Taki's Mag

Reverend Terry Jones

Canada wouldn’t let Terry Jones into the country last week, and you’re thinking: “Who can blame them? He was the least funny Python.”

But I’m talking about the Reverend Terry Jones of Koran-burning infamy.

So now you’re going, “Even better. What a jackhole.”

Except you’d hope Canadian border-control policy was based upon something other than subjective calculations of jackholery.

Officially, the authorities can deny entry based on “criminal record, health or security issues.” In practice, however, their decisions don’t even rise to the already low bureaucratic standard one might call the whimsically arbitrary.

Compare the government’s treatment of two very different convicts:

Despite having employed plenty of Canadians (and paid millions in taxes) over the years, Lord Conrad Black needed a special permit to move back after doing time in a US prison. (The “temporary” part was a particularly sadistic poke, I thought.)

But if you’re newly sprung from Gitmo, having murdered an American medic and called planting roadside bombs “the proudest moment of your life,” then it’s “welcome back, Khadr.”

What about Hamas sympathizer and noted feline impersonator George Galloway? It took a couple of tries, but he finally got into Canada (then hinted he’d like to punch the Minister for Immigration).

But are you a “controversial academic” with “contentious views on Islam”? Forget it.

What about pundit Ann Coulter? You’ll get a written warning to watch what you say north of the 49th parallel. Then cops will shrug that they can’t guarantee your safety when students riot outside your venue, forcing you to cancel your talk.

Maybe it’s all those ZOG checks in my Grand Cayman account talking, but I detect a pattern. One with lots of crescent shapes.

(My conspiracy theory isn’t 100% sound, but the main reason Muslim extremists get to give speeches in Canada is that they already live here.)

On October 11, Terry Jones was to debate a local imam on the lawns of Queen’s Park, the provincial legislature. Holding debates out of doors on dark October evenings is not some quaint Canadian custom; organizers had been turned down by every other venue they approached. And besides, Queen’s Park is the scene of the crime.

That is, the “crime” of walking a dog on public property.

That’s what happened two months ago during the al-Quds Day rally on the legislature’s grounds. Quds Day was invented by post-bestiality cuisine advisor and Iranian dictator Ayatollah Khomeini in the 1970s. This holiday takes its name from the Arabic word for Jerusalem; celebrants look forward to the day (Insha’Allah) that they’ll get to rename the ancient capital, presumably whether the current occupants approve or not (or are still around to comment).

That August afternoon, a few thousand Shia Muslims, anti-Zionist Jews, and at least one transvestite set up on one side of the lawn. A few hundred counterdemonstrators—mostly Jews, Christians, and communist Iranian dissidents—occupied the other.

One of these counterdemonstrators, Alan Einstoss, brought along his huge but harmless Mastiff, Cupcake, a leashed registered therapy dog. When Einstoss wandered too close to the Muslim side, he was shoved. He shoved back. His dog, wearing an Israeli flag around its neck, was kicked.

So naturally the Toronto police handcuffed…Einstoss. They told him his name “was going into file.” His crime? Being “insensitive.” Muslims consider dogs unclean, the cops explained, having learned this aspect of sharia law during “diversity training.”

In response, Einstoss organized his own event at Queen’s Park: a debate about the incendiary short movie Innocence of Muslims.

Along with the film, pastor Terry Jones was in the headlines because the film (which he’d had nothing to do with making) had recently had nothing to do with the murder of four American diplomatic staffers in Libya—although you’d never know it if you get your information about these things from The New York Times.

Jones struck Einstoss as the perfect debating partner for local imam Steve Rockwell. (Rockwell used to be a Baptist minister, which perhaps explains his penchant for fiery and sometimes factually challenged utterances.)

Alas, on Thursday afternoon, authorities turned star performer Terry Jones back at the border after a four-hour search and interrogation.

The event went on without him, probably more subdued than it might have been otherwise. It likely got exponentially more press than it would have if he’d simply been allowed to show up.  

Canadian Border Services’ reasons for denying Jones’s entry sound dubious: Almost 20 years ago, he’d supposedly lied to the German government about having a doctorate. In 2011, he’d refused to pay a Michigan peace bond.

As it turns out, both of these issues had apparently been resolved in Jones’s favor, but so what?

Terry Jones is no saint, but he calls himself a Christian. Is that his real crime?

Canada used to be the last “stop” on the Underground Railroad. Now we railroad people to keep them out.