I have already written about the battle taking place here in Canada about the limiting of free speech.
The following two articles sum up the situation very well and they are both worth reading in their entirety. The first article by Joseph C. Ben-Ami offers a compelling historical perspective. Here’s an excerpt:
It’s a myth that Weimar Germany was a bastion of freedom and civil rights before being taken over by the Nazis. The Weimar Republic was no respecter of civil liberties and the rule of law – at least not consistently. Weimar “liberals†shut down newspapers when it suited them, they spied on political parties, they used plainclothes police or other surrogates to break up political meetings, they outlawed political parties – including the Nazis for a time, and they not only tolerated armed militias but in many instances encouraged their existence and activity while the judiciary turned a blind eye.
There is a lesson to be learned here, but it’s not the lesson that Yalden and his ideological compatriots are teaching. National Socialist Germany is not an example of what happens when hate is tolerated – it’s an example of what happens when hate is empowered. The uncomfortable fact is that the Nazis didn’t invent the apparatus of power or culture of repression in Germany, they merely took control of, and perfected, an apparatus and culture that had already been created and used by “liberals†to combat extremism.
The second article is from Ezra Levant’s blog and it deals with the concerns surrounding the libel lawsuit brought forward against a number of prominent conservative writers here in Canada by Richard Warman.
Here’s an excerpt:
Warman’s not just suing me. He’s suing some of the biggest names in the Canadian blogosphere – from Kate McMillan of Small Dead Animals to Kathy Shaidle of Five Feet of Fury (or, Five Feet of Furry, as the lawsuit says on page 2), to Free Dominion, the largest conservative chat site in Canada. Warman’s goal is breathtaking in its chutzpah: he wants to muzzle the Canadian conservative Internet. It’s not just his goal – it’s the goal of the CHRC itself, and its friends at the Canadian Jewish Congress, who have stated their goal is to “tame†the Internet – or at least those voices they disagree with. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if the CJC was bankrolling Warman’s lawsuit – they’ve done joint legal work together before, and Warman’s number one defender is on the CJC’s legal committee. The CJC hates conservatives, and this would be a way for them to do damage to the conservative blogosphere without taking the political flak for it.
Take a look at the language Warman’s lawsuit uses to smear Free Dominion. At paragraph 17, Warman calls them an “extreme right-wing discussion forumâ€. Look at that language – hardly distinguishable from the CHRC’s and CJC’s boilerplate insults reserved for neo-Nazis. That’s what this lawsuit is about: an attempt by the CHRC’s biggest star to try to marginalize Canadian conservatism. And why not? The CHRC has moved from targeting white supremacists to targeting mainstream conservatives like Mark Steyn; the Alberta HRC has already gagged Christian pastors and taken a run at Calgary’s bishop, and two years ago they charged me with publishing the Danish cartoons of Mohammed. Surely attempting to criminalize conservatism is just the next, natural step for these congenital censors.