The left and right factions of the Australian Establishment came together this week to strip freedom of speech from the Australian nation. This happened in the form of the Labor and Liberal parties joining forces across the aisle to pass new hate speech legislation. This will be the most aggressive hate speech legislation ever passed in Australia. The Australian Greens have suggested the bill is so restrictive that it will become illegal to criticise Benjamin Netanyahu.
Under the new bill, the head of the secret intelligence service will be given the powers to ban any political group the Australian political establishment doesn’t like. This extreme measure, reminiscent of NKVD or Gestapo control systems, will mean that anyone organising to challenge the Australian political establishment will risk simply getting banned before any real challenge can be made.
The differences between this system and a one-party totalitarian state are minor.
One common, but naive, argument made about hate speech laws is that they protect people from being degraded or abused. Well-meaning people then get suckered into supporting them in the belief they will only impact white supremacists and terrorists. This is wrong, but an easy trap to fall into.
The primary danger with hate speech laws is that literally anything can be defined as hateful. Even the most innocuous-sounding statement can be declared to be “associated” with some hate group or ideology. So, in practice, whether or not a person gets prosecuted for hate speech depends on the whims of whoever is in power, not on any objective moral or legal standard.
VJM Publishing first came to national attention in New Zealand in 2019, when we were attacked in the mainstream media by the Human Rights Commission for selling ‘It’s Okay To Be White’ t-shirts on TradeMe. The media beat-up took every possible opportunity to link the sale of the shirts to white supremacy and to Brenton Tarrant, declaring that I was racist, hateful, divisive etc. Presstitutes like Kanoa Lloyd told the country, without any evidence at all, that the t-shirts “were intended to ‘shock and hurt’.”
Shortly after the media beat-up, the Police came to my house to harass me about it.
If the Human Rights Commissioner takes to the mainstream media to call you hateful and racist for saying something, you can best your last dollar that you’d also get prosecuted for a hate crime for saying that thing if hate speech laws were in effect. Therefore, it’s logical to assume that saying “It’s Okay To Be White” will be considered hate speech under the new laws. Saying that it’s okay to be you will be a crime, if the political establishment doesn’t like you and hate speech laws are in effect.
It might be argued that people will resist these laws. The ‘It’s Okay To Be White’ incident proved otherwise. TradeMe head of Safety George Hiotakis initially stated, perfectly accurately, that t-shirts saying ‘It’s Okay To Be White’ do not violate any rules about racist slogans. “Items which marginalise individuals or promote one race at the cost of another cannot be sold onsite,” Hiotakis said [quoted from The Independent link above]. ‘It’s Okay To Be White’ clearly does neither.
Paul Hunt wasn’t giving in that easily, though. Using his full influence as Human Rights Commissioner, Hunt persuaded masses of people to contact TradeMe to lay a complaint. Hiotakis eventually caved to this frothing mob, cancelling the listing and banning the shirts from sale.
This proved an important point, of extreme relevance to the hate speech discussion: whether something is considered hate speech depends on whether a mob has been whipped up about it. If there’s a mass of people mad about some statement, no matter how innocuous, then it’s hate speech. If no-one, or only a few people, are mad about it, then it’s legitimate speech.
Rule by law goes out the window once hate speech laws are brought in. Because hate cannot be defined accurately – as proven by the ‘It’s Okay To Be White’ debacle – hate speech laws represent rule by mob, not law.
However, this perfectly suits those with power and influence. Because Paul Hunt has the power and influence to stir up a mob and have me cancelled, and I don’t have the power to impact him, such laws give the ruling class the power to strike down any wrongthinker they please, with no risk. All that needs to happen is for Hunt or some other powerful Government figure to take to the mainstream media denouncing the wrongthinkers, and the herd falls in line.
It’s impossible to think of a single example of anything that could not be considered hate speech if the definition of hate was broad enough. The ‘It’s Okay To Be White’ example is proof of this. Saying it’s okay to be white is the exact opposite of hatred: it’s affirming the moral okayness of white people in the face of constant media demonisation. But the ruling class can nevertheless declare it hate speech and destroy the people saying it, and get the consent of the masses to do so, on account of their overwhelming narrative control.
Once hate speech laws are brought in, the people who brought in those laws will then decide what other people are allowed to say. This is because the people who brought in the laws can arbitrarily define absolutely anything they don’t like as hate. Hate speech laws in New Zealand will be used for one purpose: to crack down on everyday Kiwis criticising the political establishment. It’s imperative that free and decent people resist them to the maximum extent possible.
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