The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is the pre-eminent group in the United States for protecting the rights of Jews and to counter misinformation such as the denial of the Holocaust.
Yet the ADL works within the free-speech laws of the US. It does not have a campaign to change or repeal the First Amendment of the US Constitution. It knows that free speech is vital for the protection of minority groups such as Jews.
The ADL is well resourced and highly influential. It works through education and persuasion. It fights anti-Semitism effectively through a range of methods, while respecting the free-speech of its critics (after all, there are more Holocaust-denial websites in the US than in Australia).
That is the model Michael Danby should be advocating in Australia, not using the racial-vilification laws to silence Holocaust-deniers.
I’m still further mystified by those who seek to limit our access to read and write freely, within the bounds of laws of defamation and with due courtesy.
It is utterly astonishing to find where in the world the freedom to express one -self is currently under attack, and just who is involved in the legal actions to restrict these long –held freedoms.
Eighty years ago, the rising power of Fascism in Europe was facilitated to a major extent by totalitarian regimes strictly controlling what their populations could read in the papers and hear over the radio. Not only was freedom to tell the truth about fascism suppressed, but this control permitted evil propaganda to be broadcast. This manipulation of the media was one reason for the ultimate solution; the extermination of all those deemed to be enemies of the State. The Holocaust was unleashed, but the lack of a free press meant that no-one was allowed to know what was going on; or if they did they were too frightened to express an opinion.
Currently, the attacks on the Freedom of speech are prevalent in Australia, Britain and Canada. These three Nations suffered nearly 600,000 fatal casualties in their endeavours to successfully destroy Fascism in Europe. Sadly too late to save some 6,000,000 Jews, but nonetheless a terrible price in the lives of young Australian, Canadian and British men and women.
You would think perhaps that the very last people to defend the suppression of free speech would be those who had suffered most grievously from press censorship in Nazi Europe.
But astonishingly we find that Justices and Barristers and now a government Representative from Jewish backgrounds are at the forefront in removing freedom of speech; the very sons of the generation that experienced the horrors of the Holocaust. How in the name of humanity could this happen? Why is not Jewry standing tall and saying “Enough! Our sons will not countenance support of this infamy”
Ray Finkelstein, Ron Merkel and Mordecai Bromberg and now Michael Danby in Australia , together with Brian Leveson in Britain should be asking themselves some hard questions. As should the Australian Labor Party that is hell bent on emulating the excesses of European Totalitarianism by pursuing censure of the Press and maintaining the iniquitous Section 18c of the vilification law.
Phil E Steyn
7 Aug 12 at 4:44 pm
Danby’s view is worth re-iterating:
They want people locked up for speech as well, and it’s already happened in Western Australia. This is a very dangerous position for the Jewish community to be taking.
New Gold Dream
7 Aug 12 at 6:45 pm
“But astonishingly we find that Justices and Barristers and now a government Representative from Jewish backgrounds are at the forefront in removing freedom of speech”.
Why do you sound so surprised by this? Have you not been paying attention to what happens beyond the confines of this country? I’m surprised that even this small article hasn’t attracted an accusation of “anti-Semitism” yet. It doesn’t take much and the end point of that is to silence free speech via self-censorship.
Paul
7 Aug 12 at 9:31 pm
Something very strange happened to small l lefties over the years, maybe you could call them small l liberals in the US sense, being inclined to the welfare state. More research is required, this book sheds some light on the issue.
Poor Old Rafe
7 Aug 12 at 9:50 pm
Not too many game to touch this. Did someone mention self censorship? A picture paints a thousand words.
You would think soft power was working fine, but, as they say: ‘Nothing is off the table.’ There is always some rogue with no career to lose, but everyone has a throat to be stood upon, no?
Big Jim
7 Aug 12 at 10:44 pm
The ADL should be proscribed and its offices and property seized. It pretends to be a Jewish body, but the only cause it seems to advocate is Leftist censorship. We should not tolerate the existence of this or any other Far Left totalitarian group. Apply their own standards to them for a change and put them out of business.
Fisky
7 Aug 12 at 11:07 pm
Below is three quotes from a great leader and statesman. Some might say one of the greatest. Which leader would dare champion freedom and liberty so blatantly? A conservative? A right-winger? Well none of the above. It was John F Kennedy. A Democrat. Inconceivably the same political party that spawned Obama.
“A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.”
“Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.”
“Israel was not created in order to disappear – Israel will endure and flourish. It is the child of hope and the home of the brave. It can neither be broken by adversity nor demoralized by success. It carries the shield of democracy and it honors the sword of freedom.”
Says it all really … The defence of liberty and freedom requires the freedom of all citizens to speak freely and without fear. Just ask JFK.
Abraham
8 Aug 12 at 6:23 am
Same shit on the other shoe. Truth has no advocate, only interests.
Part of your intro there stands out to me. “..to counter misinformation”. What the flying fuck is that phrase doing there??
Freedom, “counters” misinformation. It allows all the stupid, bad faith and wrong information to be completely aired, and for the authors and retailers of that information to freely reap the social consequences of having done so.
People should be just as free to deny the holocaust as they are to say it did happen.
Some people need to look the word “freedom” up, like, every ten minutes, lest its meaning slip, yet again, through their fingers as they type…
Ooh Honey Honey
8 Aug 12 at 6:24 am
Just a quibble, but ‘bad faith’? WTFF is that?
Ad hominem argument and impugning motives are a key PC tactic for silencing and shaming.
Plus, the Sartrean notion of mauvaise foi is part of a disreputable stream of 20th century European pyschobabble that functions under liberalism to pathologize dissent.
Big Jim
8 Aug 12 at 9:14 am
Oh. I was just trying to cover as many things as possible. Any nasty, lying, rude thing. I’m not PC..
Ooh Honey Honey
8 Aug 12 at 11:45 am
I get that. I suppose I am trying to illustrate how powerful the matrix is.
We like to think we are rational, scientific, post-Religious and wise to the tricks of Cultural Marxism; and yet we struggle to break the grip of the prevailing Lenonist (yes, John, not I.V.) worldview, where we still believe in such concocted, self-serving vapours as ‘hate’.
Big Jim
8 Aug 12 at 12:25 pm
Interesting to see the blowhards who usually inhabit this blog going to ground on this issue. Defending freedom and democracy is hard and involves genuine sacrifice. Typically the cost is borne by the brave few for the sake of the indulgent many.
New Gold Dream
8 Aug 12 at 1:56 pm