As usual, Steyn wrote an eloquent, clear and reasonable essay, defending traditional Anglophone liberties and denouncing the Star Chamber-like "Human Rights Councils". Below is a quote that ought to make all thinking Canadians shudder. Shudder, then immediately start raising Hell with their MPs, demanding the abolition of the so-called "Human Rights Councils". While they're at it, they should abolish the "hate speech" censorship laws.
Freedom of Speech and of Press means exactly nothing, if they don't include the right to speak and write damn near anything, short of imminently causing public danger or seditiously advocate treason. Let "the marketplace of ideas" exert the winnowing-"Sunlight is the best disinfectant" said US Supreme Court civil libertarian Justice Louis Brandeis in a free speech case decision.
Steyn-"Most of us have a vague understanding that Hitler used the burning of the Reichstag in February 1933 as a pretext to "seize" dictatorial powers. But, in fact, he didn't "seize" anything because he didn't need to. He merely invoked Article 48 of the Weimar Republic's constitution, allowing the state, in the interests of the greater good, to set — what's the phrase? — "reasonable limits" on freedom of the press, freedom of expression, freedom of association, freedom from unlawful search and seizure and surveillance of postal and electronic communications. The Nazis didn't invent a dictatorship out of whole cloth. They merely took advantage of the illiberal provisions of a supposedly liberal constitution.
Oh, and by the way, almost all those powers the Nazis "seized" the morning after the Reichstag fire, the "human rights" commissions already have. In the name of cracking down on "hate," Canada's "human rights" apparatchiks can enter your premises without a warrant and remove any relevant "document or thing" (as the relevant Ontario legislation puts it) for as long as they want it. And without anybody burning the House of Commons or even the Senate."
Holocausts will never be understood until current thinkers acknowledge all known past killings and study them honestly and openly for commonalities which will explain why they happen.
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