Best regards.

I’m terribly sorry if I misrepresented the reason why you altered the blog… you are absolutely right — you altered it gratuitously and it is appreciated very much. I unreservedly withdraw the remark:“each one of those who posted the comments have now, on their own advice, taken them down or altered them, because in the end they knew you cannot make unfounded or defamatory claims about a person or company.” Thank you for your attention to this and I’m sorry to cause you any inconvenience or trouble in this regard.

Best regards.

“anyone else who really matters or cares to read the exchange on this particular blog [and I doubt that there are many], they will likely come to the conclusion that everyone else has contributed, with few exceptions, nothing more than hyperbole hurled under the cloak of anonymity and under the guise of free speech.”

Oh really, John? Remember when you wrote:

“each one of those who posted the comments have now, on their own advice, taken them down or altered them, because in the end they knew you cannot make unfounded or defamatory claims about a person or company.”?

Is my concern over your falsification for my reason for changing my post “hyperbole”? I notice that I’ve asked you now at least three times about this and you’ve artfully either dodged the question every time or ignored it every time.

“Don’t cheapen free speech by believing that it is something that holds no consequence or is leveled by anonymous sources. Opinion is one thing; giving way to falsehood and injurious accusation without merit it is something else. If you can’t defend against the latter then you have nothing to defend that even resembles free speech.”

So, even in a country where corporate and power figure harassers regularly sue people for political comment, we are supposed to just ignore anonymous sources? Even if what they say is clearly correct on the face of things? Such as a statistical relationship between facts everyone agrees on? Facts need a means of verification not an authority behind them. Accepting claims just because an authority spouts them is called theocracy, not science.

John, if there is a line between “opinion” and “falsehood” that was crossed, where is that line? Where is the false factual claim made by Jim Harris or anyone else? You said “false facts” above. Where are these, please? List them with the correct fact. If you can’t, then you must grant that the line is between “opinion” and “rudely stated opinion”. Which is not a line that can be allowed to become enshrined in law, because it can’t be objectively defined, and ends up merely giving judges the power to decide who may say what.

As for “hyperbole” that you claim includes a “tirade of invective, false facts, ridiculous indignation and total hypocrisy” you would have to point out, in addition to false statements of fact, just what was hypocritical, indignant, or invective. Word by word. Then everyone may listen to you, see that you are sober, and analyze the relative merits of you and your tone versus that of those who disdain you and indeed even call for your censure. These calls would look unreasonable IF you could list any such hypocrisy, indignation, invective or falsehood. But you can’t, or you would.

Certainly “temper tantrums are not a substitute for thought” nor for “integrity”. But there’s no evidence anyone here is angry - maybe annoyed at having to defend Charter rights or universal human rights against an abusive person totally ignorant of same.

This is 2007 not 1650, John. You can’t call the Star Chamber on us.

Maybe there’s been “injurious accusation” but obviously we don’t see it to be “without merit” nor deny you the right to defend your views or position. All we seek to deny you is the right to harass, intimidate, attack, silence, chill and sue those who are merely rude to you. Yes, rudeness is the correct word for accusations of political bias and abuse of positions of trust and power over others. It’s not malice since all they want is not to be subject to you, nor to have others believe the injustifiable claims you make.

What you have said about your opponents is far worse than what they said about you. You have called them liars. You have called them indignant. You claim they use invective, which seems to be a slur. To state, for instance, that you are violent, is not invective, it is the product of a sober analysis of the use of power you espouse.

Your case has no merit. It appears that you are merely bullying others and expecting to get away with it. Including some who’ve stood up for you, for instance, excusing your absurd behaviour by opening the possibility that you are merely drunk - not just drunk with the power of lawyers and access to the media, as you may be.

You would be well advised to stop arguing, John. You’re clearly up against your intellectual and ethical superiors in this particular blog.

I had hoped you wouldn’t take yet another aspect of that ridiculous “sean” commenter from that other thread I mentioned earlier. The only ones threatening free speech are the ones who resort to lawyers to act as their mouthpiece.