Kesler et al. Remind Canadians of Freedoms of Inquiry and of Speech

Our Canadian friends have had their country hijacked by the same kinds of campus radicals who would ban all speech they consider undesirable. Whereas our radicals are confined to academe, theirs have created their own kangaroo courts in which they find guilt before evidence is even entered. Ironically, the Canadian government calls them “Human Rights commissions.”

Or as David Warren of the Ottawa Citizen notes, “Before Canada's ‘human rights’ tribunals, a respondent has none of the defences formerly guaranteed in common law. The truth is no defence, reasonable intention is no defence, nor material harmlessness, there are no rules of evidence, no precedents, nor case law of any kind.”

Unfortunately, in recent years, Canada has degenerated into the same kind of politically correct show trials we fear on our campuses. Witness the statement of Dean Steacy, Canadian Human Rights Commission investigator, “Freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don’t give it any value.” (Of course Mr. Steacy is more than willing to prostrate himself before sharia law. The inconsistency seems lost on him. Perhaps he's willing to be a dhimmi, rather than individual. I don't know.)

Fortunately, CMC’s very own Charles Kesler has signed a petition in support of academic freedom and speech from concerned members of the American Political Science Association (APSA) The letter documents the abuses of Canada’s HRC. They include,

* MacLean’s, Canada’s leading periodical, and Mark Steyn, one of Canada’s most prominent political journalists, for publishing excerpts from Steyn’s book critical of radical Islam.

* Ezra Levant, publisher of the Western Standard, for re-publishing Danish cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed. The Catholic Bishop of Calgary, for publishing a pastoral letter against gay marriage.

* The Rev. Stephen Boissoin, for criticizing homosexuality in letters to the editor of a local newspaper. Rev. Boissoin has been “ordered to desist from communicating his views on this subject ‘in newspapers, by email, on the radio, in public speeches, or on the Internet’ so long as he should live. He has been ordered to pay compensation to” the person offended by his views and “further to make a public recantation of beliefs he still holds.

As Dan O’Toole remarked, Professor Kesler’s a part of a great list, albeit a short one. Perhaps other Claremont professors could consider lending their names?

I understand if they are unwilling; after all, as with currency, if you use your name too often it soon loses value.

Juxtapose that letter with the factually untrue letter by Miguel Tinker Salas, of Pomona, and you’ll get a fine sense of why a professor might want to keep his name more jealously guarded, if only to avoid appearing the dupe of a dictator.

Alas, Tinker Salas has long supported the “command and control” Venezuela and its puppets, the FARC narco-terrorists. The title of one of his book is no less than Venezuela: Hugo Chavez and the Decline of an Exceptional Democracy.

Real scholarship demands leadership and commitment to principles rather than "activism" hiding behind tenure. Thank you, Professor Kesler.