Freedom of Speech: A Very Brief Defence against Tanya Cohen
(23rd March 2015)
By Sean Gabb
I have been directed to this article, published today: Australia Must Have Zero Tolerance for Online Hatred, by Tanya Cohen of something called The Australian Independent Media Network. It is a very long article, and I will begin my response by quoting the passages I find most objectionable.
1. “…it’s just common sense that freedom of speech doesn’t give anyone the right to offend, insult, humiliate, intimidate, vilify, incite hatred or violence, be impolite or uncivil, disrespect, oppose human rights, spread lies or misinformation, argue against the common good, or promote ideas which have no place in society. We all learned this in school, and it’s not something that’s even up for debate. Hate speech is not free speech….”
2. “…even right-wing libertarians were outraged that anyone would propose watering down laws against hate speech.”
3. “There are two sides to the free speech debate in Australia: the people who believe that all offensive or insulting speech should always be illegal (the vast majority of Australians), and the people who believe that only racial vilification or incitement to hatred should be illegal (the far-right, ultra-libertarian free speech fundamentalists).”
4. “You simply cannot call yourself a progressive in Australia unless you support the outlawing of all un-progressive speech. One of the most fundamental goals of the Australian progressive movement is ensuring that anyone who voices un-progressive ideas is aggressively prosecuted, and this is something that all Australian progressives firmly agree with.”
5. “What I propose is something called a Human Rights Online Act. This Act would not only make it a severe criminal offence on the federal level to publish, distribute, promote, or access hate speech online, but would also implement a federal Internet filtering system to protect Australians from being exposed to hate sites run out of the US. The Internet filter should block access to all hate sites, and anyone who tries to access any hate sites should be sent to gaol, much like people who access child pornography. In keeping with other human rights legislation in Australia – like the proposed Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill, which was unfortunately narrowly defeated by the efforts of the far-right – anyone accused of offending, insulting, humiliating, or intimidating other people should be required to prove their innocence or be declared guilty automatically, and this should also apply for anyone accused of publishing, distributing, promoting, or accessing online hatred. The principle of guilty until proven innocent is the only principle that really works when it comes to cracking down on hate speech….”
6. “Internet filtering should not just filter out hate speech. It should filter out anything that violates human rights and/or poses a danger to society. Our Australian Classification Board bans any film, video game, book, or other form of media if it offends against community standards, contains content harmful to society, or is demeaning to human dignity. If a book, film, or video game contains content that degrades human dignity, then it therefore constitutes a violation of human rights, since human dignity is a fundamental human right that all civilised governments are tasked with upholding.”
7. “All Australian websites should be required to register with the Australian Human Rights Commission in order to ensure strict compliance with human rights. If any websites contain content that opposes human rights, then they should be shut down immediately and their owners sent to gaol. In addition, all Australian websites should be required to promote human rights. Any website found to inadequately promote human rights should be shut down by the Australian Human Rights Commission, and the owner fined or sent to gaol.”
As I read through the article, I kept asking whether Miss Cohen really existed, or if this was a satire on the modern left. Quotation (4) – about banning anything “unprogressive” – does verge on the Swiftian. So does the indefinable but “fundamental” right to “dignity” that is given precedence over the traditional rights to freedom of speech and association and to the requirements of natural justice. Sadly, she does appear to exist, and this does appear to be an honest statement of what she believes.
This being so, you can take the quotations given above as part of her article’s refutation. Miss Cohen is calling for the censorship of any opinion that she and her friends find disagreeable. She wants to punish not only those who write and publish such things, but also those who read them. She believes in reversing the burden of proof, so that those accused of writing or publishing or reading shall be made to prove that they have not done as accused – to prove this out of their own resources against a prosecution with bottomless pockets and skilled lawyers. She also believes in licensing the media, so that disagreeable opinions will not be published.
There is nothing unusual about the substance of her demands. I first came across their like in the early 1980s, when I was at university. It struck me then as a scandalous misuse of words to make human rights of censorship and unlimited state power – me and the older lefties who had not caved in to the neo-Marxists. But that was then. We live today in a world captured and increasingly reshaped by Miss Cohen and her friends. All I find unusual now is the honesty of her demands. It may be that she really is a clever satirist. Or perhaps she is just stupid. But I am used to a more sophisticated defence of locking people away for their opinions, and without a fair trial.
I will deal with two of her specific claims. The first is that “right-wing libertarians” do not mind the banning of “hate speech.” The second is that “Hate speech is not free speech.”
I am undoubtedly a libertarian. I am probably a right-wing libertarian. I believe that people should, at the minimum, be free to say whatever they please about alleged matters of public fact. I am sceptical about the justice of the laws covering libel and confidentiality and copyright and official secrecy. But, so long as these are confined to achieving their traditionally stated ends, I will, for present purposes, leave them to one side. I will also leave aside photographic displays of sexual activity not limited to consenting adults. Yet, even at its minimal definition, the right to freedom of speech covers every class of utterance that Miss Cohen wants to censor. So far as libertarians, almost by definition, believe in freedom of speech, either she is mistaken about the meaning of libertarianism, or she is playing with the meaning of words.
I turn to her claim about the nature of “hate speech.” The term is designed to bring into mind ideas of inarticulate screams, or of simple orders to kill or to hurt. In fact, every act of “hate speech” I have seen punished or denounced has involved the same combination of propositions and inferences I see anywhere else.
Let us, for example, take these two cases:
1. Bearing in mind differences of population and wealth, the Great War was less destructive to England than the civil wars of the seventeenth century. Proportionately, fewer men were killed, and the economic costs were lower. Yet the physical effects of the civil wars drop out of view after 1660, and those of the Great War were a national obsession until 1939, and are now widely seen as the greatest single cause of our national decline. Therefore, anyone who accepts the consensus view of the Great War as a catastrophe is mistaking symptoms for causes. Whether or not going to war was an error, a fundamentally healthy nation could have shaken off the losses of the Somme and Passchendaele in a decade at most. That we did not indicates that there was already something wrong with us by 1914.
2. There are measurable differences between racial groups. Some of these are of intellectual capacity. Others are of propensity to crimes against life or property or both. Even otherwise, there are differences of outlook that show themselves in how the members of one group relate to each other and to members of other groups. These differences have been uncovered and confirmed by more than a century of research. They have also long been accepted as matters of common sense. Therefore, racially homogenous countries are well advised to keep out immigrants of other races. Where a country is already mixed, it makes sense to segregate each racial group so far as possible, and to govern each by different laws, or to apply the same laws with different effect to each group.
I give no opinion on the truth of these cases. The first I have just made up. The second I have distilled from my reading of various nationalist blogs and journals. Whether they are true is beside my present point. My point is that each case begins with factual claims, from which inferences are then drawn. If you disagree with either, it seems obvious to me that the proper mode of disagreement is to show that the factual claims are untrue, or that the inferences are not validly drawn. Calling in the police is at best unlikely to advance our understanding of the world.
I suppose Miss Cohen would argue that the first case, if accepted, will have no obvious effects on what is done in the present, but that the second, if accepted, will lead to ethnic cleansing or apartheid. She would infer from this that laws against advancing the second case are needed to stop a great evil from being committed.
I agree that, if we accept the racial nationalist case, difficult questions come onto the agenda. In the same way, however, if my gold crowns wear out this year, I shall not be able to afford a family holiday. The unpleasantness of the apodosis has no bearing on the truth of the protasis. Suppose the racial nationalists are right. Suppose that what they advocate is the lesser of evils in the long term. Or suppose that they are right in their factual claims, but that there are alternative and less alarming inferences to be drawn from these. This would surely be worth knowing. I say that, once a case has been stated with any show of evidence, and certainly once it has gained any body of support, it needs to be contested in open debate, not silenced by the State.
Furthermore, where written arguments are concerned, readers are generally alone and have ample time to think before taking action. This must be considered a new intervening cause in any course that leads from the communication of ideas to actual violence. If Miss Cohen wanted laws against street agitators, she might have a case. Censoring the written word is plain suppression of debate.
The main focus of Miss Cohen’s article is on those who dissent from the present discourse on race and immigration. Looking at Quotation (6), though – “Internet filtering should not just filter out hate speech. It should filter out anything that violates human rights and/or poses a danger to society.” – we can see that she wants to shut down debate on every leftist claim. She would not allow any dissent on the nature and extent of climate change, or on what is happening in the Middle East – she is a pro-Palestinian, not that I think better or worse of her for this – or on how dangerous drinking and smoking are to health. Indeed, we seem to be at the beginning of a change in the consensus on diet and health. For about forty years, we have been told that fat is bad for us, and that we should eat a lot of carbohydrate. It may be that we are about to be told that fat is good for us, and that sugar is the main cause of obesity and diabetes. Had her proposed law been in place across the world, this debate would have been flattened by claims of “social danger.”
I could say more, but will not. I will conclude by suggesting that you should read Miss Cohen for yourself. You decide whether she is a satirist of genius, or an embarrassment to the modern left by virtue of her blundering honesty.
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Lovely use of testing to demonstrate the non-arguments on offer from Miss Cohen. Showing that censorship is never morally superior to free speech is embarrassingly easy at its heart but difficult to do in detail and exhaustively.
Congrats for doing just that!
Thanks
The surname gives the game away.
Got it in one.
Christopher Hitchens makes the point extremely well:
Dr Sean Gabb is quite correct about free speech.
[Although he is mistaken that he “just made up” the argument that there must have been something wrong with Britain before the First World War because a healthy nation would have recovered from the losses from the terrible tactics of the battles of the war (believing the war could not have been practically avoided does not, of course, mean that one supports General Haig and co, with their endless frontal attacks against fortified positions). I have often heard the argument that Britain should have recovered, and that there must have been something fundamentally wrong with Britain before the war, already leading to Britain not really recovering.]
“Hate speech” is just speech that other people do not like – one that gives rise to anger and distress and so on.
For example, walking home from helping a friend yesterday I passed by the bookshop “Waterstones” – there was a big board in the window with a long quotation from Philip Pullman praising a book by his fellow leftist Owen Jones on the “establishment”.
I was both angered and distressed by this.
A pox on Waterstones pushing leftist books again – one member of the real establishment praising another member of the real establishment, for a lying book about a fictional right wing establishment.
But does this mean that I have the right to smash the shop windows of Waterstones to take this big board down?
Or to get the state to close down Waterstones so they can no longer spread “Hate Speech” (by the author of “Capital”, and by Krugman and Stiglitz, and Owen Jones and all the rest of these utter shits) – no longer spread hate of “the rich” and “big business” – including hatred of their own shareholders.
Of course I do not – the vile hate speech spread by Philip Pullman and Owen Jones (and all the rest of these socialist scumbags) must be allowed to continue.
Even David Crystal (a “Professor of English” who believes there are no rules of good English – not just that people like me do not know them, because we were never taught them, but that they do not exist), should be allowed to carry on lying about and sneering at Norman T. in his book “The Sources of English”.
Philip Pullman praised that book as well – with its sneering at Norman T. (whose wife is crippled from the neck down – by a bomb planted by Professor Crystal’s fellow Irish “Nationalists”, his anti British opinions have never, of course, stopped Professor Crystal sponging off the British taxpayers in his life in British universities – a life of not teaching the rules of good English, which is what the old fraud was actually paid to do).
Should the book be banned? NO IT SHOULD NOT.
Australia is a particularly depressing case.
Because the last election was party fought on freedom of speech.
Andrew Bolt (a journalist and commentator) had gently mocked blond haired, blue eyed people for pretending to be aboriginals. Not that even real aboriginals should have government “anti discrimination” regulations or other benefits of course.
Mr Andrew Bolt was actually taken to court – and the leftist activists who held that his “hate speech” (mocking them as the frauds and parasites that they are) had hurt their feelings – had caused them anger and distress (much like the window of “Waterstones” book shop causes me anger and distress) won their case to crush his freedom of speech.
The Liberal Party, led by Mr Abbott, promised to restore Freedom of Speech in Australia – and they won the election.
But the Mr Abbott (now Prime Minister) went back on his clear pledge to restore Freedom of Speech – much like Mrs Thatcher did nothing about her implied pledge to restore Freedom of Speech in Britain in the 1979 election (the 1965 Act and so on remained in force – and the situation has actually got worse and worse).
It is much the same elsewhere – with, for example, French government ministers marching in defence of Freedom of Speech and then going back to their offices to produce yet more restrictions upon it. And seemingly whole departments of state in Canada devoted to the persecution of Mark Steyn (by the way, to the Nazi crowd this site attracts for some reason, – Mr Steyn is NOT Jewish).
Soon Freedom of Speech will be simply a strange belief of people in Texas (and places allied to it) outside – no country will accept the principle of Freedom of Speech.
Texans will be asked (by people from other lands) – “you really mean that your government does not arrest people who say things that anger or distress others?”
And when it is stated that, yes, this is the case – the questioner will shake their head in bafflement.
“But freedom must have limits” will come to reply – “you can not allow people to express hateful opinions – after all you would not allow people to own firearms”.
“Actually we have the right to Keep and Bear Arms as well as the right of Freedom of Speech” the Texan will reply.
And the questioner will turn deadly pale in fear – and run away.
By the way – quick question for the Nazi types.
Of the leading early 20th century Fabians who undermined liberty in this country – which were Jews?
Were Mr or Mrs Webb Jewish? How about George Bernard Shaw or H.G. Wells? Actually, my dears, their opinions on racial matters (the need to exterminate the “teaming millions of blacks, browns and yellows”) were rather close to your own. And the Webbs were certainly no friends of Jews – as they were responsible for the report that limited Jewish immigration to the Holy Land, but did absolutely nothing to limit Islamic immigration to the same place.
Moving away from thinkers to big government politicians.
Was David Lloyd George a Jew?
How about Prime Minister Atlee?
Harold Wilson (he of the 1965 Act limiting Freedom of Speech) was he a Jew?
German big government politicians.
Was Frederick the Great a secret Jew? Was Bismark? Were the various political philosophers who inspired these political leaders Jewish?
American big government politicians.
Was Woodrow Wilson Jewish? Was Franklin Roosevelt? Mr Roosevelt was a rather odd “Jew” – considering that he (in rejecting Winston Churchill’s suggestion to bomb the Nazi extermination camps and death railways) repeated, as true, lying Nazi propaganda against the Jews (see the Catholic historian Paul Johnson – in his “A History of the Jews”).
The only Jews Mr Roosevelt cared about were Jews who could deliver him votes or other support (Mr Woodrow Wilson was much the same – and he played the same game with blacks, making nice in public and despising in private).
How about the author of the “Great Society” Welfare State – was President Johnson a Jew?
Perhaps he was a “tool of a Jews”.
Or perhaps you silly Nazi types are brainless dolts.
This is just an attempt to divert us from a point that makes you uncomfortable. Obviously it is accepted that whites have and are playing a role in destroying their own societies – I have no difficulty accepting that and discussing it – but none of what you say addresses the fact that Jews, both through their representative groups and as individuals, have been pivotal in the various social movements that have promoted the concept of ‘hate speech’.
Also, you imply that ‘big government’ (or bigger government) is a factor in the evolution of the concept of ‘hate speech’. I don’t doubt that, though a better way of putting it might be in terms of the nature of the government: i.e. whether it is interventionist or authoritarian. My difficulty with the point is that there is no explanation of ‘why’ this intervention in free speech might have been considered necessary or desirable. This as I see it is one of the critical limitations with libertarian thought – a lack of explication or analysis. To simply say that some people believe in big government or some contemporary echo of crude puritanism, tells us nothing. The need for diaspora Jewish communities to live in a society in which they feel comfortable – i.e. a multi-cultural society – does tell us something. It might explain why we have these hate speech laws. It might also explain the contribution of Tanya Cohen to the debate.
That is not to say it explains everything on the subject. We would also have to explain why white people have been so neglectful in exercising and protecting their formal freedoms and protections and dilatory in re-asserting white interests – a legitimate current, and not ‘Nazi’ at all.
While certainly many Jews seem to be communist and against free speech it is idiotic to suggest they have a hivemind and are plotting collectively.
Some of the most important libertarian thinkers were Jewish. (see Rothbard and Mises)
I have not – so far – touched on the issue of ‘plots’ and ‘hive minds’ and I have not referred – so far – to any organised conspiracy. Those are necessary areas for discussion if we go into this topic further. Whether it is ‘idiotic’ to believe in systemised Jewish influence depends on how well the relevant assertions are grounded in reality.
All I have said for the time being is that Jews, both through representative organisations and individually, have been and are engaged in the promotion of the concept of “hate speech”. I regard this as an entirely uncontroversial (if unpopular) assertion, for it is based on long-standing observable facts. Furthermore, it seems likely Tanya Cohen is a Jew (or at the very least of Jewish heritage), simply due to her surname being traditionally Jewish. For the reasons I have already given, I consider her probable ethnic identity highly relevant to what she writes on the subject of free speech.
It may well be that some of the most important libertarian thinkers were Jewish. So what? I’m not saying that all Jews (as in each and every Jew) are against free speech. They don’t need to be for my supposition to hold true, so the observation is not germane. How it could be germane is if you could show there is a preponderance towards libertarianism and free speech absolutism among Jews in general or maybe a section of the Jewish population. I am confident that you cannot. Libertarian in any case connotes a variety of political, social and ideological positions, and doesn’t necessarily always imply absolutist support for free speech.
White (as well as non white ) people have also been and are engaged in the promotion of the concept of “hate speech”. Over 75% population of England is white yet most of them still agree that there should be some restrictions on speech.
Ideas should only be relevant, not whatever racial or other identity the speaker has. Arguments stand regardless who is saying them. It is the cultural Marxists who are obsessed with identity, judging arguments based on who is saying them.
As for free speech absolutism, any libertarian worth the name should be undoubtedly opposed to all state restrictions on free speech. This is because restrictions on free speech are really restrictions on our self-ownership. There is a further argument that free speech is a societal good. This stems from the Enlightenment view that the only way to acquire truth is through open debate. Libertarians don’t necessarily have to ascribe to this view though.
[quote]”White (as well as non white ) people have also been and are engaged in the promotion of the concept of “hate speech”.”[unquote]
This just repeats back to me what I have already said. White people are involved in this as well. We know that, but stating this again and again doesn’t change the fact that Jews have a tradition of involvement in restricting liberties in a way that favours them as a group. I have, briefly, explained why this is the case. It is the case that Jewish MPs and organisations have been openly and explicitly campaigning for hate speech legislation in Britain since the late 1940s.
[quote]”Over 75% population of England is white yet most of them still agree that there should be some restrictions on speech.”[unquote]
We all agree (or at least, all sensible people agree) that there should be ‘some’ restrictions on speech in the sense that there normally should be legal repercussions for anyone who incites violence against specific individuals. The disagreement arises when the criminal law is expanded into more contentious areas, something you claim has the support of most whites. Where is your evidence for this support? I don’t doubt that most whites would support hate speech legislation based on the arguments presented by the mainstream media, and in that sense I agree whites are at fault.
However, when people are put in the picture about what the true purpose of this legislation is, I suspect many would be less eager to support restrictions on their freedoms. At any rate, this is a matter of speculation unless you can come up with statistics, and even if you can, what does that prove? What insight does it give us? It doesn’t undermine my case. It just means that lots of people support their own oppression, which is nothing new. It doesn’t follow that the oppressive structures are efficacious or right. I imagine lots of ordinary North Koreans ‘support’ the regime of Kim Jong-un and the philosophy of Juche, but ‘support’ in that context does not necessarily equate to wholehearted endorsement.
[quote]”Ideas should only be relevant, not whatever racial or other identity the speaker has. Arguments stand regardless who is saying them. It is the cultural Marxists who are obsessed with identity, judging arguments based on who is saying them.”[unquote]
I am not judging arguments based on who is saying them. I accept that arguments, if well-made, can stand-alone, but who is making the argument is surely also of relevance. I also think there is a deeper point to consider here, in that you fail to understand the nature of ideas. Ideas are socially-formed. The ideas we have – whether about politics or how to do the washing-up – cannot be separated from our social existence, including facts and ideas about our identity and how we interact with those ideas. Ideas do not exist in a vacuum. Once you remove the social basis of ideas, then the ideas change in the eyes of those who attempt to comprehend them. This very discussion illustrates the point: the Jewish support for restrictions on free speech among non-Jews is because of the Jewish identity, a need for Jews to influence non-Jews and to live in a society in which they feel comfortable – i.e. a multi-cultural type of society. The reason people support things like ‘equality’ isn’t because (or isn’t just because) they believe in some abstract notion of equality. It’s primarily because conditions of equality would favour them in some actual sense.
Nicely done, John. It is always a pleasure to witness somebody who knows how to properly play this particular game of chess.
Here is another champion of freedom of speech.
From the Jewish Chronicle:
‘The Jewish organiser of an anti-Ukip demonstration claims he has received death threats on social media after being labelled ‘scum’ by Nigel Farage.
Dan Glass led protests outside Mr Farage’s local pub in Downe, Kent on Sunday where the Ukip leader was eating lunch with his wife and two children.
Mr Farage said the demonstrators forced him and his family to flee the pub, and had jumped on the bonnet of his car as he drove away.
Mr Glass said that the point of the protest was not to target Mr Farage but “to take a group who represent migrants, gays, breastfeeding mums and the disabled to show to his pub and celebrate them.
“There were local members of his community there too who didn’t want to be tarnished with the same brush as Ukip.
He said that when the protesters – who included a Holocaust survivor – realised Mr Farage was in the pub “some broke off to go and challenge his views and that is when he came running out.
Mr Glass, who set up Holocaust memorial group Never Again Ever, said: “We wanted to challenge the otherness he promotes and that’s why some went to talk to him.”
He added: “And of course we are against people jumping on his car, that is not what we are about, but I do understand why people are angry.
Mr Glass said his Jewish roots were his motivation for opposing Ukip.
He said: “All four of my grandparents are survivors. It is engrained in me to stand up against injustice.
“We had survivor Ruth Barnett there who gave a speech and the whole day was a celebration of diversity and culture.” ‘
Paul Marks seems to have been temporarily cured of his chronic literary diarrhoea. Now he’s shot his name-calling bolt, he clearly has nothing left to deal with the unpalatable truths that he knows he will face on any open discussion of freedom of speech.
Tanya Cohen herself on the central role of her community in ending free speech:
As a member of Australia’s Jewish community and a descendant of Holocaust survivors, I can proudly say that Australia’s Jewish community has played the single largest role in passing and expanding hate speech legislation in Australia, and Australia’s Jewish community also played the single largest role in forcing the Abbott government to back down when it recently tried to weaken our federal hate speech laws. The changes to federal hate speech laws were staunchly opposed by every single human rights group and minority advocacy group in Australia, but Australian Jewish groups definitely played the largest role in making the Abbott government abandon its plans to weaken our federal hate speech laws. In fact, The Times of Israel actually ran an article titled “Australian Jews block change in local race-hate laws“. Without the immense pressure from Australia’s Jewish community, our hate speech laws would have been watered down like Brandis wanted them to be. I am immensely proud of the fact that Australia’s Jews have been at the forefront of protecting and promoting human rights in this country. The Online Hate Prevention Institute (OHPI) – which works to combat online hatred in Australia and abroad – is staffed entirely by Jewish Australians. Without Australia’s Jews, hate speech legislation in this country would not be anywhere near as strong. In fact, it might not even exist at all. The Jewish role in human rights activism is a source of immeasurable pride for me.
http://theaimn.com/australia-must-have-zero-tolerance-for-online-hatred/
That quote is damning.
It also makes me seriously wonder if Tanya Cohen exists. Reading it again, the whole article looks like a hoax.
That wouldn’t surprise me given the hyperbolic nature of what is written.
It does have the very kind of content that could be taken as being some kind of parody.
Although it is intriguing and fits a certain stereotypical bill that tends to confirm my cynical view of such people, I do hope it is a hoax – because the content is quite frightening.
It also makes me seriously wonder if Tanya Cohen exists. Reading it again, the whole article looks like a hoax.
Se non è vero, è ben trovato. It certainly looks like a parody of a self-righteous and hysterical member-of-the-group-in-question. But they’re not usually so honest and Ms Cohen seems decidedly dim. This is more their style:
Outgoing Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman dismissed the report. “This report is not true. Obviously Israel has security interests to defend and we have our own intelligence. But we do not spy on the United States. There are enough participants in these negotiations, including Iranians,” he said in Israel. “We got our intelligence from other sources, not from the United States. The instruction has been clear for decades now: you don’t spy on the United States, directly or indirectly.”
http://forward.com/articles/217337/israeli-officials-deny-report-that-israel-spied-on/
This is their style too: use a massacre of journalists to justify harsher laws against free speech:
You don’t get much clearer than that. In addition, the heritage of those who surreptitiously transformed the immigration policies of Australia to begin with have something striking in common.
As you say elsewhere, just what are the odds?… Every time a torch is shone on these kinds of matters it disproportionately reveals the same kinds of people, yet we are not supposed to make anything of this, it is of course all purely happen-stance!
Cohen?! What were the odds on someone called Cohen attacking free speech? But in the UK we’ve got Nick Cohen, who fights night and day for free speech with the support of libertarians like Denis “Rape-gangs in Rotherham? As if!” MacShane, who said this of Nick’s book on free speech: “In the end, Cohen rightly argues, we have to assert the Enlightenment values of both Voltaire and Mill as they argued for free speech.”
But Nick doesn’t want to abolish the race-hate laws and before Denis’ recent unfortunate trip to jail he chaired the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Antisemitism and seemed to forget all about Voltaire. He oversaw a report that recommended the criminalization of merely downloading “racist material”:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-Party_Parliamentary_Group_against_Antisemitism
And seemingly whole departments of state in Canada devoted to the persecution of Mark Steyn
Good writer, but a very dishonest man.
(by the way, to the Nazi crowd this site attracts for some reason, – Mr Steyn is NOT Jewish).
Apart from by ancestry, psychology and being plugged into a vast network of influence and media exposure. Not sure what you mean by “Nazi”, Paul. Your father was far closer to the Nazi psychology than anyone I’ve seen post here apart from your good self:
But communists and nazis are two sides of the same violent authoritarian coin. Raising doubts about the influence of a particularly highly influential and energetic ethnic group does not make one a nazi. People have been doing that for millennia.
Note that some relatives of Ms Cohen are hard at work in the US:
And in Europe:
For heaven’s sake, Enoch, come down to earth. Paul’s about as far from being a Nazi, in either actual doctrine or anything similar thereto, as one can get, short of being the Sweet Lord Jesus Himself. Kevin Carson irritated Paul beyond bearing silently, so he let fly verbally. Nevertheless I believe that Mr. Carson still lives and breathes, and I would bet that if he were facing actual death or lesser mayhem, Mr. Marks would swallow his gorge and do what he could to save him.
Grow up.
Paul’s about as far from being a Nazi…
Not in his psychology. His father enjoyed using violence against fascists before WW2, as Paul himself will confirm. So it’s hardly a surprise that Paul talks like this:
It would, of course, be emotionally satisfying to cut Kevin Carson’s Black Flagger (Black Flaggers like Carson will side with the Red Flagger Marxists – indeed they already are and have for years) throat, or blow his head off with a bullet (although he would be more likely to do those things to me) – but it is the job of politics to AVOID THAT SITUATION.
https://libertarianalliance.wordpress.com/2012/08/18/libertarian-self-marginalization/#comment-48626
The difference between Paul and someone like Blair is that Blair was better able to conceal his complete unfitness for power.
For goshsakes, at least tell it right. Paul’s father gave up using violence (to whatever extent he actually did, which I wouldn’t know) when what that meant became clear to him. A Nazi would have no trouble at all throwing old ladies into the ovens, whereas for Paul’s father such acts were a bridge way, way, way too far.
Also, since when do we hold the sons accountable or even suspect just because their fathers did X? You may not believe this, but horrible nasty criminals have had sons who turned out fine.
Finally, ” the difference” — just one of many — between Paul and Blair is that Paul has no desire for Blairian power in the first place. Paul’s first problem in attaining high power is that he believes in actual libertarianism, not some ersatz far-left (Carson admits he’s far left, farther than “far left” in fact) mock-up that swipes the label; and the votes are not yet there for people who are so frankly non-collectivist.
But go ahead, hide under the bed. I’m sure someone will come along to save you from the big bad Paul if you keep on bawling loudly enough.
Sorry, replied in the wrong bit:
Paul’s father such acts were a bridge way, way, way too far…
Dear me. Paul’s father lived in a liberal democracy. If he’d committed acts like those he would have been arrested and hanged. But in Russia after the revolution, relatives of Paul’s with the same hysterical and self-righteous psychology were able to set about their enemies with no fear of punishment. Quite the reverse.
But go ahead, hide under the bed. I’m sure someone will come along to save you from the big bad Paul if you keep on bawling loudly enough.
Paul is no danger to me at present. But his relatives are turning the UK into a police state.
Moderation shmoderation. Censorship is a very old business with the ethnic group in question:
55 Cum autem esset plenus Spiritu Sancto, intendens in cælum, vidit gloriam Dei, et Jesum tantem a dextris Dei. Et ait: Ecce video cælos apertos, et Filium hominis stantem a dextris Dei. 56 Exclamantes autem voce magna continuerunt aures suas, et impetum fecerunt unanimiter in eum. 57 Et ejicientes eum extra civitatem, lapidabant: et testes deposuerunt vestimenta sua secus pedes adolescentis qui vocabatur Saulus. 58 Et lapidabant Stephanum invocantem, et dicentem: Domine Jesu, suscipe spiritum meum. 59 Positis autem genibus, clamavit voce magna, dicens: Domine, ne statuas illis hoc peccatum. Et cum hoc dixisset, obdormivit in Domino. Saulus autem erat consentiens neci ejus.
Paul’s father such acts were a bridge way, way, way too far…
Dear me. Paul’s father lived in a liberal democracy. If he’d committed acts like those he would have been arrested and hanged. But in Russia after the revolution, relatives of Paul’s with the same hysterical and self-righteous psychology were able to set about their enemies with no fear of punishment. Quite the reverse.
But go ahead, hide under the bed. I’m sure someone will come along to save you from the big bad Paul if you keep on bawling loudly enough.
Paul is no danger to me at present. But his relatives are turning the UK into a police state.