There I was on the ABC’s Outsiders on Sunday morning. The issues were freedom of speech, the American election and the Australian economy. You can put this up on the website and listen in.
http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/2012/09/sra_20120923_0920.mp3
I will just make this observation. Freedom of speech, rather than being a merely reflex good as it ought to be in our society, is now a hot issue because of the threats to our ability to say in public what we like since the right to free speech has now been mixed up with the politics of religion and the Middle East. But we here should be defending our right to free speech to the fullest extent possible. If we wish to end up like the various religious tyrannies which are dime a dozen, mired in poverty and with nowhere to go, then now’s the time to cave in and fail to defend our right to say anything we wish while governments seal off our right to discourse on whatever we want whenever we please. Governments typically don’t like it, and religious bigots certainly don’t like it, but we citizens do like it. Our right to discourse on whatever we like and to debate and discuss whatever we please has been amongst the most important reasons, if not the single most important reason, for our wondrous freedoms – unknown to almost any other civilisation in history – and for our economic prosperity as well, which is the greatest this planet has ever been able to produce.
Interestingly about being on radio, it is free form so you don’t know exactly what you will be asked, when you are asked you don’t know what you’re going to say often till after you’ve said it, but most importantly, once it is said, you cannot bring it back. What is therefore an immense worry is that it felt potentially dangerous to be defending free speech because of the political overtones that now surround public discourse on so many topics. It should not be like this but it is.
Wow. Steve has an accent.
Driftforge
24 Sep 12 at 9:25 pm
you are so right about not knowing what you’re going to say – or in my case what you’ve said until later on radio.
it’s a great medium because it’s so hard to cheat : )
Cassandra
24 Sep 12 at 9:29 pm
And radio has better mind pictures than TV.
stackja
24 Sep 12 at 9:39 pm
Free speech is just a licence for bigots to spit out hatred against any minority group they feel like.
hammygar
24 Sep 12 at 10:09 pm
Ham, you once suggested that right wingers ought to be incarcerated if they didn’t get with the program.
Fuck off, doofus.
JC
24 Sep 12 at 10:21 pm
Oh no, Carnegie is now predicting food insecurity.
JC
24 Sep 12 at 10:23 pm
Noone can be this stupid can they? Is he taking the piss, or just a Gillard staffer?
cohenite
24 Sep 12 at 10:24 pm
The hamster is a classic illiberal regressive leftist turd.
Under communism ‘comrades’ could only think that of the clowns that had the power of life and death over them.
Fuck of hamster you pathetic excuse for manhood.
JamesK
24 Sep 12 at 10:25 pm
Oops wrong fred…
JC
24 Sep 12 at 10:25 pm
Yes hammie, that is the way the left use it. Suck it in.
Rafe
24 Sep 12 at 10:26 pm
Yep, you’re doing all right with it, Hammy.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.
24 Sep 12 at 10:26 pm
If you don’t like it, tell them to stop. But don’t attack freedom of speech.
Rafe
24 Sep 12 at 10:28 pm
And passive aggressive, with a serious problem with depression by the sounds of things.
JC
24 Sep 12 at 10:30 pm
If its a lost cause as I suspect it is that don’t defend it, Steve. Use the illiberalism to bop the other side on the head using a sledge hammer when the Right wins government. Be absolutely ruthless with them. Use their laws to fine or send them to jail. Fuck’em.
JC
24 Sep 12 at 10:41 pm
Nope Feebie. Its the labor way. Lessons, serious lessons need to be learnt if the Liars party introduces law that attacks free speech.
Fuck you.
JC
24 Sep 12 at 10:46 pm
Majority groups can be just as risible and worthy of hatred. Not in Australia yet, happily.
Big Jim
24 Sep 12 at 11:09 pm
I love febro. I love how he hates free speech. I think that makes him a better person, really.
wreckage
25 Sep 12 at 1:23 am
Leaving out “just”, you actually have a point, especially coming from the Left. Sheikh al-Hilaly, strongly supported by the Left and Leftist pin-up boy Keyser Trad, once said in a public speech:
The Left have absolutely no problem with spitting out hatred against minority – or majority – groups, believing it to be a matter of “free speech”.
Fisky
25 Sep 12 at 3:15 am
Ho ho. Another witty bon mot from our resident fascist.
Abu Chowdah
25 Sep 12 at 4:14 am
The feeble bro spends way too much time here, like SfB.
Blogstrop
25 Sep 12 at 7:10 am
Well, I’m a “religious bigot” (Christian variety) and I would like a bit more balance.
I’m for freedom of speech as long as I get a fair right of reply (currently not available in Fairfax media or ABC circles).
If Serrano wants to denigrate my Christian faith, then I expect that my protest and denunciation be reported realistically, not condescendingly, thank you very much.
John A
25 Sep 12 at 7:37 am
“Free speech is just a licence for bigots to spit out hatred against any minority group they feel like.”
Thats the good part, the not so good part is that the bastards respond in a way that I find offensive.
Jannie
25 Sep 12 at 1:28 pm
Don’t worry Hammy. Once the caliphate gets up you’ll never have to fear freedom of speech ever again.
DrBeauGan
25 Sep 12 at 3:23 pm
One of the things I most enjoy about Christianity is how far up the lefty secular nostrils it gets.
blogstrop
25 Sep 12 at 5:25 pm