Hi Foxy,

What you say is entirely true, I think the George Brandis comment of 2014 sums it up "(people have) a right to be bigots", and to some extent I have to agree with that. What I do not agree with is peoples right to racially vilify others. On the "Muslim" issue many Australians cannot differentiate, or care not to, between, terrorists, refugees and ordinary people of the Islamic faith. Simply taring the lot with the same brush, and be damned with it. That is a simplistic, and oh so easy line to take, absolving them of all blame and responsibility.

Hi Paul,

No, I'm certainly not equating various opportunist trends, simply that opportunists of all shades will suck up to each other while it's convenient, simply because they perceive a common enemy - in this case, Western values, of a balance between freedoms and equality, the rule of law, democracy, all imperfect principles with a never-ending quest for improvement.

Opportunists may not kiss each others' arses for long: I recall a cartoon of David Low's, showing Mussolini rushing troops to the Austrian border as soon as the Nazis enforced the Anschluss and invaded Austria. No love lost there. And the way the Nazis invaded fascist Rumania, Bulgaria and Hungary when it suited in 1943 or 1944.

More recently, the Russians and Turks were cuddling up to each other, but perhaps that opportunism has worn thin now that the US has bombed that Syrian air base. Perhaps, in the spirit of rank opportunism, Russia will junk Assad if they can get assurances that they can retain their air base and port facilities in Syria. The mutual arse-kissing of Duterte's Philippines and China may not last long, if Duterte grows a couple and occupies some of the shoals in the Spratleys.

Sometimes opportunism has a very short shelf-life, Paul :)

I hope the faux 'Left' can learn that. Nah, too late for that.

Cheers,

Joe

Dear Paul,

No. People do not have the right to be bigots!
Not in this country - not yet!
And I trust they never will. The Senate did not
allow for changes to 18C - and why should they,
it's served us well for decades and we have 18D
that works very nicely with it, that protects
our freedom of speech.

The ultimate problem is the fact that some people take
this freedom and use it to belittle, demean, and
persecute vulnerable people.

What we must decide as a country is whether unfettered
freedom of speech is more important than protecting
vulnerable people.

Dearest Foxy,

How do you define 'bigot' ? The problem is that what may seem perfectly obvious to you may seem like bigotry to somebody else, and of course vice versa. There's no 'Big Brother' or government agency (nor can there ever be, I hope) to decide what is bigotry and what is not.

Yes, you're right: how to balance freedom of expression with the rights of people not to be harassed or humiliated, or to have violent action incited against them such as in the BDS campaign.

That's always going to be a very difficult balance to strike, since we are talking about the very edge of 'freedom' on the one hand and 'protection' on the other. Should, for example, companies be bullied into supporting the homosexual lobby by the threat of their getting boycotted by customers ? Should churches be stood over for issuing a pamphlet supporting the law ? If bigotry is not legal, then in that case, who are the bigots ?

It's a far harder, and constant, task than it may seem.

Love,

Joe

Hi Joe,

Its all a case of my enemies, enemy is my friend. You like to refer to the faux 'Left', exactly in Australia who are you referring to? Left/right such hackneyed and cliched terms, that are done to death, the French have a lot to answer for on that score. In the context of Australian politics I much prefer the terminology progressive and conservative, and when taken on a issue by issue bases the vast majority are a mix of the two. I can find very few who want to turn our whole social, economic and political structure on its head, those I would label as radical in the extreme.

On gay marriage for example, if you are pro gay marriage then you support progressive change, if you want to retain the status quo then you are conservative, neither can be termed left or right, up or down or whatever, because on the very next issue the two persons in question could be ass about, and so on.

In the case of the forums Hansonite, me thinks he reads too much, and gets all tangled up in hyperbole. Nothing in politics get up the nose of the "oh! so serious" crusty old conservative than a bit of humor.

Hi Paul,

Sorry, I don't see homosexual marriage as progressive - maybe it's not conservative either -

(although when I was much younger, I took it for granted that the English upper classes were all 'poofters', as we used to crudely call them, that they had contempt for women except to procreate an heir to their fortunes [once they had done that, they could bugger off with their boyfriends and any nearby little boys], actually a bit like the attitude to women that some Muslims had, hence the disgust at the notion of Allah being produced of a woman),

- but I can't for the life of me see anything progressive about it. Maybe I've become a conservative bigot :)

So maybe even the terms 'progressive' and 'conservative' are no longer much use ?

Cheers,

Joe