Mark Steyn: “The Choices We Make”

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Mark Steyn speaks to cowardice, government coercion to submit and the will (or lack thereof) to fight for our most basic fundamental freedoms.

The Choices We Make Mark Steyn, NRO

Anti-Islamization campaigner Pamela Geller is pushing back hard against the local police’s attempt to nix her Toronto speech earlier this year.
She’ll be testifying before the Independent Police Review Director
tomorrow. Meanwhile, Mendel Kaplan, the squishy rabbi who got bullied by
the coppers into canceling Miss Geller’s appearance at his synagogue,
has been giving his version of events:

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Asked whether he ever felt intimidated or threatened, he said, “There
was a very clear choice laid out to me. The police said, ‘we don’t
believe this agrees with [our] values, so either you have to give up
your chaplaincy or you can have this speech.’

“I did something that I didn’t necessarily want to do because I had to do it.”

Ontario in the 21st century: a land where cops bully rabbis. Kaplan
had already been on the receiving end of York Regional Police’s thuggish
Diversity Commissar, Inspector Ricky Veerappan, whose “Diversity,
Equity and Inclusion Bureau” had conducted a five-month investigation into one of the rabbi’s sermons.
(Under the perversions of common law that now prevail everywhere from
the Diversity Bureau to the IRS, the process is the punishment.) So
Kaplan well understood that Veerappan’s threat was real. Nevertheless,
as Laura Rosen Cohen writes:

He should have told the YRP Diversity Stasi to shove it . . .

It is not true that he “had” to cave to them.

He had a choice.

We always have choices.

Jews above all people should know that. Rabbi Kaplan:

He added, “It was a wise decision not to host her because it was not something worth losing my chaplaincy over.”

Wrong. It’s not something worth keeping such a chaplaincy over. It profit a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world . . . but for a York, Ontario, Diversity Bureau chaplaincy?

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Jack Kemp
Jack Kemp
10 years ago

Goes to show that Pamela has more balls than this rabbi.

Underzog
Underzog
10 years ago

But Bob Beckel on The Five program is talking tough against Islam, but I still remember the grief against Pamela Geller for saying these things earlier and far more eloquently. And is Pamela even on the FNC that much? I rarely see her.

Morgan Michaels
Morgan Michaels
10 years ago

The comments at NRO demonstrate that there is a long way to go in educating ‘establishment conservatives’ about Islam.

KLKL
KLKL
10 years ago

Steyn is right. “the choices we make” are affecting us and in a not-so-good way. political correct blindness and short-term-sight aided the 9/11 jihad attacks that killed thousands and the 2009 Fort Hood massacre of 14 (1 an unborn child). Obama-mandated “reeducation” for our security agencies has hindered FBI, CIA, and others from preventing the Boston Marathon Jihad. and Obama’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood both here in the States and abroad is an abomination. each of these has/will have devastating consequences.

Bernie
Bernie
10 years ago

So it begins, just like pre War Europe / Germany.
First you shut the Jews up with the help of the Local Police.
Then the Local Police do nothing while the Muslim Speakers vomit their hatred on an Al Quds Day meeting , in public, in front of Cameras, in front of Police etc who just stand around and do nothing because “they have a right to speak”.
Do Jews still have a “right to speak?”
Where is the Press? Public Outcry/Protest and actions to correct this wrong? Where are mainstream Muslim Leaders that condemn this type of Hate Speak?

Marcel C
Marcel C
10 years ago

Canada government,police cowards afraid to hold Muslim extremist’s to same hate laws.
Canadian Jews seek police probe of Palestinian death-threat activist
http://www.timesofisrael.com/canadian-jews-demand-probe-of-palestinian-activist/

Larry S.
Larry S.
10 years ago

I think it is worth quoting Rabbi Mendel Kaplan here (I suppose it was actually he who responded on NRO two hours ago under his name):
To further clarify this was an event that the JDL (Jewish Defence League) of Canada had organized. I was merely permitting them to rent our premises. They insisted they’d find a new location, and that “location” wasn’t worth losing a position of extraordinary community service, like my chaplaincy. All of the senior colleagues I conferred with agreed.
For the record, neither Pamela or Mark (& others who cavalierly passed judgement on & condemned me) ever reached
(complete post quoted)
I presume the rabbi was attempting to say that Pamela never contacted him for his rationale, and with all due respect, I think she should have. In fact, given all the criticism directed at Rabbi Kaplan by shruggers, I am a little uneasy that she apparently did not do so- I think it reflects negatively on her reportage. It is precisely the kind of thing she complains about when she is not given the opportunity to address charges against her. In Pamela’s defense, I do not recall her actually criticizing Rabbi Kaplan- her criticism has been directed at the York police and at thug Ricky, but shruggers have rather vehemently attacked the rabbi.
This is the first I’ve heard that the JDL actually concured with the rabbi’s response, and I think that is a highly relevant fact.

ChickenShiite
ChickenShiite
10 years ago

Chaplaincy without moral authority is meaningless. The gentleman lost all credibility.

Vincent Bruce
Vincent Bruce
10 years ago

Obviously the fix is in, the muslims have been buying power in North America, the traitor politicians who do not stand up to throw out any form of islam on North American soil deserve to be shot and pissed on, by a legal firing squad, as traitors to the weak and needy, and the Lovers of decency.
islam is the product of a pedophile warlord
muslims are cold blooded murderers
the fruit of mohamhead is bitter and hateful and attacks humanity starting with infants
The World will be better off when America and her allies destroy the islamic states the way they took out hitler, give iran the nukes it deserves, islam is rabies of the mind, we must put down these rabid pedophiles. We can fight for freedom or allow pedophilia, and become the evil cowards who choose to run and hide.
Bring back conscription and declare war on islam wherever it is, and do not stop until every last muslim ceases and desists.

Joy
Joy
10 years ago

This is so NOT out of the ordinary by now, I fail to see any surprise or shock at all! CAIR and the muzzie groupies that have so infiltrated the fabric or our very society have made effective protest almost impossible. We’ll probably “hit bottom” before we ever recover and rediscover a balanced ability to live with this scourge…

Drew the Infidel
Drew the Infidel
10 years ago

Obviously this rabbi is a good example of the law of non-contradiction which states a person will not do something they honestly do not want. He would have gained much more fame and publicity, though at a price, had he the guts to stand fast. If one does not have the courage of their convictions, they have neither.

Scaramouche
Scaramouche
10 years ago

Have you seen the rabbi’s comment? He accuses you and Mark of treating him “cavalierly”: http://scaramouchee.blogspot.ca/2013/08/the-rabbi-who-caved-to-diversity.html

ed
ed
10 years ago

I don,t think the people that loves there freedom understand does McCain represent the people of Arizona or his on ideas going to Egypt!! And does the council gov. of York represent the people or there ideas! When one group offends by words an another group offends by terror . So when the Gov. allows the terror group to rule the word group is in trouble So the gov. of york has trampled the freedom and the people of York down the sewer!!! don,t worry Canada the york gov. will throw you a 500 lb.lead life perseverer.So you can swim in the sewer of useless laws an decisions.. go on an thank them their looking out for you .

Laura
Laura
10 years ago

“Ontario in the 21st century: a land where cops bully rabbis. Kaplan had already been on the receiving end of York Regional Police’s thuggish Diversity Commissar, Inspector Ricky Veerappan, whose “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Bureau” had conducted a five-month investigation into one of the rabbi’s sermons”.
……………………………………………………………………………
Did they investigate any sermons from imams?

canadianmohamhater
canadianmohamhater
10 years ago

Not to mention CTV newschannel.

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