More Kinsella Hypocrisy

It's hard to believe that Warren Kinsella's blind hypocrisy could get any worse, but it has. After Ezra Levant wrote a piece decrying the use of kangaroo courts, also known as Human Rights Tribunals, Warren waded in with this personal attack on Ezra. Warren is purposely obtuse in attacking Levant for using THE COURTS to attempt to settle disputes when any moron (and I can only assume Warren isn't a moron) can see that Ezra specifically refers to the much higher level of evidence necessary to prevail in court, as well as the personal financial burden on the claimant, in comparison to using HRCs to stifle free speech. He makes it clear that the courts are the place to seek remedy for libel or defamation, even hate speech. What Levant says is that it is utterly inappropriate to use HRCs to censor speech, that HRCs were never intended for that use, and that the much lower threshold of evidence coupled with the activist bent and lack of qualifications of tribunal members makes them a danger to free speech.

Kinsella takes great pride in taking on the neo-Nazi movement and I strongly agree that Nazi ideology is utterly repugnant. Where Kinsella and I (and I might add most of the great thinkers of history) disagree is in how to combat noxious thoughts and speech. Kinsella seems to think that outlawing nasty thoughts is the way to go and lauds Richard Warman for using HRCs to prosecute neo-Nazis. That position is dangerous, much more dangerous than some pathetic skinhead. The very idea that we can somehow deny free speech to one group because we vehemently disagree with them strongly implies that we can do the same to others. At what point will my thoughts be censored? Or yours? Or even Kinsella's? Should I really trust Warren Kinsella, or some unqualified HRC member, or even the courts to draw the line as to what speech is acceptable? Absolutely not! Society must draw that line not through censorship but by engaging ideas we find repugnant, repudiating them, ridiculing them, and marginalizing them with better arguments. On this, I will stand with these great minds:

"Our whole constitutional heritage rebels at the thought of giving government the power to control men's minds." -Thurgood Marshall

"If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter." -George Washington

"Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties." -John Milton

"You have not converted a man because you have silenced him." -John Morley

"To hear one voice clearly, we must have freedom to hear them all." -Kerry Brock

"The first principle of a free society is an untrammeled flow of words in an open forum." -Adlai E. Stevenson

"We are willing enough to praise freedom when she is safely tucked away in the past and cannot be a nuisance. In the present, amidst dangers whose outcome we cannot foresee, we get nervous about her, and admit censorship." -Edward M. Forster

"I am opposed to any form of tyranny over the mind of man." -Thomas Jefferson