Friday, June 27, 2008

Score one for free speech

The Canadian Human Rights Commission has decided not to pursue Maclean's magazine for the excerpt of Mark Steyn's America Alone.

Not bad. We still have to wait for British Columbia's own thought police to rule on the matter, but that's one for human liberty; always a point gained.

Great statement from Maclean's on the matter can be found here. They sum up the inanity of the HRC's recent actions thus:


Though gratified by the decision, Maclean's continues to assert that no human rights commission, whether at the federal or provincial level, has the mandate or the expertise to monitor, inquire into, or assess the editorial decisions of the nation's media. And we continue to have grave concerns about a system of complaint and adjudication that allows a media outlet to be pursued in multiple jurisdictions on the same complaint, brought by the same complainants, subjecting it to costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars, to say nothing of the inconvenience.

Spot on. As Ezra Levant mentions in his own post on the subject, the ones who are most easily hurt are the ones without the resources to fight back - who can't spend the many thousands of dollars. Of course the accusers can since they're often taxpayer-funded.

Folks, free minds require free speech and free writing. It's that simple.

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