Posted on 10/31/2009 2:17:37 AM PDT by Clive
MONTREAL — The federal anti-hate law that “official Jews” lobbied for and got passed has, 32 years later, backfired, sowing the seeds for political correctness, media chill and censorship that have undermined the values that define the Jewish People, says Alberta lawyer, author and activist Ezra Levant.
Levant, who is Jewish, made the assertion in an Oct. 21 talk to a small audience at Beth Israel Beth Aaron Congregation about his 900-day saga of being prosecuted by the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission for reprinting controversial Danish cartoons of the Muslim prophet Muhammad in his now defunct magazine, the Western Standard, in February 2006.
“It is what I call the ‘soft jihad,’” said Levant, describing the actions of Muslims who file complaints with human rights commissions against those they perceive to have aggrieved them. “I was a Jewish publisher of a Zionist newspaper charged for publishing the news.”
Levant has spent the last 3-1/2 years railing against human rights commissions, which he says have fostered a climate of censorship, media chill and political correctness that’s now being exploited by those he calls enemies of the West, Israel and the Jewish People.
“The Jews should have known better,” Levant said. “We know about the ‘hard jihad,’ but the ‘soft jihad’ is far more effective and clever – it says to find the weakness in the law.”
It’s ironic, Levant suggested, that organizations such as Canadian Jewish Congress helped create a law that has come back to haunt them.
Levant, a free-speech libertarian and former activist in the Reform party, said that the anti-hate law – which since it passed in 1977, has had a “100 per cent” conviction rate and was upheld in 1990 in a narrow decision by Canada’s Supreme Court – is very dangerous.
That’s because its “malleable and vague” wording allows authorities to charge anyone for actions, words or pictures that are “likely to expose a person to hatred and contempt.”
As well, he said, it laid the groundwork for the establishment of national and provincial human rights commissions, quasi-judicial bodies that can summon and charge anyone out of the blue after a complaint is filed, then mete out fines and ultimately muzzle them, without the accused having the automatic right to legal counsel.
“In Alberta, they can take things without a search warrant – warrantless search and seizure. And these are not real courts,” Levant said.
In Levant’s case, the printing of the cartoons in his magazine led Syed Soharwardy of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada to bring a complaint before the Alberta commission.
Initially, Soharwardy approached the police. He went to the commission only after the police told him that “they don’t arbitrate political or religious disputes.”
At the commission, however, Soharwardy found a far more sympathetic ear – in Levant’s view because he is Muslim.
Because of the pervasive climate of political correctness that infuses human rights commissions, Levant asserts, little heed is paid to Jewish or Christian complainants.
But Levant said he bore the full brunt of the Alberta commission’s quest to enforce its own statutes.
“Why am I upset?” he asked. “Because it’s what I call a subterranean, parallel legal system that offers no protection under the rule of law.”
Although Levant eventually won his well-publicized case in August 2008, he still faced a $100,000 legal bill.
His case also coincided with a similarly high-profile complaint filed by the Canadian Islamic Congress with the Canadian Human Rights Commission, as well as with the commissions in British Columbia and Ontario, against journalist Mark Steyn and Maclean’s magazine over book excerpts that were alleged to be anti-Muslim.
The cases were also eventually dropped or dismissed.
For Levant, all this points to the complete inanity of the original 1977 anti-hate speech law and the establishment of “kangaroo court” human rights commissions.
In his view, proud anti-Semites, such as John Ross Taylor and others who have been convicted under the 1977, law got way more attention than they otherwise would have if they had merely been allowed to vent their spleens to the marginal few who cared or bothered.
“They were all kooks and nutbars,” Levant said. “The government took kooky nobodies and turned them into glamorous victims, national celebrities,” he said.
Regarding Muslim groups that file complaints with human rights tribunals, “the Canadian Islamic Congress did far more to destroy western freedom than 9/11 did,” Levant said. “Nine/11 did not change how we live, but [the Canadian Islamic Congress] got editors to censor ourselves.”
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"“The Jews should have known better,” Levant said. “We know about the ‘hard jihad,’ but the ‘soft jihad’ is far more effective and clever – it says to find the weakness in the law.”
It’s ironic, Levant suggested, that organizations such as Canadian Jewish Congress helped create a law that has come back to haunt them."
ON THE INTERNET:
http://www.truthusa.com/MoreThanCartoons.html
http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/cartoonjihad/index
Not ironic at all. Very common historically that Jews petition for the consoidation of state power, which then circles around to harm them. Old as dirt.
First: Hate Laws
Then: Human Rights Commissions are set up to process the "hate crimes" complaints
Then: Commissions are given extraordinary powers
Then: Warrantless search and seizure
Then: Prosecution without counsel, conviction, fines or jail
Finally: Loss of freedom of speech, fear of search, seizure and arrest, fear that some neighbor will rat you out
The Muslims have filed hundreds of these cases under the "hate crimes" legislation in Canada with the above structure.
How can you speak out against an enemy if you know you will be subject to arrest or warrantless search and seizure?
Definition of irony: when the chickens come home to roost.
How’s that extra special government control regarding tolerance, liberties and freedom thing going, not so well I gather, oh you wanted your special civilities and congeniality, diversity, and multicultural kabuki theater, thinking your’ all exempt. It does not work that way when you give over freedom to political corruption or those that claim to have good intentions to protect everyone from the incidentals of life. And you thought that being nice would just get the other guy, and pass the savings on to you. Well guess what, there are only two types of people that tolerate or promote government control over freedom: the ignorant and “sneaks, cheats and liars.
Could I get you to reconsider your opening two lines to read:
Ok, here's how it goes, if our experience around the world (including Canada) is any indication..........
First: Hate Laws… currently in place
… and may be the title story title should actually read: Hate laws backfire on those thinking they are exempt
Mr. Levant might have even had this in mind!
We are far better armed than Canadians, not that anyone would shoot a complainant or special censor’s court member ~ certainly wouldn’t expect that. Frankly, if we get the right turn out in 2010 (presuming we win this Tuesday in fact), it’s possible we will be able to remove the Fascists from our own government and put an end to the idea that people should not be free to speak.
As Milton Friedman (an other Jew) would have said, "Oh! Those pesky 'unintended consequences'!"
As a group Jews are the smartest people in the world. It amazes me that they are often among the most foolish. That so many vote Democratic is proof of that.
Ok, here's how it goes, if our experience around the world (including Canada) is any indication..........
Sorry ntmxx, I only have experience on this from here in Canada; cannot speak for the rest of the world. But I do understand that the "Road to Serfdom" is like being pecked to death by tiny birds.
Actually, it’s a hard core failure of common sense.
I don’t agree with “hate laws” and believe them to be Orwellian Thought Policeish, contra Constitutional, idiotic, moronic, wrong, dumbass and stupid, but...
What’s going on on the islamo jihadiscum front is a complete and total breakdown of common sense, as indoctrinated by retard leftobots and their useful idiots.
Jews aren’t now, nor have they ever been, on a global campaign of conquest by the sword.
Islam delenda est. That’s the only way to put a stop to their bullcrap.
Yes, hate laws of any sort are dumbarse to the point of douchebaggery, but Islam’s ability to exploit em is ONLY due to the weak, sniveling, enemy loving, knee crawling, intellectually inbred retards of the self immolating cultural destructionists of the moronic left.
“…the “Road to Serfdom” is like being pecked to death by tiny birds.”
Thank you, wonderfully stated; both of your posts are well put together. The problem is those wanting, attempting and providing this path to establishing their utopia(s) must create an unnatural set of conditions for every little inconvenience; ending up with a kafkaesque reality and byzantine maze. This was titled Communism or Marxism at one time and currently “Political Correctness;” nothing correct about any of it. Think of these same individuals and politicians causing a 54 car pileup then acting like innocent bystanders, telling everyone what should have been done to avoid such. “The road to tyranny is always paved with those espousing good intentions.”
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
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As always, the Jews did it, the other 99% of the Canadian population being clueless, led around by their collective noses by Canadian Jews
The folks who handed back German Army deserters so they could be executed after WW2 was ended.
The folks who handed back German Army deserters so they could be executed after WW2 was ended.
Someone tell the backwards looking grievance mongers running the Jewish establishment with an iron fist
In the context of this issue that's absurd. Good grief, the author is whining about the Canadian Supreme Courts action a decade before a Jew sat there. It's typical blame the Jews nonsense, the 1% Jewish population in Canada haven't run the country the last three decades
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