Loudmouth, you're really not into humour and satire, are you?

Hi Grim,

No, I take the threats of Platonic guardianship and channelling of free expression by elites very seriously. Like Karl Popper, I suspect that there is a very easy slide from 'good society' or utopian propositions to fascism (think 'public intellectuals' like Mussolini), because they so often degenerate into prescriptions for closed societies, closed minds and the 'necessary' removal of 'contaminants'. Such 'ideal' societies inevitably need the vigilant and sweeping hands of the guardians to protect the 'people', if only from themselves. And I don't think there is anything funny about the reinvention of that wheel all over again.

But that wheel keeps turning: one current tactic to silence people seems to be to call anybody with a different opinion from one's own, a 'denier': i.e. like Irving and Tobin, who deny the Holocaust, whoever disagrees with a widely-held opinion must be a 'denier' pure and simple. This tactic stops discussion dead: we're all terrified of being thought of as a denier of something so manifestly dreadful. Another tactic is to call someone a neo-liberal. Funny, it used to be 'communist' that was used as a label, as a way to stop discussion. Different words, same tactics.

Yes, I apologise for the over-use of quotation marks :)

Joe Lane

Lo and behold ! One of our own philosopher-kings has just had a story on Crikey about climate-change 'deniers'. Worse than Nazi apologists, he suggests: climate change will cause hundreds of millions of deaths, so how could anybody 'deny' it ? Or even debate it ? Brilliant !

So what is the difference between a sceptic (permissible, under strict conditions, in the brave new world) and a denier (utterly impermissible under a Charter of Rights) ? Is it permitted to raise questions about sea-level rise (or lack of it) in Adelaide or Sydney or Melbourne ? Is it permitted to point out that the Arctic Ocean freezes over in winter and much of it melts in late summer every year ?

Yes, I'm persuaded that CC is occurring by the almost universal shrinking back of glaciers, and that turbulent weather events are probably more likely and more severe now than fifty years ago (is that really so ? Just asking) and I can't see anything wrong with wind turbines, but we all should still be able to raise legitimate doubts and concerns about causation and consequences without being slagged as 'deniers': that's called the scientific method and it's available to all, not just the Precious Few.

Scepticism is a universal right, even an obligation, not to be chipped away at by some self-appointed bunch who think they know what is good for the rest of us and who take in each other's washing.