Sanity Squad tonight: Canada’s war on freedom of speech
Tune in tonight live at 8PM Eastern Time (or click on the link later to hear the recording) for what promises to be an interesting Sanity Squad podcast on Canada’s PC assault on the freedom of speech of Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn. And send not to ask for whom the bell tolls, Canadians, it tolls for thee.
If you’re not familiar with what’s happening to Steyn and Levant, go here and here. To listen to the articulate, courageous, and outraged testimony of Levant for yourself, watch You Tube’s tapes of his testimony before the Alberta Human Rights Commission—and learn just how Orwellian that title is.
Ezra does have the guts to publicly challenge public policy but I saw him on TV Ontario’s Agenda recently and he appeared to be a loud-mouthed crank who specialized in repeating the same phrase over and over again. He was totally outclassed by the others on the panel including Diane Francis, another outspoken “conservative”.
Glad I saw the Levant video. We need more like him. It also shows that the U.S. First Amendment needs to be backed up by the Second.
Pingback:Steynianism 22.0 « Free Mark Steyn!
Very thoughtful and wise thoughts by Warren Kinsella:
Firstly, let me say that I am a censor. I believe there are reasonable and proper limits on human expression.
Secondly, I believe that words and images have power. Words and images have the power to wound and hurt and, sometimes, persuade people to kill.
Thirdly, I believe that we are entitled, as a society, to sanction (civilly or criminally) those who use words and images to deliberately or recklessly inflict harm on others – as with laws relating to the propagation of hate, or laws prohibiting child pornography, or defamation codes, or laws designed to sanction pornography that promotes violence against women and children.
And, yes: I believe we are entitled as society to place reasonable limits on the expression of actual hatred towards religious faiths. I believe that words and images that expose the tenets of a person’s faith to hatred should be condemned and, where appropriate, punished. Expressing hatred about someone else’s spiritual beliefs is not free speech. It is hatred, and it is almost always calculated to cause pain and hurt.
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2008/01/14/warren-kinsella-cartoons-and-islam.aspx
Ezra vr. Richard Warman
Ezra has a big screed in this morning’s National Post, you see, rallying to the defence of free speech. It’s awful. In it, Ezra rips into those who would seek to “censor” in the name of “human rights.” Chief among his targets are Richard Warman, an Ottawa man who, among other things, is an award-winning human rights lawyer. Mr. Warman has successfully won human rights cases against a score of neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups, on his own. The Canadian Jewish Congress gave him an award for “distinguished service to the cause of human rights.”
http://www.warrenkinsella.com/index.php?entry=entry071218-085900
There are laws against libel, against inciting violence and so on. But state-run censorship outside normal legal procedures is completely another story, and this can not be tolerated. Private lawyer can call himself “censor”, but really he is not. State-run “human rights commisiions” now became lose cannons. They have no authority to make judgements which publication can and which can not be allowed. This is not their jurisdiction.
“Truth”:
Your words are hateful and offensive to me. You must be silenced.
You must be silenced.
Freedom of Speech you like or not it’s your problem Trimegistus.
Kinsella is a fool. Hate Laws will lead to a world controlled by millions of petty, hypersensitive dictators who believe that any criticism, any questioning, of their cherished beliefs is hate.
It took the West a long time to rid itself of the blasphemy laws. I do not want to see them reappear in new clothes, which the Hate Laws are.
Finally, wait until the Christians and heterosexuals turn the tables and start using these laws. Calling heterosexuals “breeders”, hate crime, crucifix in urine, hate crime, calling all Westerners immoral, hate crime, do I need to go on?
are hateful and offensive
BTW, again people went out of the main point by changing the subject to personal attacks
Trimegistus, could you be precise in your claims about me? What’s the hatful and offensive word you mean?
Ariel,
I did agree with you in some aspects here about Kinsella, which I missed (in fact I don’t knew before) but his view looks ok in the case of Neo raises here.
Well this sort of Orwellian censorship exists here in the U.S. too. I recently published some of these cartoons on my blog and wrote a piece on it. While writing I remembered the South Park “Cartoon Wars” episode which was censored by Comedy Central for depicting the Prophet Muhammad (which they had already done on earlier pre-Danish Cartoon episodes.) Even if you’re not a fan of the show it’s a pretty great bit of satire against the very censorship that their own television channel was using against them. In fact, they include a black screen with a message about their being censored by Comedy Central during the entire bit that was cut out. Perhaps we can stop publishing these cartoons when Muslims stop burning American and Israeli flags and calling for the utter destruction of the Jews and “death to America!”
Censorship will lead to its very own version of “death to America” as it blots out everything we hold dear about our freedom.
Not to blanket judge a religion, but what on Earth made Muslims this sensitive in the first place?
This reminds me of an interview of an artist. When asked why he didn’t criticize Islam in any of his works, his reply was succinct “because those people will kill you”. Obviously, he speaks “truth to power” only if there are no real consequences. The Alec Baldwin school of “truth to power”, evidently.
“but what on Earth made” some “Muslims this sensitive in the first place”
Because we ignore their supremacy? It has got to hurt to see dhimmis wealthier and more powerful. At one time the stretch and wealth of Islam made the Roman Empire look backwater by comparison.
But then again, look at what Christians do when their religion is insulted. They take out petitions. Have you ever been hit by a petition? It hurts. And the papercuts!!
Their idea was for this to be used for housing discriminations? Oh come on, tools are not supposed to have IMAGINATION, Neo and Sanity.
They’re not supposed to imagine what will happen to the tool when the tool is of no use. That’s not what they are for.
It is exactly what the Left wanted. It just so happens that most of the Left are made up of useful idiots. Only the elite and the intellectual spiritual leaders know what is really up.
Hey, remember when people kept repeating that ‘Terrorism can’t destroy our way of life”.
Well, I suppose if it makes people feel better that they are willingly destroying their way of life, instead of the fear of terrorism, then I suppose that’s how people are.
Democracy’s only as strong as the individuals in it. The British may get the will to fight back because they are getting shredded, but they will no longer have the resources and the logistics to actually do anything. You can have all the will and intent you want, Neo, but it’s not going to launch a rock into space without the resources and logistics.
I think Siggy thinks Britain can dig themselves out of this hole, but there will come a point in which the energy it takes to dig themselves out will not be within their affordability range.
Also the people that got things to the way they are in Canada, cannot be relied upon to get Canada out of the situation they put her in. So it doesn’t really matter whether their media is talking about incidents like this or not.
Britain has spent decades ensuring that their people are individually weak and incapable of acting on their own initiative. Americans still can be armed in mind, body, and attachment weapons. That’s the critical difference to Canada and Britain.
It is more like cognitive psychology. The belief that so long as you change your thinking, like say to a more multicultural thing, your feelings can get better.
Too many people grew up learning that the only way you get ahead is by sacrificing somebody else you don’t care about to the altar of socialism.
The Arabs when they imbibe free speech gets high on it and overdoses. They get really extreme with such speech and confuse “free” with “can say whatever you want to say”. Not the same thing. In the West, liberty has something called responsibility attached to it.
Then again, Europe stopped being part of the West since awhile ago.
Death tends to conclusively decide things all in all. Theo Van Gogh included. This is why people want to stop America from going to war. Cause they can kill us in peace time and we aren’t allowed to, and this is good for them and bad for us. Whereas in war, we can fight back.
All these loopholes in democracies are there because without those loopholes, it would be called an empire. We’re not even including the multicultural parasitic time bombs put in purposefully to blow up the system.
Neo-Nazis is not an issue to be dealt with by the 1st Amendment, it is dealt with by the 2nd Amendment. You got a problem, you crush it and them.
Of course the Left saw the Nazis before, they allowed it to go up. And we expect the Left to be wise now? They haven’t learned jack. They will screw it up just like they did before, if not more so.
Arabs may be broken, but so is the West. It wouldn’t be a problem if the Arabs were the only broken people around, you know. That war would be really short.
Only the strong can protect the “minority” or “weak”. The only reason Europe can’t tolerate neo-Nazis is because Europe knows that they can’t be trusted to decide upon the rational course in human history. Europe doesn’t have the strength to resist the temptation of evil. America does, though, and that’s why American can tolerate hate speech and not have it go nuclear. Same can’t be said for Europe or even Canada.
The British may get the will to fight back because they are getting shredded, but they will no longer have the resources and the logistics to actually do anything.
Looks like we are about to find out:
Al Qaeda Comes to Britain
http://ibloga.blogspot.com/2008/01/al-qaeda-comes-to-britain.html
LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s intelligence services are investigating an Islamist Web site that says it is establishing a branch of al Qaeda in Britain, BBC television reported on Tuesday.
According to the report, security experts fear a posting on the site, http://www.alekhlaas.net, declaring “the creation of the al Qaeda organization in Britain” may be genuine.
Erik:
“Not to blanket judge a religion, but what on Earth made Muslims this sensitive in the first place?”
Western appeasement.
“Very thoughtful and wise thoughts by Warren Kinsella”
No, they are ridiculous comments for anyone to make in a free society. As a poster above mentioned, it took a lot of time and effort by our forebears to rid secular society of blasphemy laws. Our forefathers bequeathed free speech to us for a reason – because it was a necessary part of running a free society. There is simply no cause to reinstate blasphemy laws (religious or secular) through the back door.
How stupid can one be not to see that one day the tools of censorship might very well (and most probably will) fall into the wrong hands? It’s very nearly a given, in fact. Why would you create and give an intellectual and moral imprimatur to a tool that can and will be used against you one day. What will you say then? Oh, that’s right, you won’t say anything for you will have handed over your free speech rights for 30 shekels of silver. I’m not a great believer in slippery slopes but this is one path that it would be foolish to start down.
“Not to blanket judge a religion, but what on Earth made Muslims this sensitive in the first place?”
“Western appeasement.”
Yes, but with a caveat: Western appeasement has taught Muslims that they can silence their critics by demanding “sensitivity” and “respect”, but these are very recent tactics. For the previous 1400 years Muslims have relied on openly-stated policies of intolerance for dissent, backed up by murder. So Islam deserves to be condemned for its barbaric traditions, and progressives deserve to be condemned for their embrace of barbarism.
“his view looks ok in the case of Neo raises here.”
Because it’s always wrong to criticize intolerant, medieval murderers.
I have been visiting this site a lot lately, so i thought it is a good idea to show my appreciation with a comment.
Thanks,
Jim Mirkalami