Now, that really is a straw man argument if ever I have heard one. When I was young, we had a saying "sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me". In the main, this is the philosophy used by most people who belong to the white anglo saxon majority, who are not generally easily offended. It seems to me that many people who belong to minority groups, go out of their way to take offence, when none is meant, and therein lies the difficulty with 18c.

David

You do realise that it's virtually impossible for a "white" person to take action on any form of discrimination or vilification against them, don't you?
The laws are entirely framed to support minorities against the majority, imposing their sensibilities on the rest of the population.
Most courts won't even register such a claim, let alone hear it.
There is far too much discrimination in Australia, vast tracts of land handed over to a tiny minority of the population, and governments state and federal spending billions on the same small group, all to the detriment of the majority.
Multiculturalism is a fanciful idea that is used to justify similar discrimination against the majority, giving minorities rights and funding not available to the rest of us.
All of this, on the face of it, would appear to be a deliberate form of "divide and rule", the powers that be were shocked at the rise of "People Power", citizens taking back power from the elites at the top, so they've done their level best to cause division and fragmentation amongst their populations to undercut this budding of true democracy.
There be method tixt their madness it doth seem.

This article well illustrates the sickness called progressive "thinking"which afflicts Oz.

We have <<rednecks on public transport hurling abuse>>
But of course to call someone a redneck is not abuse!

We have <<a racist slur at Adam Goodes>>
But antiwhite putdowns on SBS comedy is quite ok!

We have those <<Wicked Campers displaying cruel slogans about women>>
But slogans like "all men are rapists" are fair

And then, there is this admission:

<<But, in the hands of some, a shield is also a weapon. By not allowing legitimate, and – yes, arguably ‘racist’ – critiques of entrenched white privilege to be voiced>>

Told you so--it aint about anti-racism -- it's about another field of class warfare --and progressive "thinking" is sick, sick, sick.

Do these clowns really earn a living writing this crap?

I guess it is a bit like anthropologists specialising in aboriginal research. If they ever once told the truth, they would never be allowed into another aboriginal settlement, or to talk to anyone claiming to be an aboriginal again.

First we get this garbage about "Andrew Bolt cynically targeting Aborigines", whereas Andrew Bolt was cynically targeted by the aboriginal welfare industry, worried their nice taxpayer funded lifestyle could be damaged by the truth of the rip off becoming general knowledge.

Then we get a bit of rubbish feeling sorry for that thug Adam Goodes, & his attack on a poor little school girl. Perhaps the clown didn't notice some utter fools terminally degraded the Australian of the year awards, by recompensing the thug with the award. Who on earth is on that committee, & who put them there. It is a disgrace, that makes a laughing stock of all of us.

If you want to find hate in Oz, look no further than the disgusting garbage from the pens of people like this author.

They continually denigrate the most discriminated target in the country, white adult males in work.

Anglo Saxon society?
Leaving aside the fact that there's no such thing as an Anglo Saxon ethnic group what we have in this country is a Jewish and Protestant Christian elite amongst whom money counts for as much as ancestry.
The 'Captains of industry" all come from those two socio economic groups BECAUSE they all come from those two socio economic groups, it's got nothing to do with the broader society.
It's bizarre that people still think race equals power in this country, Tasmania is one of the Whitest states yet something like half of the adults are basically illiterate, the biggest source of income in the northern hamlets is centrelink and overall it's the poorest part of the country. Frankston, Woy Woy, Elizabeth, Logan...all these "low socio economic" areas are full of White people yet we have smirking hipsters such as this author carrying on about "Rednecks"?
Beginning a sentence with the words "I'm White.." in any context is considered a faux pas at best and a criminal offence by some, so let's not have this load of bollocks about "Anglo Saxon society".
White means native born, uneducated and poor, 18c should protect us from trash like this article which basically shifts blame for all the world's ill's from the elites to the poorest and most vulnerable of us but as other posters have pointed out, it doesn't and it never will.

Do these clowns really earn a living writing this crap?
Hasbeen,
I'm not too worried about the clowns writing this crap but I'm deeply dismayed about the morons who pay them with our tax dollars.