The Ezra Show!

Just when you thought the internet was getting as boring as TV,

More Ezra!

(Boring Guy talks for about 3:16, so skip a bit)

Ezra explains it in small words

Uh, if all it took was a law to end hate, we would have passed the "Love Each Other Act" a long time ago.There is no magic spell like that. And laws, like section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, that seek to criminalize "hatred and contempt" actually breed more hatred and contempt, for they compound the feelings of grievance felt by those who are targeted by the law, because the implementation of the law is by necessity so politically biased...

I mean, if a government cared so little for real human rights -- right to life, right to self-defence, mobility rights, property rights, etc. -- why would it suddenly stop to care so deeply for fake human rights, like the right not to have your feelings hurt?

He didn't have an answer, and nor did the other dreamers in the crowd, who are clearly looking for some silver bullet to stop the anti-Semitic hate in the world. They didn't take kindly to being reminded that Weimar Germany had anti-hate speech laws...

Four thousand smackaroons!

I could use some of that.

I liked Kathy's idea that all the Canadian conservative bloggers file HRC complaints against each other, and then split the dough.

Health Canada scientist gets $4,000 for 'hurt feelings'
Don Butler , Canwest News Service

OTTAWA - The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal has awarded a former Health Canada scientist $4,000 for "hurt feelings" after a supervisor's comment that he liked visible minorities was deemed to be racist.

When he was introduced to staff, Lachance told his audience that he liked visible minorities. An offended Chopra complained that the comment was a "deeply insensitive racial remark toward visible minority employees of the bureau." The tribunal concurred, finding that Lachance's comment was "offensive to Dr. Chopra and, by any standard, racist, even if some people in attendance did not find it to be so."
...

The tribunal chastised Dr. Chopra for asserting that every manager at Health Canada practices system racial discrimination, and every appointment in the past 20 years has been discriminatory. It said such sweeping assertions, made "without a proper evidentiary basis," undermine Chopra's credibility and "have a negative impact on the promotion of human rights."

Heh. The CHRC has learned to spell "evidentiary". Bet they had to look it up in the library.

comment from BCF: "We don't believe you but here's 4 Grand. Ok I'm suing Canada at the CHRC"


update:

I've had a GREAT idea!

I think the HRC could make a lot of money if they put it on TV on Saturday afternoons as game show.

The HRC Show.

They could do it like those big American shows like the Price is Right and Family Feud I used to watch in the 70s. Lots of glitter and sparkles and the HRC commissioners could dress up in ruffle shirts and dinner jackets and black ties and go around kissing the female contestant complainants.

Every week you could get a set of four or five contestants complainants, and you get the complainee (or whatever you call the victims) to put on a black hood and sit on a chair in a spotlight. Then the conplainants would get to write down their complaints on a little card that the studio audience could see and the complainee has to guess what the charges are. The audience gets to shout out hints like "Homophobe!" and "racist bastard!" to help him out. The complestants get an extra $500 whenever the victim gets the answer wrong (or you can't make out what he's shouting through the hood).

And Shirlene McGovern could put on a ball gown and a big smile and turn around some illuminated blocks that say, "Hurt feelings for $5000.00"

Maybe the audience could get in on it too. We could buy tickets and once a week the audience could do a draw to see if a Christian will get publicly flogged that week for discrimination against sodomites.

It would be the most popular game show in the world!

Think of the syndication possibilities, I mean, I just found out that Big Brother is made in 70 countries. And they don't even flog people on that one.

Canada would be the envy of the world. Governments would look on it as a big cash cow and start putting their own HRCs together.

Better than lotteries.

Like lotteries with flogging and ruffled shirts.

It'd be great.

Get it right

I wish these American conservative bigots would get their facts straight:

Clifford May writes:

In Canada, "human rights commissions" attempt to enforce this taboo by putting such writers as Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant on trial for the "crime" of expressing opinions that offend Islamic grievance groups — and also for quoting Islamists accurately and thereby casting them in an unfavorable light. If that’s not Orwellian, what is?

No no NO!

It's not a trial for a crime; it's a human rights complaint. The HRCs do not prosecute crimes.

The difference is very important.

In criminal cases, courts are bound to observe things like rules of evidence and procedure, presumption of innocence, the right to confront accusers. In a criminal case the important thing are facts and the law.

If HRCs were bound by these things,

well...

the country would be governed by the rule of law.

Then who could we complain to about our feelings?

Sheesh

Sounds familiar.

Levant is a brash conservative provocateur in a nation of smug liberal wimps. He has been making enemies for almost all of his 36 years, and they'd savor [sic] his ruination.

Ezra is still fighting that Giant, and even though he has cut one head, there are 17 still coming.

Kathy's got a thing in the American Spectator about it.

Two years later, with violence breaking out worldwide over mediocre drawings of Mohammed, Levant chose to reprint them in his Western Standard, assuming his publication would be one among many to do so.

He turned out to be wrong about that. Levant wrote that he expected the fortnightly magazine to be behind the curve but "As we came closer to our production deadline, it dawned on us that no large-circulation publication and no TV station in the country had done so, and none would."

[...]

Canada's Human Rights Commissions (HRCs) were established in the 1970s to address case-by-case discrimination in housing and employment. However, they eventually began silencing citizens who questioned the new Trudeaupian vision of Canada: multicultural, pacifist and blindly tolerant -- of liberal views, that is.

If you stop by any of the links, do throw a couple of shillings into the tip jar if you can. It's paying for their defence, which, because Big Brother is watching, will also be ours.

Ezra Goes to Washington

Ezra told an audience of foreign affairs experts and human rights watchers in Washington: "Add Canada to your watch list of countries that abuse human rights like freedom of speech and freedom of religion".

Canadian human rights commissions, however, are not respectful of the sensitivities of all religions. Less politically correct faiths are regularly prosecuted by them. This May, an Alberta pastor named Stephen Boissoin was given a lifetime gag order, never to say anything critical of homosexuality – not in a church sermon, not even in private e-mails. As well, in what can only be called a Maoist verdict, he has been ordered to renounce his religious beliefs, and to publish a self-denunciation in the local newspaper.

This is Canada we’re talking about. Not Iran, not China, not Cuba.

How did this happen? How did Canadians lose their rights, on the one hand, to criticize radical Islam, and on the other hand, lose their rights to practice Christianity?

The answer is a combination of good intentions and bad intentions.

The good intentions came from do-gooders who, thirty or forty years ago, set up these human rights commissions with the noble ideal of promoting harmony amongst different religions and races. But those good intentions came with the power of the law to censor people who said rude, even racist things. So it became illegal in Canada to say anything that was regarded as hateful, even if it was non-violent.


We invented “thought crimes”.

The actual wording of the laws is to ban anything that is quote, “likely to expose a person to hatred or contempt”. Note the word “likely” – you don’t actually have to do anything wrong. You can be convicted for a “pre-crime”, something that hasn’t happened yet. And look at what’s illegal: causing emotions. Not real harm or damages. Just exposing someone to feelings. By the way, the truth of what you say is not a defence. And at the Maclean’s magazine trial last month, half a day was spent determining whether their jokes were funny. They even had a joke expert.

Don’t laugh – literally. Just three weeks ago, a comedian was ordered to stand trial for telling off-colour jokes in a night club. Warning to Chris Rock: don’t bother coming to Canada.

According to Alan Borovoy, of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, even a documentary about the Holocaust is against the law, since it could, possibly, cause people to have feelings of contempt for Germans.

At first, these thought crimes were targeted at people so odious, no-one spoke out in their defence. Neo-Nazis mainly – including an 80-year-old man named John Taylor who served 9 months in jail for having an anti-Semitic phone message.

We don’t like anti-Semitism or other bigotry; I certainly don’t. But instead of the traditional answer to offensive speech – more speech, better speech, truer speech – Canada took the easy way, and simply outlawed hurt feelings. Instead of doing the hard work of building a truly tolerant society, we thought we could wave a magic wand, and legislate bad feelings out of existence.

More

Wind him up and watch him go

I like how Michael keeps playing the Mohammed Elmasry clip over and over and over and ...

Freespeechiness Roundup

Have been letting the Canuckistan situation lapse:

* ~ * ~ *

Steynianism 138: On the Internet and its threats

As a welcome tool for the powers that be, old-media, and power-mongers, let’s face it: a free web is the enemy. Ordinary peasants like you and me with info, connections, Googling facts, and making blogs and websites on any possible topic? Troublesome. Uppity...God & Jesus & Christianity? Bad. Roman Christianity? Very bad. Internet? Bad. Free speech? Really bad. Peasant slavery? Good. Prison/ re-education camps? Good. Sponsoring terrorism? Good. Oil & Jihad? Good. Democratic freedoms? Very very bad.

* ~ * ~ *

From the Canadian Department of Justice: Truth and Fair Comment No Defence in Human Rights cases

The defences of truth and fair comment remain available to torts such as defamation and seditious libel, regardless of the medium in which they occur. However, none of the traditional media can avail themselves of these defences in cases of alleged hate propaganda, whether the communication appears in print, on television or on a website.

38. As the Federal Court has explained, defences that may be available in tort actions are not available in cases of hate propaganda because the prohibition is concerned with adverse effects, not with intent.

[traduc: it is a crime only if the person who is offended against feels offended.]

"I guess that's why the new totalitarians equate Oriana Fallaci a journalist who told the truth, with Ernst Zundel an anti-Semite who lied because truth does not matter."

* ~ * ~ *

You can now join a Facebook group at which some Canuckstani Infidels are raging against the dying of democracy:

Here's how the Canadian Human Right's Commission works (CHRC): If an individual feels offended by what somebody has written, they can go to the commission, lodge a complaint and the commission’s lawyers will investigate the case at taxpayers’ expense. Although the plaintiff pays nothing, the defendant must defend themselves with their own money, and if they are found guilty, they must pay fines out of their own pocket and can be subjected to lifetime bans on their ability to talk about certain issues.

An act as simple as posting the picture of Muhammad could be considered a hate crime, and in fact, there are people currently being forced to defend themselves in front of the commission for doing just that. In another case, a Maclean’s magazine article was investigated for hate crime violations after the President of the Canadian Islamic Congress found it offensive to Muslims.

* ~ * ~ *

Kathy:

On June 2, Mark Steyn will be convicted of "spreading true news."

What a difference twenty years makes. And we have liberal self-aggrandizing bathroom Nazi hunters and cowardly, careerist Conservative hacks to thank for this, not just arrogant, ignorant Muslim beligerents.

Those of you who've been placing your trust and hope in electoral party politics -- and not just on this issue -- are deluded. By all means continue to write letters and sign petitions, but bear in mind that they will mostly be either ignored or will not be able to change the minds of a sufficient number of time serving cowards.

However, you can always live as we've already won:

Write and draw what you will. Step out in faith. Don't ask for permission first or apologize later.

Change the culture -- the Law will catch up later. Or not. But we can't afford to wait.

You can always get another job. But you only have one conscience.

OK, now, go throw a little money towards the defense fund. Also, R.A.G.E. Media and others are setting up internet things that allow you to buy or receive some cool stuff that will contribute to the cause.

Well, now that the Big Kids are watching

I better get blogging then.

Just taking a quick glance at Steyn's thing on Mark Lemire and Mr. Warman. In truth, I've not really been following it all that closely. It's like the US presidential thing, I let Dale and Steve bore themselves into a coma over that. On the Iraq thing, David is the expert, so I don't have to do the work. Same with CHRC. What can I add that hasn't been said way funnier and better by others?

But something did pop into my mind when I read this:

Let's take it as read that Marc Lemire is guilty, if only because, if you're unfortunate enough to attract their attention, you're guilty: in the entire history of the CHRC, not a single defendant charged with a federal Section 13 "hate messages" crime has ever been acquitted.

It just reminded me of something.

Several years ago, I went through a phase of reading the Greeks. I ploughed through the Odyssey and then went systematically through the plays that dealt with the aftermath of the Trojan war, the pivot around which almost all Greek literature revolves. I remember quite distinctly coming away with the impression that the very worst thing that could happen to you is to be noticed by the horrible, fickle and perverse Greek gods. It never goes well.

If Apollo hates you, you're toast. If he falls in love with you, some other god will become jealous and...toast again. Even if no one else gets upset, and you happen to fancy the village blacksmith instead of the god...you guessed it...toast. Even if some other god comes along and tries to rescue you. Look what happened to poor old Daphne. A tree!? That's the best he could do?

The theme "You can't win" is the guiding principle in Greek thought, pagan fatalism. Once you are noticed by the gods, you're toast. It was the thing that finally put me off any sort of modern revival of paganism. It isn't all sipping absinthe and dancing around trees to Enya CDs.

The whole mindset is alien to me. Gods shouldn't do bad things and problems ought to be solvable. There ought not to be traps like these and I'm infuriated when people just shrug and say, "what can you do?" I'll tell you what you can bloody well do!

Take the case of Iphigenia, the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, sister to Orestes. Now there's a disaster that everyone always thinks was "fate". Inescapable. But the solution was perfectly obvious to me, a Christian and a white Westerner.

Agamemnon (who in this production was not played by Sean Connery) wants to go to war with Troy. This has Artemis quite annoyed because she heard Agamemnon, after shooting a deer, boasting about how he's a better hunter even than the gods, and she has raised a lot of storms and things to prevent the fleet from setting out. He asks his soothsayers what to do and they say, sacrifice Iphigenia to the goddess.

OK, right there, Agamemnon had a chance to do the right thing, but, being a pagan fatalist, he blew it.

So he kills his daughter, the storms drop and he sails happily off into legend. But the string of events leads to disaster after disaster. He comes home, Cassandra in tow, to be greeted ten years later by a still furious Clytemnestra who murders him and poor old Cassandra (who has, herself, annoyed Apollo, if I recall, who cursed her with the worst thing I can imagine as a blogger,) and triumphs over his blood in a most grisly and exciting way. Orestes, the good son, and also an idiot, hears this and decides that in order to avenge his father he must murder his mother... which he duly accomplishes, thus incurring the wrath of the furies who pursue him to his miserable end.

UGh.!

Who spotted the flaw in all this?

The one thing that could have been done right from the start that would have solved everything?

No?

It's obvious.

Kill the soothsayers.

Don't play along.

If you hear from the CHRC

don't play along.


The gods are thugs. The gods are fascists. Don't grant them the moral authority. Don't be a dhimmi.

There's no such thing as fate. Fate is pagan nonsense and it's another way in which the CHRC and all their little minions, friends and relations, are opposed to the stoic manly Christian virtues. They expect everyone to just shrug, say, "it's the will of the gods" and sacrifice Iphigenia.

DO NOT sacrifice Iphigenia.

Kill the effing soothsayers and go to war anyway.

I laughed so hard, the tea just came out my nose...

Someone is suing the Canadian conservative bloggers?

"Geezus... that's like shakin' up a bag of feral cats... and then sticking your face in to see how they're doin'."

Now go buy yourself a cool Ezra Levant T-Shirt. If you wear it somewhere like London or Singapore or Brussels, it will act like a secret handshake for bloggers-in-the-know. You might even make new friends.

The cool, in-the-know kind of friends. The kind you want.

CHRC Goons coming for Canadian Conservative Bloggers

Meanwhile, back at the end of the world...

Not like we didn't all see it coming, but here we are at last.

Warman is making quite a little name for himself. I guess that's what has him so mad. This kind of insect hates the direct light.

Ezra:

Today I was sued by Richard Warman, Canada’s most prolific – and profitable – user of section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act. As readers of this site know, Warman isn’t just a happy customer of section 13 and its 100% conviction rate, he’s a former CHRC employee, an investigator of section 13 thought crimes himself. In fact, he was often both a customer and an investigator at the same time.

The CHRC has moved from targeting white supremacists to targeting mainstream conservatives like Mark Steyn; the Alberta HRC has already gagged Christian pastors and taken a run at Calgary’s bishop, and two years ago they charged me with publishing the Danish cartoons of Mohammed. Surely attempting to criminalize conservatism is just the next, natural step for these congenital censors.

Kathy:

Richard Warman used to work for the notorious Human Rights Commission, which runs the "kangaroo courts" who’ve charged Mark Steyn with "flagrant Islamophobia."

Richard Warman has brought almost half these cases single-handledly, getting websites he doesn’t like shut down, and making tens of thousands of tax free dollars in "compensation" out of web site owners who can’t afford to fight back or don’t even realize they can.

The province of British Columbia had to pass a special law to stop Richard Warman from suing libraries because they carried books he didn't approve of.

Richard Warman also wants to ban international websites he doesn’t like from being seen by Canadians.

The folks named in his new law suit are the very bloggers who have been most outspoken in their criticism of Warman’s methods.

They need help. It is going to cost at least Cn. $30,000 each to defend against this attack. Click over to Kathy to donate. 'Cause you know, if it can be proved to work over there, sure as shootin' they're going to try it everywhere.

He might be a leftist poof, but he's our leftist poof.

Rick Mercer on meeting up Ezra Levant after a TV show about environmentalists:

"Ezra picked me up after the show for a beer. I walked out front; there was Ezra, leaning against his Hummer, smoking a cigar...and yes, the engine was running."

"...Ezra believes in freedom of speech, which is why I knew when half the world exploded because some newspaper in Denmark published cartoons of the prophet Mohammed, I knew Ezra was going to publish those cartoons so we could see what all the fuss was about. Yes, it would offend people, but I knew he'd do it anyway because that's what Ezra does. But hey, it's a free country. Well it used to be. Since then he's spent over a hundred thousand dollars defending his right to republish the cartoons...If we force the Ezras in this country to shut up, our freedom of speech could be next."

Lefties - Irony-challenged

"One of the strangest things about Richard Warman’s threatened lawsuit against me is his complaint that I dare to call him litigious and a censor. It’s strange because it’s so obviously a fair comment, based on the facts of his track record. But the really weird part is that he doesn’t see the irony in it. I mean, demanding that I censor my comment that he’s a censor? Or threatening that he’ll sue me because I say he sues a lot?

Not that strange, actually.

I've often noted that one of the things the southpaws and the Islams have in common is a total inability to grasp irony. Especially about the things they do themselves.

Has a lot to do with their lack of a sense of humour and utter inability to self-criticise,

which in turn, is, I am told, a common symptom of psychosis.

The evil and insane are not a cheerful or funny lot.

Shirlene Quits

"They're calling me nasty names on the internet!"

Yep.

A search for the keywords "Shirlene McGovern" comes up with

"Results 1 - 10 of about 4,430 for Shirlene McGovern. (0.29 seconds)"

Shirlene said that she had never been subject to such "public odium" before in her job of interrogating Canadian citizens on their political beliefs behind closed government doors.

I'm sure it has been very traumatic.

In addition, the indispensable Shire News tells us that a woman in Saudi Arabia will have her head cut off after having been found guilty of witchcraft.

"Witchcraft is considered an offence against Islam in Saudi Arabia. It's considered a n offence against common bloody sense where you and I live, but then, we've managed to put remote controlled vehicles on the surface of Mars and these guys still chop people's heads off for possessing supernatural powers. So I guess we'll just have to call it a draw."

Five Smooth Stones

No search warrant necessary.

Did I mention I'm glad I don't live there anymore?

"Shirlene McGovern, or any other human rights officer, can come into my office whenever she thinks it's reasonable, to 'examine' it. No search warrant necessary. She can even come into my home, if she gets a court order -- but such a court order can be applied for and granted without notice to me. That's the kind of ambush usually reserved for getting warrants to break in on crack houses.

"Again, without a warrant, she can take any documents I have, including on my computer.

"Oh, and section 24(1)(c) allows for such search and seize orders to be granted not just against me but anyone else who refuses to answer questions put by investigators like Shirlene McGovern.

"That's the power of these commissions -- before I'm even found 'guilty'.

Alberta Human Rights Act says: (and if that name doesn't make you fall down on the floor laughing...)

an investigator may do any or all of the following:

(a) subject to subsection (2), enter any place at any reasonable time and examine it;

(b) make inquiries orally or in writing of any person who has or may have information relevant to the subject‑matter of the investigation;

(c) demand the production for examination of records and documents, including electronic records and documents, that are or may be relevant to the subject‑matter of the investigation;

(d) on giving a receipt for them, remove any of the things referred to in clause (c) for the purpose of making copies of or extracts from them.

(2) An investigator may enter and examine a room or place actually used as a dwelling only if

(a) the owner or person in possession of it consents to the entry and examination, or

(b) the entry and examination is authorized by a judge under section 24.

Judge’s order

"Your Canadian Rights To Keep Your Opinion To Yourself."

HEARING DATE / TIME: ____1/11/08_11:00 AM_____

LOCATION: ____AHRCC Hearing Room 8B, Calgary_______

PRESIDING CLERK: ___Shirlene McGovern___

Says intention was to demonstrate he has right to publish whatever the hell he wants. Must check to see how this is classified in AHRCC intent classification guidelines. Now starts saying AHRCC/government has no right to question what is in his mind. Probable violation of AHRCC-0944(d) "How To Read Defendant Mind."

Defendant says some snippy remark about "irony of 'Human Rights' Commission." I tell him he is entitled to his opinion. He says "I wish that were a fact," all smart-alecky. I hand him AHRCC Pamphlet 7401, "Your Canadian Rights To Keep Your Opinion To Yourself."

I can't believe this is still going on, I'm late for lunch and defendant is toast, but keeps yapping. Starts asking a bunch of questions like "Who should determine what speech is reasonable?" "Who should determine what is offensive?" Umm, heh-looo Ezra -- what am I, a potted plant? I didn't spend 2 years getting my M.A. in Hate Speech Detection at McGill for this kind of treatment.

RECOMMENDED ACTION

Retraction and apology seems reasonable. May help him with anger issues. Split the difference on economic reward to $2250, one goat. 100 hours of mandatory Islamic counseling, after which beheading option will be reconsidered.

H/T to Kathy

Well, I feel cheery!

The sun's been out today for at least two hours and Shirlene McGovern is upset by all the publicity she's been getting over the interrogation of Ezra Levant.

Eeeeee!

GO EZRA! GO EZRA! GO EZRA!

My lawyer has received two upset calls from the Alberta Human Rights Commission. The first, from Shirlene McGovern herself, complained about the publicity she is receiving. I'm surprised at her reaction -- you'd think someone who regularly interrogates citizens about their private political views would be comfortable with the concept of public scrutiny. Imagine if she actually had to expose her private thoughts, not just her public actions as a government officer.

Some of this is really funny.

so I'll just give you the good bits:

8. 95% of all monsters surveyed reported that they are either “absolutely terrified” or “hysterically afraid” of Ezra Levant. Levant already ate the remaining 5%.

4. Ezra Levant got the gang from Scooby Doo to stop meddling. Singlehandedly.

3. Ezra Levant forced the band “Better Than Ezra” to change their name to “Alberta Human Rights Commission”: because no one is better than Ezra.

2. New studies show that Muslim suicide bombers aren’t sacrificing themselves for Allah, they’re just trying to escape the wrath of Ezra Levant.

1. If you ever find yourself being persecuted for your views by one of those politically correct government types, simply say “Ezra Levant” three times really fast. He will appear out of thin air and reduce the offender to a whimpering kitten in no time flat with his irresistible onslaught of crane-style verbal kung fu.

H/T to the Furious One

How to win

As the 90-minute interrogation proceeded, it became obvious to me that it would be morally inconsistent to end by asking for an acquittal, or any other "mercy" from the government. The logical conclusion of denying the legitimacy of the commission was to demand its worst. The point of civil disobedience is not to get off scot-free, but to willingly accept the punishments of an unjust system, to shame that system into reform.