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CoS Bigwig Likens Wikipedia Ban to Nazis' Yellow Star Decree
We mentioned on Thursday that Wikipedia has banned edits originating from certain IP addresses belonging to the Church of Scientology; reader newtley writes now that Scientology leader (CEO and Chairman of the Board of the linked, but legally separate, Religious Technology Center) David Miscavige calls the ban "a 'despicable hate crime,' and asks, 'What's next, will Scientologists have to wear yellow, six-pointed stars on our clothing?' During World War II, Hitler forced Jewish men, women and children to wear a a yellow cloth star bearing the word Jude to brand them in the streets of Europe, and in the Nazi death camps."
Gee, they didn't even wait until the discussion thread to invoke the Nazis. Isn't that an automatic epic fail?
Life needs more saving throws.
If just losing editing rights is as bad as Nazi prosecution then by comparison other forms of prosecution must be like killing kittens with sledgehammers.
I hope you are not implying that killing kittens is worse than killing people.
Aaaaa I see Godwin's Law has proved itself yet again.
They had loads of fun in Canada, too. You see, Health Canada investigated their "auditing" and found them to be, in fact, pedaling "Alternative Healing" but doing so in a fraudulent manner, and they published this report. There was also a Canadian couple that quit Scientology and was telling their story.
;)
Now, fast forward a bit, and the Church of Scientology has infiltrated the US government almost to the top. There is a huge raid on their offices, which uncovers a lot of interesting information. First, it had information all about their undercover ops in the US and Canada. It also had information about how they bound and held prisoner Michael Miesner. For whatever reason, those charges in the USA got themselves vanished, but not before the FBI forwarded this information to Canada! Now Canada finds here in their cabinets, confidential government of Ontario and RCMP memos! They find they have agents infiltrating the hospital where the doctor who wrote that scathing report on their psychic healing works! They find they have guys in Canada Revenue looking for dirt on the couple I mentioned before, anything to bring them down!
Not willing to bring charges on that alone, the RCMP sent two undercover agents into the Toronto branch. Using information they gathered, warrants were issued and all kinds of files and audiotapes were seized. They had all the evidence they needed for these break ins and thefts and assorted other crimes. They had also broken into many Toronto office buildings to steal corporate information, too, anything to potentially in the future be used against their enemies (who are legion).
In the end, 14 people plus the Church itself were all summonsed. The Church tried to get the warrants invalidated. They failed. They tried to blackmail the judge, they failed. They tried to plea bargain, "we'll donate millions to any charity you want if you drop the charges against the church, you can have our members, fine, but not the church." It was declined. They tried to get all of their files detailing their undercover ops and breakins and criminal harassment ruled as confessional material, and inadmissible in court due to priest-parishioner confidentiality. That failed too.
Then they tried a massive smear campaign against the Crown prosecutor. THAT stunt got the church itself a $1.6 million dollar judgment. And since their lawyer was spewing it too in press releases, he himself got a $400,000 judgment. (never libel nor slander a LAWYER).
In the end, all of the criminals working for the Church were convicted (some cases are still ongoing I believe, 20 years later). The church is still trying to appeal its own convictions and judgments. Their fine for libel though, and their lawyer's, those have been upheld all the way to the Supreme Court, so that's done, no more appeals, only took 10 years! They repeated their slander every step of the way, too, in press releases and in court, and in every appeal they maintained its truth even though most of it was provably false. I would have thought that continuing to repeat the same lies after a judgment for doing so would be contempt of court, and get their lawyer hauled before the judge in irons, but I guess the Canadian legal system doesn't work like the American versions do on TV?
And yes, the Church called the Ontario government Nazis. The church has its own fake "tolerance" watchdog organization. According to their brochures, they stand up against all intolerance, though in practice only if it is against the CoS. It condemned the government for persecuting a poor religion, when all the religion did was slander, libel, and order criminal acts against Canadians and their government. I believe the argument went, "Members of the church give all their worldly possessions to us, and we support them. So fining the church directly punishes all of our members! You have a slippery slope that says a church is responsible for the actions of its members, and you can punish all members of the church for the acti