{"id":1992,"date":"2017-09-17T17:32:14","date_gmt":"2017-09-17T21:32:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/?p=1992"},"modified":"2017-09-17T17:32:14","modified_gmt":"2017-09-17T21:32:14","slug":"1992","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/?p=1992","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"
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Gad Saad believes in free speech at (almost) all costs<\/h1>\n
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Gad Saad is Jewish and emigrated from Lebanon due to religious persecution, yet he supports the freedom of speech of Holocaust deniers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"AshleyASHLEY MARTIN, REGINA LEADER-POST<\/span>
\nMore from Ashley Martin, Regina Leader-Post<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Published on: September 15, 2017 | Last Updated: September 15, 2017 5:26 PM CST<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n
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Gad Saad is Concordia University’s Research Chair in Evolutionary Behavioural Sciences and Darwinian Consumption.<\/span>\u00a0SUBMITTED PHOTO<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Gad Saad is Jewish and emigrated from Lebanon due to religious persecution, yet he supports the freedom of speech of Holocaust deniers.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s how committed he is to an open dialogue, something he says is being lost in the western world.<\/p>\n

Saad is scheduled to speak Monday evening at the University of Regina on \u201cforces that impede the free and rational exchange of ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI support the right of grotesque, diabolical people saying that the Holocaust and anything that I might have experienced is a hoax. Why? Because that\u2019s what freedom of speech is. It\u2019s the right for people to be idiots, to be wrong,\u201d said Saad, a marketing professor at Montreal\u2019s Concordia University and the Canada Research Chair in evolutionary behavioural sciences and Darwinian consumption.<\/p>\n

There are only two exceptions to \u201cabsolute\u201d freedom of speech, said Saad.<\/p>\n

The first is using words to directly incite violence against other people.<\/p>\n

The second is defaming or libelling someone.<\/p>\n