thing that political geeks dream of. Day of floor-fights, dramatic votes, and the like – it’s almost enough to make me book some vacation time in patient expectation. But, for Republicans, it may well represent more than that – an opportunity.

So far, among the Republicans, no one’s made the sale. That’s true for me, personally. At the moment, I like McCain – but I have reservations about his age and his maverick tendencies. I admire Giuliani – but I’m not sure if he’d be acceptable to the Republican base and I’m concerned that there may be hidden scandals. I would support Fred Thompson, but his campaign has been kind of listless. I’m ambivalent towards Romney (too fake, too clean-cut) and I dislike Huckabee (I have a hard time believing that, in wartime, anyone could seriously support a candidate for the Presidency whose chief qualifications are that he lost a lot of weight and can quote the Bible real pretty) – but I’d support either of them against the Democrats. The other candidates don’t even cross my radar screen, save for Ron Paul who, as I have mentioned in the past, I despise with every fibre of my being. I think a lot of Republicans (swap the names and the reasons) are in more or less the same place.

But, there is another candidate out there – the perfect candidate for the Republican Party in 2008. The extremely popular former Governor of a major swing state. An articulate and principled conservative. Someone with a clean personal history who has displayed the qualities of a decisive leader in high office. He’s electorally demographically perfect as well – Catholic, Spanish-speaking, and with a Hispanic wife. The only problem is that his name is John Ellis Bush.

If Governor Jeb Bush of Florida was Governor John Ellis of Florida, the race for the Republican nomination would already be long over. But, alas, realities being what they are Bush’s name is now doubly an albatross. First, many would obviously have issues with the President being followed in office by his own brother. Second, of course, there is the fact that President Bush remains fairly unpopular. However, it’s December of 2007 at the moment and the Republican convention isn’t for eight months. Both of those issues might be dispensed with by then.

The first issue, obviously, can be dispensed with in 2008 altogether if Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee for President. Though Democrats are sufficiently venal to passionately denounce nepotism while offering up the wife of a former President as their own candidate for the Presidency, the only Americans stupid enough to fall for that argument are Democrats already.

The second may prove more tricky – but not impossible. Rasmussen, by far the most reliable polling company in recent years, has the President’s approval rating at 39%. With Iraq fading as an issue and a recession looking less and less likely, it’s quite possible that President Bush’s approval rating might be substantially higher by the summer of 2008. If it crosses into the mid-50’s (it’s worth recalling that both President Reagan and President Clinton’s ratings went up significantly during the final year of their term), the Bush name ceases to be a liability and, instead, becomes a rallying cry for Republicans.

Is any of this likely? No. I still think that the most likely GOP nominee is Rudy Giuliani. But, it’s at least remotely possible to imagine scenario where the Republicans emerge from the first or second ballot in Minneapolis and, amid the summer heat, one delegates whispers the name “Bush” to another and things just go from there.

The State of Play (2008)

Now it gets interesting. Rasmussen shows Huckabee moving to second place nationally.

If there really is a Rudy-Huck alliance then, looking at the raw numbers, this thing is damned near over.

As I see it, the way things go now:

Either Huckabee wins Iowa, or Romney narrowly does. Giuliani performs better than expected. Thompson fades.

Then we get to New Hampshire... McCain picked up the Union Leader endorsement today (or will tomorrow).

Romney must win New Hampshire - and by a lot. Being the former Governor of a neighbouring state. If someone else wins, he's probably done for.

And then... Well, looking at it, the scenarios we're left with are as follows:

1) Divided results up until February 5th, when Giuliani takes it.
2) Romney wins New Hampshire and picks up momentum.
3) McCain wins New Hampshire, then either wins or performs well in Michigan, then goes into South Carolina.

Frankly, I don't see a path to the nomination for Fred Thompson at this point, unless, of course, events overtake him. In particular, one possible event which would change the landscape would be if Rush Limbaugh decided to actually endorse him, a move which doesn't seem to be out of the question. But, it's a low-probability scenario.

And all of this, of course, assumes that more personal stories don't explode over Giuliani.

On the Democratic side, things are even more interesting.

Obama is closing. He has as much money as Clinton, more or less - and the ability to raise more.

I think that Iowa is damned-near a must-win for Hillary. She's like that old story about the ad company trying to sell Dog food.

The executives all sit in the room for hours, discussing the ads, the placement on shelves - but everything is perfect. Finally, one lonley secretary points out that the problem is that, "the Dogs don't like it."

That's Hillary's problem. She's got the money. She has the background. She has the machine. But the dogs don't like it. That is to say, I've met - and I'm including on the internet here - only a handful of people who actually like her and want her to be President. Her campaign is built upon inevitability and, especially in the case of Democratic primaries, inevtiability is meaningless - the Democrats like to eat their own.

If I was going to call it now, I'd say that the tickets:

Giuliani-Huckabee for the Republicans.

And...

Obama-Bredesen for the Democrats.

The latter is an entirely random guess, I should add - but it makes sense. Phil Bredesen is the moderate Governor of Tenneseee, with strong managerial experience (the CEO of a major health company no less).

And Then They Came for Mark Steyn…

Freedom is under attack in this country by a powerful alliance between human rights bureaucrats and a small group of self-appointed censors. As has happened so often in the past, laws which were written with a select purpose – in this case the protection of minorities and others from actual violence or incitement to violence – are being abused to an end which we were explicitly assured would never arrive. Human rights acts, commissions, and so forth – we were told – would never suppress genuine free expression or to declare certain thoughts illegal: and yet that is exactly what they are doing in this country.

Today brings the news that Maclean’s magazine, as thoroughly respectable and establishment a Canadian institution as one can find, is going to be hauled before the BC Human Rights Tribunal for printing excerpts from Mark Steyn’s book “American Alone.” The Canadian Islamic Congress claims that Steyn’s words were, “flagrantly Islamophobic” and that it, “subjects Canadian Muslims to hatred and contempt.”

Now, people complain about things all the time. As a general rule, there’s a whole class of professional whiners out there. The problem here is that they might win.

There are two problems here.

The first is the law itself – whose language is sufficiently broad to make practically anything negative written about anything to potentially infringe. If I write that that someone is a moron – regardless of the subjective truth of that statement (that is to say whether I believe it to be true and whether a reasonable person could believe that to be true) – then that could automatically infringe regardless of truth. Similarly, if I write that someone or something is a threat that could also, by hurting someone’s feelings, transgress against the law even if that someone or something actually is a threat.

The second is that the people who interpret these laws are, to put in as non-infringing a fashion as possible, morons. The law was ostensibly written to be adjudicated by reasonable and unbiased people, a description which is as far from fitting for most “human rights” bureaucrats as describing Liberace as “mildly flamboyant.”

Thus, it is entirely possible that the Commission – or perhaps some other body that someone else has complained to – will go out and brand Mark Steyn’s book as “hate propaganda” or whatever other menacing term they might devise. No reasonable person would think it but, as I have stated, we are not dealing with reasonable people.

For evidence of this, we need look no further than the case of Stephen Boissoin, which was decided yesterday in Alberta. Boissoin wrote a letter to the Red Deer Advocate in 2002 in which he took issue with homosexuality in strong terms. For the most part I disagree with Mr. Boissoin’s position, but he expressed himself coherently and without calling for violence or anything else against gays – after all the newspaper selected it for publication. Yet, simply because he said things which gay advocates disagreed with, his letter has now been formally branded as “hate literature” and, therefore, illegal.

How long shall it be before some government bureaucrat orders me to dispose of my copy of “America Alone” – or my signed copy of one of Steyn’s anthologies? No one can say for certain. But can anyone say that such a day will not come in this country?

The larger danger here – and we see it in the Boissoin case – is that these legal actions will have a chilling effect on speech. The Boissoin case – over a letter to the editor in a local newspaper – dragged on for five whole years. That’s five years of expenses and anxiety. Less-brave people will opt simply to remain silent about controversial issues, rather than to risk the costs of protracted Star Chamber litigation.

These are not the only examples that exist. All Canadian lovers of freedom will know the sad chronology of oppression. The Toronto printer fined for refusing to make flyers for a gay group. The Saskatchewan man found guilty of quoting the Bible in a newspaper. The British Columbian teacher stripped of his qualifications for writing letters to politicians and newspapers. Brave men all – but courage has become a rare commodity in this country. Most of us don’t wish to be exposed to years of inaccurate ridicule in newspapers. Most of us don’t want to risk what we own and what we’ve earned to the capricious whims of kangaroo courts.

The Western Standard’s brave act of printing those Danish Cartoons –an international news story – cost them tens of thousands (and perhaps more) of dollars and helped to hasten the demise of the print edition.

But, if we fail to act, how long will it be before freedom is lost? It will not require that our opinions even be formally deemed illegal – no act of Parliament will have to be passed to enumerate a series of thought crimes. Instead, vexatious litigation will wear away the will of many. Soon, magazines won’t even try and print cover stories about Islam. Editors will throw away letters about homosexuality which don’t endorse the practice and excoriate Christianity. Indeed, much of this is already occurring. This entirely-legal form of harassment is enough to drive ideas – even popular ideas – to the sidelines of the forum.

Perhaps the time has come to act. To draw a line in the sand. I am not one for rallies. I am not one for shouting in public. I think that it’s uncouth, rough and, well, liberal. But, really, we seem to be running out of options.