Tag Archives: Mark Steyn

The one man global human rights defendant

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Mark Steyn has a look at our troubled dealings with free speech and doesn’t like what he sees.

No two situations are identical, but Australia’s Section 18 is very roughly analogous to Canada’s Section 13, with Andrew Bolt and The Herald Sun playing the roles of me and Maclean’s magazine and various aboriginal persons in the parts of Khurrum Awan and the Canadian Islamic Congress Sock Puppets. Thanks to Brian Storseth’s private member’s bill, Section 13 was final repealed by the Canadian Parliament last year, after a somewhat protracted path to Royal Assent. By contrast, it’s not clear our Aussie cousins’ efforts to repeal Section 18 will get out of the starting gate.

Steyn is so unique that it is only he who has been able to see through to the core issues and then set himself against the gale force winds that come his way. Here the legal precedent went the other way and was not appealed beyond the initial court decision. But let’s face it. No one wants to take these issues on; we all have other things to do with our lives and no one is made of money. So this may be more than a bit of whimsy.

I hope the Section 18 campaign picks up a bit of steam soon. But I did take the precaution of threatening The Australian‘s readers:

I might have to fly in and do it myself.

I mean that. We’re currently mapping out plans for my Aussie tour later this year. In ideal circumstances, I’d fly in in time to attend the Governor General’s Section 18 Repeal cocktail party at Government House. But I have the glum feeling that the case for free speech might still be far from won.

Meanwhile on Steyn’s other adventures in the world of law, there is the latest episode of Mark v Mann, Mann of course being the man with the hockey stick who sued Steyn for slander. The only trouble is actually trying to get the case before a court. This is where the process is now at after more than a year of Mannoeuvering:

On Saturday, I noted that Mann had yet to join me in filing an objection to National Review‘s Motion to Stay Discovery. He did so today:

Defendant Mark Steyn opted not to appeal the denial of the motions to dismiss the amended complaint. Rather, Mr. Steyn has filed an answer and counterclaims and has expressed his intention to move forward with discovery, regardless of the fact that his co-defendants have opted to appeal.

Indeed, I have. So what’s Dr Mann’s position? Well, it’s a two-part response.

On the one hand, he’s in favor of his proceeding with discovery against me:

The fact that Mr. Steyn has not appealed the denial of the motions to dismiss counsels further against a discovery stay. Mr. Steyn, like Dr. Mann, has made clear his desire to have this Court resolve this lawsuit and to move forward with discovery immediately. As such, there is no reason for this Court to delay discovery further.

On the other hand, he’s totally opposed to my proceeding with discovery against him:

While Dr. Mann agrees with Mr. Steyn that discovery should move forward on Dr. Mann’s claims, discovery cannot move forward on Mr. Steyn’s counterclaims.

Oh, my. You do surprise me.

The future of Mannkind

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Having watched Mark Steyn pick apart the human rights industry in Canada was merely a prelude to his evisceration of the American injustice system as a whole. Steyn has decided to go it alone in his suit and counter-suit with Michael Mann, and they are at the “discovery” process, or would be if anyone allowed the case to go forward. So where are we up to now:

On Saturday, I noted that Mann had yet to join me in filing an objection to National Review’s Motion to Stay Discovery. He did so today:

Defendant Mark Steyn opted not to appeal the denial of the motions to dismiss the amended complaint. Rather, Mr. Steyn has filed an answer and counterclaims and has expressed his intention to move forward with discovery, regardless of the fact that his co-defendants have opted to appeal.

Indeed, I have. So what’s Dr Mann’s position? Well, it’s a two-part response.

On the one hand, he’s in favor of his proceeding with discovery against me:

The fact that Mr. Steyn has not appealed the denial of the motions to dismiss counsels further against a discovery stay. Mr. Steyn, like Dr. Mann, has made clear his desire to have this Court resolve this lawsuit and to move forward with discovery immediately. As such, there is no reason for this Court to delay discovery further.

On the other hand, he’s totally opposed to my proceeding with discovery against him:

While Dr. Mann agrees with Mr. Steyn that discovery should move forward on Dr. Mann’s claims, discovery cannot move forward on Mr. Steyn’s counterclaims.

Oh, my. You do surprise me.

The hits just keep on coming

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This is a modest blogsite which I do mostly for my own interest as a kind of intellectual diary but is not really done for others. I make no effort to let others know that I even do this which is why the explosion of hits this morning has taken my hit count to five times its previous max. This required a bit of investigation, and it has pleased me to the end of the earth that the reference came from Mark Steyn, bless him. The post was on Johnny, Get Your Gun-Free Zone, a reference to Dalton Trumbo’s eerie Johnny Got his Gun which I read in my bad old student days, and this is what Mark said on his link:

Yesterday the Supreme Court struck down key elements of US campaign-finance law. As a practical matter, I’m not a fan of “money in politics”, because, at least on the Republican side, with the “smart money” the money may be smart but the fellows who give it and spend it aren’t. However, in a country with a corrupt prosecutocracy and the most politicized judiciary in the developed world, a byzantine campaign-finance regime policed by a corrupt Justice Department is far worse than the problem it purports to solve. After a recent piece of mine, this Aussie blogger wrote that “a more self-conscious society would be embarrassed by what he is revealing“:

Although quite a bit of his post is about his own efforts in dealing with Michael Mann and the hockey stick, this story he tells about Dinesh D’Souza is incredible:

‘Take Dinesh D’Souza, one of those “political enemies” who’s managed to attract the attention of the feds. For a campaign finance “violation” of $15,000, he has already been handcuffed and perp-walked, bailed for half-a-million, lost his passport and freedom of movement, and requires permission from a judge even to travel from New York to Boston. This is disgraceful. Yet D’Souza now faces the choice between confessing to something or having his life ruined. This is a disgusting, capricious system of which Americans should be entirely ashamed.’

Even if “shame” were the right word for the emotion they should be feeling, they’re not ashamed because it is not how they see it themselves.

No liberals other than Alan Dershowitz have a thing to say about the D’Souza outrage. And nor do many conservatives. Because this “is not how they see themselves”. But civilized societies do not do this over a $15,000 political-donation overspend. This system is evil.

It was, indeed, the absence of any further comment by anyone else anywhere that made me lose my bearings about this whole issue. How could this be happening to someone as prominent and important as Dinesh D’Souza without anyone but Mark Steyn saying a word. The reality is that no one is now safe.

The law and Mr Steyn

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steyn monkey trial

Actually don’t click there but click here to assist Mark Steyn. But just how broken is the American justice system. This broken:

After a year and a half ensnared by poisonous fecal tendrils in the unpumped toxic septic tank of DC “justice”, I don’t think “broken” quite covers it. To any non-American, this system is utterly repulsive. In England, trial by jury replaced trial by ordeal. Somehow America has managed to turn trial by jury into a mere postscript to trial by ordeal. I think it ought to be possible to litigate a 270-word blog post in under 270 weeks. So let’s get on with it.

In the meantime, Steyn doesn’t think Michael Mann actually wants to go to court, but with a $30m countersuit in the way he will have no choice. Steyn will some day end up with a bit of that Nobel Prize loot Mann never actually won.

Mark Steyn and the just society

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From Andrew Bolt we learn Mark Steyn has decided that attack is the best form of defence and has decided to countersue Michael Mann for $10 million!::

As a result of Plaintiff’s campaign to silence those who disagree with him on a highly controversial issue of great public importance, wrongful action and violation of the Anti-SLAPP Act, Steyn has been damaged and is entitled to damages, including but not limited to his costs and the attorneys’ fees he has incurred and will incur in the future in defending this action, all in an amount to be determined at trial, but in any event, not less than $5 million, plus punitive damages in the amount of $5 million.

And if you have any doubts about what it costs to defend an action in the US, you should see the court document Steyn has had to lodge – DEFENDANT STEYN’S ANSWER AND COUNTERCLAIMS TO AMENDED COMPLAINT – where the only people who might come out ahead are the lawyers. It’s a 33-page document, of which this is the first page of detailed rebuttal:

Defendant Mark Steyn, for his Answer to the Amended
Complaint:
1. Denies the allegations in Paragraph One of the Amended
Complaint.
2. Denies the allegations in Paragraph Two of the Amended
Complaint, except admits that Dr Mann self-identifies as a
“climate scientist” and promotes theories about “global
warming” and “climate change”.
3. Denies the allegations in Paragraph Three of the Amended
Complaint, except admits that Defendant Steyn is a critic of
Plaintiff’s theories.
4. Denies the allegations in Paragraph Four of the Amended
Complaint.
5. Denies the allegations in Paragraph Five of the Amended
Complaint.
6. Denies the allegations in Paragraph Six of the Amended
Complaint.
7. Denies knowledge or information sufficient to form a belief
as to the truth of the allegations in Paragraph Seven of the
Amended Complaint.
8. Admits the allegations in Paragraph Eight of the Amended
Complaint and that Plaintiff purports to base jurisdiction
on the statute alleged.
9. Denies knowledge or information sufficient to form a belief
as to the truth of the allegations in Paragraph Nine of the
Amended Complaint.
10. Denies knowledge or information sufficient to form a
belief as to the truth of the allegations in Paragraph Ten
of the Amended Complaint.
11. Denies the allegations in Paragraph Eleven of the
Amended Complaint.

As they say in the US, if there’s only one lawyer in a town he drives a Ford but if there are two they both drive Cadillacs.

A slapp shot from the point

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It’s only a minor thing in the face of all of the other repressive activities in the US, but Mark Steyn’s travails within the court system, after having been sued by Michael Mann over his hockey stick, is quite significant in its own way, possibly more so because Mark is one of the few who is willing and able to fight back. In an article he brilliantly titles Slappstick Farce – and you will have to read the article to understand how clever it is – Steyn discusses how difficult it has been within the American system to deal with Mann’s lawsuit. One more example of how someone on the right finds dealing within the system so difficult.

I don’t think much about the First Amendment these days. As a practical matter, it’s simply not feasible in a global media market to tailor one’s freedom of expression to the varying local bylaws. So I take the view that I’m entitled to say the same thing in Seattle as I would in Sydney or Stockholm, Sofia or Suva. But, were Dr. Mann to prevail, it would nevertheless be the case that his peculiarly thin skin and insecurities would enjoy greater protection under U.S. law than they do in Britain, Canada, Australia, and other jurisdictions. It would thus be a major setback for the First Amendment.

That’s worth making a noise about. Up north, following a similar SLAPP suit from the Canadian Islamic Congress, my publisher Maclean’s, who are far less ideologically simpatico to me than NR, nevertheless understood the stakes — and helped get a disgusting law with a 100 percent conviction rate first stayed by a hitherto jelly-spined jurist and ultimately repealed by the Parliament of Canada. This too is a free-speech case. Free speech is about the right to thrash out ideas — on climate change, gay marriage, or anything else — in the public square, in bright sunlight. And you win a free-speech case by shining that sunlight on it, relentlessly. As we embark on our second year in the hell of the D.C. court system, that’s what I intend to do.I don’t think much about the First Amendment these days. As a practical matter, it’s simply not feasible in a global media market to tailor one’s freedom of expression to the varying local bylaws. So I take the view that I’m entitled to say the same thing in Seattle as I would in Sydney or Stockholm, Sofia or Suva. But, were Dr. Mann to prevail, it would nevertheless be the case that his peculiarly thin skin and insecurities would enjoy greater protection under U.S. law than they do in Britain, Canada, Australia, and other jurisdictions. It would thus be a major setback for the First Amendment.

The comparison is with Macleans, which is something like The Bulletin once was, and National Review, which is supposed to be the stalwart beacon of freedom on the right, is part of Steyn’s continuing disenchantment with the magazine in which he writes. Hardly anyone is standing up for freedom in the US any longer, with the dangers to wealth and reputation so large that the risks of being anything but a leftist jerk are just getting too high.

Me at Powerline

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For me it was a moment to treasure to find myself quoted by Scott Johnson at Powerline. I, of course, told everyone I know and only later realised that no one else but me amongst the people I know have even heard of Powerline never mind read it (this is Australia, after all). But for me, the four contributors are the four bloggers closest to my own way of thinking about things (although to them you’d have to add Mark Steyn, Glenn Reynolds (the Instapundit) and although she’s not a blogger, Ann Coulter). So a special moment for me was one that could not really be shared. Such is life. But a special moment it most certainly was.

The title was, “HITLER GETS TRAPPED IN SEA ICE”. This was the introductory text:

At Catallaxy Files Professor Steven Kates et al. have been following the Ship of Climate Fools with a gimlet eye as a local (Australian) story — in “The rest of Chris Turney’s life mapped out,” for example. Most recently, in “The spirit of Turney,” Professor Kates draws attention to Andrew Bolt’s Herald Sun Post “Something’s cracking, and it’s not the ice around the warmists’ ship” and to the video below

And this was the text of the story:

At Catallaxy Files Professor Steven Kates et al. have been following the Ship of Climate Fools with a gimlet eye as a local (Australian) story — in “The rest of Chris Turney’s life mapped out,” for example. Most recently, in “The spirit of Turney,” Professor Kates draws attention to Andrew Bolt’s Herald Sun Post “Something’s cracking, and it’s not the ice around the warmists’ ship” and to the video below contributing to the Hitler Discovers genre (rated R for language).

And then there was the video, the best version of these satires I have seen. I have watched a lot of these over the years but this was the best ever. Not only did it get the politics right but the words are perfectly coordinated to the visuals. No other has made me laugh out loud and this one continually does. I only wish I knew who did do it since it is attributed to Tony Ice. My suspicion is that whoever did it is an Australian since he gets the nuances right, although I must say he spells not just “hocky” wrong but also “Abbot” which may mean he’s not an Australian. But citizenship he should be immediately granted if not here already. So once more into the breach dear friends:

http://youtu.be/03SWGkxt72A

The left will still seek to destroy anyone who dares to dissent

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Mark Steyn wrote an article in which he basically told his editor at National Review Online to get rooted only much less politely than that. Steyn had written an article in defence of the Duck Dynasty and found his editor at NRO taking sides against him. Mark Steyn’s scathing and angry reply elicited a further reply from his editor. A bit complex, but made up of a brief article by Mark, an inane response by his editor, a further rejoinder by Mark and then another even more idiotic response from his editor.

But what really interests me is this from Mark Noonan at the blogsite blogsforvictory.com. This was his comment on the second statement by the National Review Online editor:

No, Mr. Steyn cannot mount an argument against the left without insulting them. To disagree with them is, in their view, to be insulting. We’re not dealing with rational people, here. We’re dealing with people who are, in the largest sense of the word, insane. For crying out loud, they really think that its ok to kill a baby! When you’re dealing with that sort of irrationality, trying to keep it polite is the least of your concerns. Our job, as sane people, is to drive these people entirely out of power. We won’t do that if we try to pretend that lunacy has a proper place in the debate.

And now he has written an even more scathing article defending Mark and attacking the NRO editor in no uncertain terms. This is the best para but it’s a short post so you should read it in full:

As I noted in my small comment, liberals are essentially insane. Not in the clinical sense where we could diagnose and treat them, but in the fact that what they propose flies in the face of facts and logic. That what they propose, if really and fully implemented, would utterly destroy human life on earth. People who think that babies can be killed, that tax increases cause prosperity, that crony-capitalism is a good idea, that government employees are altruistic, that a small elite can better decide things than people on their own; that a hack, Chicago politician is a new messiah – these are not rational views to hold. Added to their irrationality and completing it is a mercilessness which knows no bounds. You can rely on it that no matter how nice and polite we are, the left will still seek to destroy anyone who dares to dissent. This is not a call for us to start being mean and merciless – but for pity’s sake, don’t just sit there and be a punching bag. Hit back. And keep on hitting because until we completely remove the left from all ability to effect policy in this nation, we will not be able to reform and save it.

I let my subscription to National Review lapse years ago and I now almost never visit its website. I am more of the persuasion of Mark Steyn and Mark Noonan. We are dealing with uncertifiable nutters whose pious and hypocritical superficial inanities will yet be the ruin of us.

Calling Dr Cool

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Mark Steyn at the end of a posted note on Obama and the American health care system:

Perhaps things will get so bad the coolest president ever will no longer seem quite so hip. But, alas, you’ll have to wait three years for a hip replacement. That’s government health care for you.

I’m sorry to give you the punch line first but it’s all pretty funny in a blackly humorous sort of way. It would probably be less funny if it were happening to you.