[Rhodes22-list] Free Speech in Canada

[Brad Haslett]

Dan,

Here's the guys website: http://ezralevant.com/

You can read the transcript of the recording which in some ways, is even
more powerful.

I'm attaching what Mark Steyn (the author of "America Alone") had to say
today. Scary stuff!

Brad

----------------------

Saturday, January 12, 2008

"The last house of worship torched in Edmonton was my synagogue"   [Mark
Steyn <m%61%69l%62ox%40%73t%65%79nonl%69%6ee%2ecom>]

I've been in the wilds away from the Internet all day, but I wanted to draw
attention to this <http://ezralevant.com/> - yesterday's interrogation of my
old boss Ezra Levant by one of Canada's many "human rights commissions" for
publishing the Danish cartoons. Much to the irritation of the Alberta
thought police, Ezra has posted portions of the video at his site (start at
the top and scroll down - or, if that's too busy, try radio station
CHQR<http://www.am770chqr.com/station/blog_the_world_tonight.cfm?bid=20830>).
There are three sections, starting with Ezra's opening statement, which
points out that his freedom of speech is not the gift of Canadian
bureaucrats but an inalienable right bolstered by 800 years of English
Common Law as well as more modish documentation such as the UN's Universal
Declaration on Human Rights.

Then come two sections - one in which "human rights agent" Shirlene McGovern
quizzes him on his intent in publishing the cartoons, and another in which
she raises the fear that his publishing them could lead to violence against
Muslims "particularly in today's world post-9/ 11 that has made a number of
Muslims more vulnerable to hatred and contempt".Ezra's answer speaks for
itself, but Ms McGovern's question reminds me of a passage from Melanie
Phillips' book *Londonistan*:

Minority-rights doctrine has produced a moral inversion, in which those
doing wrong are excused if they belong to a 'victim' group, while those at
the receiving end of their behaviour are blamed simply because they belong
to the 'oppressive' majority.

Ms McGovern, a blandly unexceptional bureaucrat, is a classic example of the
syndrome. No "vulnerable" Canadian Muslim has been attacked over the
cartoons, but the cartoonists had to go into hiding, and a gang of Muslim
youths turned up at their children's grade schools, and Muslim rioters
around the world threatened death to anyone who published them, and even
managed to kill a few folks who had nothing to do with them. Nonetheless,
upon receiving a complaint from a Saudi imam trained at an explicitly
infidelophobic academy and who's publicly called for the introduction of
sharia in Canada, Shirlene McGovern decides that the purely hypothetical
backlash to Muslims takes precedence over any actual backlash against
anybody else.

Thus the unending valse macabre of our times, as the supposedly progressive
forces of tolerance are whirled around the floor by the avowedly intolerant.
Ezra is rightly contemptuous of these "human rights commissions". Canadians
should be ashamed of this show trial.


On Jan 12, 2008 8:54 PM, Dan Stromquist <stormy22n7 at yahoo.com> wrote:

>
> Wow! Does anyone know the results of this hearing?
> Dan Stromquist
>
> Brad Haslett-2 wrote:
> >
> > This is a little scary - political correctness gone wild in Canada.
> > Coming
> > to a theater near you in the USA. Ezra Levant is my new hero!
> >
> > http://youtube.com/watch?v=AzVJTHIvqw8
> >
> > http://youtube.com/watch?v=3iMNM1tef7g
> >
> > http://youtube.com/watch?v=lFXJaEYyYjY
> >
> > http://youtube.com/watch?v=6n3SdV2cwn4
> > __________________________________________________
> > Use Rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org, Help? www.rhodes22.org/list
> >
> >
>
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>
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