Time Immortal

The left-wing Canadian Jewish Congress, the special-interest lobby group most responsible for criminalizing speech in Canada, is obviously feeling some political heat because of what they have wrought. Their figurehead co-presidents, Rabbi Reuven Bulka and Sylvain Abitbol, wrote a muddled column called “Some human rights complaints are frivolous”. That’s actually less mealy-mouthed than it sounds, given that the commissions have a 100% conviction rate for thought crime hearings. But what is the standard for acquittal that the CJC proposes?

“Human rights commissions must constantly recalibrate where the balance lies between free expression and its abridgement, but the determination of where to place the fulcrum must always be based on the statutory standard that such expression is �likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt.”

and

“the appropriate application of statutory criteria is our best defence against those who would eliminate the law to protect their interests, and against those who would use the law to promote a narrow political agenda.”

In other words, the concept of a “pre-crime” is still fine by them. No-one has to be exposed to hatred or contempt for someone to be found guilty. It just has to be “likely” that could happen. And hatred or contempt — emotional feelings — are enough. The CJC doesn’t even think that a discriminatory act is necessary for a conviction. They support the notion of thought crimes.

If the human rights commissions apply the standards in this fuzzy-headed op-ed, Mark Steyn and I will still be convicted.

What an embarrassment the CJC has become. Essentially they are pleading for Steyn and I as special cases. Is it because I’m a Jew and Steyn sounds like he might be, too? Is it because we’re being sued by Muslim fanatics? Or is it because the CJC is taking some political heat for their support of these illiberal, anti-intellectual commissions, and the CJC’s alliance with Richard Warman, the serial human rights complainant and foul-mouthed, anti-Black, misogynist bigot?

The CJC’s op-ed will be seen as nothing but more proof for anti-Semites and neo-Nazis who claim — with historical and statistical validity — that the hate speech provisions are a tool used mainly by secular, leftist Jews to punish their anti-Semitic critics. But now that those same precedents are being used against Jews and philo-Semites by Islamic fascists, the CJC wants to change the rules.

As disgusting a thing as Holocaust denial is, we began the slide down this slippery slope of censorship, and the attendant denial of the legitimate right to that every human being is theoretically entitled to, when we made it illegal to say that the Holocaust was just a hoax. And anyone who says that Levant is innocent, but then turns around and says that the likes of Ernst Zundel are guilty, is just a hypocrite.

Freedom of expressions means that even those opinions we personally consider distasteful have a right to be said aloud, or it means nothing at all.