Thu Apr 7/05
Gee, that's rich

The hate crime trial of David Ahenakew, once head of Canada's Assembly of First Nations, continues. His lawyer, Doug Christie, had this to say today:

Who distributed the allegedly hateful words? If it had been Dr. Ahenakew, no one else would have heard them other than him and [Saskatoon StarPhoenix reporter] Mr. [James] Parker.

It's the reporter's fault, in other words. That's an awesomely ridiculous argument to mount in the face of existing Canadian law, but I'm pretty sure it's an argument against those laws, too. Parker was just doing his job, but in a twisted kind of way Christie's right — were it not for the StarPhoenix's reportage, no one would have known about Ahenakew's crime, which in the end was simply to open his drink-addled mouth and let his idiotic opinions spill out.

If Canadians need protection from things such as what Ahenakew said, then maybe we should ban newspapers from reporting them. If the goal is to prevent Canadians from ever having to hear or read that "the Holocaust didn't happen" or, in Ahenakew's case, that "the Jews are a disease," then let's just go ahead and ban the word strings. The StarPhoenix story could have gone something like this: "Former head of the Assembly of First Nations David Ahenakew was charged with uttering a banned series of words yesterday." Then we'd all know what a bad man he was without having to endure his ludicrous, easily debunked ravings that no one takes seriously to begin with.

Or maybe it's just a waste of time and effort to prosecute people for their ludicrous, easily debunked beliefs. The state's imprimatur on whatever punishment he receives can only diminish the impact of the collective contempt of the Canadian people and increase his stature among the braindead gang of crackpots that agree with him. It's either going to call those crackpots to arms or artificially shut them up — in neither case will their ridiculous opinions have been changed; in neither case will anything have been accomplished.