Meet Warren Kinsella of the Canadian thought police

He's not big on this whole free speech thing (courtesy of Mike Brock)

Excerpts:

In what appears to be anything but a limited incident, with Kinsella
also making legal threats against a couple of other blogs, Shamrocks and
Babbling Brooks, for criticism which he considered defamation, I feel
the definate need to come out to defend my fellow bloggers.

In the case of Ian Scott (that's the author of Ianism), the threat of a
law suit seems to stem from the following paragraph:

See, this is sort of like a private journal here, Warren. Where I record
lots of thoughts. I just make my thoughts available to others. And
sometimes, when I've read your posts, I've secretly wondered, in a
humorous sort of way of course, to myself, that makes me chuckle, "Were
both your parents retarded, or just one of them..." but of course,
that's a private little thought, and of course, I DON'T REALLY think
either of your parents were retarded.. it's just one of those fun little
insults that sometimes we laugh at. Insults CAN be funny at times. You
should see my really really private journal sometime! You just wouldn't
believe what was there.. But it's encrypted with triple DES.. I don't
know, but I could do a search for you.. and see what I've called you
there, if you'd like.

As what has been made clear by Kinsella's younger brother Lorne, their
father sadly passed away on June 15th, which apparently accounts for the
extra-sensitivity of the Kinsella's for a joke about their parents, I
can appreciate how such statements could be personally hurtful.

What I don't see here is a legitimate case for defamation, especially
coming from a guy who was a keynote speaker at a conference on blogging
as a form of legitimate, participatory journalism...

That being said, I?m going to go out on a limb here, backed with all
that Brock-ego, and call Warren Kinsella a hypocrite. I?m calling him a
hypocrite on the said basis; that he would leverage blogging as a
legitimate form of journalism and editorialism, and then turn around and
launch a defamation suit against a myriad of bloggers who have chosen to
criticize him.

If Mr. Kinsella wants to launch a defamation suit against me for any of
this, then I'm ready to go to court and bang up some case law. I think
it's time that we make clear in the law that bloggers share the same
occupational right of protection from such frivolous suits as do printed
editorialists.

I think the Canadian polti-blogging community should come together and
show a little solidarity on this issue. I believe the real victims here
are these bloggers who are the subject of harassment by Warren Kinsella.
If you have a blog, disagree with this, then here's an execuse for some
daily filler: announce your solidarity with Ian!

Mike Godwin says:

"The First Amendment was designed to protect offensive speech,
because nobody ever tries to ban the other kind."

I say:

I don't think they have the First Amendment in Canada. Or any
sufficient facsimile thereof.

Maybe they could try hosting services in the United States, coupled
with use of pseudonyms.

For a more radical and comprehensive solution, the English-speaking
parts of Canada could quit pretending that Canada is a real country and
join the U.S. Let Quebec figure out how to function without them. How's
that for a secession movement?

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