Wow, it appears that the thought police actually do exist.
I find this to be deeply troubling.
I am curious to see if anyone who may read this thinks that this could possibly be a positive development for any society.
Gadzooks!
Wavels



What a strange place Canada is


EZRA LEVANT
Special to Globe and Mail Update
January 21, 2008 at 12:32 AM EST

A few days ago, I was interrogated for 90 minutes by Shirlene McGovern, an officer of the government of Alberta. I have been accused of hurting people's feelings because, two years ago, I published the Danish cartoons of Mohammed in the Western Standard magazine.
Ms. McGovern's business card said she was a "Human Rights Officer." What a perfectly Orwellian title.
Early in her interrogation, she said "I always ask people … what was your intent and purpose of your article?"
It wasn't even a question about what we had published in the magazine. It was a question about my private thoughts. I asked her why my private feelings were of interest to the government. She said, very calmly, that they would be a factor taken into account by the government in determining whether or not I was guilty.
Officer McGovern said it as calmly as if I had asked her what time it was.
When she's doing government interrogations, she always asks people about their thoughts.
It was so banal, so routine. When she walked in, she seemed happy. With a smile, she reached out her hand to shake mine. I refused — to me, nothing could have been more incongruous. Would I warmly greet a police officer who arrested me as a suspect in a crime? Then why should I do so for a thought crime? This was not normal; I would not normalize it with the pleasantries of polite society.
This was not a high-school debating tournament where Human Rights Officer McGovern and I were equals, enjoying a shared interest in politics and publishing. I was there because I was compelled to be there by the government, and if I answered Officer McGovern's political questions unsatisfactorily, the government could fine me thousands of dollars and order me to publicly apologize for holding the wrong views.
I told her that the complaint process itself was a punishment. Even if I was eventually acquitted, I would still lose — hundreds of hours, and tens of thousands of dollars in legal bills. That's not an accident, that's one of the tools of these commissions. Every journalist in the country has been taught a lesson: Censor yourself now, or be put through a costly wringer. I said all this and then Officer McGovern replied, "You're entitled to your opinions, that's for sure."
But that's not for sure, is it? We're only entitled to our opinions now if they don't offend some very easily offended people.
One of the complainants against me is someone I would describe as a radical Muslim imam, Syed Soharwardy. He grew up in the madrassas of Pakistan and he lectures on the Saudi circuit. He advocates sharia law for all countries, including Canada. His website is rife with Islamic supremacism — offensive to many Canadian Jews, gentiles, women and gays. But his sensitivities — his Saudi-Pakistani values — have been offended by me.
And so now the secular government of Alberta is enforcing his fatwa against the cartoons.
It's the same for Mohamed Elmasry, the complainant against Maclean's magazine for publishing an excerpt from Mark Steyn's book, America Alone. Egyptian-born Elmasry has publicly said that any adult Jew in Israel is a legitimate target for a terrorist attack, a grossly offensive statement.
Both the Canadian and B.C. Human Rights Commissions are now hearing his complaints against Maclean's.
How did it come to be that rough and, I would say, bigoted men such as Mr. Soharwardy and Mr. Elmasry could, by simply claiming that their tender feelings were hurt, sic a government bureaucracy on a magazine, or anyone for that matter?
On this point, I agree with Mr. Soharwardy and Mr. Elmasry: I blame the Jews.
A generation ago, illiberal elements in the "official" Jewish community pressed Canadian governments to introduce laws limiting free speech. The targets of those laws were invariably poor, unorganized, harmless neo-Nazi cranks and conspiracy theorists such as Ernst Zundel and Jim Keegstra — nobodies who were turned into international celebrities when they were prosecuted for their thought crimes.
But now come Mr. Elmasry and Mr. Soharwardy and their ilk, using the very precedents set by the Canadian Jewish Congress.
Before Mr. Soharwardy went to the Alberta Human Rights Commission, he went to the Calgary Police Service and demanded that they arrest me. He's done that three times now, and they've rejected him every time. But he only had to ask the willing enforcers of the human rights commission once.
What a strange place Canada is in 2008, where the police care more about human rights than the human rights commissions do, where fundamentalist Muslims use hate-speech laws drafted by secular Jews, and where a government bureaucrat can interrogate a publisher for 90 minutes, and be shocked when he won't shake her hand in greeting.

Ezra Levant, an Alberta lawyer and author, was publisher of the now-defunct Western Standard magazine from 2004 to 2007.
globeandmail.com: What a strange place Canada is

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If you wind up with a boring, miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, your teacher, your priest or some guy on TV telling you how to do your shit, then YOU DESERVE IT.
~ Frank Zappa ~

Liberty means responsibility, that is why most men dread it.
~George Bernard Shaw~

Fuck the fucking Muslims, here is a link to the horseshit that insued at the grade school I went to from Preschool through 6th grade. Granted I was there in the late seventies but, give me a break nobody ever had a problem until now.
cbs2chicago.com - Video Library

Good article just goes to show how willing people are to placate muslims.

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"Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so too" - Evelyn Beatrice Hall

I must agree that is over the top. But now lets look at some of the good things about Canada. Medical marijuana is legal and the government even grows it for you. Health care is free to all citizens. Canada dsoesn't run around the world policing other countries, hence they are not on the "islamofascists" hit list. The Canadian Government actually cares about their people and tries to run the country as ours was supposed to run, by the people, for the people, of the people. Something we lost sight of long ago. We could take a few lessons from the Canadians.

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Life is good, the water is sweet. The ground keeps moving beneath my feet.

Med, Canada most certainly is, to some degree, on the “Islamofascists hit list.”
This thought police activity revealed in the story was initiated by these radical Muslims. Free speech rights are being squelched. This is pure insanity.
I disagree with most of you other comments as well, but this is best left to other threads, or we will veer way off topic!!!


Hi Chris, you are right regarding radical Muslims, they absolutely instigate boatloads of "Horseshit". I wish the so called moderate Muslims would speak out against this abominable behavior demonstrated by these radicals hi jacking the Muslim religion. I am sick of it!

__________________
If you wind up with a boring, miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, your teacher, your priest or some guy on TV telling you how to do your shit, then YOU DESERVE IT.
~ Frank Zappa ~

Liberty means responsibility, that is why most men dread it.
~George Bernard Shaw~

So you disagree that this government should be "by the people, for the people, of the people"? You then must certainly be for the the government being run by corporations, an olgarcic plutocratic fascist state, just like I've been calling it for years. Amazing how you can be so "libertarian" yet when it comes right down to it, you are nothing more than an oligarc, a fascist.

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Life is good, the water is sweet. The ground keeps moving beneath my feet.

Med try and stay on topic.
Like I said, save these issues for other threads...this is about THOUGHT and speech CENSORSHIP.
Also I implore you to make an effort to avoid name calling (if indeed this is remotely possible) It is a silly, juvenile tactic which undermines any valid point you are attempting to make. It is sooo unnecessary!

__________________
If you wind up with a boring, miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, your teacher, your priest or some guy on TV telling you how to do your shit, then YOU DESERVE IT.
~ Frank Zappa ~

Liberty means responsibility, that is why most men dread it.
~George Bernard Shaw~

And you thought I was calling you names, no, just calling it as I see it. If you project these Ideas, then this is the basis for those thoughts, and it is perfectly on the topic of a country's involvement in the thought processes of their citizens. Just call me a silly Juvenile then as that is not name calling now is it? The Valid point I was trying to make was, Yeah Canada may have some quirks, but as a government, they care much more for their citizens than do we. Hey if you think those questions were unfair, what do you think of waterboarding, That's in the same line of questioning. The US wants to know what those detainees are thinking, right.

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Life is good, the water is sweet. The ground keeps moving beneath my feet.

Wow, these questions are simply off topic. They are not unfair.
I referred to YOUR tactics, not YOU. Do you not see a difference?

The issue I am trying to explore here is the encroachment of FREE SPEECH and now stunningly, THOUGHT!
I find this to be one of the most troubling developments in western societies in my lifetime.

We need to stand up and at least attempt to preserve our ability to think as we wish and speak out accordingly.
I am truly shocked by the Canadian Government's complicity in assisting these Radical Muslim Lunatics!!

__________________
If you wind up with a boring, miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, your teacher, your priest or some guy on TV telling you how to do your shit, then YOU DESERVE IT.
~ Frank Zappa ~

Liberty means responsibility, that is why most men dread it.
~George Bernard Shaw~

Do you not see parallels in the US government? In fact worse infractions as in wire tapping, email intercepting, Internet probes. The suspension of Habias-corpus, detention camps, renditioning. Hey, the thought police are alive and well in Amerika. It's time to quit worrying about this minor infraction in Canada and start worrying about the shit in our own back yard.

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Life is good, the water is sweet. The ground keeps moving beneath my feet.

^^^^


Well the American thought police are not as bad YET!
I firmly believe that we are indeed heading in that direction though!
And I do not consider this to be a "minor infraction".
Look what has transpired with publication censorship currently underway in the UK as a result of Muslim initiated law suits!!!
This is a deeply disturbing trend that more Americans need to be made aware of.
Also, I have to believe that our Canadian friends need to stand up and put an end to this abridgement of their freedom of thought and corresponding speech

__________________
If you wind up with a boring, miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, your teacher, your priest or some guy on TV telling you how to do your shit, then YOU DESERVE IT.
~ Frank Zappa ~

Liberty means responsibility, that is why most men dread it.
~George Bernard Shaw~