"Determining what qualifies as a ‘hate crime’ is entirely subjective and threatens to simply create a bigger stick"

"[D]etermining what qualifies as a ‘hate crime’ is entirely subjective ... and threaten[s] to simply create a bigger stick with which to beat unpopular views.
    “Criminal acts motivated by hate are already illegal and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. However, categorising an existing offence as a ‘hate crime’ means punishing not just the action, but the perceived thoughts or motivations behind it.
    “New Zealand law already permits judges to consider motivation as an aggravating factor under the Sentencing Act. This is the right approach—judges daily use their subjective discretion in determining appropriate punishments.
    “Throwing red paint on an MP's office in response to the conflict in Gaza? Defacing an installation of the English version of the Treaty in Te Papa? Vandalising a rainbow pedestrian street crossing? All of these are [already] criminal offences—all should be addressed appropriately under the law. But who decides which is a ‘hate crime’?
    “No jurisdiction in the world has created an objective standard for ‘hate.’ Trying to legislate against something so subjective will lead to confusion and inconsistency in enforcement. There is far too much room for ideological interpretation when deciding if a crime constitutes as ‘hateful’ and to what extent. ...
    "Internationally, ‘hate crime’ laws have proven to be easily [exploited]. The rule of law is too important for our democracy to get caught up in subjective and ideological debates that undermine clear legal standards.”

~ Free Speech Union's submission on the Law Commission’s foolish consultation on hate speech law [More here]

Shane MacGowan (1957-2023)

 

"Yes, the greatest songwriter of the Eighties has left us. The man who singlehandedly resuscitated traditional Irish music, and spiked it with the din of London punk, has retired to the great drinking establishment in the sky. He was 65. Younger generations will never understand how crazy it is that Shane MacGowan made it to retirement age. ...
    "Yet even as we marvel at the length of MacGowan’s life, and the almost studied debauchery of it, we must honour its achievements, too. They are legion. ...

"Originally called Pogue Mahone – Irish for ‘kiss my arse’ – the Pogues diplomatically whittled their name down in the early Eighties. They burst on to the music scene with their album Red Roses for Me in 1984. That was the year of the New Romantics and Band Aid. Of men in make-up looking earnest next to smoke machines on Top of the Pops and Bob Geldof’s sad-eyed minions wondering if the starving folk of Ethiopia even know it’s Christmas. (Sixty-five per cent of them are Christians, so I’m guessing they do, yes.) Then along comes this hybrid Irish / London band, part-trad, part-punk, as if Brendan Behan and Johnny Rotten had defied the laws of nature and had offspring, singing ‘The Auld Triangle’ and ‘Poor Paddy’ and ‘Down in the Ground Where the Dead Men Go’. No wonder Melody Maker described Red Roses for Me as brilliant but ‘strangely irrelevant’, like ‘a particularly bloody two-fingered [gesture] aimed at all things considered current and fashionable in 1984’. Yes, quite correct....

"They were the cultural outliers who inspired wild devotion among fans. MacGowan declared himself the enemy of pop worthiness, a one-man screw-you to the po-faced bent of so much Eighties pop. Asked why his punkish Irish outfit enjoyed so much success, he said‘[because] we weren’t a faggot and a guy with a synthesiser’. ... No one wanted ‘another bunch of straights playing “world music”’ either, he said. They ‘wanted the Pogues’, they wanted ‘nutters’. It’s true, we did....
    "We will see a lot of Pogues nostalgia in the coming days. MacGowan will be praised to the hilt by people who would have cancelled him in a heartbeat if he emerged today....
    "Ireland’s Taoiseach, Tánaiste and president will pay tribute to MacGowan. Even as they trounce the Ireland he represented. Even as they rush through hate-speech laws that would potentially have led to someone like MacGowan being dragged to court for his sinful utterance of a word like ‘faggot’....
    "His music will outlive these people. It will survive cancel culture. It will outlast a pop scene where binding one’s breasts and saying ‘I love Greta’ are insanely considered acts of rebellion. ‘We watched our friends grow up together / And we saw them as they fell / Some of them fell into Heaven / Some of them fell into Hell’, he sings on ‘A Rainy Night in Soho’. Let’s hope he’s falling into Heaven today. He deserves it.

~ Brendan O'Neill, from his post 'The last Irish rebel'

"The issue is never the issue; the issue is always the revolution."

"The issue is never the issue; the issue is always the revolution. The revolution proceeds through conflict and strategic framing of polarised manufactured 'sides.' The issue is just an excuse (or mediator) to orient the conflict in the direction of Leftist 'progress'."

~ James Lindsay explaining the process of "dialectical progress"

"Does that mean the annhilation of Israel?" "Yes, of course." [updated]

 

Hamas's "useful idiots" were out in Auckland's Domain over the weekend. In a month or so, they will be in Parliament. 

"Useful fool" was Lenin's phrase for his western dupes -- those shallow thinkers in the West whom the Communists manipulated.

On the weekend's evidence, the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand is officially Hamas's useful fools.

Let me give you some context.

On Saturday's pro-Palestine rally, Labour's Phil Twyford was granted a speaking spot by organisers, the NZ Palestine Solidarity Network. He condemned the violence. But he made the mistake of condemning Hamas's violence as well as the IDF's. The crowd turned on him, organisers asked him to leave, he was booed off, and without a police guard his escape from the grounds would not have been guaranteed.

Immediately after -- immediately -- the increasingly shrill Chloe Swarbrick got up to speak. She began by making "absolutely clear," in front of a gaggle of cheering new Green MPs and co-leader Marama Davidson, that "just after what we've witnessed, I want to say strongly, clearly and vehemently, the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand stands for a free Palestine.... From the river to the sea, Palestine" she chanted, "will be free."

"Free free Palestine!" they shouted. "Free free Palestine!" they chanted. But I have a question: Free Palestine? From what? for what? of what? of whom? 

"It's not complicated," shouted Swarbrick.

And it's actually not.

In the end, what really matters is what matters to Hamas, who rule the geographically-western strip of Palestine, their launchpad for their attacks on October 7th. And all the fools, tools and useful idiots should be absolutely clear what Hamas's own "Leader Abroad" Khaled Mashal means by "freeing" Palestine, about with he is abundantly clear. For him, it is not at all complicated. Speaking from the safety of his multi-million dollar apartment in Qatar, he makes it absolutely plain of whom he wants Palestine to be freed:

" ... We will repeat the October 7 massacre time and again, one-million times if we need to, until we end the occupation. 

Q: "Occupation where, of the Gaza strip?"

No, I am talking about all the Palestinian lands.

Q: "Does that mean the annihilation of Israel? 

"Yes, of course."

Annihilation.

All the way from the river -- that's the whole Jordan Valley on the east-- right down to the Mediterranean Sea on the west.

Annhilation.

From the river to the sea.

UPDATE: 

Just to be absolutely, pellucidly clear here .. it cannot be Gaza of which they say "the Israeli occupation" must end. Because rightly or wrongly Israel stopped occupying Gaza 18 years ago,

"Jacinda Ardern ... is now one of the leading anti-free speech figures in the world"

Former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told the UN that free speech 

is "a weapon of war," "censorship is necessary" to protect free speech .. and that 

war is peace and freedom is slavery. (Pick any two.)

"Jacinda Ardern may no longer be Prime Minister of New Zealand, but she was back at the United Nations continuing her call for international censorship. Ardern is now one of the leading anti-free speech figures in the world and continues to draw support from political and academic establishments. In her latest attack on free speech, Ardern declared free speech as a virtual weapon of war. She is demanding that the world join her in battling free speech as part of its own war against “misinformation” and “disinformation.” ...
    "In her speech, she notes that we cannot allow free speech to get in the way of fighting things like climate change. She notes that they cannot win the war on climate change if people do not believe them about the underlying problem. The solution is to silence those with opposing views. It is that simple. ...
    "[It is] chilling ... to hear Ardern express her fealty to free speech as she calls on the nations of the world to severely curtail it to prevent people from undermining their policies and priorities. She remains the 'empathetic' face of raw censorship and intolerance. She is now the virtual ambassador-at-large for global speech regulation and criminalisation."

~ Jonathan Turley from his post 'Harvard’s Jacinda Ardern Calls on the United Nations to Crack Down on Free Speech as a Weapon of War'

RELATED:

"The organised Left—once a bastion for free speech, equality, and social justice—has become drunk on the heady wine of identitarianism, losing its way in the maze of its own making. The politics of identity have eclipsed the quest for universal values, and in doing so, mutated into a grotesque facsimile of the very far-right extremism it purports to fight. The great irony lies here: In their incessant mission to highlight the pervasive evils they claim to battle, they have themselves become the embodiment of these forces." 

~ Dane Giraud, from his post 'The real devils among us' [emphasis in the original]

'Hate-speech' regulation is back again

"Like taxes and death, there are some dependables in life. I would suggest a government’s propensity to censorship and speech regulation is one of them....
    "On Thursday, we saw yet again that even in a liberal, democratic society with longstanding civil liberties, governments are always keen to reach for a bit more than they should.
    "The Department of Internal Affairs’ public consultation document proposes a new law establishing a 'regulator' to oversee the modern content landscape. ...
    "Things won't change too much for major media outlets, but for the first time ever, your tweets, comments on Facebook, and waxing-lyrical on LinkedIn will be subject to oversight by a government watchdog....
    "The content the new regulator is looking to oversee is not child exploitation, terrorist activity or material that encourages self-harm. That is all indisputably already illegal in New Zealand....
    "This is about 'harmful' ideas that make individuals “feel unsafe”. This is about silencing certain perspectives, views or beliefs....
    "Undoubtedly, content online can cause hate and harm. Free speech is the solution to this.... Silencing Kiwis online does not promote social cohesion or build trust [and nor is it within the proper purview of any rights-respecting government.] Kiwis will see this work as nothing more than online hate speech laws, and will resist this overreach also. [Let's hope so!]"

~ Jonathan Ayling, from his op-ed 'Media regulation plan - a censor's greatest dream'

"So a lunatic inside the DIA has decided to launch a consultation round on an insanely bureaucratic ‘Ministry of Truth’ who will impose ‘safety standards’ which just sounds like a means to complain about people saying things you don’t like.
    "If you don’t have these ‘safety standards’, then you will be fined!
    "This is an enormously large Wellington designed Bureaucratic Tank that is going to blitzkrieg everyone the Disinformation Project tells them to ‘audit’.
    "This is way in excess of changing the Hate Speech laws, this is empowering a Sheriff to call together a posse and funding them.
    "The level of over reach is remarkable, it’s Absolutely Positively Wellington!"

~ Martyn Bradbury, from his post 'What lunatic inside DIA decided to launch a ‘Ministry of Truth’ 5 months before an election?'

"If you need to know the colour of the speaker before you know if you are offended, then the hate is coming from you"

"My view has always been ... that if you need to know the colour (or demographic trait in general) of the speaker before you know if you are offended or not, then the hate is coming from you – not from the speaker. What you hate is not what was said but the person saying it."

~ commenter 'Ferox' on the blog post 'People use the weapons they are given'

 

IDENTITY POLITICS, Conclusion: It's Not a Right/Left Issue

 

Remember when you just took people as you found them? You didn't need to first check their tribe, their pronouns, their penis, or their "privilege." Alright, true, that wasn't all entirely universal -- but for a time there, it was at least the aim, wasn't it? 

That was, until today's identity politics took over.  Watching the increasing re-tribalisation of political life, it was hard to miss its arrival; any folk who did could hardly have missed its explosion in the latest TERF v Trans wars. It's real, and it's odious, and it's here. And it will only go away if you understand it, and fight back.

In today's conclusion of this brief series on the what and why and where and how of the identity politics movement and its origins and spread (first published back in 2019, remember), I remind you that the focus of the attack was (and still is) on our right to speak freely ... and it comes from both sides of the alleged political spectrum...

CONCLUSION: It's Not a Right/Left Issue

"Speaking is not only essential to the transmission of ideas; it is also essential

to the formation and validation of ideas. Speaking is essential to thinking."

~ Craig Biddle

As we’ve seen, this is not a right/left issue – it's bigger than that. Both “sides” of that notional spectrum collectivise people this way. And both sides should be damned for it. 

The right for example argue that race determines IQ and earning power; the left that class and gender determine one’s “privilege.” The right use this issue to oppose immigration because “white culture” is allegedly under threat; the left, to oppose “white privilege” in order to protect privilege’s alleged victims.

They disagree about what your particular collective might be, and what precisely this determines about your group, but they join hands in this deterministic embrace of collectivism. That your race determines your culture.

And both sides of the alleged political spectrum are united in opposing free speech: The left publicly celebrates “diversity,” except for diversity of opinion; while the right just as ostentatiously celebrates “western civilisation” by upholding values that civilisation has rightly damned. 

And the left trumpets “tolerance,” all the while being intolerant of those against tolerance; and at the same time the right celebrates their own intolerance, while seeking to ban those who are intolerant of them. 

And while the left wants to shut down and deplatform speakers on public streets and in public universities [and, most recently, in Albert Park], the right wants to regulate and control speech on Facebook, Twitter and on other private social media.[ii] 

The allegedly opposed political tribes are neither opposed nor rational, but on this point they agree fundamentally: the group above all. All they're really arguing about is: "Which group?"

Let me remind you of the three things missing here in all this: your own choices, your own values, your individuality, and your free speech. The values, in short that did build this civilisation, the values these barbarians have dropped. Defending civilisation should begin with embracing those values, and rejecting their tribalism. Because, remember this: "if the west resorts to tribalism to defend civilisation, then civilisation is already irredeemably lost."[iii]

If there is a "side," then it's this one: those on the side of reason, individualism and civilisation, and those against.

Because it's not about left versus right. Or our gang against your gang. That's a pathetic phone war. It's about individualism against collectivism -- especially, in these times, about individualism against this barnyard form of collectivism that has been building and incubating  on either side of the political spectrum, and is now very dangerously busting out again -- and in our own backyard.

The threat to civilisation is not "invaders" from elsewhere. It's our own awful ideas.

Arguing that race trumps reason -- that's wrong. And it leads to much worse.

Identifying collectives by means of race -- seeing conflict as inevitable and racially driven -- identifying ourselves or others by collectives, especially racial or religious or gender-based collectives -- is as deluded as it is deadly.

And it's dangerous whichever side of the alleged political spectrum from which it emerges.

The right's adoption of "identitarian" race-based politics in answer to the left's introduction of identity politics is wrong. Dangerously wrong. Irredeemably wrong. "Crushing the left" by adopting their tactics, strategies, and identity politics is not any kind of "winning" -- it's being captured whole. Killing people in the name of your racial identity is a throwback to a kind of barbarism that should have been, but still hasn't, been buried.

The politics of race is as vile when imposed by the left as it when spat out by the right; it has no place in civilisation.

Bad ideas can only be fought by better ideas. And that, right there, is the value to every one of us of free speech: in an environment of free and open exchange of ideas, we get to hear and think about this free exchange of ideas for ourselves; and the freer the contest, the more likely it is the better ideas that generally win. And then we all do.

It really needn't be a zero-sum conflict.

ENDS 

THIS IS THE FINAL PART of what has become a 7-part series explaining "identity politics," excerpted from one of my chapters in the 2019 book Free Speech Under Attack.

• Part 1: 'What is Identity Politics?'
• Part 2: 'Determinism isn't dead, it just smells that way'
• Part 3: 'Tribal Politics Means Zero-Sum Conflict'
• Part 4: 'Politics + Poly-logic: Marx + Marcuse'
• Part 5: Intersectionality, or: 'How some tribes are made more equal than others'
• Part 6: The right adopts the left’s love child 

 

NOTES 

[ii] See for instance Elizabeth Nolan Brown’s ‘[Trump] White House Seeks Social Media Sob Stories From Conservative Snowflakes,’ Reason, 16 May, 2019.

[iii] Yaron Brook Show podcast, 'NZ Massacre & "White Genocide",' March 19 2019

 

The Disinformation Project: "...they scaremonger in an opportunistic way."

"The Disinformation Project was established to keep a close eye on fringe posts on social media ... sell[ing] its analysis services to social media companies and the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPMC)....
    "[The Project's Sanja] Hattotuwa is now arguing for the Government to invest more in political infrastructure, as it did during the pandemic, to control dissident or extremist views and politics.... His critics have suggested Hattotuwa might simply be drumming up demand for business ...
    "There is an element of escalation in Hattotuwa’s own claims. In media interviews over the last few years, the statement is constantly made that the latest levels of extremism and hate are 'worse than anything he’s seen.' Each month, each year, each debate is apparently worse than the one before. A common refrain is that they are witnessing an 'exponential growth' in disinformation, or hate has grown 'inexorably.' ...
    "It is troubling [too] that the Disinformation Project only concentrates on the misinformation and disinformation of fringe actors but never on that spread by authorities. A true disinformation project would also hold governments to account for when they have been caught out distributing or endorsing misinformation....
    "The only complaint the Disinformation Project ever makes about the Government is that they aren’t investing enough money, or seeking enough advice, on defeating disinformation. As one critic suggested last week, the message about disinformation seems to be: 'It’s so bad, you need to give us money'...
    "[The Disinformation Project] are correct that extremism, hate, and disinformation are serious issues that need serious attention. But the Disinformation Project does a disservice to democracy and the fight against disinformation when they scaremonger in an opportunistic way."

~ Bryce Edwards, from his post 'The Need to Take Disinformation Seriously'

"Words are not weapons"

"Of course, words can hurt, but they do not hurt in the same way or to the same extent as sticks, stones, fists, knives or guns.
    "Words are not weapons. Words are what we use instead of weapons, to express disagreement and assert our claims as we negotiate how to live together despite our differences, under the rule of law and without recourse to violence.
    "If we equate words with weapons, we risk weapons being seen as no worse than words."

~ Dr David Brommell, senior associate of the Institute for Governance and Policy Studies at Victoria University of Wellington, from his op-ed 'Words are not weapons and disagreement is not hate'

"The leaders of any political system—no matter how enlightened—inevitably convince themselves that *now* freedom of speech has gone too far.”

"In recent years, a growing chorus of voices has become increasingly hostile to free speech. Certain people, ideas, and narratives, we are told, must be suppressed in order to combat 'hate speech,' stop misinformation, and 'protect democracy.' As Jacob Mchangama explains in his book, Free Speech: A Global History from Socrates to Social Media, these arguments are not new. The 'justifications for limiting free speech in the twenty-first century,' he observes, 'have more in common with those used many centuries past than perhaps we would like to admit'....

    "One reason for this, Mchangama writes, is that 'the introduction of free speech sets in motion a process of entropy. The leaders of any political system—no matter how enlightened—inevitably convince themselves that now freedom of speech has gone too far'.”

~ Michael Dahlen from his review of Free Speech: A Global History from Socrates to Social Media by Jacob Mchangama

"While hate speech is their immediate complaint, hate facts are their actual target."

 

"Foucault’s grandchildren: The Enlightenment created a magnificent civilisation, yet three generations of postmodernism have bred a sub-culture of deniers—of facts, objectivity, truth, justice, and progress—and who combine that with vicious rhetoric and physical violence. Such activists’ enemy is reality, so they want and need to shut down anyone who persistently raises facts. Psychologically, such activists do feel—genuinely—under hateful attack when pressed with data and argument. They feel assaulted in their core. Shoot the messenger is a common response to unwanted news. So while hate speech is their immediate complaint, hate facts are their actual target."

~ philosopher Stephen Hicks, from his post 'Foucault's Grandchildren'

"Not a single thing has ever been mended /By you standing there and saying you're offended"

"Not a single thing has ever been mended

By you standing there and saying you're offended 

Go ahead, tell them what I've intended 

I'll say what I mean, do what I love 

And fucking send it"

          ~ THE IDLES, Auckland Town Hall, Saturday night

 

"...censorship is a concept that pertains *only* to governmental action." [updated]

"Freedom of speech means freedom from interference, suppression or punitive action by the government -- and nothing else. It does not mean the right to demand the financial support or the material means to express your views at the expense of other men who may not wish to support you. Freedom of speech includes the freedom not to agree, not to listen and not to support one's own antagonists. A 'right' does not include the material implementation of that right by other men; it includes only the freedom to earn that implementation by one's own effort. Private citizens cannot use physical force or coercion; they cannot censor or suppress anyone's views or publications. Only the government can do so. And censorship is a concept that pertains only to governmental action."

~ Ayn Rand, from her column 'The Fascist New Frontier,' collected in The Ayn Rand Column

"For years, the collectivists have been propagating the notion that a private individual’s refusal to finance an opponent is a violation of the opponent’s right of free speech and an act of “censorship.”
    "It is 'censorship,' they claim, if a newspaper refuses to employ or publish writers whose ideas are diametrically opposed to its policy.
    "It is 'censorship,” they claim, if businessmen refuse to advertise in a magazine that denounces, insults and smears them . . . .
    "And then there is Newton N. Minow [then chairman of the Federal Communications Commission] who declares: 'There is censorship by ratings, by advertisers, by networks, by affiliates which reject programming offered to their areas.' It is the same Mr. Minow who threatens to revoke the license of any station that does not comply with his views on programming—and who claims that that is not censorship....
    "[This collectivist notion] means that the ability to provide the material tools for the expression of ideas deprives a man of the right to hold any ideas. It means that a publisher has to publish books he considers worthless, false or evil—that a TV sponsor has to finance commentators who choose to affront his convictions—that the owner of a newspaper must turn his editorial pages over to any young hooligan who clamors for the enslavement of the press. It means that one group of men acquires the 'right' to unlimited license—while another group is reduced to helpless irresponsibility."

~ Ayn Rand, from her article 'Man's Rights,' collected in The Virtue of Selfishness

Hat tip Gus Van Horn, who observes that the misunderstanding she identifies persists today; that the complaints made by "collectivists" in Rand's day "are basically identical to the ones conservatives like to make about various social media outlets today" -- and that while Elon Musk's heart appears to be "in the right place" on free speech, he still seems to labour under the illusion that "support for free speech merely means support for whatever the government happens to allow." Which is simply not the case.

To be clear [says Van Horn], while I often disagreed with the way Twitter moderated its platform, I appreciated then (and do now) that it is, ultimately, its owner's property to do with as he pleases. 

    But that doesn't make it any less disturbing to see Elon Musk riding in like the white knight he intends to be -- but spouting the same nonsense about (what the left has caused everybody to regard as) "censorship," thereby helping pave the way for the government to come in and impose the real thing.

 That said, argues Truth on the Market, while acknowledging that "Musk’s idea that Twitter should be subject to the First Amendment is simply incoherent" -- and, worse, by further confusing folk about who can censor whom, perhaps pave the way for real censorship to grow legs (disinformation commissars, anyone?)-- "his vision for Twitter to have less politically biased content moderation could work."

There has been much commentary on what Musk intends to do, and whether it is a realistic way to maximise the platform’s value. As a multi-sided platform, Twitter’s revenue is driven by advertisers, who want to reach a mass audience. This means Twitter, much like other social-media platforms, must consider the costs and benefits of speech to its users, and strike a balance that maximises the value of the platform. The history of social-media content moderation suggests that these platforms have found that rules against harassment, abuse, spam, bots, pornography, and certain hate speech and misinformation are necessary.
    For rules pertaining to harassment and abuse, in particular, it is easy to understand how they are necessary to prevent losing users. There seems to be a wide societal consensus that such speech is intolerable. Similarly, spam, bots, and pornographic content, even if legal speech, are largely not what social media users want to see.
    But for hate speech and misinformation, however much one agrees in the abstract about their undesirableness, there is significant debate on the margins about what is acceptable or unacceptable discourse, just as there is over what is true or false when it comes to touchpoint social and political issues. It is one thing to ban Nazis due to hate speech; it is arguably quite another to remove a prominent feminist author due to “misgendering” people. It is also one thing to say crazy conspiracy theories like QAnon should be moderated, but quite another to fact-check good-faith questioning of the efficacy of masks or vaccines. It is likely in these areas that Musk will offer an alternative to what is largely seen as biased content moderation from Big Tech companies.
    Musk appears to be making a bet that the market for speech governance is currently not well-served by the major competitors in the social-media space. If Twitter could thread the needle by offering a more politically neutral moderation policy that still manages to keep off the site enough of the types of content that repel users, then it could conceivably succeed and even influence the moderation policies of other social-media companies.
Let the Market Decide
    The crux of the issue is this: Conservatives who have backed antitrust and regulatory action against Big Tech because of political bias concerns should be willing to back off and allow the market to work. And liberals who have defended the right of private companies to make rules for their platforms should continue to defend that principle. Let the market decide.

 

A liberty lesson delivered by Dan Sanchez from 'the slap heard round the world.'

Ayn Rand

Image Credit: Public Domain

What John Galt Would Say to Will Smith

Guest post by Dan Sanchez

I'm not an avid follower of celebrity news -- truth be told I'm barely aware of who all these alleged celebrities are, or how they achieved this so-called status -- but there was an altercation at the Academy Awards last night that is not only consuming the attention of the media and the public, but is actually quite relevant to the ideas that this blog promotes. Call it a short hard lesson in liberty.

I'll let you look up the night's details if you haven't heard them yet, but this is what happened in brief. After the host Chris Rock delivered a joke about actress Jada Pinkett Smith, her husband Will Smith—the A-list actor—walked on stage and literally slapped Rock on live television. Smith then walked back and cursed the host from his seat.

As it turned out, later that night, Will Smith won the Oscar for Best Actor. In his acceptance speech, Smith tearfully apologised (although not to the person he struck).

Now, in a sense, this is a tempest in a teacup. In a world in which governments around the globe are waging wars on liberty, and in the Russian government's case even waging literal war on a civilian population, one highly-paid entertainer striking another in a public meltdown may be considered a distraction. But given that it is (appropriately or not) commanding public attention, we may as well try to extract lessons from it: especially for the benefit of teens and kids.

For most people, it is plain as day who was in the wrong on that stage. But it can be illuminating to reflect on exactly why.

Any young person would do well to frame what happened last night by reading "Galt's speech" from the best-selling novel Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. In that famous speech, Rand's character John Galt proclaims:

"So long as men desire to live together, no man may initiate—do you hear me? no man may start—the use of physical force against others."

This has been referred to by many others since as the "non-initiation of force" principle. The "initiation" part is key, because it establishes that forceful self-defense is legitimate. Understanding this principle is fundamental to understanding liberty and justice.

When judging any violent conflict, people naturally ask an important question -- and that important question is: "Who started it?" But a more precise phrasing would be: who started the violence? Who kicked off the force? Who initially violated someone else's person or property? In short (as you mother might have asked when you'd made your kid brother cry) who swung their fist first?

Will Smith clearly felt Chris Rock's joke was offensive and disrespectful. He may have thought it impugned his wife's honour. He may have regarded it as damaging to his family's reputation (although it can hardly be more damaging than how he responded).

But as Murray Rothbard wrote in The Ethics of Liberty, nobody has a property right in their reputation, because a reputation "is purely a function of the subjective attitudes and beliefs about him contained in the minds of other people." And a person, "can have no property right in the beliefs and minds of other people."

So, Rock's joke, whether it was funny or not, or all in good fun or even needlessly cruel, violated nobody's rights, and the one who initiated force was Smith, and was in the wrong.

It may seem silly to litigate a celebrity slap, but it is worthwhile to clarify these principles when they do come up because, however commonsensical they may seem, people reject them all the time (or misunderstand them, or ignore them... ), and we all suffer for that. For example, the way people frequently use the term "microaggression" threatens speech rights by blurring the line between non-violent behaviour and initiatory force. ("She microagressed me; that's hate speech!") And the bulk of public policy today uses government force to counter non-violent behaviour that some people find objectionable.

Liberty is constantly endangered because most people don't clearly see the line that separates just from unjust force. To save liberty, we need to educate the public (young people especially) about the ideas of liberty, especially the non-initiation of force.

To do that best, put down your phone replaying the slap, and pick up that book called Atlas Shrugged. Worst comes to worst, you can always use its weight in self-defence.

* * * * 

DAN SANCHEZ

Dan Sanchez is the Director of Content at the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) and the editor-in chief of FEE.org, where a version of this article previously appeared.

Using free speech so as not to lose it

The deadline for submissions on the Ardern Government's so-called "hate-speech" legislation closes August 6. [Details here [pdf] and here] Rights Institute head Terry Verhoeven shares his submission below. The so-called Free Speech Union also has a generally good submission here. You could use either as a model for your own.

You might say "It's not worth submitting; they never listen to submissions anyway." But bear in mind that this Government is nothing but poll-driven. And it's worth noting too that the internet censorship provision of the "internet filtering bill" was dropped last month after submissions. So they can change minds. After all, how often would they have the opportunity to read a thoughtful, well-argued, articulate argument for freedom and the right to free speech ... 

Ministry of Justice Proposals to Reform
the Legal Frameworks related to Hate Speech:

Public Submission by Terry Verhoeven, principal of the Rights Institute

Proposal 1: Change the language in the incitement provisions so that they protect more groups that are targeted by hateful speech [sic].
Do you agree that broadening the incitement provisions in this way will better protect these groups?

No.

Why or why not?:

Because the word “protect” here refers to a group’s special identity and that group’s supposed entitlement to be legally shielded from confronting speech, as opposed to being protected from actual threats of or incitement to violence, the word is really denoting the idea of privilege. Broadening the incitement provisions in this way therefore will better privilege these groups. Privilege in the sense I use the term is when the state initiates force against individuals (thereby violating their rights) to deliver what it has promised to the privileged person(s). In this case the privilege promised is members of select groups receiving protection from anyone who speaks out against their group in a confrontational way, even though the speech is not threatening or inciting any violence.

Threatening outspoken people with the prospect of jail time simply for saying something that is hated by members of a “protected” group is to wield a privilege, not to uphold a right. Here, the threat of incarceration is itself an initiation of force, and therefore a violation of individual rights. Further, if passed into law, the proposals would violate countless people’s property rights by effectively censoring what they can say on or with their own property, even though what is said does not threaten life, limb, liberty or property (the only legitimate basis for making something a criminal act).

As for the matter of social cohesion, what a society needs for it to become and remain resilient is for people to develop an immunity to encountering confronting speech, including criticism, insult and ridicule, not the criminalisation of confronting speech, including criticism, insult and ridicule. A sterile social environment free of verbal and written pathogens causes people to become hyper-sensitive to whatever they find confrontational, including speech that conveys truth. We see this today in academic institutions which have implemented policies to “protect” students from non-violent speech that confronts ideas they hold dear. Those institutions are a microcosm of what a society becomes when laws are enacted along the same lines to keep people “safe” from unwanted speech.

Pertinent to the proposals and their repercussions is what Rowan Atkinson said at the “Reform Section 5” launch at the British parliament in 2012. It is worth considering his words in some detail:

The problem with the outlawing of insult is that too many things can be interpreted as such. Criticism is easily construed as insult by certain parties. Ridicule, easily construed as insult. Sarcasm, unfavourable comparison, merely stating an alternative point of view to the orthodoxy can be interpreted as insult. And because so many things can be interpreted as insult, it is hardly surprising that so many things have been.

The exact same thing can (and should) be said about so-called “hate speech.”

Atkinson earlier started his talk with a long list of ridiculous charges that have been laid against peaceful but outspoken people under Britain’s hate speech laws… laws which, chillingly, the Royal Commission admits in its report are significantly harder to prosecute with than what it has recommended for New Zealand.

Atkinson continued:

Although the law under discussion has been on the statute books for more than 25 years, it is indicative of a culture that has taken hold of the programmes of successive governments that with the reasonable and well-intentioned ambition to contain obnoxious elements in society, has created a society of an extraordinarily authoritarian and controlling nature. It is what you might call the new intolerance, a new but intense desire to gag uncomfortable voices of dissent. ‘I am not intolerant’, say many people, say many softly-spoken, highly educated liberal-minded people: ‘I am only intolerant of intolerance’. And people tend to nod sagely and say, ‘Oh yes, wise words, wise words’, and yet if you think about this supposedly inarguable statement for longer than five seconds, you realise that all it is advocating is the replacement of one kind of intolerance with another. Which to me doesn’t represent any kind of progress at all. 

    Underlying prejudices, injustices or resentments are not addressed by arresting people. They are addressed by the issues being aired, argued and dealt with preferably outside the legal process. For me, the best way to increase society’s resistance to insulting or offensive speech is to allow a lot more of it. As with childhood diseases, you can better resist those germs to which you have been exposed. We need to build our immunity to taking offence, so that we can deal with the issues that perfectly justified criticism can raise. Our priority should be to deal with the message, not the messenger. [Emphasis mine.]

Indeed.

The point about needing to build up mental and emotional resistance to verbal and written pathogens by fostering a societal norm of frank, open and free discussion, rather than limiting the sphere in which peaceful but discomforting discourse is legally allowed, cannot be overemphasised. Censoriousness is not going to build a more resilient or free or “cohesive” society, quite the opposite. This is just common sense.

If it is protection of minorities that is the aim, then it would do well to remember what philosopher-novelist Ayn Rand once observed: “The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities”. The Royal Commission only ever consulted select groups, with a disproportionate focus going on one small group (Muslims) which has its own political ideas on the subject of freedom of expression. Most other groups have not been consulted. More importantly, individuals qua individuals have not been consulted. The smallest minority – the individual – will not be protected by the proposals. In fact, because the proposals explicitly aim to empower certain groups at the expense of the liberty of the individual, the individual is going to become the victim of the proposals if they are enacted. 

What has spurred the current push for “hate speech” legislation in New Zealand is of course the March 15th atrocity. We all recognise the inhumanity of that attack, and the needless suffering it caused, and condemn it in the strongest possible terms. Contrary to the findings of the Royal Commission however,  I understand that criminalising more forms of speech, however obnoxious they may be, is no guarantee something similar is less likely to happen again. If anything, making it unlawful to share abhorrent opinions is only going to make it even harder for the public and law enforcement to identify, monitor and intervene in the plans of those who would go on to perpetrate violence, by pushing such views underground. The reality is that the main effect the proposals are going to have, if enacted, is to give legal protection not to the lives, but to the feelings of some people at the price of the freedom of everyone. Protecting feelings is not a legitimate purpose for the law.

In your opinion, which groups should be protected by this change?

Groups:

Again, because of the nature of this change, the question really asks which groups should become privileged by it. The answer is none.

As Britain’s experience with this sort of legislation shows, what is called hate speech tends to be not so much about hateful speech as about speech which is hated. To those who hate hearing or reading the truth, the truth becomes, for them, “hate speech.” This is an insurmountable hurdle which should stop these proposals in their tracks.

Further, it is a nonsense to equate something like religious belief or political opinion or even cultural practices, which are all matters open to choice, with something like race, ethnicity, biological sex or disability, which are matters not open to choice. It is perfectly rational (and therefore should be legal) for people to criticise, pass judgment on, and even ridicule matters that are open to choice, and to do so in ways that might even be construed as being hateful. It certainly is irrational to criticise, pass judgment on or ridicule matters that are not open to choice, but even that should be legal because no one’s right to life, limb, liberty and property – one’s means to living - is being violated. There is no such thing as a right to have one’s feelings protected.

Do you think that there are any groups that experience hateful speech that would not be protected by this change?

Groups not protected:

This question commits the fallacy of begging the question by assuming that people require more protection from speech than the law currently provides. People do not need legal protection from confronting speech that does not directly and objectively threaten life, limb, liberty or property, what they need is their property rights to be respected and upheld so that they have the freedom not to listen to or read hateful things. People also need to build up a mental and emotional resistance to such speech if and when it is encountered in public space. Where the speech is wrongful, but not directly and objectively threatening life, limb, liberty or property, and the person who is on the receiving end needs moral support, concerned others should come to their defence in a non-violent manner because it is the right thing to do, not because communicating ideas or opinions which others hate to hear should be a crime, or because arresting and/or incarcerating critics, however obnoxious, is the proper moral response. That which is wrongly spoken but which doesn’t threaten to initiate force should not be met with force, it should be ignored, or else met with persuasion in whatever form a person chooses so long as it does not employ physical force. 

Proposal 2: Replace the existing criminal provision with a new criminal offence in the Crimes Act that is clearer and more effective

Do you agree that changing the wording of the criminal provision in this way will make it clearer and simpler to understand?

No.

Why or why not?

The Human Rights Act is already worded wrongly: speech that is not directly and objectively threatening life, limb, liberty or property should not be criminalised. Sometimes people and groups are deserving of contempt and/or ridicule, such as those propounding racist or bigoted or individual rights-violating opinions. Making something that is wrong to begin with clearer and simpler to understand does not change what is wrong to being right.

Do you think that this proposal would capture the types of behaviours that should be unlawful under the new offence?

No

Why or why not?

The question commits the fallacy of begging the question: it assumes the targeted behaviours should be criminalised.

Proposal 3: Increase the punishment for the criminal offence to up to three years’ imprisonment or a fine of up to $50,000 to better reflect its seriousness

Do you think that this penalty appropriately reflects the seriousness of the crime?

No

Why or why not?

Again, this question commits the fallacy of begging the question. Where is the crime? No one should go to jail or pay fines for saying something confronting about others, however obnoxious, when it does not threaten to initiate force. To criminalise such speech is to invite umbrage-takers to take out legal vendettas against those whose speech they hate to hear by calling upon the state to take away the outspoken person’s liberty and/or property. That is not justice.

If you disagree, what crimes should be used as an appropriate comparison?

Proposal Three: If disagree what crimes should be used as comparison:

No crime is an appropriate comparison because objectionable, offensive or insulting and even hateful speech should not be a crime unless it objectively and directly threatens life, limb, liberty or property. That does not mean such speech should be condoned or tolerated, merely kept within the sphere of free action and reaction according to natural and authentic rights.

Proposal 4: Change the language of the civil incitement provision to better match the changes being made to the criminal provision

Do you support changing this language in section 61?

No

Why or why not?

The proposed law should be scrapped. But if legislation based on the proposal(s) does pass into law, then the inclusion of a section like section 29J of Britain's Public Order Act 1986  is necessary to avoid a truly Orwellian outcome. It states: “Nothing in this [Bill/Act] shall be read or given effect in a way which prohibits or restricts discussion, criticism or expressions of antipathy, dislike, ridicule, insult or abuse of particular religions or the beliefs or practices of their adherents, or of any other belief system or the beliefs or practices of its adherents, or proselytising or urging adherents of a different religion or belief system to cease practising their religion or belief system.” Including this wording would ensure that ideas continue to be freely discussed without the threat of incarceration or hefty fines. Bringing charges against people simply for espousing ideas, including stating truths, would be an egregious violation of an individual’s rights, including section 14 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 which states, “Everyone has the right to freedom of expression, including the freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and opinions of any kind in any form.” The Royal Commission’ report specifically cites the UK legislation as an example to be followed. The Royal Commission has made its fundamentally flawed set of recommendations so much worse for not supporting the inclusion of a mitigating provision such as the one found in UK law cited above.

Do you think that any other parts of the current wording of the civil provision should be changed?

Yes

Why or why not?

For reasons given above, they should be scrapped.

Proposal 5: Change the civil provision so that it makes 'incitement to discrimination' against the law

Do you support including the prohibition of incitement to discriminate in section 61?

No.

Why or why not?

See answers above.

Proposal 6: Add to the grounds of discrimination in the Human Rights Act to clarify that trans, gender diverse, and intersex people are protected from discrimination

Do you consider that this terminology is appropriate?

No

Why or why not?

Begs the question.

Do you think that this proposal sufficiently covers the groups that should be protected from discrimination under the Human Rights Act?

No

Why or why not?

Begs the question.

Do you consider that this proposal appropriately protects culturally specific gender identities, including takatāpui?

No

Why or why not?

Begs the question.

General comments

Do you have any other comments or feedback?

Other:

Natural rights are not a Western idea, they are an Enlightenment one. Rights result from us reasoning about our nature as “the “rational animal” (as Aristotle identified our species), and may be arrived at and enjoyed by any individual who makes the mental effort to grasp and uphold them. This makes rights truly universal. 

If it is social cohesion that is the goal, then nothing can unite a people better than a mutual commitment to upholding the existential requirement of every reasoning mind: freedom, and the means of achieving freedom: rights. I give you Revolutionary America in the 18th century, and the Union (Northern) states of the United States in the 19th century as examples.

The proper means for dealing with and solving complex problems are Principles. Let us now turn to some basic principles about rights, because this submission is taking a principled approach to the question of whether certain forms of speech should be illegal. 

What is a natural and authentic right, as opposed to a privilege or a printing-press “right”? A right is a principle that defines and sanctions individual action in a social context. More specifically, it is what the facts of reality determine reasoning minds need to function and flourish in a social context. The principle of a “right” is arrived at by making a proper identification of that need. Rights begin with, end with, and serve to protect the reasoning mind, our defining characteristic as an enlightened species.

Note that the reasoning mind is not a group attribute, but an individual attribute. A group is but a collection of individuals. All thoughts and actions are ultimately generated by individuals. For this reason, rights are only had by individuals, and may be delegated to representatives. A group cannot possess rights that are any different to the rights held by its individual members. Privileges, yes. Rights? No. 

So, if the reasoning mind is both the subject and beneficiary of rights, what does it need to function and flourish in a social context? Is it not being offended? No! A reasoning mind can still function perfectly well when it is offended. Same with being insulted, or confronted with ideas opposed to one’s own. What a reasoning mind needs is freedom, which can only be achieved in the absence of coercion. The existential requirement of each and every reasoning mind is the freedom to think, speak and act, limited only by the inherent obligation not to infringe on another’s right to do the same.

The proposals under discussion, which aim to curtail the sphere of lawful speech, would themselves be an infringing act if passed into law and used to convict non-violent people. They would not achieve social cohesion, but introduce a new form of social coercion, their purpose being to coerce people into not speaking or acting in a manner that might offend, insult or discriminate against others, according to some subjective standard.

Property rights are perhaps the most important right missing in all this. Property rights implement the right to liberty, which in turn implements the right to live as a reasoning being, commonly called the right to life. In a free and just society, if you do not like what someone says on or with their legitimately acquired property, you simply go your own way and avoid them. No harm done. Conversely, if you want to say something on or with your own legitimately acquired property, no one has the right to stop you. Property rights enable people to live and let live by resolving conflicting claims to freedom of action in a compossible manner. Upholding property rights does not lead to a utopia by any means, because people are free to do or say dumb or obnoxious things with or on their property, but it is nonetheless the best and most just system of rights-implementation there is.

If passed into law, the proposals under discussion would violate countless people’s property rights by effectively censoring what they can say on or with their own property.

If people abuse the freedoms given them by rights, for example by being bigoted, the disgruntled and those who possess a conscience are free to exercise their right to ignore, boycott, protest, condemn, ridicule, retort, and/or take any other action within their rights to affect a change of attitude and behaviour. That is how a society remains free while progressing towards better outcomes.

Without property rights as the arbiter of what can or cannot be said with or on one’s own property (such as on a website, so long as there is no threat of or incitement to violence), a chaos of clashing claims inevitably ensues, whereby a culture of authoritarianism, political pull and ultimately corruption becomes the arbiter. That is the direction any legislation based on the proposals under discussion is going to take this country, which is why it and they should be scrapped.

The laws currently on the statute books are more than sufficient to protect against truly rights-infringing speech, as other submissions will no doubt point out.

* * * * * 

Terry Verhoeven is the principal of the Rights Institute (an initiative), and the author of Rights: Rediscovering Our Means to Liberty.

Hate the speaker ... ?

 

"The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak it."

~ attrib. (or perhaps misattrib.) to George Orwell

 

"This is a letter of hate..."

 

"This is a letter of hate. It is for you my countrymen, 

I mean those men of my country who have defiled it. 

The men with manic fingers leading the sightless, 

feeble, betrayed body of my country to its death. 

You are its murderers, and there's little left in my own brain but the thoughts of murder for you." 

 ~ the original angry young man, playwright John Osborne, back when it was still      legal to hate (from The Tribune, 18 August, 1961)

 

The Free Speech Coalition is no more

** Guest post by Terry Verhoeven **

The Free Speech Coalition has been something of a cocoon, it turns out. What emerged this week from the chrysalis is something called the Free Speech Union. 

The former organism, founded spontaneously in the wake of several speakers being 'cancelled,' has now been reborn as the latter. The Free Speech Union appears on its surface to be good for this country, professing to stand for the right to free speech, and wanting to fight cancel culture. Sounds encouraging. But beware. 

It turns out that the word "Union" is being used literally. In its email announcing the emergence of the new entity, the FSU made a point of explaining why it is has formed into a real union, rather than remaining a coalition: the union model has "advantages,"  says the email, which include (in their words):

• "the right to access employer’s property to conduct union business. The next time Massey University bans Don Brash or Martin Bradbury because what they might say is ‘unsafe’ – we may organise a union event on campus. That could include giving those they want to de-platform the legal right to enter as delegates of the Union.
• "employers can’t stop people from joining our union – if they do, they’ll be in breach of employment law. We know of instances where universities have scolded academics for their public support of free speech / our campaign. If they try to do that with the Free Speech Union, they’ll be breaching employment law." [Emphasis in the original.]

Get that? Their explicit reason for a union model being adopted is, in the name of upholding “free speech," to trespass on and thus violate the property rights of employers! 

This is bizarre. As I and Peter have argued here many times, the only means by which to implement all rights in a compossible* manner, including the right to free speech, is to recognise property rights. Put simply, he who owns the microphone (or the hall) gets to choose who uses it. Understand this, and you understand that free speech itself is also at root a property-rights issue.   

The only alternative to implementing rights via property claims is a chaos of clashing claims to "rights." Determining, midst this chaos, whose claims are to be respected (and whose violated) results inexorably in a system of political pull in which all freedom is eventually lost. Violate property rights, the foundational right which supports the implementation of all others, and one necessarily violates all those rights, including the right to free speech.

The crux of the issue is this. Where property exists, it is the right of the property owner themselves to decide what can and cannot be said on or with their property. That's an absolute. The alternative is to legalise the hijacking of people’s property to spout ideas with which the property owner disagrees or, worse, actively undermines their own values and interests. Yet this is the direction the former Free Speech Coalition is now taking in its fight for “free speech,” i.e., to undermine the very foundations of its stated cause.

As I said: bizarre.

The former Coalition intends to begin its proposed legal violations of property rights on campuses and in so-called "public" venues, setting out explicitly to hamstring the administrators and agents of those properties -- starting precisely at the point that anti-free speech activists found a crevice in the system, and for similar reasons. But the next logical step (especially from those so blind to the difference between public and private) would be to hamstring private-property owners and to force upon them speech with which they disagree, to be propounded on or with their property. The logic is as inevitable as it is disturbing.

I donated to the Free Speech Coalition after it announced that it would be fighting the looming hate-speech legislation, and sent them a couple of emails urging that they recognise property rights as the sole means by which to implement free speech. No one even bothered replying to me. That silence speaks volumes.

What the new Free Speech Union seems to stand for then is not free speech, as you'd expect them to, but being provided a free platform for speech. These are not the same, and it's not just a minor debating point. Anyone who supports  free speech must support the sanctity of property rights. Conversely, whatever they may say otherwise, anyone who does not support the sanctity of property rights is not in truth a supporter of free speech. For this reason, I urge you to be circumspect about giving the so-called Free Speech Union your support. This bug could be dangerous.

*

     

Terry Verhoeven is Principal of the Rights Institute (an initiative) and author of the book Rights: Rediscovering Our Means to Liberty

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