Top 100 "for liberty"

My friends at the Western Standard are compiling their list of 100 people who fought well for freedom in 2008. I'm honoured that they chose me as their number one. (Disclosure: until 2007, I used to publish the Western Standard!)

Here's their top 25; and here's their explanation for me as their pick.

Former Western Standard publisher, Ezra Levant took the #1 spot for his ongoing battle against Canada’s human rights commissions, which culminated in 2008 with his book "Shakedown: How Our Government is Undermining Democracy in the Name of Human Rights."

While the Top 10 list is diverse, a theme does emerge: civil disobedience...

Levant did not make a case for his innocence during his human rights tribunal hearing; he made a case for his guilt. When asked by the tribunal investigator “What was your intent?" in publishing a selection of Danish cartoons depicting the Muslim prophet Mohamed in the Western Standard, Levant answered:

"We published those cartoons for the intention and purpose of exercising our inalienable rights as free-born Albertans to publish whatever the hell we want, no matter what the hell you think."

More importantly, though, Levant refused to “plea bargain” and insisted the record show that he published the cartoons in an “unreasonable” manner with the intent to offend. Why did Levant do this? Because he wanted to meet the standard of guilt set by Alberta’s human rights law in order to challenge the law itself:

“I reserve the right to publish [the cartoons] for whatever offensive reason I want....I reserve for the right to publish the cartoons for every offensive thing [the complainants] claim is in my heart.”

Watch Levant's testimony before the tribunal here.

Their article makes mention of my upcoming book about human rights commissions, called "Shakedown". I'll have more news about that book shortly -- I'm pretty excited about it.