It has been suggested this morning by another person I'm not going to name, that, over the last 20 years, what used to be unacceptable behaviour, as well as physical violence, has been “normalised by the Left”.

Much of the violence started with BLM, with “its burning, looting, murder, desecration of monuments, hate crimes against businesses and individuals ….”. Something had clearly gone wrong with the Left.

The crap mainstream media lied that the thugs “were mainly peaceful”, just as our Prime Minister lies about our weekend, anti-West thugs hiding behind pro- ‘Palestinianism’.

The writer, who is the sort that some people would think should be shot, believes that it is time “to have a conversation about the Left”. Rather naive. Conversations won’t deter the Left.

Freedom of speech is important - but is only a secondary freedom, whose main purpose is to protect the more fundamental freedoms such as the freedom to live one's life peacefully in one's own home, surrounded by one's loving family and friends and doing all the things one enjoys in life - that includes the freedom of worship and the freedom of association.

Now the United States of America already has the highest number of prisoners in the world and is the world's 5th in its rate of incarceration, surpassing even China and Russia on both measures, of people who do not enjoy their most basic day-to-day freedoms, suffering horrendously instead; and here came a person who, in the name of "free speech", threatened the public: "We don’t have enough people in prison in America. We need a lot more prisoners."

Well we cannot deny the freedom of speech from the vilest person even, but martyr for freedom he certainly is not!

Australia should never go where the US is going.

ttbn,

An ironic comment from you there, given the US Department of Justice has just removed a study showing which side of politics is actually responsible for most of this violence - and it’s not the one you're pointing at:

http://theconversation.com/right-wing-extremist-violence-is-more-frequent-and-more-deadly-than-left-wing-violence-what-the-data-shows-265367

When the actual numbers show the political right responsible for the overwhelming share of ideologically motivated murders in the US - and the DOJ removes the report just days after Kirk’s death and Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric - it’s hard not to see a pattern.

Instead of introspection, we get projection. Blame BLM. Blame Kimmel. Blame Albanese. Blame "left-fascists." And now, apparently, brush up against justifying political violence ("the sort that some people would think should be shot").

The more this kind of talk gets normalised - the more we rush to declare martyrs and enemies before facts are in - the more likely we are to push someone over the edge again.

Free speech is about defending other peoples right to say things we don't like.
Free speech is about saying things that may offend other people.
Free speech is about criticising the government, who restrict free speech.

Hi AC,

Agree, but where do you draw the line on extreme "hate speak", incitement to violence, scapegoating, disinformation, distortions and untruths designed to engender hatred towards others within society.

One danger with this Charlie Kirk assassination is the runaway train invoking Christianity, God, patriotism, with the extreme conservatives calling for blood as a necessary action to cleans society of undesirable elements. .

The Kennedy assassinations along with that of King, were, in retrospect, inflexion points in US and world history. This has that same feel, especially since it occurred in the same month as the brutal murder of Iryna Zarutska in Charlotte.

The outpourings of grief along with the determination to make Kirk's life and death have real meaning, have, it would seem, galvanised the conservative youth in ways that terrifies the left. Whatismore, the way the previously immune left have been held to account for their expressions of joy over the murder, with many being cancelled and not a few jobs lost (with more to come) signals a complete reversal of the days of BLM and the Flyrod riots.

To be sure, it could all fizzle out. The right has a way of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. But MAGA and TPUSA are of a different ilk to the old GOP. We'll see.

As to Australia, it is true that where the US goes, we eventually follow, as does the rest of the west. The change will come here, which is why the Liberal Party needs to hold fast to liberal values rather than chase each voting block down the rabbit-hole. The current ruling elite are in love with censorship. They tried to enforce it over X and Musk and wound up looking foolish. But the left doesn't give up.... they always double down. The current proposed rules about censorship of kids are the latest route. Remember that stopping people under 16 getting access to the WWW means requiring everyone to prove they are over 16 and therefore declare who they are. (Absorb that and then go and get your VPN).

/cont