Ezra Levant, Free Man of the West
Thursday January 17, 2008
Ezra Levant, a journalist who published the controversial Mohammed cartoons, sticks it to Canadian thought police from the state's Human Rights Commission. This guy has stones. What a hero of free speech! As Shea puts it, quoting C.S. Lewis: "The...
Filed Under: Canadian Human Rights Commission, Ezra Levant
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About Crunchy Con
Rod Dreher is an editorial columnist for the Dallas Morning News, and author of "Crunchy Cons" (Crown Forum), a nonfiction book about conservatives, most of them religious, whose faith and political convictions sometimes put them at odds with mainstream conservatives. The views expressed in this blog are his own.
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Odd that you would quote C.S. Lewis. Ever read The Screwtape Letters? Pretty sure thats the one where he warns against the main of faith using politics to advance faith. Politics corrupts faith seemed to be the point. Been 20 years since i read that book so think Ill see if I can get it on the Kindle and reread it.
Steve
Amen to that, Mr. Levant, amen to that!
What's odd about quoting C.S. Lewis? In the case of Ezra Levant, a man being brought be fore the inquisitors of the AHRC, it is precisely because of a Saudi-trained religious fascist—who took offense to Mr. Levant's magazine publishing the Danish cartoons and then complained that publishing them was a violation of human rights—that Mr. Levant is even being brought before the state's thought police.
In other words, faith using politics to advance faith. Not so odd to quote C. S. Lewis.
Excellent. Fearless. Patriotic.
Some additional fronts in the war against free speech (and against the open criticism of Islam and Mohammad):
English blogger, “Lionheart,” facing arrest upon return to England for “stirring up racial hatred:”
http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2008/01/first-they-came-for-english-bloggers.html#readfurther
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Finnish Blogger, Tomashot, fined and ordered to shut down his blog . . . :*
http://tundratabloid.blogspot.com/2008/01/finnish-blogger-gets-fined-and-shut.html
Also, an Austrian lawmaker subject to investigation and possible jail time for saying “There is widespread child abuse by Muslim men,” and for calling Mohammad a “pedophile”:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/019553.php
*Btw, I’m not familiar with either of these bloggers, and it may well be that their views are unsavory and offensive to a great many people, but as far as I’m concerned, that’s beside the point. As Mr. Levant points out over the course of this interview (reflected in a later video clip, I think), if freedom of speech does not protect the expression of “offensive” ideas, it’s essentially meaningless.
a man being brought be fore the inquisitors of the AHRC...precisely because of a...religious fascist
Not quite.
He's being brought before the state because liberals are running Canada, and pushing PC down everyone's throats like they are wont to do. We all know who the real fascists are here. Heck, this could be the old USSR, just change the language and the clothes.
Be afraid. America already has hate crimes, where "thought crime" decides your punishment.
Stones the size of grapefruit I say. It does a heart good to see rabble rousing in it's purist form.
One has to wonder though, isn't some of those screaming about his being persecuted by the Islamists the very ones that had their multi-sexed kittens over the urine Christ a while back?
Congrats Harv! You win the Manning's Corollary prize for this thread.
Now, can you tell me the name of the Christians who had Andre Serrano hauled before a Kafkaesque Government Tribunal at great expense to himself in order to be instructed on how Right Thinking will be rewarded and Wrong Speech will be punished by the State?
I dunno; when I was a child I was taught by the good Sisters of St Joseph to be respectful of other religions.
It seems to me that this is a case of one kind of asshole arguing with another kind of asshole.
Harvey--Was Shea receiving public funding? I think you overlooking an essential difference.
Marginal:
It sure is. But in this case, one jerk triggered that apparatus of the state's thought police to come down like a pile of bricks on the other jerk. The principle of the right to freedom of speech allows for jerks to say jerk-like things . . . except of course in Canada where an extra-judicial human rights inquiry can be started if someone thinks you are being a jerk.
Shouldn't the state allow assholes to be assholes without calling them in front of an inquisitor inquiring their intent?
Would that it were merely a matter of what MAD magazine might cartoon as "A.H. vs. A.H.". The elemental category error involved in assigning moral equivalence between printed disrespect on the one hand, and prohibition of that disrespect at gunpoint on pain of loss of liberty on the other, should be plain even to the "marginally mystical". The first results at worst in hurt feelings, and most of us, I hope, salute those who, in feeling so aggrieved, use every faculty of speech, press, and assembly to counter it with more thoughtful and transcendent counterargument. The second issues in, first, a fine, then a prison term if the fine is resisted, and finally death by gunshot if the arrest warrant is resisted.
It would be harder to find in our time a line in the sand more revelatory of our deepest values as a civilisation, more inclined to separate the humane from the deluded. Those on the right side deserve all the peaceful support of which we are capable. Those on the wrong side are, at the end of the day, accomplice to murder and deserve exposure as such in the loudest terms possible, from Ketchikan to Keokuk - and back, a thousand times over, world without end, amen.
Don:
I think you meant "Serrano", not Shea. :)
One has to wonder though, isn't some of those screaming about his being persecuted by the Islamists the very ones that had their multi-sexed kittens over the urine Christ a while back?
Let's see. Christians complain about a piece of "art" that is funded at tax payer expense, is in poor taste, and isn't real respectful of Christianity. Muslims in Canada complain about a private magazine publishing a series of cartoons that have Mohammed in them, file a complaint with the KGB...ooops HRC...and have the editor hauled before a petty bureaucrat and eventually a kangaroo court. Yes, I can see how you would equate the two situations. I tell you what, put the Koran in urine and see how long you keep your head. On top of that, try to get the NEA to fund it.
It seems to me that this is a case of one kind...
MM, except one party is using the government to "win" the argument.
Oh. And the Austrian lawmaker I mentioned in my earlier comment?* You guessed it . . . :
http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2008/01/16/44271.html
"Such people should be killed, says mass email"
“Austria politician gets threats for anti-Islam rant”
“A far-right Austrian politician has received death threats from an Islamic group after she made several inflammatory remarks about Islam and Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), the interior ministry said Tuesday.
“The Global Islamic Media Front (GIMF) sent e-mails to several media outlets in which it called for the death of Susanne Winter . . . .
“GIMF was quoted as saying that Al-Rawi's "duty as a representative of Muslims should have been to declare the Islamic judgment on people like Susanne Winter, namely that such people should be killed". . . .
YouTube threat
“Meanwhile, APA news agency said GIMF had denied authorship of a YouTube video containing an unspecified threat against Austria and Winter, who is the far-right party's candidate for the upcoming municipal elections in the southern city of Graz.
“The video showed pictures of the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001, and warned: "Look, Susanne, something like this could happen to your country and you are responsible."
"It was a mistake for you to take on ... Allah's warriors," the video said in German. "We, the Muslims, are those warriors with whom you now have a problem."
“And it continued: "This video is not only for Susanne Winter but for all infidels who have no respect for Allah and for Islam. The day will come when you will be punished. . . . "
________
*If this one shows up first, you'll have to take my word for it - there IS an earlier comment . . .
Whatever happened to that old saying, "I may not agre with what you say but I'll defend to the death your right to say it"????
Mark, those Christians didn't haul the museum and the artist before a petty bureaucrat because there wasn't such an avenue open to them. However, if they had such an option they'd have used it, repeatedly and often.
I see little difference between abusing the political process to protect Muhammad and abusing the political process to protect Christianity's version of the origin of man.
I understand the Islamists threaten death to those who oppose them. That's their culture. The Christians are stuck in a secular world where all they can do is complain and talk about Hell being forever.
And Mark, would you really want to live in a world created by the Hucks of this world? One where our kids are taught religion as science? One where are foreign policy is based upon biblical perspective?
Aren't you glad us secularists are here to save ya'll from yourselves? Without us you'd be just as backwards as the Islamists.
Whatever happened to that old saying, "I may not agre with what you say but I'll defend to the death your right to say it"???? Posted by: thomps
That's only appropriate when discussing politics. We're talking faith here, pig goring one oh one, it's all about whose hog is being stuck.
"Mark, those Christians didn't haul the museum and the artist before a petty bureaucrat because there wasn't such an avenue open to them. However, if they had such an option they'd have used it, repeatedly and often."
Glad to have you over here from the Psychic Network, Harvey. Care to give me tomorrow's lottery numbers?
"I understand the Islamists threaten death to those who oppose them. That's their culture. The Christians are stuck in a secular world where all they can do is complain and talk about Hell being forever."
Hey, if Serrano or some other no-talent knucklehead wants to dip a cross in piss, or put elephant crap on a picture of the Blessed Virgin, or paint himself blue and writhe up the steps of St Paul's Cathedral with a tormented look on his face in protest against Catholicism's anti-homosexuality stance, that's fine. I just don't want it being done at taxpayer expense. That's what we Christians object to, Harvey. Unlike you liberals, we actually believe in a free marketplace of ideas.
Aren't you glad us secularists are here to save ya'll from yourselves? Without us you'd be just as backwards as the Islamists.
Wow, what arrogance and historic ignorance.
I understand the Islamists threaten death to those who oppose them. That's their culture. The Christians are stuck in a secular world where all they can do is complain and talk about Hell being forever.
Let's see the logic here. Muslims threaten death and use the power of Western governments to silence opposition and it's their culture. Christians get offended all of the time and just complain because the secularists keep them in line. So, why aren't the secularists keeping the Muslims in line? It could be because they really don't keep the Christians in line and they know that except for a nut here and there, there is no serious threat to their lives. On the other hand, Muslims have shown themselves quite willing to commit violence when their faith is offended.
How often do you go visit Muslim web sites and tell them that you think their religion is hogwash, Harvey? Why don't you show how tough you secularists are by going out somewhere very public and putting the Koran in a jar of urine? I think it's about time you secularists put the Muslim in their place, don't you? I would do it, but I've been cowed into submission by your awesome power.
Aren't you glad us secularists are here to save ya'll from yourselves?
Right. It's obvious Mr Levant is feeling the love from all those fine Canadian secularists.
Harvey, you're a cool dude, but you really are a walking Manning's Corollary (to Godwin's Law), which, for those who have forgotten, is defined as:
In any online conversation about an incident of violence perpetrated by adherents of Islamic fundamentalism, the conversation will inevitably devolve into claims that Christians commit the same type and degree of violent acts, regardless of how demonstrably false that is; further, the claim will be made that past historical violence involving Christians means that present-day Christians are morally incapable of denouncing current violence involving Muslims.
Except you actually take it further, by adding the clause "and that Christians would, if not restrained by law, carry out the same violent acts against non-Christians".
As a Canadian, I am particularly horrified by the threats to free speech in my country. It boggles the mind to see an apparatchik questioning a citizen about his thoughts and opinions.
Thank God for Ezra Levant's courage.
There are few things that give more pleasure in using the web than annoying foreign bureaucrats. Years ago a German offical wrote me demanding that I take down an article that annoyed them and I responded with one word--"Nuts!"
Never heard from him again.
CC:
Wish there were a way to buy you a virtual "cybeer": and would that I had had a like opportunity...
Makes me wish we could re-film Spartacus as "Cosimano" just so I could have the chance to stand up and yell, in the remake, "His name is my name too!"...er, well, maybe not those exact words, but as long as you have to die at the hands of Big Sister, it might as well be with your buddies, each with both middle fingers, middle toes - and honorary "twenty-first digit" on half of us - extended fully...
As much as one may like to see Ezra Levant winding up a mediocre bureaucrat (who "ummms" as eloquently as anyone!), he's sunk, I suspect. Mr. Smith goes to Washington may inspire our American cousins - here it just wrankles those who don't have the gumption or imagination to think freely.
One doesn't beat these courts, because there are really no legal rules to stand on. Mr. Levant's being condemned not for his intent (or, heaven forbid, for what he actually may have done) but for the intent his listener perceived. He's only the latest in a string of individuals (Mr. Scott Brockie, publisher, for one) who've been both humiliated and had their pockets picked in this fashion.
The one possible hope may lie in the fact that our mainline national magazine (Macleans) risks undergoing a similar kangaroo court process. Mr. Levant's eccentricities (Albertan, free thinker, conservative) won't weigh against that magazine. It's quite possibly as "right-thinking" as the rights tribunals themselves. Should be interesting.
Gordon L Belyea
Aren't you glad us secularists are here to save ya'll from yourselves?
One has to have IQ larger than his shoe size to understand arguments. Unfortunately the poster fails this test.
Harvey, you're a cool dude, but you really are a walking Manning's Corollary (to Godwin's Law), which, for those who have forgotten, is defined as:
In any online conversation about an incident of violence perpetrated by adherents of Islamic fundamentalism, the conversation will inevitably devolve into claims that Christians commit the same type and degree of violent acts, regardless of how demonstrably false that is; further, the claim will be made that past historical violence involving Christians means that present-day Christians are morally incapable of denouncing current violence involving Muslims.
Except you actually take it further, by adding the clause "and that Christians would, if not restrained by law, carry out the same violent acts against non-Christians". Posted by: Rod Dreher
I'm sure some of you much more adept at arguing and with a better grip on our language can explain the real meaning of Mannings Corollary better than I. The obvious is it's spin. Spin as in reframing a point to make it harmless in a discussion.
Comparing Islam of today and Christianity of yesterday is natural for many reasons. The most obvious of course is the five to six hundred years of maturity Christianity has on Islam. If we look at Christianity at the same age Islam is today we see the same behaviors of the faithfull.
Another point of comparison is of course the tenets of the faiths. They have more in common than they have in conflict.
The most important difference between Islam today and Christianity as known by this board is the ratio of secularism versus fundamentalism in the faith. Christians here are more secular than they are fundamental Christian.
That is interesting. The one component that makes their Christianity so real personally is the secular. It's the secular in their Christianity that gives it the credibility required for it to be real in their hearts. Without the secular Christianity is unacceptable as a faith.
Islam will follow Christianity's path, again, nature of the beast.
"Comparing Islam of today and Christianity of yesterday is natural for many reasons. The most obvious of course is the five to six hundred years of maturity Christianity has on Islam. If we look at Christianity at the same age Islam is today we see the same behaviors of the faithfull."
__________________________
Harvey Lacey - You see only the outward trappings, but you miss the defining reality. In order for western liberals to make the argument that Islam is like christianity 500 years ago, they have to flat out ignore the most essential characteristics and goals of islam. In reality, islam was never intended to be “merely” a religion. It was always a form of government - a political entity wielding temporal power to enforce the laws of Allah across every corner of the planet. 1400 years of history and probably ten thousand civil wars bear witness to this. Islam has an internal imperative that’s so deeply rooted it doesn’t even need to be overtly understood to be carried forward. That imperative always finds expression as soon as muslims have the political and demographic presence to awaken it. It cannot go unexpressed, even if significant numbers of muslims object to it (and honestly, I think many a moderate muslim has been surprised by the brutality and consistency of it . . .). A hindu peasant in Pakistan knows EXACTLY what the internal imperative of islam is; the Copts in Egypt understand; the animists and christians in Darfur, the Buddhists in S. Thailand, they all understand. Every non-muslim in ever muslim majority country understands the internal imperative of islam: the submission of non-muslims to islamic law and the enforcement of shariah based rules of dhimma which confine and circumscribe the religious speech and expression of non-muslims - with the ultimate goal being the destruction of those non-muslim communities through attrition and oppression . . .
It’s a bit like developing sea legs, Harvey. Immerse yourself in islam; join the islamic forums for a year or so, talk to the apostates and follow the news internally in these countries. After a while, you'll be able to see things "islamically," too. Your equivalencies will not survive the experience - I guarantee it.
This is why absolute free speech is the second most important thing in a republic. (After habeas corpus.)
It is for exactly that reason I oppose the concept of 'hate crimes' as implemented. I think we should treat such crimes as what they are...not only the actual crime but a threat made against other people like that, which obviously would carry an additional penalty.
It is, however, worth pointing out that free speech in this country is, historically, more restricted by the right than the left (The HUAC being the biggest recent one.), and more restricted by the whims of the majority than the whims of a minority.
Lynn, you're wasting your breath on Harvey. He sees religion in general as evil. Therefore all religions are the same. Of course if one wants to compare the development of Christianity and Islam, they don't even start out the same. Christ starts with three years of ministry, death and resurrection, and then it was a series of persecutions for about 300 years. Christianity wasn't even associated with the government for that time. The Romans considered it a weak, female type cult. And martyrs died in the arena, on crosses, etc. and not on the battlefield. Let's see how Islam started out. We have Mohammed receiving the word of Allah from Gabriel. Initially these sayings were peaceful until Mohammed became such a nuisance that he was kicked out of Mecca and went to Medina. In Medina the sayings become much more violent and Mohammed starts raiding caravans to support him and his followers. Eventually he becomes powerful enough the he takes over Medina and Mecca. From there it's one jihad after another to spread Islam. It's obvious to me that you can consider both religions to be on the same path and therefore extrapolate where they are based in time.
The Crusades didn't start until Islam had taken over 2/3 of formerly Christian lands and Muslims were attacking pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem.
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