Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Ezra Levant: Still Hypocritical

My column was not a call for the laying of 'hate speech' charges, though it expressed my curiosity (and offered my own explanation) for why the government didn't lay those charges."

Except maybe for this bit:

Not charging the handful of Muslims who are haters is like not charging the handful of Italians who are part of the Mafia -- it is a misguided act of political correctness. The majority of Muslims -- we hope -- do not support Kathrada. He should be made an example of, not have excuses made for him. Justice calls for it.

And of course that bit in the column sub-title: "Hatemongering Muslims must be prosecuted."

That bit was kind of a give away.

Ezra goes onto say:

It was a public question about why someone who called for murder -- and seems to have got it from one congregant -- wasn't even charged with real crimes.

But of course Ezra seems quite ready to let Terry Tremaine off the hook. Now it's true Mr Tremaine's position was fairly nuanced, "mass murder if necessary, but not necessarily mass murder", one might say, because he was confident he could get all non-whites to leave the country or get sterilized voluntarily.

Looks like Israel was in shit, though: "We must turn that around and say, better that the Jews and Israel be destroyed than have the world destroyed."

By the way, it is not a case of supporting all legal restrictions on speech, or none. It is that Ezra is willing to countenance using certain legal avenues (defamation law and etc.) to silence legitimate differences of opinion, and not others (HRCs).

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm seeing fewer reasons to read this site every time I visit. Has it been taken over by a middle-school miscreant?

Anonymous said...

hmmm, looks like ti-guy hasnt had time to comment on this yet. I will try to sub for him.

All conservatives are stupid and they think they're smart but they're stupid cause I said so.

Why are conservatives so stupid? That really bugs me that conservatives are stupid.

Also, I wish conservatives would discuss the substance of issues rather than just paint liberals with the same brush and throw meaningless insults. That's really stupid.

Anonymous said...

Ezra pwned you.

Anonymous said...

BCL's standard:

if your not willing to tolerate incitement to violence, then you can't advocate for "free speech".

in other words,

no reasonable person can advocate free speech,

ergo,

one shouldn't advocate free speech.

One's things for sure: Goldberg's book on Liberal fascism hits the nail on the head. It's no wonder its up to number three (or is it two now?) on the New York Times bestseller list.

Ti-Guy said...

*ding ding ding*...Chuck gets the daily prize for the commenter who first makes the accusation of "liberal fascism" and supports it with reference to the stupidest book ever written.

bigcitylib said...

Looks like this one by Ti-Guy got killed by accident:

"...and that censorship simply forces poisonous rhetoric underground"

Ah. You're confusing limits on freedom of expression with censorship...which goes on a lot in Canada and the United States (where it is in fact very pernicious, since it's facilitated by very complex legalism), and which I firmly oppose.

I've heard all your other arguments before. I've been hearing them for decades and they have failed to persuade me.

A real bonus in this whole affair is that we're finding out just to what degree of libel/slander and bold-faced lying the various free speech warriors will go, and how generally hate-filled they are. I think that's very useful information for the Canadian polity.

Anonymous said...

Funny how liberals can spell the word hypocritical, but can't recognize it in themselves.

Reality Bites said...

I'm seeing fewer reasons to read this site every time I visit.

The thing is, being anonymous no one will notice when you leave. No one's going to be saying, "Gee, I sure miss all that insightful commentary from ol' anon, don't you?"

Of course no one would miss you if you posted under your real name and attached naked pictures either.

Ti-Guy said...

Looks like this one by Ti-Guy got killed by accident:

No...It was for the thread below, and it's appeared there.

Anonymous said...

Keep serving up that crow stuffed with facts, BCL, and Ezra and his anonymi will keep choking on it.

Matt said...

Ezra raises a good point. We have these hate laws on the books and these HRCs. What good do they do if we don't use them? Why do we even need them? They were only good for catching a few loser neo-nazis that nobody listened to anyways. Many warned the country about the precedents set and now we have to deal with it. This debate shouldn't even be happening.

Ti-Guy said...

Many warned the country about the precedents set and now we have to deal with it.

What exactly are *we* dealing with?

Anonymous said...

As one who proudly considers himself a member of a group who espouses our western liberal democratic ideals (with freedom of expression, thought, belief at its core),

I wish to thank ti-guy for clearly distancing himself from the "we" that is us.

Anonymous said...

To compare an Human Rights Inquisition, without due process, where you are asked about your "intentions" by an inquisitor, because somebody felt "offended" and that somebody felt his beliefs in a child molester Prophet has been parodied -- to compare this with 400 years of defamation law and due process, against those who would libel you personally -- well sir, you post-colonial leftist does not know what you are talking about.

To equate the two is just like moral equivalence by post-moderns where you equate the death squad leader Muqtada Sadr to Thomas Jefferson.

Ahmadi

Ti-Guy said...

As one who proudly considers himself a member of a group who espouses our western liberal democratic ideals (with freedom of expression, thought, belief at its core),

I wish to thank ti-guy for clearly distancing himself from the "we" that is us.


Every one of you little dopes really do have fantasies that you're all Voltaire's and Thomas Paine's, don't you?

The minute any of you gives me the impression you've actually read anything other than Atlas Shrugged, I'll start listening to what you have to say.

And "Ahmadi"...go fuck yourself. If you think any of this compares to the type of totalitarianism you've described and is a result of some indoctrination by Western education, you're either insane, an hysteric, or, more likely a fraud. No one with any real intellect at all would venture something as ignorant as this:

"I mean what do you semi-literate post-colonial leftists study in college? Do you even have a real job? Yeah, I know - gender studies or cultural studies. A waste of humanity."

You overshot, I'm afraid. Go back to Stormfront or The Western Standard and pick up a few more pointers on how to pretend to be a "liberal dissident."

Anonymous said...

heheh, now this blog has gone to censorship.
As of today, we need moderator's approval to comment.

Typical post-colonial lefto-fascist fear of debate. Ad hominem when it does not work, then moderate it.

You reactionary lefto-fascists are really running scared. Censorship is in your blood.

Ti-Guy said...

Wasn't it "Ahmadi" on another thread who threw around the accusation of post-colonial?

I swear, I have no idea what that means in this context.

Anonymous said...

Again, trying to label the dissident and pigeon holing them. If they are Muslim and they criticize terrorism, then they gotta be Mojaheddin Khalq.

You know what ti-guy? - why don't Massoud Rajavi (Moj's cult head figure) fornicate ti-guy, while an Arabian camel fornicates Massoud Rajavi and his wifey "president-elect" the idiot Mariam?

You illiterate post-colonial lefties just amaze me. You cannot even answer any of my points. Just one ad-hominem after another. Sorry for me to descend to your level. Should not happen again.

Another amazing thing about the post-colonial lefto-fascist is their one-dimensional simplistic minds. Everything for them is on a linear left-to-right axis.

This happens when you don't have a real job or you are on welfare, and you see the successful citizens of Canada zoom by a Mercedes Benz or an SUV. Hate and frustration and envy is so overwhelming that all of the complexity of the human condition is reduced to a linear left-to-right axis - lets grab that car away from him/her.

Well, it turns out that the left is totalitarian and anti-liberties and anti-democratic. But that is just tooooo complex for these simple minds.

Ahmadi

Anonymous said...

You haven't pointed out any hypocrisy. The only thing you've demonstrated is limited understanding.

Good job.

Ti-Guy said...

This happens when you don't have a real job or you are on welfare, and you see the successful citizens of Canada zoom by a Mercedes Benz or an SUV.

Heh. God, what a cartoon you are.

You also seem to really loathe the poor. Would you like to seem them rounded up in concentration camps and gassed or something?

I'm not poor, I'm not on welfare and I don't have a degree in cultural studies.

What do you do for a living anyway? Something criminal, or at least fraudulent, by the sound of it.