I stand for freedom

I stand for freedom, even when it might be a bit distressing.  I stand for liberty, even when it might be a tad uncomfortable.  And I firmly, resolutely and unequivocally stand against the censorious, anti-democratic instinct that resides at the core of the Commonwealth Racial Hatred Act 1995.

The Racial Hatred Act seeks to establish a government-enforced regime of political correctness.  It looks to mandate an idyllic Australia where never is heard a racially discouraging word and ethnic sensibilities are never offended.

But like most Utopian visions, the Act has created less dream and more nightmare where freedom of expression is concerned.

I believe the Racial Hatred Act should be repealed.  And my argument to that effect is best expressed through the alliterative device of what I call the Four ''P''s:  PRINCIPLE, POLITICAL, PERSONAL AND PRACTICAL.

Principle

My first ''P'' denotes the Principle that free speech is the essential prerequisite for all other liberties.  Without the unconstrained exchange of ideas there can be neither forthright political debate nor a free press.  In such a circumstance, government of, by and for the people will surely perish from this earth.

By definition, racial hatred legislation invokes the coercive machinery of the state to ban speech because some people deem its content to be offensive.  The long arm of government is employed to stifle opinions considered politically incorrect by the dominant culture of the day.  This is a recipe, not for democracy, but for tyranny.

In any truly open society, it's inevitable that some people will sometimes find something offensive during the rough-and-tumble of political debate.  But that's the price we pay to live in freedom.  A thought police force of any form is fundamentally inimical both to freedom of inquiry and liberty of expression.  The only thing the Racial Hatred Act has accomplished is to invest the petulant and the paranoid with the power of the censor's red pen.

But many of our bien pensants are at peace with Australia's censorship apparatus because they think it is solely directed against Holocaust-deniers and the like.  And Nazis are easy to despise.

But none of us has 20/20 foresight and no-one can predict what shape our political landscape will take in years to come.  Once the censorship of unpopular views becomes legitimated, there is no way of knowing how that power will be used.  And there's nothing to stop those very same measures being deployed to stifle free speech on a topic near and dear to your heart.  After all, the precedent of quashing expression on the basis of its content has already been established.

Note the comments attached to my weekly columns on the ABC's Drum opinion site.  Many readers write to demand my expulsion from the ABC because I dare express conservative views or opinions.  And those are some of my more moderate critics.  In this respect it's useful to recall that the oldest law of politics is that of unintended consequences.  Be careful what you wish for because you might end up getting it.

If there are to be any restrictions on speech, they must be narrowly tailored and intimately linked to unlawful violence.  Only in instances where there is a direct causal link between the spoken word and imminent lawless action can censorship become defensible.

Freedom of expression has real value only if we are willing to guarantee it to those whose opinions we despise.  If Holocaust-deniers wish to make horse's arses out of themselves by peddling paranoid theories to the lunatic fringe, so be it.  The cost of shutting their mouths is simply too high in terms of the anti-democratic precedent it establishes.  Liberty is menaced far more by a coercive regime of state-enforced political censorship than by the mad ravings of a neo-Nazi nutter.

Political

And that brings me to my second ''P'' -- the Political.  Those on the other side of argument often invoke the example of Nazism to exemplify the dangers of unrestrained speech.  But I see that as an insult, both to Australian democracy and to the English common law tradition from which it sprang.

I'm a firm believer in the concept of Anglo-centric exceptionalism.  And I can almost forgive the Poms for taking the Ashes because they bequeathed us a robust set of democratic values that are immune to the natterings of racist fools.

The fact that Weimar Germany had exceedingly harsh anti-hate speech laws on the books did nothing to prevent the rise of the Third Reich.  In his study of the Weimar Republic, historian Paul Bookbinder noted:  ''Anti-Socialist or anti-Semitic violence, or for that matter inflammatory speech or writing, was dealt with harshly by the police and the judiciary.''  And we all know how that turned out in the end.

Besides, 21st Century Australia has almost nothing in common with early 20th Century Weimar Germany.  We enjoy a deeply engrained culture of liberty that draws on an English common law tradition stretching all the way back to Runnymead in 1215.  Anyone who puts their faith in hate crimes legislation is placing a vote of no confidence in Australian democracy.  And that I reject.

Personal

My third ''P'' is the Personal -- as in my personal resentment against these racial hatred laws that implicitly seek to infantilise me.

Are we really such tender flowers that the aegis of the state is required to defend us from the blather of the ignorant and the malign?  Are we really so uncertain about the righteousness of our cause as to not be able to defend ourselves in the arena of public debate?

Throughout my life I've suffered a good many slings and arrows of anti-Semitic abuse.  But no matter.  The protective regime of the government's human rights apparatus remains unwanted and unappreciated by me.  I'll stand on my own feet and defend myself in the arena of public debate, thank you very much.  My rights are far more endangered by censorious judges and bureaucrats than by the historically illiterate gibberish coming from Hitler-groupies or anti-Zionists.

Practical

The fourth and final ''P'' focuses on the realm of the Practical.  I object to political censorship laws because they are self-defeatingly stupid.  For the sake of protecting us from inconsequential irritants, they deliver us into the hands of genuine threats to freedom.

Look at those who have been prosecuted under similar laws in other Anglophone countries.  In Canada, magazine editor Ezra Levant was hauled before a human rights kangaroo court because he dared to publish the (in)famous Danish Mohammad cartoons.  Conservative writer Mark Steyn was also subjected to prosecution by radical Muslims who didn't like what he wrote about Jihadi Islam.

And here at home, Herald Sun columnist Andrew Bolt has been hauled before a federal court on a racial hatred charge.  The plaintiffs in the Bolt case are seeking to constrict freedom of speech in the name of state-mandated racial orthodoxy.  They demand, not only an apology from Bolt, but also a court order that would prevent him from ever expressing similar views.  They want to muzzle him for life.

Consider that for a moment.  The plaintiffs seek to exploit the coercive machinery of the state to impose a permanent ban on words that they find personally upsetting.  How totalitarian is that?

And even if Bolt ultimately wins he loses.  Think of the massive legal fees he's incurred.  Think of the public humiliation of having to defend himself from spurious allegations of bigotry.

And so all of us lose a piece of our democracy, as well.  The Bolt trial represents the soft totalitarianism of political correctness.  How many writers will risk similar trials and tribulations just to take on a contentious topic that might rouse the ire of particular ethnic or racial group?  The dampening effect of this case on free expression is unavoidable and undeniable.

It's time for us to think again.  It's time for our community to reconsider its position on political censorship.  It's time these pernicious laws were repealed.

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