FreeMarkSteyn.comFailed Liberal candidate Warren Kinsella opposes Liberal MP Keith Martin's motion to repeal subsection 13(1) of the Canadian Human Rights Act, but he doesn't really say why.  He clearly views the motion as a threat to Canadian Liberalism such as it is as we know it.  If party leaders fail to stop it, they're "pathetic".  Although agreeing that thought crime complaints against Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn are "utterly specious", he rejects Martin's motion.

[I]s Keith Martin's proposal the appropriate response? With the greatest of respect, we don't think so.

In this context, ”with the greatest of respect” would appear to be code for “with no respect at all”.

Be that as it may, "we don't think so" hardly qualifies as argument, and neither does much else in Kinsella's piece.  This is as close as he gets to rationality:

So, what say you, Messrs. Dion, Ignatieff, Rae et al.? Do you agree with this bald-faced move to gut human rights legislation, by one of your supposed human rights experts? Not surprisingly, the Nazis do.

That supporters of National Socialism back Martin’s motion is, Mr Kinsella insinuates, sufficient reason to repudiate it.  Kinsella says he’s right because Nazis approve M-446.

Logically, the fact that Nazi sympathizers agree with M-446 is a red herring and irrelevant to the motion’s merits.  Specifically, Kinsella’s “argument” is an example of guilt by association.

Guilt by Association is the attempt to discredit an idea based upon disfavored people or groups associated with it.
. . .
McCarthyism was a specific version of Guilt by Association in which an individual, organization, or idea was associated in some way with communism.

Invoking the Nazis, as Kinsella has done, has been called the Argumentum ad Nazium.

No one wants to be associated with Nazism because it has been so thoroughly discredited in both theory and practise, and Hitler of course was its most famous exponent. So, linking an idea with Hitler or Nazism has become a common form of argument ascribing guilt by association.

Yet, German National Socialists favoured policies that the Liberal Party of Canada also accepts.  While in power, the Nazis adopted a policy of active government intervention in the economy with the aim of attaining full employment and low inflation.

Can we now expect Warren Kinsella to advocate laissez-faire economic policies with no regard for unemployment and inflation?

Previous related posts: