The latest Listener has an outstanding editorial on freedom of speech and the need to oppose those who clamour to shut it down. It will be all the more effective because it's published by a magazine with a generally left-leaning readership that may feel uncertain or conflicted over what position to take in the speech wars. The editorial should leave readers in no doubt.
https://www.noted.co.nz/currently/currently-social-issues/free-speech-world-is-on-dangerous-path-to-stifling
2 comments:
There is an excellent leading article in current issue of North & South - in the same vein. Good to see.
It's an unexpected pleasure to see the Listener, that bastion of left wing groupthink, coming out in support of free speech. The Human Rights Commission, a misnomer if ever there was, is being disingenuous however. They intervened most unhelpfully in the Free Speech Coalition's recent case against the Auckland City Council and Phil Goff over the banning of the two Canadians. Their earlier attempt to criminalize "disharmonious speech" would have resulted in an Islamic blasphemy law in this country. There is plenty of scope within our current laws to deal with threatening or abusive language. But there is no right not to be offended. Religion is a set of precepts and commands, not a race. We offer people fleeing persecution and tyranny our protection as refugees in this country. They have to accept in turn that they now live in a free society where ideas and beliefs are subject to scrutiny and criticism. They must adapt to our ways, not vice versa. All too often the charge of "Islamophobia", a term promoted by the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, is deployed to shut down discussion of atrocities against innocent people committed in that religion's name. It is of concern that Paul Hunt, the Human Rights Commissioner recruited from the UK where he was an aspirant to office in the UK Labour Party which is now under investigation by the UK authorities for anti-Semitism, appears to want to introduce the term here.
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