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Shakedown: How Our Government is Undermining Democracy in the Name of Human Rights Hardcover – March 24 2009
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Ezra Levant
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Ezra Levant
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Quill & Quire
At a time when Canada’s police and CSIS are implicated in the arrest, rendition, and torture in foreign prisons of Muslim Canadians, while the current Prime Minister refuses to intervene on their behalf, there are serious questions to be asked about the violation of human rights in Canada. Ezra Levant, the neo-liberal publisher of the defunct Western Standard magazine, begs to differ. Readers may remember that Levant courted headlines in the midst of a heated international controversy by publishing offensive cartoons of Muhammad, and when there was a request for an apology via Alberta’s Human Rights Commission, he yowled about interrogations, Big Brother, Orwell, star chambers, and the loss of free speech. Despite considerable evidence that prejudice continues to thrive in Canada (consider the firebombing of Jewish institutions in Montreal), Levant argues that Canada’s Human Rights Commission is “obsolete.” His basic premise is that the battles against discrimination in Canada have been won, and “the warriors can go home and enjoy themselves.” He claims that, desperate to remain relevant, the HRC has begun to manufacture human rights cases and has itself become a threat to free speech. Levant is correct that we need intelligent books to examine the role of the HRC in dealing with the tension between free speech and respect for the dignity of individuals and cultural groups. This is not one of those books. Levant’s argument amounts to a series of one-sided anecdotes, each of which reveals more about Levant’s prejudices than it does about the HRC. For instance, after 9/11, an anonymous co-worker at a Vancouver tech company accused Ghassan Asad of being a terrorist. After an intensive RCMP investigation, Asad was found to be innocent. He never learned who had so misjudged him, subjected him to a frightening ordeal, and permanently tarnished his reputation. The co-worker never apologized, and after two years of working in these strained conditions, with no effort by his employer to resolve the issue, Asad’s work suffered and he was fired. He filed a complaint with the HRC, which ruled in his favour. Instead of sympathizing with Asad, Levant accuses him of abusing the system and adds to the pall of suspicion: “It might well be” (my emphasis) that he was innocent, but if he was “why did the RCMP feel it necessary to be so thorough?” This is just one among many instances where Levant turns against the victims of discrimination, which suggests these battles are not quite won yet, no matter what he claims.
Review
"I was at a low moment, and beginning to fear that our adversarial culture was dying and the open society was losing its will to resist, when Ezra Levant showed that every citizen has the birthright of a little spark, and a grown-up duty to kindle that spark into a flame. Let the bureaucrats do their worst: the tongue and the word are chainless and nothing is sacred except this freedom above all."
— Christopher Hitchens, author of God is Not Great
“If we're not careful, if we force the Ezras in this country to shut up, our freedom of speech could be next.”
— Rick Mercer, in a “rant” from the Rick Mercer Report
“We are not yet three months into 2009, but Ezra may well have written the most important public affairs book this year.”
— The National Post
“I read Shakedown and I am awed at Levant's persistence and powers of endurance.”
— Rex Murphy, in the Globe & Mail
“Why is Ezra Levant the flavour of the month? Dare I say because he deserves to be?”
— Metro Vancouver
“…eloquent and powerful…”
— London Free Press
“…puts everything on the line in the way the best Canadian journalists always did.”
— Ottawa Citizen
“Let me put in a plug for Levant’s new book, Shakedown, which lays out, in example after example, how government-appointed human rights bodies warped the noble mission for which they were created.”
— The Halifax Chronicle Herald
“...By the end of Levant’s book, readers will be left wondering whether it is enough to prune back the commissions, or, as he prefers, to weed them out altogether.”
— Macleans
— Christopher Hitchens, author of God is Not Great
“If we're not careful, if we force the Ezras in this country to shut up, our freedom of speech could be next.”
— Rick Mercer, in a “rant” from the Rick Mercer Report
“We are not yet three months into 2009, but Ezra may well have written the most important public affairs book this year.”
— The National Post
“I read Shakedown and I am awed at Levant's persistence and powers of endurance.”
— Rex Murphy, in the Globe & Mail
“Why is Ezra Levant the flavour of the month? Dare I say because he deserves to be?”
— Metro Vancouver
“…eloquent and powerful…”
— London Free Press
“…puts everything on the line in the way the best Canadian journalists always did.”
— Ottawa Citizen
“Let me put in a plug for Levant’s new book, Shakedown, which lays out, in example after example, how government-appointed human rights bodies warped the noble mission for which they were created.”
— The Halifax Chronicle Herald
“...By the end of Levant’s book, readers will be left wondering whether it is enough to prune back the commissions, or, as he prefers, to weed them out altogether.”
— Macleans
About the Author
Ezra Levant is a lawyer, journalist and political activist. As the publisher of the Western Standard magazine, he was charged by the Government of Alberta for publishing the Danish cartoons of Mohammed. He is a frequent radio talk show guest known for his plain-spoken opinions, and he has written columns for media as diverse as the Calgary Sun and Canadian Lawyer. He has also written three non-fiction books: Youthquake, Fight Kyoto, and The War on Fun. He lives in Calgary.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Introduction
On January 11, 2008, I was summoned to a ninety-minute government interrogation. My crime? As the publisher of Western Standard magazine, I had reprinted Danish cartoons depicting the Muslim prophet Mohammed to illustrate a news story. I was charged with the offence of “discrimination” and made to appear before Alberta’s Human Rights and Citizenship Commission (AHRCC) for questioning. As crazy as it sounds, I became the only person in the world to face legal sanction for printing those cartoons.
“In an investigation interview,” my interrogator, Shirlene McGovern, said, “I always ask people [their intent] … what was the intent and purpose of your article with the cartoon illustrations?” That one sentence summed up the commission’s illiberal nature. The idea that the government could haul in a publisher and force him to answer questions about his political beliefs didn’t seem extraordinary to this woman. Apparently, it was all in a day’s work.
And what was my intent and purpose? I’ve been asked that question a hundred times since I published the cartoons, and I always answer the same way: The images — and the reaction they caused — were newsworthy. As a magazine publisher, I am in the news business. My colleagues and I wanted to show our readers what the fuss was about. But when a government officer demanded to know why I’d dared publish the cartoons, that matter-of-fact answer just didn’t seem appropriate.
“We published those cartoons for the intention and purpose of exercising our inalienable rights,” I declared, my political passions getting the better of my good manners, “to publish whatever the hell we want, no matter what the hell you think.”
I recorded the interrogation, and when it was over, I went straight home to upload the footage to YouTube, the Internet video-sharing site. I was proud that I’d stood up for free speech, and I wanted some of my friends and supporters to hear what I’d said.
The videos spread like wildfire. Over the next two days, more than one hundred thousand people watched them — making my interview the fifth most watched video clip on the entire Internet that weekend. No one had ever seen a government bureaucrat grill a journalist about his private thoughts — at least not in a free country such as Canada.
In all, more than six hundred thousand people have watched my January 11 investigation interview. My battle with Canada’s human rights commissions — which has since been joined by Mark Steyn, Maclean’s magazine, and legions of bloggers — has grown bigger than I could ever have imagined.
As a result of my experience, I began investigating other cases in which innocent people have had their freedoms compromised by bureaucrats presuming to protect Canadians’ human rights. What I learned shocked me.
Like most Canadians, I had previously associated the term human rights with the noble goal of eliminating real discrimination against blacks, Jews, Muslims, gays, women, and other groups that historically have been targeted by bigotry. Yet with little political fanfare or media scrutiny, human rights commissions have shifted their mission in recent years. As real discrimination has waned in our increasingly tolerant society, they have shifted into the field of what George Orwell called “thoughtcrime.”
Human rights commissions now monitor political opinions, fine people for expressing politically incorrect viewpoints, censor websites, and even ban people, permanently, from saying certain things. I’ve also seen how empire building government bureaucrats actively seek out complaints — even absurd complaints that have nothing at all to do with real human rights — to keep a caseload churning through their grievance industry.
It’s not just politically incorrect ideas that are under attack. It could be almost anything. I was stunned to discover that Canada’s human rights commissions ruled that a McDonald’s restaurant in Vancouver had to accommodate an employee who couldn’t wash her hands often enough at work. I learned about a Calgary hairstylist who filed a human rights complaint because the girls at salon school called him a “loser.” The commission actually had a trial about it. In another case that seemed stranger than fiction, an emotionally unstable transsexual fought for — and won — the right to counsel female rape victims at a women’s shelter, despite the anguished pleas of the rape victims themselves not to let him in.
The more I dug, the more I discovered that my interrogation at the hands of the government wasn’t unusual. Every day, Canadians from coast to coast are trapped in these Alice in Wonderland commissions, where bizarre new human rights are made up on the spot, and where regular legal procedures don’t apply. Sometimes, it feels like Saudi justice; sometimes, it smacks of the old Soviet Union; sometimes, it sounds like a Saturday Night Live sketch. Rarely does it feel Canadian.
This book is the product of my ordeal and the research it inspired. I want to write the story of how the concept of human rights was turned on its head. I want to warn Canadians about the travesty of justice playing out in commissions across the country. And finally, I want to lead a fight to take back our real civil rights.
On January 11, 2008, I was summoned to a ninety-minute government interrogation. My crime? As the publisher of Western Standard magazine, I had reprinted Danish cartoons depicting the Muslim prophet Mohammed to illustrate a news story. I was charged with the offence of “discrimination” and made to appear before Alberta’s Human Rights and Citizenship Commission (AHRCC) for questioning. As crazy as it sounds, I became the only person in the world to face legal sanction for printing those cartoons.
“In an investigation interview,” my interrogator, Shirlene McGovern, said, “I always ask people [their intent] … what was the intent and purpose of your article with the cartoon illustrations?” That one sentence summed up the commission’s illiberal nature. The idea that the government could haul in a publisher and force him to answer questions about his political beliefs didn’t seem extraordinary to this woman. Apparently, it was all in a day’s work.
And what was my intent and purpose? I’ve been asked that question a hundred times since I published the cartoons, and I always answer the same way: The images — and the reaction they caused — were newsworthy. As a magazine publisher, I am in the news business. My colleagues and I wanted to show our readers what the fuss was about. But when a government officer demanded to know why I’d dared publish the cartoons, that matter-of-fact answer just didn’t seem appropriate.
“We published those cartoons for the intention and purpose of exercising our inalienable rights,” I declared, my political passions getting the better of my good manners, “to publish whatever the hell we want, no matter what the hell you think.”
I recorded the interrogation, and when it was over, I went straight home to upload the footage to YouTube, the Internet video-sharing site. I was proud that I’d stood up for free speech, and I wanted some of my friends and supporters to hear what I’d said.
The videos spread like wildfire. Over the next two days, more than one hundred thousand people watched them — making my interview the fifth most watched video clip on the entire Internet that weekend. No one had ever seen a government bureaucrat grill a journalist about his private thoughts — at least not in a free country such as Canada.
In all, more than six hundred thousand people have watched my January 11 investigation interview. My battle with Canada’s human rights commissions — which has since been joined by Mark Steyn, Maclean’s magazine, and legions of bloggers — has grown bigger than I could ever have imagined.
As a result of my experience, I began investigating other cases in which innocent people have had their freedoms compromised by bureaucrats presuming to protect Canadians’ human rights. What I learned shocked me.
Like most Canadians, I had previously associated the term human rights with the noble goal of eliminating real discrimination against blacks, Jews, Muslims, gays, women, and other groups that historically have been targeted by bigotry. Yet with little political fanfare or media scrutiny, human rights commissions have shifted their mission in recent years. As real discrimination has waned in our increasingly tolerant society, they have shifted into the field of what George Orwell called “thoughtcrime.”
Human rights commissions now monitor political opinions, fine people for expressing politically incorrect viewpoints, censor websites, and even ban people, permanently, from saying certain things. I’ve also seen how empire building government bureaucrats actively seek out complaints — even absurd complaints that have nothing at all to do with real human rights — to keep a caseload churning through their grievance industry.
It’s not just politically incorrect ideas that are under attack. It could be almost anything. I was stunned to discover that Canada’s human rights commissions ruled that a McDonald’s restaurant in Vancouver had to accommodate an employee who couldn’t wash her hands often enough at work. I learned about a Calgary hairstylist who filed a human rights complaint because the girls at salon school called him a “loser.” The commission actually had a trial about it. In another case that seemed stranger than fiction, an emotionally unstable transsexual fought for — and won — the right to counsel female rape victims at a women’s shelter, despite the anguished pleas of the rape victims themselves not to let him in.
The more I dug, the more I discovered that my interrogation at the hands of the government wasn’t unusual. Every day, Canadians from coast to coast are trapped in these Alice in Wonderland commissions, where bizarre new human rights are made up on the spot, and where regular legal procedures don’t apply. Sometimes, it feels like Saudi justice; sometimes, it smacks of the old Soviet Union; sometimes, it sounds like a Saturday Night Live sketch. Rarely does it feel Canadian.
This book is the product of my ordeal and the research it inspired. I want to write the story of how the concept of human rights was turned on its head. I want to warn Canadians about the travesty of justice playing out in commissions across the country. And finally, I want to lead a fight to take back our real civil rights.
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Product details
- Publisher : McClelland & Stewart; 1st Edition (March 24 2009)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 232 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0771046189
- ISBN-13 : 978-0771046186
- Item weight : 408 g
- Dimensions : 14.86 x 1.91 x 22.35 cm
-
Best Sellers Rank:
#186,690 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #248 in Politics in Government
- #339 in Civil Rights
- #3,898 in Politics (Books)
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4.6 out of 5 stars
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Reviewed in Canada on November 16, 2014
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I arrived in Canada in 2006 from Brazil. One of the things I was told when I got here was that I could be sued for anything in Canada. Many immigrants live in fear because they do not want to have problems with the law here. It always puzzled me that associations, organizations, schools, libraries, individuals could indeed get sued because they upset the feelings of someone. I watched the news trying to make sense of it all. The first news story of this sort I read about was of the lesbian couple who sued a comedian in a B.C. bar. I thought, "People can't even tell a joke around here." I was very concerned because I'm not a politically correct person. I love controversial topics. I love expressing my opinions and read about people's contrary opinions. But I felt trapped here, not knowing what to do, how to behave. Until I started following Ezra Levant on Sun News and read this book "Showdown." Now I understand that there is indeed a Thought Police called Human Rights Commission. To my understanding, what they do should be considered illegal. They abuse power, they censor people, they punish anyone who does not conform to their blurry norms. I watched Ezra Levant's hearing on youtube about the piece he published on Mohammed's cartoons. It reminded me of the dictatorship period we had in Brazil, a time when people were punished or killed for listening to the wrong songs, for reading the wrong poems. These Commissions are creepy. They undermine our freedoms.
20 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in Canada on September 2, 2018
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Everyone should read this book to humble us to the dangers of circumventing the actual law with a quasi law. Also to the heights which people let reason leave, and power to bloom to punish people for things. And when professional conartists make repeaded false claims....
Banana republic cases most days.
Human rights comissions had their day and where needed. Now shut them down and have one law, and rules and legal protections for both parties that can't be circumvented by any comission, lawyer or judge.
100% conviction rate? Wow.
Banana republic cases most days.
Human rights comissions had their day and where needed. Now shut them down and have one law, and rules and legal protections for both parties that can't be circumvented by any comission, lawyer or judge.
100% conviction rate? Wow.
3 people found this helpful
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Great book and a MUST Read for every politician so they can understand why we need toSCRAP these ridiculous councils/tribunals.
Reviewed in Canada on December 2, 2016Verified Purchase
Shows how our so called 'human right's councils/tribunals' are used to bully, fine and censor free speech all in order to protect someone's feelings.
These tribunals assume you are guilty and you have to prove them wrong. The truth does not matter. Only someone's perceived hurt feelings matter. The people that make up these tribunals are totally INTOLERANT of any view that is not their own.
These tribunals assume you are guilty and you have to prove them wrong. The truth does not matter. Only someone's perceived hurt feelings matter. The people that make up these tribunals are totally INTOLERANT of any view that is not their own.
5 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in Canada on January 19, 2018
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Before I read this book I had no idea how bad the "Human Rights" organizations in this country were. With the slow and steady erosion of western society by minority left wing socialists the tyranny of the silent majority continues. This book should be required reading in every university and high school in this country.
4 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in Canada on November 29, 2013
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Who is looking out for the freedom of thought and speech of all Canadians. Ezra is. Great to see someone stand up to the dictates of the Human Rights Commission, and who exposes their idiotic tendency to pummel us with political correctness while taking away our God given right to voice our dissent and opinions. I wish they could do away with this commission, and let Canadians display our values of consideration and politeness the way we always have, on our own.
8 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in Canada on December 10, 2009
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I couldn't put this book down, and as I read, I became more and more angry. This is a book every Canadian should read! You hear bits and pieces of how the Human Rights Commission makes decisions that defy common sense, but to see the details in writing, gathered together in one book, the eyes open and righteous indignation takes hold. Anyone who cares about the freedoms we enjoy in this country will be shocked at what is happening in the name of "human rights." From the ridiculous decision in favour of a MacDonald's employee who complained because she had to wash her hands, to the outrageous actions of HRC investigators, the reader cannot help but think that it is time to dismantle the HRC. I hope every MP in Ottawa reads this book, and bravo to those who are leading the way in investigating the actions of those who are abusing the power they have. Thank you, Ezra Levant, for having the courage to fight this distructive force!
10 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in Canada on September 25, 2014
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Great read. Nice to read another view of the Kangaroo Courts that are the provincial Human rights courts. A view of what happens when someone is given license to prosecute who ever they want, for anything they want without repercussion. There have been some recent cases that would be great additions to the book.
4 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in Canada on September 2, 2013
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Canada needs help in understanding how important freedom of speech is, regardless if you believe in or what the other person says. We all must have the right to say what we believe or we have (Stalin, Moa, Pol Pot and Hitler) government deciding.
Read the book I am not giving book justice.
Read the book I am not giving book justice.
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M. McManus
5.0 out of 5 stars
Worying account of 'human rights' star chambers
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 2, 2011Verified Purchase
This book talks about Canada's human rights commissions. These commissions are quasi-judicial hearings, whereby individuals can be heavily fined for alleged infringements on the 'human rights' of others. These rights are always, conveniently, suited to the politically correct worldview of the far left, and thus anyone who disagrees can be punished via these hearings. The author points out that spurious, malicious complaints are frequently lodged by groups and individuals with a grudge. The only winners are greedy, parasitic human rights lawyers who make a fortune out of these cases, and also the staff of these human rights commissions. Ordinary citizens, whose taxes fund these commissions, are the losers. The author also fears that these commissions are giving the cause of genuine human rights a bad name. All in all, this book is an excellent read.
3 people found this helpful
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David Walker
5.0 out of 5 stars
Healthy Dissention
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 17, 2012Verified Purchase
While the politics of human rights in Canada seem to have gotten out of hand, it is positive that it is possible for someone to speak/write out in a politically incorrect manner on the matter, even if that person is a member of a minority community and a lawyer.
I hope this book does not provide a balanced view of the human rights commissions, as it says very little positve about them!
It's entertaining reading for a rustic wit - some who likes to laugh at sin.
I hope this book does not provide a balanced view of the human rights commissions, as it says very little positve about them!
It's entertaining reading for a rustic wit - some who likes to laugh at sin.
2 people found this helpful
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D. B. Killings
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Fascism of Good Intentions
Reviewed in the United States on May 22, 2009Verified Purchase
To partially borrow a phrase from Jonah Goldberg, if fascism ever came to the Western Democracies, it would come not from brownshirts pounding on your doorstep, but lawyers carrying subpoenas issued by faceless, unelected, and unaccountable bureaucrats. This is exactly the nightmare that Ezra Levine faced in Canada, when he was forced to give account before a government agency for doing something that most people in the west take for granted: speaking his mind.
The government agency for which he was hauled before - the Alberta Human Rights Commission - had started out innocently enough, as a place of legal recourse for people who felt that they had been discriminated against in housing and employment, but did not have the means for which to pursue a grievance. But somewhere along the way, its mission became perverted. It took an expansive view of its mandate to pursue "human rights", and began to pursue people based not on their actions, but on what they said or wrote - classifying anything that they deemed as "hate speech" as a human rights violation, and therefore subject to their investigations and sanctions. In other words, they became thought police, with astonishing powers to pursue a target, and whose victims soon found that they had very little legal recourse but to give in to the AHRC's "remedies".
This is what happens when government is allowed to run unchecked, when government agencies take it upon themselves to be the arbiter of what its citizens can and cannot do. This book is a wake-up call for how government, even with the best of intentions, can step in and take away people's freedoms in the name of the "greater good", and how little anyone can do to stop them. While Shakedown is primarily about Ezra Levant's three-year struggle against the AHRC, Mr. Levant also takes a considerable amount of time to document other such abuses by similar commissions all across Canada. By doing so, he demonstrates how this mindless pursuit of "human rights" has in fact done the exact opposite. In a larger sense, he is sounding the alarm for how it is that government can take away basic freedoms, and especially how easily a small cadre of extremist radicals can subvert the system and impose their will and values on everyone with relatively little impunity. The thin-skinned and easily offended barbarians are at the helm, and they bristle at the notion that Mr. Levant can have the nerve to counter their arguments with, "Because it is my bloody right to."
Although Mr. Levant is conservative, this book should not be construed as "just a typical right wing diatribe against the abuses of the left". It actually transcends notions of Left vs. Right, Liberal vs. Conservative, and Mr. Levant takes considerable pains to point this out. The abuses that Mr. Levant outlines in his book could just as easily have happened from a right-wing junta as it did from a left-wing truth commission. The point is not the political ideologies involved, but the notion of government intrusion into our individual liberties - in this case, free speech. It is a sobering and frightening look at how easily we allow our basic freedoms to be handed over and compromised by an all-powerful, all-encompassing State, and the consequences of doing so. Something that every person who values their freedom to consider, as we live in this day and age of steadily growing government power.
The government agency for which he was hauled before - the Alberta Human Rights Commission - had started out innocently enough, as a place of legal recourse for people who felt that they had been discriminated against in housing and employment, but did not have the means for which to pursue a grievance. But somewhere along the way, its mission became perverted. It took an expansive view of its mandate to pursue "human rights", and began to pursue people based not on their actions, but on what they said or wrote - classifying anything that they deemed as "hate speech" as a human rights violation, and therefore subject to their investigations and sanctions. In other words, they became thought police, with astonishing powers to pursue a target, and whose victims soon found that they had very little legal recourse but to give in to the AHRC's "remedies".
This is what happens when government is allowed to run unchecked, when government agencies take it upon themselves to be the arbiter of what its citizens can and cannot do. This book is a wake-up call for how government, even with the best of intentions, can step in and take away people's freedoms in the name of the "greater good", and how little anyone can do to stop them. While Shakedown is primarily about Ezra Levant's three-year struggle against the AHRC, Mr. Levant also takes a considerable amount of time to document other such abuses by similar commissions all across Canada. By doing so, he demonstrates how this mindless pursuit of "human rights" has in fact done the exact opposite. In a larger sense, he is sounding the alarm for how it is that government can take away basic freedoms, and especially how easily a small cadre of extremist radicals can subvert the system and impose their will and values on everyone with relatively little impunity. The thin-skinned and easily offended barbarians are at the helm, and they bristle at the notion that Mr. Levant can have the nerve to counter their arguments with, "Because it is my bloody right to."
Although Mr. Levant is conservative, this book should not be construed as "just a typical right wing diatribe against the abuses of the left". It actually transcends notions of Left vs. Right, Liberal vs. Conservative, and Mr. Levant takes considerable pains to point this out. The abuses that Mr. Levant outlines in his book could just as easily have happened from a right-wing junta as it did from a left-wing truth commission. The point is not the political ideologies involved, but the notion of government intrusion into our individual liberties - in this case, free speech. It is a sobering and frightening look at how easily we allow our basic freedoms to be handed over and compromised by an all-powerful, all-encompassing State, and the consequences of doing so. Something that every person who values their freedom to consider, as we live in this day and age of steadily growing government power.
9 people found this helpful
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Donna J.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Shakedown
Reviewed in the United States on May 7, 2009Verified Purchase
Shakedown: How Our Government is Undermining Democracy in the Name of Human Rights
Although this book was written about Human Rights' Councils in Canada, it sends a clarion call to citizens of the United States who cherish our Bill of Rights and want to protect it from the Nanny State. If we think that this cannot happen in the United States, we only have to look recent events in U.S. history. Our government is paving the way with special laws for hate crimes. We are already elevating one group (in each case of hate crimes) above others when prosecuting hate crimes. Every crime is already covered by U.S. law - after all a crime is a crime, but to say one crime is worse than others, because the victim belongs to a particular segment of society, is to dilute the value of the law in every instance that is not labeled a hate crime. So watch out - it is already happening in the U.S. This books gives an excellent picture of what will happen if we let the government busybodies have their way.
Although this book was written about Human Rights' Councils in Canada, it sends a clarion call to citizens of the United States who cherish our Bill of Rights and want to protect it from the Nanny State. If we think that this cannot happen in the United States, we only have to look recent events in U.S. history. Our government is paving the way with special laws for hate crimes. We are already elevating one group (in each case of hate crimes) above others when prosecuting hate crimes. Every crime is already covered by U.S. law - after all a crime is a crime, but to say one crime is worse than others, because the victim belongs to a particular segment of society, is to dilute the value of the law in every instance that is not labeled a hate crime. So watch out - it is already happening in the U.S. This books gives an excellent picture of what will happen if we let the government busybodies have their way.
8 people found this helpful
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Paul
5.0 out of 5 stars
Be sure to see the "movie," too!
Reviewed in the United States on May 25, 2009Verified Purchase
I'll add my five stars to the six unanimously-five-star reviews already here as I write this on 5/25/2009. I'm pleased to see that half of those six are from American readers, and, indeed, several prior reviewers make the point that Ezra Levant's book is as important for Americans as for Canadians.
Since the previous reviewers say plenty about the book, I'll first add that there's tons more material, constantly updated, at Ezra Levant's website, ezralevant.com . Especially illuminating, I think, are many of the videos there.
Of course the most famous and most important of the videos are the ones of his interrogation before the Alberta provincial Human Rights [sic] Commission. Unfortunately, it appears to be impossible to place the URL for the interrogation videos here on this Amazon page. (There are nine of them at YouTube, with aggregate length about 45 minutes, I'll estimate.) So just Google on "I don't answer to the state" and you'll find the one of the nine with that title as your top hit, along with the eight companion videos accessed by links on the right margin of that web page.
View some or all of those, especially "Opening Statement," and decide if you want to read the book. Probably "yes"!
Why get the book if there's all that available for free on the Internet? The book tells the essential story in a very organized manner, helped by the fact that Levant is a splendid writer, at once both serious and humorous.
One other thing to add about implications for Americans: As others have written here, we already have some "hate crime" laws on the books, with more in prospect. However, the closer current American analogy to what Ezra Levant has endured in Canada is probably the plague of speech codes on our college and university campuses, even the public ones. You can delve into that at the website of FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education), whose URL is thefire.org .
Since the previous reviewers say plenty about the book, I'll first add that there's tons more material, constantly updated, at Ezra Levant's website, ezralevant.com . Especially illuminating, I think, are many of the videos there.
Of course the most famous and most important of the videos are the ones of his interrogation before the Alberta provincial Human Rights [sic] Commission. Unfortunately, it appears to be impossible to place the URL for the interrogation videos here on this Amazon page. (There are nine of them at YouTube, with aggregate length about 45 minutes, I'll estimate.) So just Google on "I don't answer to the state" and you'll find the one of the nine with that title as your top hit, along with the eight companion videos accessed by links on the right margin of that web page.
View some or all of those, especially "Opening Statement," and decide if you want to read the book. Probably "yes"!
Why get the book if there's all that available for free on the Internet? The book tells the essential story in a very organized manner, helped by the fact that Levant is a splendid writer, at once both serious and humorous.
One other thing to add about implications for Americans: As others have written here, we already have some "hate crime" laws on the books, with more in prospect. However, the closer current American analogy to what Ezra Levant has endured in Canada is probably the plague of speech codes on our college and university campuses, even the public ones. You can delve into that at the website of FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education), whose URL is thefire.org .
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