Ezra Levant Fights Human Rights Complaint

you are correct of course, FM

Calling Fascist was probably an over reaction on my part.

It bothers me to see people on a progressive forum calling for others to be punished(or whatever)for expressing incorrect thoughts -either through word or pictures.

Even disgusting turds like Ezra Levant - (who wrote what I consider one of the worst articles I've ever read - on a school bus crash in Calgary - I won't link it)

It's only a small step away from what is happening in the war of terror - locking people who might commit a crime? they look bad and I've heard them say they don't like George Bush, we better lock them up forever so they can't do what they might have done.

It's all part and parcel of the same thing to me.

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Originally posted by oldgoat:
[b]Therefore, if can be shown to immediately incite that which would be harmful to an extent which is otherwise against the law, then I feel the law has to act, but I would set the bar pretty high.[/b]

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Hatred is not against the law. Do you disagree, then, that speech inciting it should be banned?

Words are my life. I live by them. And I am mystified by the cocksuredness of those who pooh-pooh laws against spreading hate speech when the ashes of millions of Jews are still swirling in the atmosphere. What will it take to make you realize the force of such words and the utter responsibility of those who wield them?

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It bothers me to see people on a progressive forum calling for others to be punished(or whatever)for expressing incorrect thoughts -either through word or pictures. -Ibelongtonoone

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There is a difference between being progressive and being libertarian.

Anyway, most often those who object to restrictions on free speech are also likely to object to regulating the free market. The common denominator is that there is a market (goods, services, ideas), there is competition and there are players of equal forces..

The same hogwash !

So it's not considered hate speech until it has a sizeable body count martin?

No need. So in this case you beleive Ezra is fine posting these cartoons due to lack of body count, correct?

The idea that supporting free speech means being against regulating the market is a leap that is only in yr mind.

We already had laws against slander, defamation of character and similar crimes.

I understand the Nazi example or the Rawanda example - and I understand the power of words to dehumanize people and turns them into - something that can be exterminated - cockroaches, vermin, animals basically and how dangerous that can be so please don't think I'm brushing that off - the problem is by making silly complaints such as - the publishing of cartoons which as Lewis Lapham said in the excerpt of his essay

"I thought the cartoons mildly amusing at best, in no way vicious or grotesque, well within the perimeter of what both Voltaire and Benjamin Franklin would have seen as fair use of ridicule in the service of political argument."

I any little offence taking is worthy of the court than no will take it seriously.

My neighbour made a fat joke in my presence and hurt my feelings - I want to file a complaint

You caught my point exactly Indiana, there is no line or no 'body count' that can be used to correlate this, it's far to grey and almost exclusively based on interpretation.

Oh by the way, thats my dog's name [img]biggrin.gif" border="0[/img]

Besides, these threads have nothing to do with 'free speech' and we would be missing the big picture to think it does. All these threads, from this one or the 'behead poem', to the Brit woman naming her class teddybear 'Muhammed' all find their roots in a culture clash (and often the resulting Islamophobia)... You don't have to search far to see the western numbers that line-up to post their comment on how crazy them muslims are after each of these stories, and in this they fulfill their purpose (with flying colours).

Cop out? What part, saying their can't be laws due to the extreme interpretation factor as to what is offensive // hate inspiring? Or in reference to the use of these threads and similiar ones as excuses for the 'west' to mass bash Islam?

Err, you know my posts are agreeing with your 'freedom of speech' line of thought... I've apparently copped out of agreeing with you?

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Originally posted by adam stratton:
[b]If I disagree with something, I do not condone it by defending it, being said or done. Period.
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I prefer the famous saying that "I disagree with what you say, but I will die to support your right to say it." Period.

I am biased on the issue as I am opposed to hate speech laws of any kind, but I am still surprised that some consider the "offensiveness" of a comment as reasonable ground to ban it. The principle of freedom of speech was to protect offensive speech. Inoffensive speech doesn't need protection.

Coming from a country where freedom of speech is severely restricted (Iran), I can tell you that "offensiveness" is main tool used there to restrict freedom of speech. Any criticism of the supreme leader (even implying that one of his policies may be wrong) is considered "Offensive to nation", punishable by up to 3 year in prison. Believe me, you wouldn't want to live in a country where offensiveness becomes the criteria to limit speech.

And this is what has happened in both Ezra and the UK poem's case. Both should be protected under the principle of freedom of speech, which is the main reason for progress in the west. Some bring up the example of "yelling fire in a theater", ignoring the fact that this was no yelling fire case. The Danish cartoons were criticizing and mocking Islam and Prophet Mohammad. As a muslim I may not like it, but From the point of law it should be no different than banning criticism of Jesus, Moses, The Indian sacred Cow, Brian Malroney or the prophet of the church of flying turtle.

[ 14 January 2008: Message edited by: sanizadeh ]

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Originally posted by martin dufresne:
[b]Count the bodies.[/b]

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The bodies of every regime that maintained power in part by suppressing freedom of speech?

That's a lot of bodies.

[ 14 January 2008: Message edited by: Proaxiom ]

I'm not entirely sure what this thread is about anymore, but I'll toss in my thoughts, for what they're worth.

Ezra published the cartoons because they were news. I have little doubt he was after the shock factor, as well. He claimed that he was not going to publish the cartoons until he saw that no one else in the country was going to publish them.

The difference I see in the Western Standard publishing the cartoons vs the beheading poem is that Ezra himself did not pen the cartoons. I do see a distinction between creation and publishing\disseminating. A fine line, perhaps.

An interesting anecdote from that Ezra incident. He said that one of the mag's subscribers cancelled because of the cartoons. The woman was a lesbian, lawyer, woman's rights activist. Ezra's response to her: "To the muslims I'm a hate criminal. To the muslims you are an abomination. And you're siding with them." Now, that's not a verbatim quote, but it's close.

Is the glass half full or half empty?

Love Mr. Levant or hate him. He makes very compelling arguments about free speech in Canada.

Are we Canadians given the right to speak freely or do we have the inalienable right to free speech that the state can partially or fully take away from us? Mr. Levant seems to argue the latter.

Does Mr. Levant have the inalienable right to critique a leader of a country, an imam, the Prophet Mohammad, and the fat lady who sings at the end of an opera? He says that he does because it is his natural right as a human being to do so. He does not need permission from the state to express his thoughts.

When I saw Mr. Levant's YouTube videos, I don't think he believes that he can say whatever he wants be it true, false, or some opinion. He believes that if we are not free to express ourselves it is because the state has taken away our freedom; the state has not given us freedom up to a point.

I will side with Mr. Levant on his thoughts on free speech. Do I believe that we are free to say anything we want? No. We cannot write anything that is libellous or say anything that is slanderous. We cannot publish in print, photos, or video persons under the age of 18 in juvenile court cases. Why? It is because the state took away that right from us.

Does Mr. Levant need to justify to a commission why he published the Danish cartoons? No, because it his inalienable right to freely publish what he wants.

I don't agree with Ezra Levant's ideology; however, I do agree with him on how he views free speech in Canada.

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Originally posted by Proaxiom:
[b]

The bodies of every regime that maintained power in part by suppressing freedom of speech?

That's a lot of bodies.
[/b]

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Mm, and I see you beat me to it. It maybe impossible to sort out which has killed more, state censorship or public incitement. They so often run together.

I agree with others arguing that free speech isn't an absolute (libel, harrassment, school rooms etc) above all others, but limits really should be as narrowly conscrued as possible. Alot of this I think has to do with the venue used as well. That's one meaningful difference I see between what Levant did publishing those cartoons and the women being charged for what's obviously her own thoughts. Levant is supposed to be running a newspaper which, like it or not, has some credibility as a somewhat objective perveyer of news and views and (had) a fairly wide circulation. The womens views OTOH looks like they were meant for her own personal expression, deranged as they might have been.

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Originally posted by Farmpunk:
[b]The difference I see in the Western Standard publishing the cartoons vs the beheading poem is that Ezra himself did not pen the cartoons. I do see a distinction between creation and publishing\disseminating. A fine line, perhaps.[/b]

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What's the significance of that difference? One should be banned/prosecuted, the other should not? Because there are other differences too. Levant is male and Malik is female - just one example.

ETA: What is this business about calling him "Ezra"? He's our buddy now, is he?

[ 15 January 2008: Message edited by: unionist ]

The link Pogge gave above brought me to this utube shot of Ezra [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFXJaEYyYjY&feature=related] here[/url]

One of his lines:
"It's not these cartoons that create hatred, it's radical muslims who blow things up"

I'd almost think he was using a 'Muslim radical blew up my synagogue, so I printed these cartoons' defence in here.

Gerry Wise comments on the utube video

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I was perhaps most offended as a fellow Jew whose community was invoked by Mr. Levant in a bizarre, rambling effort to rationalize his own questionable behaviour as harmless by reference to criminal vandalism against the Edmonton synagogue he claims as his own.

There are people out there who do awful things to our synagogues, Mr. Levant. Do I really need to say that this unfortunate reality does not grant us license or in any way immunize us from the consequences of our own hateful acts?

I do not know any Jewish-Canadians (except the one governed by Ezra's Law), who would even consider proposing such an offensive argument.

A synagogue attack by one Muslim does not justify hatred of all Muslims. It justifies criminal proceedings against the perpetrators.

Do what you must Mr. Levant, but do not purport to drag Canada's Jewish community with you into this.

We are a tolerant people, living in a tolerant country. And want to keep it that way.

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We've got the 'free speech' echoing in the thread... Does free speech cover intentionally provocative speech? Do motives matter (IE, printing these cartoons as an act of vengence because a 'muslim' attacked his synagogue)?

Unionist... Does Mister Shit's motives factor into this at all? If he did this to provoke muslims after a muslim attacked his synagogue, would that be different than if he printed them just cause he could?

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Originally posted by Noise:
[b]Unionist... Does Mister Shit's motives factor into this at all? If he did this to provoke muslims after a muslim attacked his synagogue, would that be different than if he printed them just cause he could?[/b]

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Good question. I don't think it makes one whit of difference whether his motive is to offend or provoke. For example, sometimes people on babble deliberately ridicule God or Christianity or religion, even in juvenile ways, and the motive on occasion may even be to provoke religious people to be offended or even to get angry. We can't ban such speech.

Of course, it depends what you mean by "provoke Muslims".

Let's say, in a court of law, we could prove that Mr. Shit's cartoon publication was made [b]in the full knowledge[/b] that some obscure terror cult would immediately react by burning down synagogues. Then I think he's as guilty of an offence as if he had shouted "FIRE!" in a crowded stadium. But I don't think that could be proven in a case like this one.

On the issue of motives - if Mr. Shit committed a separate standalone offence (assault, arson, whatever), and it could be proven that his motive had a racist or similar ground to it, then I fully agree with Canadian law (as I understand it) that that can be taken as an aggravating factor. But as long as the behaviour itself (i.e. publishing cartoons) is not unlawful, then merely having a racist or provocative "motive" cannot be enough to make the behaviour unlawful.

I'd express it better if I were a lawyer - these are obviously just my opinions.

[ 15 January 2008: Message edited by: unionist ]

Just read this in Salon by Glen Greenwald

Excellent article on this topic

[url=http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/01/13/hate_speech_laws/]The Noxious Fruits of Hate Speech laws[/url]

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Law Professor David Bernstein previously noted that Canada's hate speech laws have had unintended consequences, as such laws inevitably do:

Moreover, left-wing academics are beginning to learn firsthand what it's like to have their own censorship vehicles used against them. For example, University of British Columbia Prof. Sunera Thobani, a native of Tanzania, faced a hate-crimes investigation after she launched into a vicious diatribe against American foreign policy. Thobani, a Marxist feminist and multiculturalism activist, had remarked that Americans are "bloodthirsty, vengeful and calling for blood." The Canadian hate-crimes law was created to protect minority groups from hate speech. But in this case, it was invoked to protect Americans.
Just like Bush followers who bizarrely think that the limitless presidential powers they're cheering on will only be wielded by political leaders they like, many hate speech law proponents convince themselves that such laws will only be used to punish speech they dislike. That is never how tyrannical government power works.

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Agreed Unionist. I think the response that's been received here is pretty much what it should be... Public denouncing of the comments, but no legal action possible. Culture policing itself? There are grey areas concerning values that law cannot weigh in on and it's up to the people to condemn (or agree) instead of the law.

Not fully pleased with the full "western" response to any of this though (not anyone on this forum... Go read the comments on news sites and the sort)... The Islam website that posted the behead poem got somewhere in the range of 92% responses denouncing the poem (from 'sick' to the author needing mental help), while the western response seemed to be (from my observations of mass media websites and the comments there) around 50% denouncing the poems and about 50% denouncing Islam altogether. The poem in response to the beheading one listed [url=http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/3308] here [/url] in the Militantislammoniter is an extreme example. I find it strange that we can easily find the distinction between the individual and their religion on local matters, but try to hold all Islam responsible for an individuals actions (that was what I meant by that post Ibelong, it wasn't a snipe at any rabble posters, was going for the general reaction you can see on any comments section of our mainstream medias)

as well - many political leaders in Syria, Iran, Palestine used more offensive cartoons that were not even part of the original group published in Denmark to stir up extra anger.

The western press focused as usual on the screaming mobs , while giving minimal time to the more reasoned opinions made by some muslims on the cartoons.

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Originally posted by Indiana Jones:
[b]Did anyone see the Michael Coren Show last night? Cheri Dinovo, the NDP MPP and one of the more leftwing MPPs came out really strongly in favour of Ezra's right to publish them. I must say that I was very impressed with her.[/b]

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Good for her.

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Originally posted by Indiana Jones:
[b]I.e. nobody saw these cartoons and was inspired to go out and kill Muslims.[/b]

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You say that as if someone (anyone, anytime, anywhere) suggested the contrary. What might your point be?

Indiana Jones:

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nobody saw these cartoons and was inspired to go out and kill Muslims.

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We have planes and bombs to do that.

Canadian Bacon:

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I found two of them mildly amusing

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Maybe they are meant to elicit anger, not laffs.