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Ezra Levant has had a helluva week with his new book Shakedown, complete with foreword by yours truly. He seems to have roused both reviewers and the Canadian public. In today's Globe & Mail, Rex Murphy calls him "the No. 1 advocate for, and defender of, freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of thought in modern Canada". That's right. Mr Murphy continues;
Now, some people do not like Levant's style. They say he is too aggressive, too noisy and assertive, that he courts controversy and publicity. They should read Shakedown, and they will quickly realize that anyone less "aggressive" or "noisy" would have long ago been suffocated by the remorseless, inequitable, taxpayer-funded, bureaucratic grinding of Canada's human rights tribunals and commissions.
On the matter of his alleged taste for controversy and publicity, again, after reading Shakedown, they will realize that without his ability to withstand controversy and generate publicity, an insidious and largely unaccountable process of diminishing the central concepts of our democracy — freedom of speech, press and thought — would largely have gone unnoticed, and what is far worse, unchallenged...
Ezra Levant, for my taste, could be the love child (ideologically speaking) of Noam Chomsky and Ontario human-rights impresario Barbara Hall, but his indictment of the procedures, practices and ideology of Canada's human rights commissions, their Orwellian character, shameless amateurism and overweening reach is simply right. He has their number. He has experienced their practice. He has documented their absurdities and pettiness.
And he has — with courage and no little cost — stood up to them in a manner so straightforward and clear that he is positively un-Canadian. On this issue — Liberal, New Democrat, Conservative, Green — it should matter not. Were he to elope tomorrow with Jane Fonda, he would still be right, and I would still support him in this matter.
Amen. I like the headline on the Globe review, too: "The Right To Offend The Easily Offended." I wonder if there is not merely a right but an obligation to "offend the easily offended", especially when Trudeaupian social engineers erect a pseudo-legal system designed to encourage "the easily offended" to be easily offended as a full-time occupation - see Internet Nazi Richard Warman, Darren ("I'm not gay, I just play getting offended on their behalf") Lund, etc. The HRC system is a malign alliance between thought enforcers and the professionally offended. As Scaramouche notes:
The other thing that struck me about these rulings is how inconsiderate they are of anyone else. It’s as if the person making the complaint, no matter how outlandish it is, is the only one who counts, and the impact that satisfying his gripe is likely to have on others is given far less—if any—weight. Take the case of rape crisis centre, for example. Why should the desire of a mannish-looking (and not entirely stable) transsexual to become a rape crisis counsellor trump the needs of rape victims, who, in their vulnerable and emotional condition, need to be able to talk things over with someone who doesn’t, you know, freak them out? Why should his desire (because, let’s be clear, this was a desire and not a “right”) take precedence over their needs?
Andrew Potter of Maclean's is less sympathetic to Ezra's general worldview, but seems to have enjoyed his encounter with the great man. And what of the vox populi? Ezra recounts a sell-out book signing at Chapters in Ottawa. That's what matters. This has been a great launch week, with terrific reviews, but what's important is to spread the word at the grassroots level. Got a friend who's not up to speed on this issue? Buy him a copy of Shakedown.
As I think I've mentioned, there may be an event or two south of the border for Ezra's many American fans. In the meantime. don't forget, wherever you live on the planet, you can order Shakedown from the SteynOnline bookstore, where, in my capacity as Ezra's Deputy Hatemonger, I'll be happy to autograph the book to you or your loved one. Or hated one.
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