Ezra Levant is No Hero, Even if You Agree with Him

Update Below

I do not agree with Human Rights Commissions, Hate Crime laws or other such tribunals.

I think they are too easily misused to quash freedom and liberty and can be counter-productive to their stated claim. Like prohibiting anything, prohibiting or punishing certain speech or publication does not stop such speech, but drives it underground. I would rather have them out in the open, so I know who my enemies are. Any government power that can be used against "the bad guys" can easily be used against "the good guys" given the right circumstances.

And I don't trust the government.

So that means that I begrudgingly side with Ezra Levant on principle. He should have the right to publish or say anything he wants, so long as it does not cause harm to anyone else. He should not have to answer to anyone not directly involved, let alone a government commission, no matter how minor or seemingly friendly. If his words incite violence, or are untrue, he should be sued and impoverished. Those that oppose his bigoted views should take him on head on, with more speech, louder speech and ridicule him into oblivion. Boycott his work, his publications or any publication or media outlet that employs him. Hit him where it hurts, in his wallet.

Defending free speech requires more speech, not less.

Despite that, Levant is no hero for free speech. He is, in my opinion*, merely an opportunist, looking for any public platform to spout his anti-Muslim garbage. And the Alberta Human Rights And Citizenship Commission has given him such a platform.

Remember how all this came about. In the middle of Canada's conservative heartland, Alberta, Levant couldn't successfully run a conservative political magazine. In an effort to boost sales, he pulled the Mohammed cartoon stunt. The cartoons, which were easy to find on the internet, were long past being news until Levant whipped up the fury again. Even with that and nuzzling up to the government teat, Levant couldn't keep his magazine going, after some private businesses such as Chapters-Indigo chose to stop carrying his magazine, especially the issue in question.

In other words, it was a stunt to try to make Levant money. And it backfired.

But then Syed Soharwardy handed Levant a gift - he made a HRC complaint.

Now, Levant could have merely answered by sending a registered letter. He was not compelled to appear the other day, he chose to. He could have left it at that and it is very likely the AHRC would have dropped the complaint (as they do with most) because it has no merits.

But he didn't. Instead he video taped it, posted it on Youtube, all after inciting his martyrdom on his blog for days before the event. He is even begging for donations from his followers for something that has yet to cost him anything besides the time he chose to take. He is begging for donations for a case that is not likely to succeed and not likely to actually cost him money. He is promoting himself as a saviour of "free speech" but "call now with your donation, before its too late!" Benny Hinn would be proud.

In other words, it is a stunt to make Levant money.

Every conservative who is donating money and supporting this is doing nothing more than wasting their money and aiding anti-Muslim bigotry.

Of course, from my perspective, all of this was a predictable result of the very existence of the HRC. Indeed, such things were predicted in 1644 by John Milton in Areopagitica. One of the main thrusts of Milton's argument is that by persecuting free speech and freedom of the press, the state gives credibility and credence to positions that would not otherwise merit it. If the government is so worried that it needs to silence an opponent, then they must have something worth listening to. Likewise, he argued, persecutions give those being persecuted a state sanctioned platform for their views, thus causing them, again, to get more credibility than they deserve and to be spread farther then they otherwise would.

Certainly, that is the case here. Levant has used the HRC as a platform to attack Islam in general and Soharwardy in particular. Merely peruse the comments at his blog or at the Shotgun (neither of which will get a link from me - use Google if you must) to see the depths of anti-Muslim hatred he has stirred because of this. He is even getting support from some who would not associate with such opinions under normal circumstances. And of course, this failed Conservative politician and failed publisher is now in the centre of the spotlight again, his face on camera, spouting his nonsense.

Its like giving the madman on the corner a megaphone and a 3 piece suit instead of ignoring him.

Ezra Levant is a lot of things, but, in my opinion*, he is not a hero for free speech.

*Update:

It appears, if you read Mike Brock's comments in the comments section below, that I had not sufficiently clarified that thinking Ezra was an anti-Muslim bigot was my opinion (for the reasons I give in the comments, as well as those by Dr. Dawg) and not a "statement of fact". In an effort to avoid confusion for Mike and others that may read this, I have updated this post to make it clear that it is my opinion. After all, it seems Ezra, the king of free speech, is in a suing mood and I really want to keep my house.

Tragedy In Virginia

Well, that didn't take long did it? Mere hours after a tragedy, every opportunistic wanker, left, right and centre is jumping on the Virginia Tech shooting as proof positive that their own particular political idea is right.

For instance:

1. Dr. Phil seems to think violent video games are to blame.
2. The Gun Control crowd is screaming that the tragedy could have been averted if guns were banned
3. The Pro-Gun crowd is screaming that the tragedy could have been averted if guns were more plentiful.
4. Fox News is blaming anti-depressant drugs.

While I am loathe to link to some of the more sensational media on this, I think I need to, to make a point. And the point is this:

The shooter was a disturbed young man. He is to blame and no one or nothing else is. There may have been very little that could have been done in the immediate past or on the day of that could have prevented this.

It wasn't "video games" as Radley Balko points out:

"He's right, you know. Video games + psycho/sociopath _+ dose of rage = potential mass murderer. Here are some other recipes for potential mass murders:

Baseball card collecting + psycho/sociopath + dose of rage.

Furry fetish + psycho/sociopath + dose of rage.

Only eating orange foods + psycho/sociopath + dose of rage.

Napping + psycho/sociopath + dose of rage.

School shootings haven't increased since the onset of violent video games. They're as exceedingly rare as ever. In fact, juvenile violent crime has dropped over the last 15 years (though there was very slight blip upward last year), the period over which we've seen the rise of violent video games."[emphasis mine].

The shooter is an almost textbook example of the suicidal spree killer along the lines of Charles Whitman, Pierre Lebrun, and various postal workers as Prof. Elliot Leyton points out in his book "Hunting Humans".

This is a "school shooting" in so much as it happened to take place at a school. Given the shooter's pathology and seeming mental condition, it could easily have been a shopping mall or a place of employment. The setting is really irrelevant when dealing with a mentally unstable and violent person.

Would gun control have prevented it? Maybe, because the shooter may not have been able to get a gun. Of course, he may have resorted to other weapons, homemade explosives, knives or something else, in which case we would be referring to him as "the bomber" or "the attacker". Its seems likely he was going to kill himself and take people with him at any rate.

Would more armed students have prevented it? Maybe, as this has happened in the past, albeit under circumstances that would not be normal (one of the students was a police officer). Its just as likely that groups of scared, armed students flushed with adrenaline would have ended up shooting other scared, armed students flushed with adrenaline. Or innocent bystanders. Or themselves be shot by the first responding police. It could easily have been a much bigger tragedy.

Anti-depressants? There is no proof the shooter was even taking them. Just more of Fox News being fear mongering arseholes (what else is new).

In other words, mourn the terrible tragedy and try to learn what we can from it. Were there signs that could have led to an earlier intervention with the shooter, breaking him from his psychosis and getting treatment? Could Virginia Tech have handled their response differently to better protect students or reduce the number that were killed? These are the things that need to be learned from this.

Everything else - EVERYTHING else - is political opportunism and positioning and those that delve into this deserve not our attention, but our derision and disgust. They need to get the hell of their favourite hobby horses and concentrate on the real issues in this - how a young man's mental state deteriorated to the point that he wanted to kill and how the school's administration reacted to the tragic events when they occurred.

Everything else is self-serving bullshit. Ignore it.