Ezra Levant — Free Speech Hero

Thursday, January 17th, 2008 12:09 pm by Neal

To understand the importance of the Constitution’s 1’st Amendment guarantees of free speech, one need only look at other Western countries — close American allies who share our spirit of freedom — where free speech is being openly assaulted by government. In Great Britain, libel laws are used to intimidate publishers into pulping books, even prompting the production of a movie on the topic — The Libel Tourist.

In Canada, the threat is more severe due to unelected, out-of-control “Human Rights Commissions” that are “investigating” author Mark Steyn and publisher Ezra Levant. In reality, the commissions allow any aggrieved group to file a complaint at no cost, and then intimidate accused writers and publishers into spending large sums of money defending themselves against the frivolous charges. Canada’s Human Rights Commissions are guilty of censorship through bureaucratic intimidation. Michelle Malkin has written about the Mark Steyn case here, here, and here. Scott at powerline describes the commission’s case against Ezra Levant:

Ezra Levant recently confronted the tutelary power of Canada’s administrative state in the person of one Shirlene McGovern of the Alberta Human Rights Commission. The former publisher of Canada’s Western Standard, Levant has been called before McGovern to answer the complaint of Islamists offended by the publication of the Danish Mohammed cartoons in the Standard. In his statement and testimony to the commission (here, here, here, and here), Levant shows the spirt (sic) of the free man resisting the tyranny of the administrative state.

Scott’s observation of Levant as a “free man resisting the tyranny of the administrative state” is dead-on. Ezra Levant is Canada’s free speech hero, and if Canadians are going to retain their rights it will be due to brave citizens like Levant who stand up to administrative tyrants like Shirlene McGovern and Canada’s fascists “Human Rights Commissions.” Watch this video where Levant schools McGovern and the Alberta Human Rights Commission on the details of free speech:

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