Mark Steyn Just Pulverized A Canadian Lawyer Into Tiny Shards
I don't usually quote Steyn's letters columns, but his evisceration of Canada's version of Marvin the Martian is just too good to pass up. When The Markster devotes this much ink to dropping a boulder on someone, you know the victim pulls out a tiny umbrella Wile E Coyote style to defend himself. And this, boys and girls, is just the beginning:
MARK SAYS:"Barrister and Solicitor"? Does that come with long trousers? You really need to quit while you're behind. Your original statement on "freedom of expression" at least had the merit of only being two lines of stupid. Your attempt to justify it only makes you look ten times as stupid at five times the length. I don't use that term lightly.
RTWT. And someone please bring a small curling broom to sweep up the remains of Mr. Cherniak's legal career.
- Comment (23)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (3)
- Pages:
- 1
- 2
- Pages:
- 1
- 2
Comments :
Dec '10
Re: Mark Steyn Just Pulverized A Canadian Lawyer Into Tiny Shards
This immediately brought to mind Kenneth's post on snark. We all bow before the master of verbal evisceration. As I said in that thread, when someone says something so stupid it should be painful, it is the job of snark to bring on that pain. Let's raise a stein to Steyn.
Sep '10
Re: Mark Steyn Just Pulverized A Canadian Lawyer Into Tiny Shards
The reason Steyn's demolition works so well has little to do with snark, and more to do with the fact that he's unusually good natured and rarely turns his rhetorical guns full bore on someone. Mark was hauled before our Stalinesque Human Rights Commissions and he and Ezra Levant worked pretty much non stop to have them "denormalized".
Jason Cherniak was a water pale carrier (and an incredibly clueless one at that) for the Trudeaupian know nothings that Steyn and every other Canadian with a memory that goes back past 1968 holds in visceral contempt. He used to regularly show up trying to defend himself on Canadian conservative blogs and then get summarily pounded so badly by the commenters that the blog host usually had to pull his wounded carcass off so he could survive to be pummeled again another day.
That day has apparently now come and gone.
And, as a final note, satire is a much higher form of comedy than sarcasm.
Jun '10
Re: Mark Steyn Just Pulverized A Canadian Lawyer Into Tiny Shards
Steyn's column is not snark. It is brilliant "verbal evisceration." Snark is cheap and requires no thought.
Steyn takes apart the hopeless barrister by employing stellar, biting wit as he point-by-point exposes the man's stupidity.
Oct '10
Re: Mark Steyn Just Pulverized A Canadian Lawyer Into Tiny Shards
I wonder. To be on the wrong side of Mark Steyn might be considered a feature, not a bug, to a Canadian law firm.
Dec '10
Re: Mark Steyn Just Pulverized A Canadian Lawyer Into Tiny Shards
Ouch! I liked the example Steyn gives about the comedian giving the lesbophobic rant in 1981 (before there "was" Canadian free speech) v. now.
Jan '11
Re: Mark Steyn Just Pulverized A Canadian Lawyer Into Tiny Shards
Steyn wins in the substance, not the style. He wins because he's right, whether he said it with attitude or with obsequious flattery.
He argues an important point. The legal system doesn't give individuals the right to act; you already have those rights from God (or nature, or whatever). It isn't as if individuals are expected to say nothing until the government "allows" them to speak. The legal system only says what government authorities are empowered to do in response.
The other guy thinks that you didn't have a right to free speech until the government gave it to you, which is idiocy.
Steyn would have been right, no matter what his "tone" was. But, there's no question that he's infinitely more entertaining when he shifts into gear. Let's not confuse accuracy with entertainment ... Steyn, thankfully, delivers both.
Mar '11
Re: Mark Steyn Just Pulverized A Canadian Lawyer Into Tiny Shards
The previous He Said/He Said letter by Tim Naumetz is a fine example of how to respond to Steyn with some wit and, therefore, retain your viscera.
Jan '11
Re: Mark Steyn Just Pulverized A Canadian Lawyer Into Tiny Shards
I sincerely hope that whoever our guy/gal for President in 2012 is, that he/she would give real thought to making Mark Steyn the White House spokesman... Or at least the Chief speechwriter for the administration.
I'd give 10 years of my life to be able to write like Steyn; they call come at the end anyhow.
Jul '10
Re: Mark Steyn Just Pulverized A Canadian Lawyer Into Tiny Shards
How is the paragraph Pseudo quoted anything but a cluster-bomb of snark? "...long trousers...stupid...and stupid again"?
Mark Styen frequently employs snark. Because it's a legitimate arrow in the rhetorical quiver. And because it's funny.
Had any of us posted that paragraph as a comment directed at another Member, we'd be redacted.
But, then, we're not Mark Steyn.
Feb '11
Re: Mark Steyn Just Pulverized A Canadian Lawyer Into Tiny Shards
Severely Ltd.:
I wonder. To be on the wrong side of Mark Steyn might be considered a feature, not a bug, to a Canadian law firm. · Jul 9 at 8:48am
I'd agree.
Dec '10
Re: Mark Steyn Just Pulverized A Canadian Lawyer Into Tiny Shards
Perhaps the problem with most snark (even snark on Ricochet) is that it is not normally backed by such sound reasoning. Yes, Mark skins the guy, but that's only so the lemon juice of the truth feels even better when it's poured on.
Sep '10
Re: Mark Steyn Just Pulverized A Canadian Lawyer Into Tiny Shards
An excellent point that I was going to make, but you made it first. I'm insanely jealous. May I claw your drapes for awhile? I pulled Steyn's response into my super secret writing program (Scrivener for Windows, beta) and it clocks in at 750 words. But, it doesn't do justice to the amount of preparation Mark did in the past few years for this issue.
Check out his parliamentary committee testimony (and this is just an excerpt) where he sticks the shiv in our favorite Prime Ministerial also ran, Michael Ignatieff
Edited on Jul 9, 2011 at 9:58amMay '10
Re: Mark Steyn Just Pulverized A Canadian Lawyer Into Tiny Shards
Nothing like it when Steyn guest hosts a radio show. Virtually all the regular talk-show hosts have some kind of trope they repetitively use on left-wing callers. Typically a combination of bluster, talking points, and the dump button.
Steyn, on the other hand, custom-crafts his response to the exact idiocy of the caller and time and again incinerates the loony legions of the left.
Nov '10
Re: Mark Steyn Just Pulverized A Canadian Lawyer Into Tiny Shards
That was lovely. Thanks for the link.
May '10
Re: Mark Steyn Just Pulverized A Canadian Lawyer Into Tiny Shards
FYI, Cherniak has shut down his blog and purged its cache from Google, but a little Googling turned up what appears to be what he originally wrote:
Canadians have a right to Freedom of Expression. We have that right because the Trudeau Government negotiated and passed the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Progressive Conservative Party of the time, led by Joe Clark, and the NDP both supported this Charter. It is now one of the most important constitutional documents in Canada. It should be beyond partisanship.
There is currently a debate about whether freedom of expression includes the right to say anything you want. Specifically, there is a debate about whether Ezra Levant, Mark Steyn and Macleans should have been charged with “Hate Messages” under section 13(1) of the Canadian Human Rights Act (“Section 13(1)“). It reads:
13. (1) It is a discriminatory practice for a person or a group of persons acting in concert to communicate…any matter that is likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt by reason of the fact that that person or those persons are identifiable on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination.
Edited on Jul 9, 2011 at 3:54pmMay '10
Re: Mark Steyn Just Pulverized A Canadian Lawyer Into Tiny Shards
The rest of what Cherniak wrote:
"As a matter of principle, I support this law. Hate messages should not be protected expression. Indeed, they are an attempt to silence the free expression of others by removing their individuality. At its heart, I believe that freedom of expression, and the entire Charter of Rights and Freedoms, is about protecting the individual. People who attempt to use their individual rights to remove the individual rights of others should not be surprised when they end up on the wrong side of the law."
Nov '10
Re: Mark Steyn Just Pulverized A Canadian Lawyer Into Tiny Shards
Read the entire piece which can be found here:
http://www.steynonline.com/content/view/4243/59
Mr. Steyn does slice and dice a fool, but the best part is Steyn's defense of the Common Law system as opposed to the various codes. Edmund Burke would be proud.
May '10
Re: Mark Steyn Just Pulverized A Canadian Lawyer Into Tiny Shards
Kenneth, I think perhaps you are conflating snark and scorn. There is neither justice nor magnificence in the former.
Jul '10
Re: Mark Steyn Just Pulverized A Canadian Lawyer Into Tiny Shards
Listen, if you looked at that paragraph blind and were told it was Mark Steyn, you'd say it was brilliant. If you were told it was me, you'd say it was rude and uncivil.
May '10
Re: Mark Steyn Just Pulverized A Canadian Lawyer Into Tiny Shards
Kenneth
Listen, if you looked at that paragraph blind and were told it was Mark Steyn, you'd say it was brilliant. If you were told it was me, you'd say it was rude and uncivil. · Jul 9 at 9:06pm
No, not true.
But I won't deny that knowing Steyn is the author influences my reading of it.
Part of the difference between mere snark and noble scorn surely lies in who the scorner is vis a vis the one he is scorning.
What Mark Steyn has endured at the hands Canadian speech controllers gives him authority to pronounce on this subject that few others have. Snark is cheap. Scorn comes at a price.