Me Too! Me Too!

Somebody here in Canada who doesn't quite get the whole "freedom of speech" thing has filed a complaint against the owner of RightWingCanada... for daring to use Barack Hussein Obama's middle name.

Here's the e-mail that the silly person sent to the site's owner, with his misspelling of "derogatory" intact. Note the inclusion of his e-mail address, in case you'd care to exercise your freedom of expression in the direction of his inbox:

Your hateful blog
Mohammed al-Zahar
(mohammad.alzahar@yahoo.ca)
Wed, Jan 28, 2009 at 5:48 PM
To: andrew@rightwingcanada.com
Mr. Lawton:

I am writing today to inform you that as of 10:27am EST this morning, I have filed a claim against you under the Canadian Human Rights Commission. Among other hateful and inflammatory remarks made on your blog, www.RightWingCanada.com, you referred to President Obama as "Barack Hussein Obama," citing that he is an Arab-American. This was made in a hateful and dirogatory manner, and such racist propaganda is forbidden under section 13(1) of the Canadian Human Rights Act.

I hope that you go down in flames like your other Nazi friends.

Ma-Z

First up, let me say for the record:

Barack HUSSEIN Obama.

Barack Obama's middle name is Hussein.

Hussein, Hussein, Hussein. That's Barack Obama's middle name, yes indeedy.

That doesn't mean anything. Even if he were of Arabic descent, and I don't know or care whether he is, so what? I've written before about how the actual racism lies in taking offense at a fact, not in the pointing out of the fact itself. To make this more clear, consider this hypothetical dialogue about my favourite whipping boys, the Freedonians:

"Did you know that (Public Figure X)'s family came from Freedonia?"

"HOW DARE YOU call (Public Figure X) one of those filthy Freedonians?!?"

Who's the racist in that scenario, kids?

I consider it a point of failure that no one has even hinted at filing a "Human Rights Commission" complaint against me yet. If it ever happens, my entire response at my hearing will be to read from a transcript of what Ezra Levant said at his. I could never top the absolute drubbing he gave them.

In a blatant attempt to rectify that, I'll be sending the following e-mail to Mohammed Al-Zahar (mohammad.alzahar@yahoo.ca) right after I finish posting this (with hyperlinks spelled out to make it easier for him):

---

Dear Mr. Al-Zahar:

I am writing to express my gratitude to you and offer some assistance.

After about a year of regular blogging, I have yet to be the target of a Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) complaint. However, your complaint against Andrew Lawton of RightWingCanada has shown me the way.

Over the past twelve months I have reposted the Mohammed cartoons, explicitly stated that I support Israel (so much for the "Nazi" accusation - by the way, why throw random, arbitrary labels around? You may as well call Mr. Layton a "soccer referee", a "harmonica", or a "Wankel rotary engine" as a "Nazi"), and said many things that could easily be construed as derogatory to Islam. I'm not going to provide direct links for you, because I could use the hits. Feel free to browse the archives and take advantage of the search functions at http://zirbert.blogspot.com to find all the evidence that you and your Orwellian Commission friends could ever hope for. I look forward to a traffic increase.

However, before today I never had the sheer audacity to publicly state Barack Hussein Obama's middle name. It never even occurred to me that doing so could offend anyone. I have now rectified that oversight, with premeditation and malice of forethought. Of course, use of his middle name means absolutely nothing, but based on your complaint it seems to be a line that must not be crossed.

I wish you good luck in your quest to erase the President's middle name from public discourse. To facilitate your task, I've prepared a list of some more entities who have had the nerve to use Barack Hussein Obama's middle name on their websites. They, of course, must all be shown their place. I look forward to seeing announcements of your CHRC complaints against each of them:

Google
Wikipedia
Biography.com
ArabNews.com
NPR
The New York Times
The Washington Post
The White House

Unless, of course, it turns out that you only drum up complaints against people you've already decided must be silenced.

I've already put this up on my blog. Come by and take a look, then peruse the archives. Be sure to bring your righteous indignation.

-Zirbert, The Irritable Saint
http://zirbert.blogspot.com (Make sure you spell it right when you file your complaint.)

---

Two other quick notes before we go:

It occurs to me to wonder whether Mohammed Al-Zahar (mohammad.alzahar@yahoo.ca) was born in Canada. If not, then I suspect a one way boat or plane trip back to his homeland would place him in a more comfortable "intellectual" climate. If he was, then he's clearly the product of either an Islamic private school or a Canadian public school "education".

Second, if there were a prominent conservative whose middle name held negative connotations (say, "Rush Manson Limbaugh" or "Ann Hitler Coulter" or "Sarah Osama Palin"), do you suppose the media would apply the same "no fair using the middle name" rule?


Enough rambling. Here's a picture of some giant neon fish.