scaramouche

...born with the gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad

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Irreverent, contrarian, delighted to be out of synch with the zeitgeist, I depend on my sense of humour (such as it is) to keep me sane in this wacky world.

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Friday, 08 August 2008

Winners and losers: On Reason magazine’s HIT & RUN blog, Jacob Sullum explains who really won when the Alberta Human Rights Commission dismissed the second ‘toon complaint against Ezra Levant:

…Yasmeen Nizam, a director of the Edmonton Council of Muslim Communities, which brought the complaint, told the National Post:

We thought this was a good way to bring our concerns to the attention of the public. Obviously we didn't want this to continue, so [another goal was] perhaps to discourage people from further maligning our prophet and our religion... We wanted this to have a deterrent effect.

Presumably the "this" she does not want to continue is speech that offends Muslims, and she may get her wish. Even without a hearing or a formal penalty, this sort of investigation, which costs the target time, effort, and money, is indeed apt to "have a deterrent effect." 

In Canada, as in Saudi Arabia, we don’t have freedom of speech; we have "freedom"  from speech. Under such a system, most people become used to censoring themselves, so they’ll never have to tangle with the state’s Torquemadas: Just knowing the censors are there is usually enough to make you hold your tongue.

Update: Syed Rahman of Edmonton, a gentleman whose name has become familiar to regular readers of the National Post's letters to the editor, lauds Canada's "freedom" from speech system (my bolds 'n' italics):

We are very fortunate to be living in a society that values freedom of speech. But thank God there are also laws that protect people and religions from being vilified by individuals or groups of people who let their actions be governed by the twisted state of their minds. To publish very distorted cartoons of Muhammad in the name of freedom of expression serves no other purpose than to hurt the feelings of Muslims and to incite them to retaliate.

Mr. Levant should be thankful that the complaint launched against him was dismissed. Rather than mending his ways by contributing to Canadian society, he now rants about how badly he's been treated and how unfair the system is, making him look more like a high school bully than a respectable journalist.

If he believes freedom of speech gives him the right to hurt, insult and demean anybody, he should also remember there is a system in place that prevents these things from happening.

Kind of impossible to forget such a thing, Syed, now that Mark Steyn and Ezra have awakened us to the awful truth about the unfair system--which is why so many people want these "loud mouths" to shut up.

Posted by: scaramouche at 09:47 | link | comments

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