The really bad thing is that the Liberal party has joined the bullying Left in trying to bully dissenters against their politically correct cowardice into silence; the latest example being the banning an American anti-abortionist. With the Left-leaning Turnbull in charge, the protection of freedom of speech in Australia is in grave peril.

An article by a lightweight signifying self-promotion.

Lighweight case in point where author says:

"At this point we should dispense with a few misconceptions. Troy Newman has never advocated violence against abortionists. Rather, he has said that abortion is murder and that murderers should be subject to capital punishment. Extreme? Perhaps."

Would the author be so flippant if he were labelled one of a group of "murderers [who] should be subject to capital punishment." ?

ttbn, spot on, the LNP is a well left of centre Fabian Socialist party that needs to wake up to how far it & the entire nation has drifted away from the middle towards communism.

plantagenet, be fair, the man is advocating for justice, with laws, judges & juries. you may be pro choice, but he is not advocating lynch mobs, rather real justice which is always reasonable in a democracy.

"Grinding Australia Down" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6n4rlIHH2U

Well, I would say that the charging abortion doctors with murder is, on the face of it, 'extreme'; but extreme talk seems to go un-commented on by our witless legislators when some mad mullah calls for the murder of Jews simply because they are Jews. Why should an anti-abortionist be banned because he got hot under the collar on ONE occasion?

On the other hand, some do see abortion as murder. But, we cannot have people like that speaking freely and honestly, can we. Pete?

Franc (does that show that I am human, as per you last crticism of me)

I support free speech, and agree with this article.

However, I find it particularly ironic that Geert Wilders has emerged as a poster boy for free speech advocates, given that he has called for the Koran to be banned.

http://www.geertwilders.nl/index.php/in-english-mainmenu-98/in-the-press-mainmenu-101/77-in-the-press/in-the-press/1117-enough-is-enough-ban-the-koran

Widers is more of a threat to free speech than the people who tried to prevent him entering this country

I look forward to John Slater supporting a radical Muslim preacher visa application.

How about if they come from a country where there is free speech they are allowed temporary entry? If the home does not allow free speech well they are blocked, simple really.

JBowyer

You bring up an interesting point.

The good Wiki says "Freedom of speech is the concept of the rights to voice one's opinion publicly without fear of censorship or punishment." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_by_country

Probably most countries claim "free speech" in law. But "free" depends on:

- who is speaking (a poor average citizen Or member of The Party Or upper class Protester kids (who do not expect to be imprisoned for more than a few hours))

- secular law, religious law, tribal law or

- mob lynch "law"

So yes Australia could lock its borders to just about everyone (including all genuine refugees) who naturally are escaping countries because they do not have "free speech".

Non "free speech" refugees are probably "economic refugees" and we would want them either.

But free enterprise requires a growing population.

So each person with X million $$ gets in - who may well be from Saudi Arabia or China...

Thus the loop of loopy life loops.

Poida

The idea that art, literature and filmatic creativity should not suffer from the heavy hand of censorship, is a noble one. By giving creative people the freedom to explore social issues, our society can evolve by critically examining it's long accepted cultural values, as changing times alters the basic premises upon which contemporary values are built. But this worthy ideal has been perverted by cynical entertainment entrepreneurs who market a "youth culture" that does not make the slightest pretence to artistic merit. It is merely a racket where young people have an anti social culture invented and dictated to them by an entertainment industry only concerned with the bottom line.

This "youth culture" constantly extols to our youngest, our most impressionable, and often our most vulnerable, behaviour endorsing drug abuse, serious criminal behaviour, violence, and disrespect for all authority. If John Slater came home from work and found a man in his house telling his kids that bashing women and taking drugs was fashionable, that defying your parents was cool, while trying to sell them products, I am sure that John would immediately grab the bum by the neck and throw him right out of his house. But here is John defending that same bum by equating his behaviour with the right of free political speech on serious social issues.

Like the aristocrats of yesterday, the entertainment industry now has too many fabulously wealthy barons. too many vulgarians, and too many drug addled fools, who claim to own the culture of their own people. Their people's culture. they claim, is entirely their own property, to interpret as they wish. Unsurprisingly, their interpretation is entirely to their own benefit, and to hell with their own society.

Well heeled artists and promoters are no longer pushing the boundaries of accepted tastes, they are now burrowing busily under the very foundations of family values upon which our civilisation stands. People like John think that artists have a right to undermine the culture of his own people, and that the people to whom this culture rightfully belongs have no right to define it's composition.

All my favourite buzz words- 'offended', 'do-gooders', 'moral guardians', 'outraged wowsers'- all used to describe women who have called out men who advocate violence against women.

I agree people should not be censored for controversial opinions, and find the trend of educational institutions 'no-platforming' speakers for voicing unpopular opinions to be disturbing. But that is not what is going on in the case of artists like Tyler the Creator, and it is disingenuous to conflate criticism of Tyler's treatment of women (which is not limited to sexually violent lyrics, as the author incorrectly alleges) with the silencing of unpopular opinions.

The author's entire argument seems to be made on the premise that those opposed to Tyler the Creator's misogyny are merely offended- that the issue is our delicate sensibilities rather than Tyler's incitement of violence to specific Australian women who dared to criticise his work- women who have had to seek assistance from police after an onslaught of threats of violence and rape.

Why should the supposed free speech of men to advocate violence against women trump women's rights to dignity, justice and equality?

I note the author recently wrote a piece decrying the demise of Zoo Weekly, a titty mag sold in supermarkets. Is this really a crusade about free speech or the freedom to demean women for entertainment?

Hi LEGO

I'm in total agreement. Always a dangerous thing.

The rich of the entertainment industry are masters of spin, who recognise that freedom can be bought, not earned.

Take James Dean's four movies. Rebel Without A Cause was a movie by the hero who popularised the dangerous art of switchblade fighting, then died a real life speed freak.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebel_Without_a_Cause#Plot

Jaye

Well said. The right to challenge and defeat reprehensible and dangerous speech perpetrated by people in positions of power, influence and authority is in itself an important form of free speech in its own right.

To shame, despise and trivialise this fundamental democratic right as simply a matter of sensitive people getting offended by something they don't like or disagree with, is in itself censorship by humiliation.

bigot
noun: bigot; plural noun: bigots
A person who is intolerant towards those holding different opinions.

I believe I have every right to be a bigot in today's upside down world and I don't care what anyone else says or thinks.
That means I have the right to call out dumb stuff when I see it, and I don't HAVE to stand there and nod my head like a good little lapdog buying into a whole heap of crap someone else is spouting if I don't want to.
It means I am allowed to think for myself and offer the constructive criticism of calling someone else an idiot if I believe they demonstrate those traits.

Rhian, so you advocate for tolerating intolerant people who intend to rape, kill or steal from you?

Cobber the hound, so you advocate for tolerating intolerant people who intend to rape, kill or steal from your wife or sister?

JBowyer, you could be onto something, i think we used to call it the white Australia policy.

plantagenet, a private enterprise economy does not need a growing population but a stable or sustainable one.

LEGO, prior to 1967 we had a system for protecting children from the evil you speak of & it was called censorship. What is wrong with suppressing corporate pedophilia? What is wrong with protecting a culture that has achieved perfection? In 1984 i met the architect of censorship's destruction & he was already regretting it after seeing the depravity unleashed on the land of OZ.

Jaye, Tyler the Creator, is not misogynist. Why should the supposed free speech of men to advocate violence against women trump women's rights to dignity, justice and equality? A, that is exactly the point made by the article, leftist liars like you have been protecting real islamic misogyny while making false claims of misogyny against decent men & using that as an excuse for suppressing free speech, it is called hypocrisy.

Zoo Weekly died because it did not have enough naked flesh, other mags that do are still alive, well & available everywhere.

plantagenet, spot on, the mid 1950s was when the Hollywood nightmare factory degeneration began in earnest.

Killarny, sounds easy when you say it fast but that is not what Jaye was defending.

Armchair Critic, absolutely correct, politically IN-correct.

What do we have to fear from letting people enter the country who have such bizarre ideas? Having an opinion is not the same as taking action. If they break the law whilst in this country then they should be punished accordingly but expressing an opinion is not breaking the law.

There are probably many people in Australia who share the views of these extremists but they do not express them or do not have a big enough platform to be heard. Should they be rounded up and interrogated for suspect ideas? An idea is not the same as action either. Are thought police the next thing?

Who is to be the judge of which ideas cannot be expressed in speech? It is an impossible thing to decide because it is so subjective. If those people act in such a way that causes harm to others then they should be dealt with. Harm such as violence can be seen and is not a subjective thing. The burden of proof must remain our guiding principle and value. There is no proof that allowing someone to speak causes harm.

The whole notion that vilification, incitement and hate speech should not be tolerated takes us into dangerous waters. If we stop differentiating between what is said and what is done then anyone is liable for prosecution.

Where does responsibility lie if you claim you have been incited to act by the speech of another? No one can make you do what you do not want to do. People have gone to their death rather than give in to tyrants and extremists. If you are not prepared to stand up for your beliefs then they were never that important in the first place.

We have the option to ignore what extremists say or simply not attend their speeches. Are we so insecure that we cannot let these people enter our country because of their views? What message does that send to the rest of the world about our values and maturity as a nation

Imacentristmoderate

You say

“so you advocate for tolerating intolerant people who intend to rape, kill or steal from you?”

Of course not. All of those things are illegal, and should remain so. Anyone doing them, or inciting other to do them, is breaking the law.

Phanto’s post gets to the crux of the issue very well: “If we stop differentiating between what is said and what is done then anyone is liable for prosecution.”

Phanto and Rhian,
What is the danger in going along with something stupid because its PC?
I agree completely that actions are completely different than words.
But why should we put our country at risk if we don't need to?

Armchair:

We do need to - everyone in the world needs to protect free speech. Free speech never hurt anyone but the denial of free speech hurts us all. It makes us less than human. None of the extremists have displayed unhuman behaviour they have just expressed a desire to do so. The minute they step out of line they should be dealt with like the citizens of this country.

Phanto, while appreciating the motives that prompted your contribution, I am constrained to call into question your resort to a kind of naive generalisation that marks your opinions.

You write; "Who is to be the judge of which ideas cannot be expressed in speech? It is an impossible thing to decide because it is so subjective...." Yet you plunge headlong into a dissertation that purports to accomplish what you have already declared to be impossible by advocating a certain view that has as its principal support some generalisations that do violence to historical fact. The decision is difficult and by default must be somewhat arbitrary but not impossible. A majority consensus is the best that can be expected. there will always be some courageous people who will occupy the office of deciding for us. Diversity among opinion-holders will ensure there will never be 100% agreement.

You write; "There is no proof that allowing someone to speak causes harm." It depends largely on whether one agrees with the opinions of the speaker or not. When Mohandas Gandhi led the Indian people to independence he was the agency of his own death as well as the death of several millions of his countrymen. He was an astute politician and had considerable familiarity with modern history. There can be no doubt he knew the divisiveness he would cause in Indian society. That a greater good may have emerged from the chaos has no bearing on the exercise of free speech as such. Cont......

On the other side of the coin, let us take Adolph Hitler as an example. An orator of considerable power who convinced practically an entire nation to overlook, disregard, agree with and/or promote and perpetrate some of the most unspeakable acts of genocide and slaughter in modern history, in any historical age perhaps. Human history, to a significant extent, is the story of such individuals and the consequences of their profligate oratory.

You write; "No one can make you do what you do not want to do." In both above cases people were coerced by the unlimited powers of mob violence or by the threat of awful punishment by an extremely totalitarian regime to do many things they did not want to do. Your assertion here is quite without merit. Offering a few examples of some who suffered mortally for their dedication is of no real value. It is a fact of life and of society that ordinary people will commit terrible acts to benefit themselves at others' expense, to do what was normally in violation of their values. The news media report examples almost every day.

To criticise further is unnecessary as the examples I have provided illustrate my point re naive generalisation. A greater familiarity with history would probably have stayed your hand from such transgression.

John Slater has written a very reasonable and intelligent article on the subject of who should be prevented from entering Australia, on the grounds of public good and free speech. His most important point is that "it is tricky to see where intolerance starts and ends."

Moral values are often a compromise, and a where any of them start and end is often a matter of perspective. Moral values are never absolute, but they are still very important. They are the glue that keeps societies together. Moral values are the generally agreed upon values which are the basis of the laws which we are obliged to obey. Within communities, there may be wide differences of opinions as to what those moral values should be. But western societies are the better for having robust debates on these matters, which is the primary reason why free speech is the foundation stone of our civilisation. In the battle for ideas, may the best one win.

But there are problems with that noble concept. Freedom of speech is not an absolute. Restrictions on freedom of speech which most people in society have good reason to agree with, include libel, child pornography, publishing extracts banned in the Official Secrets Act, "How to" manuals giving direct instruction on how to commit serious criminal acts, and any media inciting inter communal violence. (Behead those who insult the Prophet).

Now, just what constitutes these values are themselves subject to interpretation, and where the boundaries start and finish a matter of judgement. But some values are most definitely within the scope of those values which we as a society generally agree that we do not want promoted for the public good.

Geert Weelders is a Dutch politician who quite correctly points out the dangers to western society of unrestricted Muslim immigration. He is not advocating violence, he could even be seen as preventing violence by pointing out that Isalm is a very violent ideology, and that Muslims are a danger to the peaceful evolution of western society.

Continued

Continued

There is nothing wrong with being opposed to abortion, provided that you do not advocate violence towards medical staff who perform these procedures. Mr Newman has never done that. But when it comes to "entertainers" like "Tyler the Creator" making money by openly advocating violence towards women, that is another matter.

Rap music is notorious for advocating every anti social value from shop lifting, extreme violence with weapons, killing police officers, killing white people, rape (including one "song" by white rap artist "MM" in which he "sings" a "song" about the joys of raping his mother), disrespect for women, illegal drug abuse, criminal gang behaviour, and extreme violence towards women. Do we as a society want such values promoted to our youngest generation through youth media? I think that the overwhelming majority opinion would be "No!" Because if we do tolerate it, we can hardly be surprised when our youngest generation get confused by the mixed messages that society is giving them, and they respond by getting into serious trouble. Which, I might point out, is already happening. Juvenile gang killings is now the fastest growing US crime statistic. In Australia, kids are now killing kids.

The entertainment media is today producing pop songs, video clips, movies and TV programs glamouriing serious criminal behaviour. It is depicting violent criminals and drug traffickers as admirable people with strong characters who lead adventurous and exciting lives. The consequenes of our societies continuing to allow this, is that poorly socialised people with low intelligence who possess weak characters will see these criminals as role models for what they aspire to be. It is hardly necessary to point out that rap music in particular appeals to the most violent minorities who are already renowned for getting into serious trouble. Black and aboriginal women already suffer homicide rates several times higher than their white sisters.

Preventing "Tyler the Creator" from entering Australia to promote serious violence towards women looks to me to be a sensible idea

Phanto,
When I said "What is the danger in going along with something stupid because its PC?" I wasnt talking about free speech.
I was talking about allowing undesirables to immigrate here.

Pogi:

“To criticise further is unnecessary as the examples I have provided illustrate my point re naive generalisation. A greater familiarity with history would probably have stayed your hand from such transgression.”

Why do you feel the need to describe my generalisation as naive? Just describing it as a generalisation is perfectly sufficient for what you argued. Did you feel the need to put me down in some way because you were insecure about your views?

Why do you feel the need to tell me that I am not familiar with history? Not as familiar as you – is that what you mean? That is very patronising. I could be a professor of modern history for all you know and still have the opinions that I expressed. They may be wrong but having knowledge is no guarantee to being right. I am entitled to express my opinions about the current topic no matter how misguided they are. I do not have to be familiar with everything I express an opinion on.

If you do not agree with me then you are entitled to say why but if I am obviously not familiar with history then why would you waste your time replying to my post? If my generalisations are naive then why bother responding?

It seems to me that you would not need to try and put me down or patronise me if you were secure in your opinions so there is no point in responding to your arguments until you are really sure of what you think.

Phanto, thankyou for your comments.

You write; "Why do you feel the need to describe my generalisation as naive?" I described them as such because they seem to have emerged from a rather impulsive thought process that committed them to the written word before subjecting them to critical examination. I do not regard my criticism and description as patronising or petty. Uttering such broad assertions as if they are holy writ divinely endowed and unquestionable imparts an honour and gravitas that very, very few assertions can truly bear, certainly not those you presented to us however noble were your intentions.

You write; "Why do you feel the need to tell me that I am not familiar with history? Not as familiar as you – is that what you mean?" The examples of exceptions to your generalisations were not extracted from some musty, neglected tome of arcane fable but were personified by two of the most widely known historical figures of the 20th century. I'm sure you have heard of them. You attribute to me a meanness that is unjustified and unjustifiable as I had no intention of arousing your ire.

You write; "I am entitled to express my opinions about the current topic no matter how misguided they are." And I would defend to the death your assertion of such entitlement including your right to be misguided. By the same token you cannot deny me the right to express criticism of and disagreement with your opinions if you freely choose to publish them in a public forum. Cont.....

You write; "I do not have to be familiar with everything I express an opinion on." Indeed, my defence of your entitlement here would be just as stout. But you must admit that the lesser your familiarity then the higher your vulnerability to criticism and disagreement.

"If you do not agree with me then you are entitled to say why but if I am obviously not familiar with history then why would you waste your time replying to my post? If my generalisations are naive then why bother responding?" I confess that my susceptibility to a naive altruism can no longer remain a secret. In order that your sojourn in OLO be a happier one and your contributions be brimming with interesting facts and entertaining anecdotes all stamped with the authority of erudition, I thought to offer encouragement to one whom I considered might profit by it, especially as I see in you an enthusiasm that I had so many years ago.

I try to be as accurate as possible and have an extensive library of history accumulated over the years.