What was your intent?

Run time: 04:46 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iMNM1tef7g   Posted on YouTube: January 12, 2008 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: January 13, 2008 By DU Member: slipslidingaway Views on DU: 487

 
Glen Greenwald posted the video with this article...

The Noxious Fruits of Hate Speech laws

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/01/13/hate_speech_laws/index.html

"I've written several times before about the oppressive, dangerous hate speech laws which are common -- increasingly so -- in both Canada and Europe, whereby the Government is empowered to punish as criminals citizens who express offensive or otherwise prohibited political views. But here is a visceral illustration of what these sorts of laws engender that ought to give great pause even to proponents of such laws.

Ezra Levant is a right-wing Canadian neoconservative who publishes Western Standard, a typical warmongering, pro-Likud journal -- a poor man's Weekly Standard for Canadian neocons. In February, 2006, he published the Danish Mohammed cartoons, which prompted an Islamic group's imam to file a complaint (.pdf) against Levant with the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission, charging Levant with "advocating hatemongering cartoons in the media," and the imam specifically accused Levant of "defaming me and my family because we follow and are related to Prophet Mohammed."

......Just like Bush followers who bizarrely think that the limitless presidential powers they're cheering on will only be wielded by political leaders they like, many hate speech law proponents convince themselves that such laws will only be used to punish speech they dislike. That is never how tyrannical government power works."

He only printed what had already been done, and discussed at great length.

AND, * just said TODAY, "You cannot expect people to believe in the promise of a better future when they are jailed for peacefully petitioning their government," Bush said. "And you cannot stand up a modern, confident nation when you do not allow people to voice their legitimate criticisms."

So there you go then.

if a Candian publisher had copied some of the anti-Israel cartoons and tirades from the Middle East- would this author also say that his rights were to be protected?

I don't think either the Danish cartoons nor the anti-Israel cartoons should be allowed to be re-published. Kindly remember that after WWII, it was illegal in Germany to publish Nazi propaganda. Don't recall anyone getting their knickers in a twist about that happening. To my mind, both sets of cartoons are on the same level of hate and intolerance.

question is who should censor? The people by speaking out and refusing to buy the publication or the government?

I agree with Greenwald, especially in today's climate.

"...Empowering the State to proscribe and punish speech is not only the most dangerous step a society can take -- though it is that -- it's also the most senseless. It never achieves its intended effect of suppressing or eliminating a particular view. If anything, it has the opposite effect, by driving it underground, thus preventing debate and exposure. Worse, it converts its advocates into martyrs --as one sees from the hero-worship now surrounding people like Levant and Steyn, who now become self-glorifying symbols of individual liberty rather than what they are: hateful purveyors of a bitter, destructive, authoritarian ideology..."