Monday, May 20, 2013


Australia's Leftist government says conservatives stand for hate speech

Everything that the Left disagrees with is hate speech

ATTORNEY-GENERAL Mark Dreyfus has accused the opposition of defending hate speech, not free speech, after his Coalition counterpart George Brandis's charge that the government was waging war against freedom of expression.

Yesterday The Australian previewed a speech Senator Brandis gave at the Sydney Institute last night.

"This government is engaged in a multi-front war against the traditional liberal conception of freedom of speech," he said, "sometimes by overt acts, but just as commonly by fostering a climate of opinion in which the centrality of the right to freedom of speech . . . is increasingly being questioned."

But ahead of the address Mr Dreyfus said the words were a disguise for "Tony Abbott's real plan to strip away laws in the Racial Discrimination Act that protect people from hate speech".

He described section 18C of the act -- which was used to silence columnist Andrew Bolt -- as an essential tool in stamping out vilification based on a person's race, colour or ethnic origin, saying: "When Mr Abbott and Senator Brandis claim that repealing these laws is in the interests of freedom of speech, they really mean freedom to commit virulent hate speech."

Senator Brandis dismissed the allegation. "I'm disappointed that a barrister of Mr Dreyfus's experience would make the beginner's error of commenting on a document he has not read," he said. "Nothing in my speech says what Mr Dreyfus asserts. Perhaps I am owed an apology."

Senator Brandis said last night the Australian Human Rights Commission was helping muzzle the right to freedom of expression. He cited comments by AHRC head Gillian Triggs to a Senate estimates committee about its activities during the press freedom debate.

"At a time when . . . freedom of speech . . . has been the subject of public discussion to an unprecedented degree, the response of the government's own human rights watchdog is to emphasise its limits."

SOURCE

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Blaming your enemies for what you yourself do and say is one of the oldest and most often used tactics of the Left. And, because generally speaking, people are weak, gullible, and stupid, it's also one of their most effective.

Anonymous said...

Whether you like or agree with Andrew Bolt or not, that decision was an absolute travesty.
Any law that exposes the expression of an honest and genuinely held opinion that just happens to touch on race to prosecution is a bad law.

Anonymous said...

The decline (or destruction) of Western civilization:

(CTNEWS) A Nova Scotia school is causing controversy after deciding to stop celebrating Mother's Day and Father's Day, instead opting to recognize the International Day of Families instead.

The Dartmouth elementary school said it is aiming to celebrate diversity and inclusivity while avoiding making children who are part of non-traditional families feel left out.

"Children can be isolated in a classroom if they've lost their mom or are in a family without a dad or in a family with two moms or two dads," Education Minister Ramona Jennex recently told CTV Atlantic, adding that it's up to the individual schools to decide how to celebrate mothers and fathers.

Astral Drive Elementary School in Dartmouth, N.S. has decided to stop celebrating Mother's Day and Father's Day, instead recognizing the International Day of Families.

As part of the family day celebrations, which took place May 15, students at Astral Drive Elementary School were asked to write the names of all the people who supported them in their lives, on a large tree hung in the gymnasium.

Some parents have applauded the move to not celebrate Mother's and Father's Day as a sign of a more inclusive environment, while others have said the school is taking political correctness too far.

According to 2011 census data from Statistics Canada, more than 1.5 million households in Canada are single-parent homes, up from about 1.4 million recorded in 2006 --representing an increase of 8 per cent...

Bird of Paradise said...

In the land down under there is very little logic left in a ultra liberal/leftist goverment their beging to sound like Obama and the IRS over this all

Anonymous said...

I know it is obvious but i'll repost it anyway...

"HATE SPEECH" is free speech: The U.S. Supreme Court stated the general rule regarding protected speech in Texas v. Johnson (109 S.Ct. at 2544), when it held: "The government may not prohibit the verbal or nonverbal expression of an idea merely because society finds the idea offensive or disagreeable." Federal courts have consistently followed this. Said Virginia federal district judge Claude Hilton: "The First Amendment does not recognize exceptions for bigotry, racism, and religious intolerance or ideas or matters some may deem trivial, vulgar or profane."