Governments Undermine Democracy in the Name of Human Rights

Free speech hero Ezra Levant's new book illuminates a grave threat to Western liberties.

March 21, 2009 - by Kathy Shaidle
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Ezra Levant is the Evel Knievel of the Canadian Right.

Levant was the only individual in the Western world prosecuted for publishing the Danish Mohammed cartoons. His battle with Canada’s now-notorious Human Rights Commissions (HRC) cost him $100,000 in legal fees — and provincial taxpayers involuntarily coughed up another estimated half million bucks to fund his trial for “Islamophobia.“

“Using government lawyers and taxpayers’ money,“ he blogged at one point at EzraLevant.com, “they have been pursuing me, infringing on my natural rights of free speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion. According to Access to Information documents, there are 15 bureaucrats working on my file. I’m a major crime scene.“

Famously, Levant posted some of that “crime scene evidence” — his impassioned, defiant opening statement to the HRC tribunal — on YouTube. Over 600,000 views later, the energetic, eloquent 37-year-old became an international free speech superstar.

After three years, the case was dropped.

However, Levant is now juggling dozens of SLAPP suits and other legal irritations, brought by those determined to keep Canada’s $25-million-a-year Human Rights Commissions in business.

But those suits are like the absurdly metastasizing number of cars Evel Knievel was always going to jump next time and the bones he’d already broken (sometimes twice): for Ezra Levant, a born showman, trouble is something to boast about.

He is, quite simply, determined to shut down Canada’s kangaroo courts. Period. They’ve become Levant’s Snake River Canyon. Except, this time, it looks like the daredevil will make it to the other side.

Ezra Levant tells his story and lays out his plan for a free speech revolution in his new book Shakedown: How Our Government Is Undermining Democracy in the Name of Human Rights, which will be released on March 24.

(The book features a powerful foreword by Mark Steyn, who faced down the same Human Rights Commissions at the same time as Levant and became one of his most vocal supporters.)

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Kathy Shaidle blogs at Five Feet of Fury. Her new book about the Canadian Human Rights Commissions is The Tyranny of Nice: How Canada crushes freedom in the name of human rights — and why it matters to Americans, coauthored with Pete Vere.

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23 Comments

1. William Blake:

” “they have been pursuing me, infringing on my natural rights of free speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion.”

Very few people seem to be waking up to the fact that it’s happening to all of us… maybe slower for some then others. But it is happening!

Mar 21, 2009 - 4:53 am 2. Christopher Smith:

The left are loosing their Monopoly on the freedom of speech.

Mar 21, 2009 - 6:56 am 3. Roger Godby:

Heh. I guess my donation to Mr. Levant’s did pay off. Maybe one person can make a difference stopping PC totalitarians.

Mar 21, 2009 - 7:17 am 4. tanstaafl:

Everyone should watch Ezra Levant’s opening statement to the HRC interrogator. “…censorship was never envisioned at the role of the HRC…”

The interrogator folds her arms when Levant points out the obvious…

This commission is imposing Saudi values, not Canadian values

Mar 21, 2009 - 7:24 am 5. Will:

Very true wake up America!

Mar 21, 2009 - 8:33 am 6. Roark:

Earth to Kathy: Democracies undermine everyone’s rights, because democracy is nothing more than mob rule. It is ONLY a constitutional republic based on individual rights and laissez-faire capitalism that can ever truly defend freedom and liberty.

Mar 21, 2009 - 9:35 am 7. Marc Malone:

My only quibble is the term “muslim supremacist”. Talk about redundant!

Mar 21, 2009 - 10:05 am 8. Duane Phinney:

In the US, publishing houses will not print any books that are not approved by CAIR. Sad but true.

Mar 21, 2009 - 12:48 pm 9. Bob:

To tanstaafl and others: the woman listening to Levant’s opening statement? Very disinterested and non-attentive the whole thing, she’s letting Levant’s every word into her ear and out the other side. Not that she’s unconvinced or being neutral, her demeanor suggested that she is not interested in Levant’s struggle for free speech at all. She doesn’t care for him or his struggle.

Mar 21, 2009 - 4:09 pm 10. Kirly:

#8

I’m not convinced that CAIR would approve of Prophet of Doom or The Politically Incorrect Guide (PIG) to Islam.

Mar 21, 2009 - 4:36 pm 11. tanstaafl:

…her demeanor suggested that she is not interested in Levant’s struggle for free speech at all.

I agree with that, Bob. However, the woman seemed reactive (negative) throughout Levant’s statment. You could clearly read how she was taking it, without her uttering a word.

As noted above (and I’ve heard it before), some real losers serve on these commissions. I guess, like some American petty bureaucrat, it’s the closest they come to power.

I call it pissant power, but, be that as it may, it can be dangerous to one’s future or (as shown in the Levant instance) very expensive to defend yourself.

One “hate speech” investigator, Levant discovered, “was a former cop kicked off her police force for corruption. An Alberta HRC lawyer was a Muslim supremacist. A CHRC manager actually said that free speech was an ‘American’ idea, so he didn’t care about trampling on it. And HRCs everywhere are the political dumping grounds for extremist politicians who couldn’t cut it in real elections.“

Mar 21, 2009 - 4:40 pm 12. Frank:

6. Roark:

Thank you. Democracy is inherently bullshit. A lynching, for example, is a pure democracy. America is not a democracy, and that is why it remains free over countries like Canada and those of the EU, who have embraced democratic socialism with gusto (or at least as much gusto as a bunch of unprincipled, apathetic, hateful neosoviets can muster)

Mar 21, 2009 - 10:15 pm 13. Largs:

Free speech isn’t about just defending those who opinions you agree with. That is what the leftist either can’t or refuse to understand. Both Ezra and Kathy are on record supporting the right of free speech to someone who is suing them and calls them racists for their opinions.

Another very recent example is the outrage at the Canadian government by readers of the Toronto Star and Globe and Mail over the barring of entry of the left-wing nut job George Galloway. Of course the Tories are again compared to Hitler and are going to cancel free speech any day now. These same (ahem) deep thinkers thought that not allowing Geert Wilders the chance to spread his “hate” in Britain was just fine and dandy.

I gave up trying to understand the left a long time ago. I just point and laugh now, it bugs them even more than trying to argue with them.

Mar 22, 2009 - 6:59 am 14. Bob:

tanstaafl, petty bureaucrats are a big part of what goes wrong within democracy: too much powers in their hands while not caring a whit for people’s individual liberties and pandering to the worst sort of people absolutely detrimental to individual liberty and God-given rights. Far-right extremists like Hal Turner have extreme recommendations on how to do away crooked politicians, greedy business-people and traitorous petty bureaucrats. One has to be careful not to wade into a dangerous, uncharted area of following Turner’s methods while being outraged by problems that Levant had with CHRC or the Democrats’ totally screwed-up handling of the financial-economic crisis so far.

Mar 22, 2009 - 8:27 am 15. anotherBob:

FUBAR is the acronym I would apply to the whole HRC circus!

Mar 22, 2009 - 12:06 pm 16. tanstaafl:

Unfortunately, Bob, petty bureaucrats are like crabgrass. Pull some up and a whole new bunch will crowd in, pettier and bureaucratic-er than ever.

Our own US government is hugely weighted down by bureaucrats who live only to write memos and preserve their jobs, not necessarily in that order. I call it Jabba the Hutt government, although Jabba probably didn’t spend his days writing memos :)

Ignorant people (like many on the HRC’s) can only envision their tiny ideas of political correctness and imposing those notions on the rest of us.

Mar 22, 2009 - 2:31 pm 17. RobertG:

“The Politically Incorrect Guide (PIG) to Islam.”

That comment right there made bopping over to this article well worth it ;-) Thanks Kirly-The PIG Guild to Islam! Human Rights Commissions, HRCs, what ever we call them are indeed affronts to Liberty and one more step towards fascism. Yes I imagine the HRC board members THINK they are good people. I imagine Gestapo agents, SS camp guards and Stalin’s executioners all thought they were good people. Ed Gein of Cannibal fame thought he was a good person. But they are Fascist none the less.

Canada, as is Europe, is toast; I get to meet quite a few of them. They have a defeatist attitude toward State control that really bothers me. Close the damn border–let them keep their oil, electricity and whinny ways. We can do without Canadians.

Mar 22, 2009 - 3:26 pm 18. Revnant Dream:

Ezra adds, “I confess it: My Jewiness is like a forcefield!“

Great line .

Mar 22, 2009 - 5:42 pm 19. JHM:

Quoth Neopajama #12, “Democracy is inherently bullshit.”

Professional neocomrades like E. Levant and K. Schaider give every appearance of thinkin’ so too, though of course it would not be advisable for them to be entirely frank.

Once we wind our clock backwards to get rid of icky newfangled Democracy, the next question is whether (predemocratic) Liberalism was “inherently bullshit” as well. Opinions at Wingnut City and Hooverville and Rio Limbaugh begin to diverge at this juncture.

Naturally the Friends of Eddie Burke™ follow their guru and write off this, too, as only so much Rousseauvian _merde_ , shallow chatter of shallow Enlighteners and clueless Kantians. Equally naturally, the Confraternity of St. Adam Smith™ rather incline to regard Liberalism-sans-Democracy as the climax of Clio, even better than sliced baseball and night bread.

From outside the asylum grounds, it is striking that both these crews adore Nature despite not much agreement about what Her Ladyship is up to in the world.

Why, even Neocomrade E. Levant exhibits a sweet tooth for Nature, when he barks and bellows about certain fiends of Hyperborean bureaucracy who are (allegedly) “infringing on [his] NATURAL rights of free speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion”!

But possibly Canada is artificial through and through, unlike more normal countries, and especially unlike our own holy Homeland™?

Happy days.

Mar 23, 2009 - 4:13 am 20. Canuckistani:

I’m all for free speech especially the bigoted anti-Canadian sentiments. True, we are a bunch of evil neo-soviets. Fer sure dude! Roark? Rhymes with dork. Go Ezra! There are idiots on every side, unfortunately. But s’all good. As long as they don’t pick on the RoP and stick it to the peacable dominion, it’s cool. Will there be cartoons?

Mar 23, 2009 - 9:16 am 21. Steve in AZ:

We can not let this happen in America. This is what the leftists/socalists really want, total control.

Control of what we think, what we say, what we belive and what we do.

Going against the party line, will cost you. Right now its only costing you time and money…. soon it may be your life.

This is not freedom.

Mar 23, 2009 - 4:00 pm 22. wancow:

Gee, I just added to my list of heroes… George Washington, James Madison, Ezra Levant…

Mar 24, 2009 - 12:22 pm 23. Anonymous:

It all started with mandatory bike helmuts…and it’s been going downhill since then. Now helmuts on ski slopes, stand up comedians being edited….Macdonald employess not having to wash their hands…time us liberals become Tories. Long live Don Rickles. C’mon Canadian, can’t you get f*cking pissed off about something? Saudi Arabia and North Korea will be more free than Canada in 15 years. Wake up, and thanks Ezra.

Mar 24, 2009 - 7:25 pm