#TOMFLANAGAN - “The thing about angry mobs is sometimes they're right."

“The thing about angry mobs is sometimes they're right."
That was a tweet from Stephen Lautens, recovering lawyer, smartass and occasional columnist, from way back in March 1, 2013. It was a reaction to #tomflanagan and his public comments about child porn. ‘member Tom? Well, he was back in the news this month with his new book “Persona Non Grata: The Death of Free Speech in the Internet Age.” Tom Flanagan, former advisor to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who long ago became Persona Non Grata in Indian Country for his “expert” opinions on First Nations issues, explains in the book what happened one night about a year-and-a-half ago during a public speaking engagement in Lethbridge where he was “trapped” into a discussion about a comment he had made about child pornography.  The Globe and Mail writes Flanagan had been “targeted” by a group of Native activists “who were out to get him” with an old comment where Flanagan distinguished between crimes of abusing actual children and those that involve “just pictures.”

    The discussion was recorded and uploaded to Youtube with what has been described as an inflammatory headline: “Tom Flanagan okay with child pornography.” Within hours, the video had gone viral, and Flanagan’s career had burst into flames. Andrew McDougall, the Prime Minister’s communications director, soon tweeted “Tom Flanagan’s comments on child pornography are repugnant, ignorant, and appalling. Flanagan said, he’s misunderstood.

    The Globe and Mail says the book allowed Flanagan a way to understand how his life managed to crumble in just a few short hours. ‘The most powerful theme of his book is a how a changing political culture has interacted with new media to create a toxic environment in which people are executed in the public square when they become inconvenient. “Damage control is a big part of politics today,” [Flanagan] says. “There’s a demand for virtually instantaneous action. So human sacrifice has become institutionalized.”’

    There was not much sympathy, however, for the man that The Globe and Mail described as an architect of the current political climate. ‘He was complicit in the cultivation of a climate of ruthlessness that put the PM into power and has kept him there. The iron law of this political culture is that you do whatever it takes to win. People and principles are expendable… Everything is evaluated through the prism of whether it will help or hurt the leader.”

    Flanagan “was instrumental in creating a monster that later turned on him,” one tweeter wrote. “He gets no sympathy.”