Ezra Levant, Ann Coulter and the Humorless Left Dave Gordon - Friday, 9 April, 2010 (4176 views, Comment on this article)

You may know of Ezra Levant - Calgary-based author, editorial writer, blogger, and most famously, the recipient of several ‘hate speech’ lawsuits beginning with his publishing of the Danish Mohammed cartoons four years ago.

The Human Rights Commissions are his favourite target of derision. His biting commentary, his trademark. So-called “hate speech” is a canard and free speech is his what he champions. In late March for a series of campus presentations, he paired up with American satirist and columnist Ann Coulter, whose presence kicked up a storm of media attention and controversy during her visits to London, Ontario and the University of Ottawa, the latter which was cancelled due to protestors’ security issues.

In this interview, Mr. Levant sheds a little light on the kerfuffle and discusses his newest book on “Ethical Oil”, due out in a few months.

 DG: Last year- almost to the day of the Coulter speech - Bill Ayers, of the terror group Weather Underground, was to speak at Boston U. Enough people protested to have the university warn that his - and students’ - security could not be guaranteed. Sounds like deja vu, and yet the media went haywire only with Coulter. Predictable?

 EL: It’s pretty pathetic when campus security -- and, worse, real police --  throw their hands up in the air and say they can’t guarantee order. It’s a reminder that police and security guards are unionized bureaucrats with guns, to quote Kathy Shaidle. Most of them still have common sense, at least the rank and file. But the further up the chain of command, the more politically correct they become -- and it’s all much worse on university campuses.

The media reaction to Ann Coulter was hysterical. I think it showed a brittleness in our approach to freedom of speech in Canada -- at least in the face of conservative opinion. We -- the media, the police, campuses --  seem to tolerate radical and offensive speech all the time from the left. The week-long anti-Semitic festival called Israel Apartheid Week is proof of that -- never shut down by police, campus bosses, etc. Canadian polite opinion isn’t against offensive or hateful speech. It’s against conservative speech, which is deemed hateful.

 DG:  Your new book - what’s it about, why did you decide to write it?

 EL: It’s called Ethical Oil: The case for Canada’s oilsands. It asks a three-word question whenever anyone says they want to shut down the oilsands: “and then what?” As in, the world will buy oil, whether it’s from us or someone else. In terms of the top ten countries with oil reserves, Canada is the only liberal democracy (with newly liberated Iraq on the list, too). So is buying oil from Saudi Arabia really morally superior to the oilsands? Saudi Arabia is an Islamic fascist kingdom where women are treated as property and where the government finances terrorists. Iran is building a nuclear bomb. Venezuela is crushing civil liberties. Sudan has murdered 300,000 of its own citizens in Darfur. Nigeria is a toxic dump where oil profits are embezzled. You get the picture: if we shut down the oilsands, what’s the moral alternative?

 DG: MPP Peter Shurman denounced Israeli Apartheid Week, saying, among other things, that the name itself of the conference was “nearly hate speech.” Agree?

 EL: Hate speech to me is a strange phrase that I’m supposed to be scared of, but I’m not. Hate is a natural human emotion. I know what speech is. So hate speech means speech that is coloured by hate. So what? Is having certain feelings, and expressing them, against the law? I’d object if someone was uttering a death threat (whether out of hate or not). But it’s not the expression I’m concerned about there -- it’s the incitement to violence, which is a real crime, not a hurt-feelings-crime.

So I’m sure that much of Israel Apartheid Week is hate speech. But so what? So debate it, rebut it, etc. Don’t prosecute it.

 DG: Any sense to condemning such things politically, and any sense to calling any of it ‘hate speech’ - even if there is, in fact, hateful preaching?

 EL: Of course. That’s the proper response: debate, rebut, condemn, marginalize, refute. Or ignore, if you prefer. But don’t prosecute.

 DG: Was Ann Coulter serious about using HRC to slap Mr. A Houle? What do you make of this move?

 EL: We’ve seen what happens when conservatives or Christians file human rights complaints in Canada: they are thrown out by the politicized staff of HRCs. In 33 years of existence, for example, the “hate speech” provisions of the Canadian Human Rights Act have never been prosecuted against a non-white defendant. No Sikh, no Tamil, no Muslim has ever been prosecuted for hate speech by the CHRC, even though those communities have hateful factions, and their comments have been brought to the attention of the CHRC.

It’s a rigged system -- a kangaroo court.

 DG: Ann Coulter’s camel comment, which was taken out of context by the media - something that you and she expected?

I think there’s much to be said about taking her satirical jokes and reading them back earnestly to her, and it’s as ridiculous as going to Henny Youngman like this: ‘sir, did you really mean to say that we should actually take your wife?!’

It shows the absolute humorless and social cluelessness of the Left. If someone like Bill Mahar or Stephen Colbert came to town, would you see some conservative going on about their over the top, provocative political satires? Would they read it back deadpan? Who’s the crazy one? Get a damn life.

The woman uses provacative humour. She proved the whole point. These folks are humorless and intolerant and they just can’t stand things they don’t agree with.

The University of Ottawa is a swamp of radical Leftism and Leftist speakers. Allan Rock [former Minister of Justice] presides over it and knows at that campus there was Israeli Apartheid Week. It’s disgusting and grotesque, and what you’d expect there.

When Ann Coulter received a threatening letter before she came, Rock said he saw that letter before it went out. The only threatening letter that went out was to a conservative who tells modest yet provocative jokes. There’s no letter when a radical speaker who encouraged jihad comes to campus or Israel haters come to campus.

 A CLARIFYING COULTER MOMENT

See: http://www.nowtoronto.com/daily/story.cfm?content=174184

 A lot’s been reported about Ann Coulter’s comment to a Muslim questioner about “taking a camel” at London’s University of Western Ontario.

In her column about the brouhaha, Susan Cole - editor of Toronto’s Now Magazine - intimated that Ms Coulter was bigoted by that comment and made ethnic slurs. Quite the contrary.

Cole touted that camel comment as what she believes is the very epitome of Ann Coulter’s intolerance and hate (other journalists similarly -and wrongly-jumped on this).

I’m guessing Ms Cole wasn’t there at the lecture. I’m guessing she never heard a recording before reporting on it.

I’m guessing she merely relied on the one sentence overview of the interaction, as reported by the London Free Press.

Ms Cole even wrote the gender of the questioner incorrectly (it was a she, not a he)!

If Ms Cole wants to jump on hate and discrimination, I have a question.

Curiously, where was she when there were a dozen anti-Israel rallies in Toronto in the past eight years, all containing demonstrators who called for the destruction of Israel? Crickets creaking.

Far more inflammatory words get exchanged on university campuses weekly with no excoriation from Ms Cole.

So, I let readers of this article determine if ANY news reports, radio commentaries or blog entries adequately described the interaction between Ms Coulter and the questioner.

Did they know the context?

Was it fairly reported?

Did people come to their conclusions without knowing the entire dialog?

 In simple terms, the Muslim student questioner and Ms Coulter were trying to out-sarcasm each other. No one was taking anything seriously.

 Ms Coulter’s original comments, from which the student quotes in her question, were obviously snide, facetious and biting comments not to be taken too seriously. Based on that premise, did the student really want a serious answer to begin with?

Finally, for the record, thus far this is the ONLY media transcript, of the two minute back-and-forth.

 --> Questioner [Fatima]: You once said that America should invade Muslim countries and convert their people to Christianity. You also said that we should get Muslims to boycott all airlines. When asked what alternative to transportation there were, and you said ‘flying carpets.’

[boos and cheers]

 Coulter: Hang on! She’s reading my lines! Go on.

 Questioner: Question. First of all, as a seventeen year old student of this university, Muslim, should I be converting to Christianity? Second of all, since I don’t have a magic carpet, what other modes do you suggest?

[whistles, cheers, laughter]

 Coulter: The first, you dropped the line from the quote. It was ‘invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.’ And by the way, it shows, you know — and I thought it was just American public schools that produced ignorant people.

Which is why, after World War Two and after the Korean War — uh, after World War Two, the (Japanese) Emporer went to (General) McArthur and said, ‘okay, we’re ready to convert.’ And McArthur said, ‘actually, we don’t convert people forcibly.’

Also, they couldn’t try because he couldn’t decide whether to convert them to Catholicism or Protestanism. But, he put out the call for Christian missionaries to come to Japan, and they poured in. And, you don’t convert people forcibly, but missionaries have been operating throughout Japan for years, and they certainly have religious freedom in Japan. And, I would add, we haven’t heard a peep out of them.

[applause, boos]

You might learn something. After the Korean War, the exact same thing happened. A call was put out for Christian missionaries to go throughout South Korean and Christian missionaries and I think it’s one of the greatest success stories of Christianity.

You’ll see at least on American college campuses ...[interupted]

 [shouted down, audience ‘answer the question!’ ‘answer the question!’ ‘answer the question!’]

 Agh. What mode of transportation?! Take a camel!

 [laughter, applause, giggles]

 [audience member: ‘are you going to go covert her now?]

 No. There’s some people I’d just as soon not convert. I’m kind of a mean Christian. You want me to get straight to the point? There you go.