Listen to this nonchalant Establishment apologist:
Leo Adler, director of national affairs for the Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, agreed the federal human rights legislation could be improved, but he argued Canadians have chosen to adopt a European model of restricted free speech and not the more open American model.
Not me!
Asked to comment on Levant’s argument that the process in itself is the punishment given the costs needed to defend against a complaint, Adler replied, “We live our entire lives under ABCs – agencies, boards and commissions – that govern different aspect of our lives.”
Yeah, and screw that! You can practically see him shrugging his shoulders as he says this…
Lawsuits, police investigations and other legal matters might require an individual to incur costs by hiring a lawyer, he said.
Are you donating to your fellow Jew Ezra’s fund, Leo? Thought not…
He said that every genocide, including the Holocaust, started with words. “We don’t want words that have the potential for causing these catastrophes.”
Actually, it started with the confiscation of privately owned firearms — sound familiar, Torontonians? — but whatever.
Levant, however, dismissed that line of argument. Hitler, he said, gathered strength in the Weimar Republic, which had legislation against hate speech.
“What killed Jews in the Holocaust was not hate speech.” As well, he noted, the Shoah was preceded by the Nuremberg Laws and the removal of Jewish rights to property, self defence and even life itself.
“We’re foolish if we think that controlling speech will protect us from real violence,” he said.
