"The issue of speech has hit me hard over the past few months. My legal career began with the issue – the first public interest case I ever worked on two decades ago was the prosecution of Alberta teacher Jim Keegstra, when I was privileged to work under John Laskin representing Congress. I was national legal counsel of CJC by the time the federal Human Rights Commission came to grip with Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel, and I was national president of CJC when we put our convictions to work supporting deportation proceedings against Rwandan broadcaster and genocide propagandist Leon Mugasera. I took seriously the admonition we often hear that the Holocaust began not with deeds but with words. "
....
"The complaints filed against Hasbara allege that the very image of the blue-and-white Israeli flag appearing on the group’s pamphlets is hateful and must be banned. The complaints filed against Maclean’s allege that the very discussion of radical Islam contained in that publication is hateful and must be banned. That anyone can take either complaint seriously shows how dangerous the suppression of speech in the name of anti-hate can be. It turns out, if we read our history correctly, that the Holocaust began not only with words, but with book burning. Once we go down the road of censorship for the sake of promoting tolerance, we may soon be standing at the heights of intolerance. "
Read the rest of Live and learn: confessions of a Jewish professor
Thursday, October 23, 2008
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18 comments:
But, of course, the Holocaust did NOT start with words! The Holocaust started with SUPPRESSION OF WORDS!!!
Never forget that pre-Hitler Germany HAD censorship of 'hate speech' much along the model of the CHRC - and that Hitler used this to make the Holocaust possible.
Never again!
We must not allow another holocaust to happen! And we MUST start by getting rid of the very laws oppressing free speech which made it possible.
The next time somebody says the 'Holocaust started with words', please, correct them. This is one lie that must not be left uncorrected.
Agreed Xanth but none the less this is a fine endorsement for free speech.
"Once we go down the road of censorship for the sake of promoting tolerance, we may soon be standing at the heights of intolerance"
Absolutely right, specially if censorship is only applied for the benefit of the most intolerant groups.
It is what we have argued all along, especially in light of how easily corrupted the HRC's are.
This is actually a very important change of heart. Thanks so much BCF for bringing this to our attention. It shows the cracks developing in the CJC-activist world and I'm glad that Ed Morgan had the honesty and humility to admit he was wrong.
The fact is that the neo-Nazis and White Supremacists were just too plain repugnant to be a rallying cause for regular Canadian folks. It was only a few visionary individuals like George Jonas and Ezra who predicted the troubles that hate speech laws would lead to. If the HRC's were only prosecuting some of the creepy-types (like were posting on your site while you were gone) nobody would care less about Section 13. These members of Club Zundel are so bitter - they don't get how seriously they turn off regular Canadians.
I agree with the overall sentiment - YES, it IS about time the blinders started falling off.
But let's not let the blinders stay half-way up!
It is precisely when people are beginning to wake up to the fact that protecting free speech IS the way to go that we MUST insist that they face the depth of their earlier denials and delusions.
Strike when the iron is hot, as they say....
Soooo "bad speech" is the unpoliticized version of PC "hate speach" and "good Speach" the unpoliticized version of "good speak".
Why don't we drop politics, and its demented partner "partisanism", entirerly from civil discourse...all there is are good ideas and bad ideas and the reason to devine one from another and the freedom to engage in the open unrestricted public discourse which will facilitate the process of sorting out fact from fallicy.
Let's just say that "good" and "bad" are relative terms to leftists and absolute moral constructs to rightists...it is however, the free exchange of thesis, counter thesis and antithesis in the market place of ideas which produces synthesis for relativists and livable compromise for moral objectivists.
State interference in this process not only retards national development but cultural evolution as well...we have to shed the nanny state to become a mature nation/culture.
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Well Morgan did not exactly come out with a rousing denuciation now did he? Seems to me he is more interested now that he is away from CJC to buddy up to his civil libertarian buddies. Remember he was President of CJC and he probably was very much the lead on this for years. This latest seeing of the light is probably the same as his other buddy Frank Dimant whose transformation was very shotlived
Mitka you may be correct. My issue with Frank Dimant remains with his belief that that both the law and the HRC's can be modified for the better. I do not believe that to be the case. The thought crime laws have given the HRC's a powerful tool of oppression, one they have shown themselves eager to use. The HRC's are simply too easily subverted by agenda driven activists and should never have been granted the power they currently wield.
At least Frank publicly recognized the insidious efforts of the Islamists.
So Ed Morgan (former head honcho of the CJC) has seen the error of censorship. Too bad the news hasn't filtered down to the B'nai Brith: http://bnaibrith.ca/article.php?id=1394
Thanks Scaramouche. What a stale crock of sh*t Warman is peddling, it's the same old crap the CHRC has been peddling all along.
Good for us, no one is buying it any longer.
I never understood your support of frank Dimant. Hell he is all over the place trying to make nice with free speechers by giving them crumbs and you folks lick it up. Morgan is just following the same route At least Farber at the CJC continues to have the courage of his convictions right or wrong.
See my latest post Muscoca, I believe the truce with B'Nai Brith is over. Oh well;)
The kindest thing to do with a rabid animal is put it out of its misery. This association of professional activist censors, have got to be fired. With this outlaw club of persecution towards Canadians disbanded. The fact they have committed illegal acts as well as targeting groups for political or Religious reasons, puts them beyond the pale of any reform.
The corruption alone with the attitudes of these Inquisitors ought to be enough to end this theater of the absurd.
Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings. ~Heinrich Heine, Almansor, 1823
I do believe Richard Warman is quoted as stating he'd like to burn David Ickes books in Macleans, very scary thought!
BCF can you provide the quote of Warman actually saying that please? Thanks
"Ronson, too, was struck by Warman's blindness to the bigger picture. "I remember we were sitting in a hotel room at one point and he was joking about getting Icke's books seized and incinerated," he says. "He joked about having me arrested for bringing one of Icke's books through customs. I mean, book-burning carries a lot of baggage, doesn't it?"
Here's the link below, but it is Ronson who states that Warman joked about incinerating Ickes books, so Warman is not in this instance directly quoted.
http://tinyurl.com/5vy7dk
Anonymito, that courageous defender of Free Speech, pipes up to show exactly what the problem is with those who think The Chosen People can do no wrong.
In an earlier comment section, I simply pointed out the facts. Facts that anonymito agrees with, given that s/he acknowledges these laws were used exclusively against " creepy-types" "nazi's", by Jews.
Sorry, not good enough. Not by a long shot. You either support Free Speech, or you don't. And you, ananymito, don't.
I'd be just as vocal if it was Catholics or Muslims that were the causation, the beneficiaries, adn the machinary that grindsf up Canadians rights. But it's not Catholics or Muslims. It's Jews. And for noticing that, I am deemed a "nazi" by Anonymito.
Sorry if that facts aren't too your liking. Perhaps you should have me charged with a crime for mentioning the Chosen People in an unflattering light, since this is obviously what really offends you.
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