Canada: The Right to Self Defence?

Great article from the National Post:

Canadian officialdom is conducting an all-out assault against self-defence. Quite simply, few politicians, Crown prosecutors, judges, law professors and police commanders believe ordinary Canadians have any business using force to defend themselves, their loved ones, homes, farms or businesses.

The latest example of the campaign against self-defence comes from southern Ontario. In August, retired crane operator Ian Thomson, who lives near Port Colborne, awoke early in the morning to find masked men attempting to burn his house down with him in it. When he fired at them with a licensed handgun he had stored in a safe, he was charged.

How out-of-touch are police and prosecutors when you are not even allowed to defend yourself and your property from thugs attempting to incinerate you? Their attitude seems to be that it is better to die waiting for police to respond than to take matters into your own hands.

About six years ago, Thomson moved to a rural property near Port Colborne to find peace and quiet. Almost immediately, he had a run-in with his neighbour over the neighbour’s unwillingness to keep his chickens in his own yard. Ever since, tension between the two has escalated.

Then early one Sunday morning last August, three masked men showed up outside Thomson’s home and started lobbing Molotov cocktails at the house while Thomson was inside. A former firearms instructor, Thomson took a revolver from his gun safe, loaded it, then went outside and fired two or three shots in the direction of the arsonists.

Thomson has surveillance cameras around his property. When he gave tapes from them to police to aid their search for the firebombers, police charged him with pointing a firearm and careless storage of firearms. Officers also turned up at his home and confiscated his collection of seven firearms and seized his firearms licence.

Police are so opposed to citizens defending themselves that even if criminals show up at your rural home, far from a police station, and try to burn it to the ground with you inside, you are considered the criminal if you shoot at them. Even if you clearly and obvious believe your life and home to be in imminent danger, officials will not support your attempts to stop your attackers.

There is also the case of David Chen, the Toronto green grocer who was acquitted last year of assault and unlawful confinement for detaining a career criminal he caught shoplifting from his store. Crown prosecutors had so convinced themselves that Chen’s defensive actions posed a greater threat to public order that they offered a lighter sentence to Anthony Bennett, the shoplifter, in return for his testimony against Chen.

On Friday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper met with Chen and promised him a new citizen’s-arrest bill would be introduced into Parliament within three to four weeks — shortly after MPs return to work on Jan. 31. The bill is supposed to make it easier for ordinary citizen’s to arrest and detain suspects without falling afoul of the law and having to defend their actions in costly court battles.

Then there is Joseph Singleton, the Taber, Alta. oilfield consultant who returned home to his acreage last May to find his home ransacked and a thief fleeing. When the burglar started ramming his car, Singleton took a hatchet and, with the flat side, hit the thief twice on the side of the face. Without questioning Singleton – based solely on the say-so of the burglar – police last October charged Singleton with assault with a weapon and assault causing bodily harm.

If officials aren’t out to end the right to self-defence, why would they side with the criminals against law-abiding citizens?

Thomson’s case has caused some to call for the entrenchment of the “Castle Doctrine” in Canadian law. Several American states already have such statutes that recognize a person’s home as his or her castle and give homeowners the right to use deadly force to protect their homes, family and property.

Frankly, there’s no need to copy the Americans. Canadians already have the right to use force – even deadly force – to protect themselves, we need simply to return to our legal roots.

When Canada became independent at Confederation in 1867, Canadians retained the rights they had at the time as British subjects. These included three “absolute rights”: the right to personal liberty, the right to private property and the right to self-defence, up to and including the right to kill an attacker or burglar.

William Blackstone, Britain’s famous constitutional expert, argued the right to self-defence included the right to kill even an agent of the king found on one’s property after dark, uninvited. He also traced the right to armed self-defence back to the time of King Canute (995–1035) when subjects could be fined for failing to keep weapons for their own protection.

Even in Upper Canada for much of the 19^th Century it was the law that all adult males be armed, at their own expense. In part, this was so a militia could be formed quickly for defence of the colony and in part so individuals were prepared to defend themselves and their property.

These rights have not been extinguished just because Canada has become modernized and urbanized, or because our officials would rather pretend they don’t exist and never have.

To be sure, our right to self-defence is not a licence to kill. The force ordinary citizens may use in self-defence must be proportionate to the threat they face. You cannot shoot someone for poking a finger in your chest or cutting you off in traffic. But the real possibility that attackers might burn you up inside your own home – as they allegedly intended to do to Ian Thomson – would seem to justify shooting at them with a handgun, even if you end up killing them.

The right to self-defence conflicts with the belief modern lovers of big government have that only the military and police should be allowed to use force, so self-defence has to be treated as a crime.

In truth, it is an individual right that existed before government and, so, cannot be extinguished by government.

Islamophobia

Nick Cohen gets it right:

If you want a working definition of Islamophobia that rises above the special pleading of religious reactionaries my suggestion would be: “Islamophobia is a prejudice that dominates western political and media elites and the confused and faintly sinister mind of the Chairwoman of the British Conservative Party. It holds that Muslim women want to be oppressed, that Muslim gays want to be murdered, that Muslims want to have their rights to speak and vote denied, and that Muslim dominated countries want to be ruled by sleazy, life-denying and vicious dictators.

h/t The Propagandist

TheMuslim.ca Publishes HIZB UT-TAHRIR Terrorist Screed - Islamist Rag Published By Toronto Elementary School Chair

I've been recovering from surgery of late and haven't managed to summon the energy to post anything, even though quite a bit of interesting stuff has been happening.

Here's a link from BCF.

TheMuslim.ca Publishes a HIZB UT-TAHRIR Terrorist Screed calling for Islamist Rule in Tunisia.

Interesting Way to look at WikiLeaks

From American Thinker comes an article on the New Warfare, Stuxnet and WikiLeaks. Here's just the section on WikiLeaks, but the whole thing is worth reading too.

UPDATE: Here's another view on the subject, also from American Thinker.

It is no exaggeration to state that Julian Assange is engaged in warfare. He is at war -- not simply with the U.S., although the U.S. is his current bête noire, but with the human race as a whole. He is a would-be Alexander, intent on bending the world to his will, with little concern who gets hurt while he's doing it. He sees himself as a mythic figure, above and beyond the run of normal humanity, a man with a historical mission. (This is no rarity, unfortunately -- see Obama, Barack.) His followers see him as an Apollo bringing forth a new age.

Yet the world isn't bending, and the new age remains unborn. Despite all the excitement, Assange's impact has been minimal. Until incarcerated, he simply dropped one info-bomb after another, then ran off and hid, perhaps loitering to paw a woman or two in the process. It's an unedifying spectacle, nothing Alexandrine or Napoleonic about it.

It has been an axiom of the left since the days of the New Masses and the Daily Worker that if "the people" knew what was "really going on," what decisions were being made and crimes committed "in their name," they'd simply rise up in their wrath to smash the pillars of the temple and smite the evildoers. This is the impulse behind the Pentagon Papers, all those flicks that end with the main character pausing meaningfully before entering the Times building, and, for that matter, the entire Plame saga, now appearing in a multiplex near you. That is the role that Assange is playing in real time and on the world stage. And yet... far from ushering a new non-Matrix reality, he's cowering in a British hoosegow waiting for the Swedish cops to get the spelling right on his rape warrant, his site is being locked out from every host and service on the net, from Amazon to PayPal to XXX Real Live Bondage XXX for all I know, while the world awaits his next info-bomb not with dread or exultation, but with much the same sense of titillation as greets the antics of Britney or Jon Gosselin. What went wrong?

The information is trivial. There are no blockbusters or nation-breakers in the material yet released. No secret fleets of black helicopters. Karl Rove is not scheming to sell humanity to the aliens. The CIA is not transplanting children's brains into chimpanzees in the Langley basement. What we have learned instead is that the Saudis are terrified at the prospect of a nuclear Iran, that the U.S. is cutting quiet anti-terror deals with countries such as Yemen, and that Hamid Karzai is as corrupt as he is charismatic. In other words, nothing at all new to anyone paying attention to media reports. The big disclosure is how little of this stuff needed to be secret in the first place.

There have been loud gasps in some circles at the "news" that Hillary instructed her diplomats to seek out intelligence. This is asinine. Diplomats have been low-key intelligence agents as long as they've existed. For centuries they were often the only intelligence force many states possessed. The practice was not invented by Hillary, or Condi, or even Talleyrand, for that matter. It's part of the job description. All this "revelation" does is provide Dick Morris with ammunition to continue his never-ending feud with Hillary.

The only item that surprised me was news of China's impatience with North Korea, which I never thought they'd admit to anybody, but there it is. Since one of the drivers of the recent crisis has been the conviction that China would back up North Korea to the last ditch, it appears that our would-be Australian Samson has succeeded only in defusing a current tension point. Good going -- how does a Nobel sound?

The damage is minimal. There has been a lot of concern expressed over damage to the U.S. as a whole, to American diplomacy, and to the international community. I don't see it. The Saudis are not going to sever relations or cease sharing intelligence, not with a pack of crazy Shi'ites intent on building A-bombs right across the Gulf. The Yemenis are not going to toss the infidels out and allow al-Qaeda to march into Sana'a next week. What damage does exist can be easily repaired since it's in the interests of all concerned to do so.

Examine the chain of events. The gruff, hard-bitten Bradley Manning stole a lot of secret e-mails and sent them to WikiLeaks. The e-mails originated in large part from the Defense Department, run by Robert Gates, and the State Department, run by Hillary Clinton. The Justice Department, run by Eric Holder, couldn't figure out what to do about it. All these people work for Barack Obama. That's a pretty impressive lineup. All that we're missing is Van Jones, and he'll probably pop up.

If anybody sees a sign of the reliable, dutiful United States in that picture, the U.S. that serves as global sheriff and last resort of desperate nations and peoples worldwide, kindly point it out to me. All I see is the weird, twisted caricature that Obama and company have been trying to foist on us lo these past two years. It is that fantasy leftist U.S. that will take the major hit -- as long as the center-right doesn't line up to support O and his menagerie in a fit of false patriotism. This is not an American screw-up -- it is the ultimate Democratic foreign policy fiasco. It has all the symptoms: an unbalanced clown in a position of trust, loosened security standards, aloofness and ignorance at the highest levels, and pure ineptitude elsewhere. We have seen it a thousand times under LBJ, Carter, and Clinton, and here it is again. I'm certain that most foreign leaders would agree, whatever they may say for public consumption. What is going through their minds now is this: this is what happens when they put a Democrat in charge over there.

Yes, there has been ancillary damage to the United States. But the catastrophic damage is limited to the Democratic brand -- the ultimate proof, written in letters a mile high, that if Luxembourg were to attack the U.S. with a Democrat in office, we'd all be subjects of the Grand Duke two weeks later, without, furthermore, anybody being able to figure out how it happened.

For this point of view, it's clear that Julian has been calling in artillery rounds on his own position.

Assange's followers are flakes. These are not Red Guards or Khmer Rouge; these are the potential victims of Red Guards and Khmer Rouge -- foolish, childish, spoiled, miseducated (and possibly ineducable), the dregs of millennial society. They exist in a dream reality, feeding on myths that any normal individual would reject half-heard: that the world is run by means of conspiracy. That capitalism is evil. That Marxism is about sharing. That 9/11 was an inside job. That Michael Moore and Joseph C. Wilson IV are heroic figures. And most of all, that a brave new world lies just around the corner if we only do the right thing.

These people -- the lumpen-intellectuals -- have been bereft in recent months. Their last messiah let them down badly. It has been two years since 2008, and we're still in the bad old world, with Gitmo open, George W. Bush unarrested, and the oceans purportedly still rising. But now they have a new messiah, one whose prophecies remain tantalizingly vague and thus all the more enticing.

What we have here is a religious war, with the left's true believers against everybody else. Fortunately, their method of fighting amounts to sending out e-mails deriding Bristol Palin. In this view, Assange is the latest of those peculiar historical figures who appear when a system is collapsing, vocally assuring its triumph while practically guaranteeing its extinction -- Savonarola in 15^th-century Florence, Tenskwatawa and Sitting Bull among the 19^th-century Indian tribes, Gorbachev in the last days of the USSR. This new crusade will end just as badly as they all do.

(Anyone seeking evidence of terminal flakiness will find it in this Q&A. One of the questioners unburdens himself of the major puzzle that's been gnawing at him: what about UFOs? Julian A. assures him that the data's on the way. The truth is out there!)

Assange is not too bright. Assange has an obsessive's grasp of IT, and that's about it. The balance of his ideas are on a level with those of his followers -- the same as those of a somewhat thick college sophomore who gets most of his information from the tube.

Consider his strategy. Rather than analyze the e-mails on hand, collate them, sort them, select the one ones with the greatest potential for controversy, and release them where they would have the most impact, he simply throws everything out at once. Why? Because he doesn't know any better. Think of what could have been done with the same information by someone with a more sophisticated grasp of politics -- someone who would have contacted interested parties, who obtained financing or protection by guaranteeing certain messages would -- or would not -- be released. Who would use what he had to pry or bluff further information. Consider what chaos could have been created if this material had been data-mined on behalf of the al-Qaeda or another enemy force. Consider what a Metternich, a Lenin, or a Goebbels would have accomplished with such material.

In light of the possibilities, the actual results are unimpressive. Whatever damage Assange has achieved can in no way match the apocalyptic ruin he was seeking to trigger. He must be far more bewildered and frustrated that he's letting on: it's not like the movies. What happened?

The question remains as to why Assange has been allowed to continue. Part of the answer undoubtedly lies in incompetence -- it's a real puzzle as to exactly what would have to happen to make Eric Holder do the smart thing. But a deeper explanation may lie at the exact opposite pole -- in the omnicompetence of the Intelligence Community that remains untouched by Obama's influence.

It has been known that Assange possessed this material for nearly a year. It was understood that there was no means of getting it back or preventing its release. So what was the alternative? If you've got a lemon, you make lemonade.

Any number of methods exist for manipulating Assange and his organization -- send WikiLeaks fake files, locate their archives and insert new files, manipulate e-mails and other messages, and others that even my nasty imagination would miss without specialized training. As for the purpose -- that's not difficult to envision. A message implying that certain jihadi leaders are on the payroll. That a critical North Korean officer is a Western agent. That certain things that Osama, the mullahs, or Dear Leader wanted done were not done, or were botched in the doing. (In the late 1930s, German intelligence eliminated Soviet Marshal Tukachevsky, the actual formulator of the blitzkrieg strategy, and his entire general staff by exactly this means. Even if the victim suspects the info is false, he still has to take some action. Needless to say, the ultra-paranoid Stalin didn't require much prompting.)

It is likely that Assange is being used, possibly by several parties. They know his every move, what he's doing, whom he's in contact with. (While he was fleeing Sweden at the end of last summer, two laptops in his luggage vanished, along with all data media. See "not too bright" above.) His organization has been penetrated, with all new leaked material traced and accounted for. It's fairly certain that everyone involved has been tracked down by this time, with none of them capable making a move unobserved. Assange is now a puppet, acting out against his will the role of Goethe's Mephistopheles, "Who wills forever evil, and does forever good." (Keep in mind that this holds true even is he is forced to address the charges in Sweden. The rape charges are ancillary matters, unrelated to WikiLeaks -- in fact, little more than a distraction.)

But eventually, Assange's usefulness will end. Then he will vanish -- not by means of a hit squad, but far more subtly and elegantly. A batch of documents from Russia, the mob, or Hamas will appear on the WikiLeaks site, and in short order, Julian and everyone who ever worked for him will be seen in their regular haunts no longer. A wise intelligence service will have film footage of Julian being jammed into a car by figures easily identifiable as to country of origin.

My sympathy will be well-controlled. People have died -- and more will die -- because of this man's actions. It is apparent in the manner in which he abuses women that Assange is a psychopath. Such figures grow worse as they grow more deluded. Under the circumstances, the sooner the better.

Quelle Surprise: Fraud in the Canadian Immigration Industry

h/t Rose @ BlazingCatFur

Quebec immigration consultant arrested in fraud ring

Getty Creative Images

The RCMP have broken up a group allegedly making fake citizenship documents.

• Comments

Stewart Bell, National Post · Thursday, Jan. 6, 2011

TORONTO — The RCMP has arrested a Quebec immigration consultant accused of providing Canadian citizenship documents to hundreds of people in the Middle East so they could collect benefits and tax refunds from Ottawa.

Ahmad El-Akhal, 62, was arrested Thursday morning following a 2-1/2-year investigation by the RCMP’s Immigration and Passport and Commercial Crimes sections. His wife was also arrested as well as a suspected accomplice in Mississauga.

The alleged fraud ring is accused of securing immigrant status and citizenship for more than 300 residents of Lebanon and other Middle East countries and then helping them bilk the Canadian government of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“Once they received documents this guy would fill out the tax returns and documents to get benefits back in the names of these people,” said RCMP Sgt. Marc LaPorte. “They were getting tax refunds, Goods and Services Tax rebates, child credit tax benefits, so the whole gamut.”

Mr. El-Akhal, who lives in L’ile-Bizard, Que., has been charged with 58 counts including forgery and fraud. His wife Tahani Mohamad Hassan El-Akhal, 53, was charged with possession of proceeds obtained by crime in the amount of $155,000.

Also charged was Mississauga resident Hassan Ali Saif, 44, who faces three charges under the Citizenship Act. “He was the leasor of some of the residences. And also he forged lease agreements and created mail addresses for these people. He actually collected the mail and gathered the information and sent it back to Montreal,” Sgt. LaPorte said.

All three are to appear in court in Brampton on Friday.

The alleged crimes go back as far as 1999. The investigation began in 2008 after Citizenship and Immigration Canada noticed that 320 permanent residence applicants had given the same 29 home addresses in Canada.

The RCMP traced 260 of the applications and found they were all linked to Mr. El-Akhal. None of those who secured citizenship and government benefits through Mr. El-Akhal actually lived in Canada.

“Basically, this individual passed himself off as an immigration consultant and assisted these people in obtaining permanent resident status and submitted the applications for them,” said Sgt. LaPorte, the RCMP spokesman for Ontario.

The Canada Revenue Agency was also involved.

“The RCMP alleges that several hundred foreign nationals not residing in Canada used fraudulent means to obtain Canadian Citizenship and Canadian travel documents,” the RCMP said in a statement Thursday afternoon.

“In addition, it is alleged that false Income Tax returns were filed for individuals, allowing them to receive improperly benefits and tax refunds from the Canada Revenue Agency of approximately $500,000.”

National Post

K.Myers on Muslim Immigration.. and Silent Feminists

From the Irish Independent:

YOU really can take your pick from the interconnected headlines of the past fortnight: the church-massacres of Christians in Egypt and Iraq by al-Qa'ida, and the murder of the governor of the Punjab, followed by a petition of support for his killer from 500 "moderate" Islamic scholars in Pakistan.

Closer to home there were the terrorist conspiracies in Denmark, Sweden and Britain, and the revelation that while the Christian population in Britain fell by two million in four years, the Muslim population there increased by 74pc to 2.9 million since 2001 (yes, the very year when Islamophobia supposedly became endemic).

But surely the most pathetic headline of all was the one announcing the Greek government's decision to build a 128-mile wall to keep out "illegal immigrants".

Read more

Brave New World: Evan Mark Films

Here's a set of short movies from Jihadwatch contributor and film producer Evan Mark. They're quite uplifting in their own way and graphically illustrate the need for real opposition for the global jihad.


Evan Mark Films homepage is here.

Jihadwatch.org is here.

The first film is not about Islamism, but is on the subject of Child slavery, it is both moving and disturbing:



The next, the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan:



And, finally, the new world of Islamofascism and global jihad: