Tuesday, March 21, 2023

Neo-Nazis 1; free speech nil

With their masks, their black uniforms and their Sieg Heil-type salutes, the knuckle-dragging neo-Nazis who turned up at British feminist Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull’s Melbourne rally are a truly pathetic bunch of human beings. All that’s missing is the word “LOSER” tattooed in large letters on their foreheads.

But they gave the media and the woke Left the perfect excuse to whip up a storm of hysteria over Keen-Minshull’s pending visit to New Zealand, with even Wellington’s already tiresome look-at-me mayor gratuitously getting in on the act. Tory Whanau says Keen-Minshull’s views are strongly condemned and unwelcome in Wellington. But condemned by whom? And how would Whanau know what the people of Wellington think, beyond her own tight little circle of swooning admirers?

The presence of the neo-Nazis at the Melbourne rally enabled Keen-Minshull’s opponents to smear her by association, no matter how emphatically she declares her contempt for them. So the controversy over her speaking tour is now framed in the shock-horror media as a contest between liberal (yeah, right) progressives and admirers of Adolf Hitler, when it’s nothing of the sort.

The neo-Nazis are not remotely interested in supporting Keen-Minshull (aka Posie Parker). Why would they be? She’s a feminist. Last time I checked, neo-Nazis weren't exactly big on women's rights. All they’re interested in is promoting disruption and destabilisation – and they’re succeeding. The tragedy is that the principle of free speech is being trampled underfoot in the process.

14 comments:

Tinman said...

More "I'm all for free speech ... except ..."

Karl I completely agree with your description of the "neo-Nazi" tossers but are they not allowed free speech, even if we disagree with what they say?

Free speech must be for all, limited only by the individual responsibility for any consequences of that speech. (yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre type of thing.)

That last part is, of course, the hard part for most "free" speech advocates causing them to add the "except".

Free speech can only be achieved by allowing all ideas to be vocalised and then allowing argument about those ideas.

'tis not the "Nazi" nutbars you should be blaming but the scum-of-the-earth types like Whanau who seek to eradicate peoples' exposure to views they (the scum) don't like.

Phil Blackwell

Huskynut said...

Utter storm in a teacup. How anyone could pretend to take those aussie "nazis" seriously, I don't know.. unlike the Ukrainian ones which of course we support..

Odysseus said...

The neo-Nazis have provided a distraction that will be exploited by the so-called progressives and their sympathizers in government. The fact remains however that Keen-Minshull is a Women's Rights activist who is promoting beliefs that were mainstream only yesterday, and there appears to be much interest in her speaking tour from local women's rights groups. The Labour government face a predicament. If they ban her entry they will alienate many women, who according to recent polls are more sympathetic to the Left than men. Or they could let her in and then rely on the thugs' veto, recently given free-rein by the Supreme Court, to stop her speaking. But either way the Left loses.

Karl du Fresne said...

Phil,
Nowhere did I suggest the neo-Nazis should be silenced. I simply pointed out that their appearance at the rally has been exploited by the enemies of free speech.

Max Ritchie said...

We have reached the Orwellian situation where fascists, left and right, can disrupt a meeting and it’s the meeting’s fault! Similarly we now have racism as the cure for racism! Quite how one law for all, one vote each is racist is never explained but the cure, apparently, is to favour Maori. I used to work for a Maori. He became the boss because he was talented and worked hard. No special status needed for him. But one of his children became an advocate for Maori privilege. Hard to figure but we now have the situation where just about every Maori demands some sort of reward just for being Maori (or part thereof). I thought we’d gone well past inherited privilege.

Phil said...

I also think that turning up with face coverings and doing Nazi salutes isn't speech at all. I agree lazy attention seekers.

Gary Peters said...

People keep talking about "women's rights" as though they are some freakish thing seperated from us all as humans.

Where are the speakers and protestors defending men's rights when all those male identifying women are parading their naked bodies in our hallowed changing rooms and displacing men at the top of the record boards with their exception athletic ability.

Who will speak up for us males when those male identifying women start usurping us by breeding with women ......... Will there be any women left?

Philosophical Crumbs said...

I don't see how if purported neo-Nazis support a given idea, then that idea is a priori discredited as a consequence. It simply doesn't follow. Any idea should be judged on its merits, not by whoever can be associated with the idea. We saw this with the coverage of the Parliament protest, where the focus was not on ideas, but on MSM claims as to the personalities involved.

Of course it's easier to send some "neo-Nazis" (who I can only assume are actually police recruits, given how caricatured and cartoonish they looked) along and try to discredit by association, than it is to actually argue the point and rebut the "anti-trans" activists.

More generally, if we live in a free society, then neo-Nazis should have exactly the same civil rights as everyone else, because if they don't, then we cannot claim to have a free and open society. How is banning and censoring views on the subjective basis that they are considered unacceptable any different than what the Nazis did themselves? It's not different at all.

Philosophical Crumbs said...

Gary Peters
"Transgenderism" isn't a rights issue, it's an outright denial of the natural order of things. In other words, it's wrong in itself. We don't need to pretend that it's biologically or morally right, but that the real problem is it has consequences in terms of men's and women's rights. Transgenderism is wrong full stop, and people who think that it's OK on any level are seriously deluded.

Alex said...

Should the issue therefore be freedom of expression ?
That will be a mind bender for most people.

transpress nz said...

Wearing masks is something the extremist Antifa do also. Leftists generally are in full support of the Bandera neo-Nazis in Ukraine who have been launching missiles and other attacks on the inhabitants in the breakaway republics of Donbass since 2014 after the Obama administration organised a coup d'etat to depose the Russia-friendly government in Kiev. It's been reliably estimated that Ukraine's neo-Nazis killed 14,000 people in the 8 years between 2014 and 2022. They have also conducted various public punishments on Ukrainians who speak Russian or who disagree with their dreadful ideology. It seems that Leftists consider neo-Nazis good in one situation overseas but not at home?

Anonymous said...

As far as I can tell Posie Parker is saying
1. Trans men arent women
2 Women dont have penises
3. Men dont have uteruses.
That's what makes it a hard argument to involve the public in.
It should be the journalists job to put those views to Shaneel Lal etc

Mark H said...

I think the problem lies with the LGBTQIA community, who is really issuing ultimatums of intolerance, by saying if you are not for us, you are against us. That is what is being said to anyone who doesnt agree with them, and it is blatantly untrue. Just because you dont believe something, doesnt mean you are against it. Hitler was the last person I can remember with this deluded narrative.

Hilary Taylor said...

She's a hard row to hoe being a sheila right now...the trans are one thing, their mainstream media enablers and boosters quite another. No reply to my email to Kamala Hayman or the journo who misrepresented Keen-Minshull in the Press...FRances Chin continues to do it.Ive written a letter to the editor...will they print it?
This woman Kelly-Jay is brave and I'm behind her..I just can't be in Welly or AK to turn up. I'm fed up to the back teeth with the deception & the BS about Self-Sex ID and its ramifications for women & girls...thanks to those nazis for making her a household name...LET WOMEN SPEAK!!!

(great remarks here again & thanks Karl.)