Harper's Rove ok with child porn; on man-boy love list

[Jeff]

Tom Flanagan: Watching Child Porn Does 'Not Harm Another Person'

02/28/2013

Tom Flanagan, a former adviser to Stephen Harper, expressed support for the freedom to watch child pornography during a talk at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta on Wednesday night.

Flanagan, who most recently made headlines for wearing a bizarre bison-fur coat on CBC, made the comments while answering a question from an audience member about a 2009 statement that child pornography is "just pictures."

"I certainly have no sympathy for child molesters, but I do have some grave doubts about putting people in jail because of their taste in pictures," Flanagan said. "I don't look at these pictures."

After saying that he has long been on the mailing list of the Man Boy Love Association, Flanagan made the statement that triggered the loudest jeers from the audience.

"It is a real issue of personal liberty, to what extent we put people in jail for doing something in which they do not harm another person."

Flanagan made it clear that his position differs from that of the Conservative government. He served as an adviser to Harper for many years and managed the Conservative election campaign in 2004. In 2006, he was a senior communications advisor on the campaign that brought the Tories to power.

...

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/02/28 ... 80550.html

"I call him Don Tomaso. He is the master strategist, the godfather—even of Harper." - Ezra Levant

Flanagan’s work remains an explosive topic, but few of his colleagues are willing to criticize him—at least on the record. After an introductory political-science textbook he co -authored was dropped from Ontario’s approved list of high-school texts because of its “racial, religious, and sex bias” against women and Jews, he became active in the Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship, an aggressive lobby of professors fighting political correctness, on whose board he now sits.

The Man Behind Stephen Harper

[Jeff]

TORONTO, Feb. 28, 2013 /CNW/ - "In light of recent remarks made by Tom Flanagan at the University of Lethbridge, CBC News has taken the decision to end our association with him as a commentator on Power and Politics.

While we support and encourage free speech across the country and a diverse range of voices, we believe Mr. Flanagan's comments to have crossed the line and impacted his credibility as a commentator for us".

http://www.newswire.ca/en/story/1122007 ... m-flanagan

[brainpanhandler]

As of today:

He appears regularly on Canadian TV and radio as commentator. More recently, Flanagan has become an outspoken fan and advocate of child pornography.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Flanag ... _scientist)

[Jeff]

Michael Harris:

Where does Tom Flanagan think child porn comes from?

...

Now the man behind Stephen Harper’s rise to power has blown himself up over stupefying comments about child pornography. CBC’s Power and Politics has dumped Flanagan. The PM’s communications director, Andrew MacDougall, tweeted out the death sentence on the PM’s former confidante, describing his views on child pornography as “repugnant, ignorant and appalling”.

Tom is toast — and this is a big deal for the Conservative party.

For a variety of reasons, Stephen Harper has seen a bevy of people close to him implode recently, from senior advisor Bruce Carson to his personal pick for the oversight job at Canada’s domestic spy service, Arthur Porter. Now this.

It will be remembered that Flanagan re-invented conservatism for Stephen Harper. He steered the ship for the first four years of the transition period, managed two leadership campaigns, was chief of staff during a critical part of the Canadian Alliance period, ran the Conservative national campaign in 2004, raised money, hired staff, contracted pollsters and recruited people like Ian Brodie to the Harper team.

Now he has incurred the wrath of millions of people on Twitter. Millions more in print will soon be gagging as well. Someone has edited Flanagan’s Wikipedia profile and added “Supports Child Pornography.” As for Canada’s aboriginals, their disgust over remarks made at the University of Lethbridge by the PM’s former mentor is bottomless.

In a bizarre exchange with a student caught on video, Flanagan said that he didn’t think people should go to jail for possessing child pornography. You could hear Vic Toews choking all the way to Vancouver. Here are the main points Flanagan made:

“A lot of people on my side of the spectrum, the conservative side of the spectrum, are on a kind of jihad against child pornography. I certainly have no sympathy for child molesters, but I do have some grave doubts about putting people in jail because of their taste in pictures.

“I got put on the mailing list of the National Man Boy Love Association and I started getting their mailing for a couple of years. That’s as close as I came to child pornography.”

The student who confronted Flanagan also made reference to a quote attributed to Canada’s answer to Karl Rove when the Manitoba government was hurrying through tough new legislation on child pornography. At the time, Flanagan suggested the whole subject was debatable: “What’s wrong with pornography in the sense that it’s just pictures?”

The synapse meltdown here is jaw-dropping. How can you be against child pornography but then reduce its products to “taste in pictures”? Where was Flanagan when the personal misery of aboriginal children was laid bare during the residential school expose?

This is the man who laughed at a request from the government’s own Truth and Reconciliation Commission for documents dealing with what happened over those dark decades to real children behind the school walls. The issue for Flanagan clearly was not getting at the truth, but the number of documents being requested — 8 million. He seemed to forget about the number of lives ruined.

Where was Flanagan when Catholic Bishop Raymond Lahey recently went to jail for possession of child pornography that he was caught bringing in from the United States? The bishop’s taste in pictures, which included images of naked boys in scenes of bondage and torture, was hardly the issue.

The issue then, and now, is law-breaking, runaway hypocrisy, and child abuse. Where does Flanagan think child pornography comes from — a computer screen, or the criminal abuse of children too young to protect themselves, the flesh and blood behind the images?

When I wrote Unholy Orders, the story of mass child abuse at a church-run orphanage in Newfoundland, I got a close-up look at both the kind of people who sexually abuse kids and the long term effects of such abuse. I learned two things. Abusers have no remorse (unless you count getting caught) and victims suffer for life. I met one victim who sleeps in a nest of blankets and pillows in his closet — because all the terrible things that have happened to him, happened in a bed at Mount Cashel. He is in his fifties.

...

Tom Flanagan has a lot of questions to answer. If “jihad” means an all-out war against child pornography, is he really against that? Is child pornography just pictures? And how was it that he received material from the National Man Love Association? Anyone in this topsy-turvy age can find themselves on an embarrassing mailing list, but for a “couple of years”?

...

http://www.ipolitics.ca/2013/02/28/wher ... omes-from/

[AhabsOtherLeg]

Did he definitely say this? Not that I doubt it, but it just seems insane.

... Never mind, he has been on the mailing list for years... FFS.

Would a right-winger not know that such a statement is outright political suicide, not just generally across Canada, or any other country, but most especially in the socially conservative heartland of Alberta?

Who did he think he was going to impress? Most of his audience wouldn't take kindly to the idea of adult men having sex, or even looking at adult pornography (even if they all do it themselves) - but he goes ahead and drops that bomb? Did he think it would pass unremarked?

I hope there will be a revolt among the lumpen right when they find out just how radical and experimental their leaders' ideas have become. Flanagan seems to be a subscriber to a new-ish brand of far-right "libertarianism" which I had hoped was mainly confined to the fantasies of internet blowhards, a philosophy where, to steal a phrase: "Nothing is deserved, and everything is accepted."

Are political figures just going to come out with it openly now, and expect no reaction? I suppose many of them have reason to believe there will be no reaction, since they've gotten away with it all - every outrageous statement, every appalling crime, every slipshod defence or advocacy of murder - up till now.

It might be best if, like Tom Flanagan, they become too emboldened by acclaim within their own sphere - and far outrun the tiny minds of their own followers.

[cptmarginal]

I was reminded of Flanagan by this:

Urban Institute Report on US Sex Trade

Among the study’s most interesting findings is that the market for child pornography in the United States is small because it is generally traded for free. And most of the people interviewed about their use of child pornography described it as a victimless crime. “It’s like when you’re buying drugs you’re supporting crime or supporting terrorism,” one individual said. “They aren’t getting any money from me to do any bad things or other things.”

Looks like he has a book coming out next month:

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/03/03 ... 90716.html

Tom Flanagan is back.

About a year ago, the former adviser to Prime Minister Stephen Harper became persona non grata among most Canadian conservatives for publicly questioning whether it makes sense to jail those who view child porn.

Though he apologized for the remarks, Flanagan was virtually disowned by Harper Conservatives and members of Alberta's Wildrose Party.

Yet, last weekend, the one-time Conservative strategist and fellow at the University of Calgary's School of Public Policy participated in an authors' panel at the Manning Networking Conference.

The gathering of right-wing politicians and thinkers rebuked him last year once the controversy erupted.

With the release of a new book, "Winning Power," and an upcoming tome addressing his fall from grace, "Persona Non Grata," coming out in April, Flanagan has now returned to the spotlight.

http://www.mcclelland.com/catalog/displ ... view=print

Persona Non Grata
The Death of Free Speech in the Internet Age



Written by Tom Flanagan

Category: Political Science; Political Science - Public Policy - Cultural Policy
Publisher: Signal
Format: Hardcover, 256 pages
Pub Date: April 2014
Price: $29.95

(Available April 29, 2014)

About this Book

From an acclaimed professor and former advisor to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, a passionate and edgy defense of free speech in Canada, and the role the internet plays in the issue.

In February 2013, Tom Flanagan, acclaimed academic, University of Calgary professor, and former advisor to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, made comments surrounding the issue of viewing child pornography that were tweeted from the event he was speaking at and broadcast worldwide. In the time it took to drive from Lethbridge to his home in Calgary, Flanagan's career and reputation were virtually in tatters. Every media outlet made the story front-page news, most of them deriding Flanagan and casting him as a pariah. He was made to apologize publicly for his use of words but the bottom line was that Tom Flanagan simply sounded an opinion (he in no way whatsoever suggested that he was anything but virulantly opposed to child pornography) in an academic setting. In effect, his university, several of his colleagues, and much of the media, including the CBC -- and most of Canada! -- made him persona non grata. This book is two things: The author's side of the story, and what he endured during what he calls "The Incident," and a passionate and convincing defense of free speech, not just in Canada but everywhere. While Flanagan's is hardly the first book on the subject, what makes this book different is the component of the internet, a tool that is very much a double-edged sword when it comes to freedom of expression--it allows people to have an unfiltered voice to say what they want, but it also allows those to use it to be judge, jury and executioner against those whose opinions they disagree with. The book is also a sobering look into the kind of political correctness that has become a staple in the academic world. What happened to the author illustrates important tendencies in contemporary Canada threatening freedom of speech and discussion, and how the new technology is playing an increasing and menacing role.

Best of luck with that "virulant" opposition

[Wombaticus Rex]

Here's hoping his book tour swings through New England, I would love to chat.

[mulebone]

Gee, with NAMBLA it looks like they've finally discovered a bridge between the left & the right.

Thoughts on NAMBLA

By Allen Ginsberg, July 13, 1994

"Always be ready to speak your mind, and a base man will avoid you." --William Blake

I became a member of NAMBLA a decade ago as a matter of civil liberties.
In the early 1980s, the FBI had conducted a campaign of entrapment and
"dirty tricks" against NAMBLA members just as they had against black and
anti-war leaders in previous decades.

In the January 17, 1983, issue Time magazine, following the FBI disinformation campaign, attacked NAMBLA as a group involved in the "systematic exploitation of the weak and immature by the powerful and disturbed." That struck me as a fitting description of Time magazine itself. NAMBLA's a forum for reform of
those laws on youthful sexuality which members deem oppressive, a
discussion society not a sex club. I joined NAMBLA in defense of free
speech.

Historically, societies have taken different views of this issue and the
political heat that surrounds the subject is unnatural. Demagogic
reaction to NAMBLA demeans the subject as a political football. At
present European nations do not share current US public sexual hysteria.

Various cultures and states offer widely varying definitions of age of
consent--age 15 in Czechoslovakia and some US states, 14 in Hawaii.
There's no universal consensus on "consent." It's a fit subject for
discussion, NAMBLA provides a forum.

Most people like myself do not make carnal love to hairless boys and
girls. Yet such erotic inclinations or fantasies are average and are
commonly sublimated into courtly sociability.

http://www.ipce.info/library/miscellane ... hts-nambla

Although, according to Carolyn Cassidy, that last bit was a lie. But then that could be a lie also. Somehow I doubt it.

Last night I had a curious dream that kept repeating itself: "Make sure people know that Allen Ginsberg was a notorious pedophile." It's true. Carolyn told me that when he'd visit her in England decades later, he'd brag to her about his "conquests" of little boys, eight and nine years old. She tolerated this because, after all, pretending to be stars in this charade of perversity suited her rather prima donna demeanor. But Allen Ginsberg was a notorious pedophile. Otherwise, she complained, Ginsberg was interested only in talking about himself.

http://tommydark.blogspot.com/2007/01/w ... ssady.html

[Wombaticus Rex]

At present European nations do not share current US public sexual hysteria.

A most remarkable quote, all the more so for the timing of it. Thank you for that, had never read it before.

[mulebone]

Thank you for that, had never read it before.

Yer welcome. Normally I'd be more gracious & just ignore it but, in this case, I deserve thanks. I'd read Ginsberg's paper years ago somewhere but, being old, with a brain like mushy cheese, I forgot where. In searching for it, the top link on my first search was to something called BoyWiki, which seems to be a Wiki-like site from a man/boy love perspective. When I saw it on my search page, being mush brained, I didn't glean to the big "Boy" clue next to the Wiki word. Like an idjit I muttered "Duh, what's dat? & effing clicked on it. Needless to say, I'm not particularly thrilled that, somewhere in my computer, is evidence I clicked on a NAMBLA Wiki page.

I also found some funny religious rants but this was probably closest to how I feel, since I've read & liked the writings of both Ginsberg & Burroughs.

Yesterday we got some hate-mail-really though it was more like mildly upset mail-about referring to William S. Burroughs as a "dirty old poet." And while I really like me some Burroughs-I did sit around and listen to "You're the Guy I Want To Share My Money With" as a teen, so!-I realized that I also deeply, terribly dislike him. You know why? Those guys were all the worst. Setting aside the drugs and alcohol and their sons claiming to have been molested, at the age of 14, by friends of their father's, and, yes, the wife-shooting, it's also true that Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg (a NAMBLA member, lest we forget) and their gang-some of whom are somehow still living, so, let's not name names-were literary rockstars who kept a steady supply of boy groupies as disposable sex toys.

Pretty much it was as gross as anything you can imagine about the lifestyle of a hair metal band in the 80s. By the first-hand accounts I've been told, they didn't care if the boys were 15 or 22 or were clearly extremely damaged from terrible childhoods; also, some of the groupies had sex with them all. And I'll always think of Burroughs as "old" because, first, he was born in 1914, after all, and to people born in the 60s and 70s, Ginsberg and Burroughs and their pals all were unspeakably old, in that way that anyone over 40 is already unfathomably old to someone who is 18.

And sure, lots of this was truly consensual, even the stuff that'd be considered statutory rape! And there's a whole crop of a generation that can pipe up at a dinner party and be all, "Burroughs? Ha, I remember when we shared a huge spike of heroin and we had sex! Hilarious! Can you imagine?" It's a good story!

(Related: one of the things I find refreshing about many of the gay millennials, by the way, is that it seems like more of them feel comfortable with and only largely attracted to people their own age. That's a good development.)

But just like "free love" so often meant that "chicks" should stop being "uptight" and have sex with whatever man wanted them to put out, fundamental to the whole post-beatnik and "groovy" literary and art scene of gay men was an idea that these, yes, old dudes came to think that it was their right to leverage their literary reputations to screw whichever troubled young boy most recently wanted their autograph.

So on some level, I'll always carry some enormous dislike for the characters that pop up to be the new-again counterculture heroes in movies like Milk and Howl. They were, apart from some of their excellent qualities, also totally skeevy, gross, drugged-out predators.

[Iamwhomiam]

Yet such erotic inclinations or fantasies are average and are commonly sublimated into courtly sociability.

More likely, "Yet such erotic inclinations or fantasies are average and are commonly sublimated into courtly submission."