Tragedy

As I like to say, comedy is tragedy happening to somebody else.  And the sham trials up in Canada are nothing short of hilarious.  Ezra Levant, a man with exactly the right temper for the job, is—along with Mark Steyn—facing down a bogus set of bureaucratic hacks pretending to be judges, all under the name of Human Rights.  Levant’s website is a wonderful source for news about how show trials work and the #1 argument for why socialist countries have locked-down medias (because otherwise, their incompetence would seep through like it is here).  Andrew Coyne at Macleans, meanwhile, is giving blow-by-blow descriptions of the proceedings through his Blackberry.  This part from day one in particular had me laughing:

11:34 AM
Our argument re Miller: if he’s here to testify about the practices of responsible journalism, and if responsible journalism is not a defence under Section 7.1, then what’s the point?

11:38 AM
It’s kind of a cool defence, when you think of it. The law does not permit us to defend ourselves on the basis of responsible journalism (or anything else, really). But that’s patently unreasonable, so the complainants are actually trying to sneak it back in—to make the issue our journalistic practices, rather than their attempt to silence us. We’re not giving them that opportunity.

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Hey, remember when Canadians had free speech and weren’t prey to shakedown artists and insipid fools who think that robes and sham laws are enough to give them real respect and power?