Many IPA members would have received a very important package from the IPA. It contains a series of documents highlighting the fight against Roxon’s obnoxious anti-free speech legislation. It starts with a letter from John Roskam. To my mind the best part of the whole letter was this gem:
My two grandfathers didn’t fight on the Western Front in the First World War; my father didn’t fight in Burma in the Second World War; and my mother wasn’t a fire lookout in South London during the War so that my children in Australia in 2012 would suffer under a law that makes it against the law to express a political opinion if you offend someone.
Exactly my views – as I told wmmb a few weeks ago:
wmmb – my ancestors fought in ditches so I can be free. Some of my relatives died in those ditches. I will not besmirch their memory or sacrifice to appease the sensitivities of useful idiots or wannabe mass murderers.
Same sentiment from a different perspective.
I am not going to be murdered by the state or its apologists. None of my relatives or friends are going to be murdered by the state or its apologists either.
Read John Roskam’s letter – follow the links.
The defense of free speech is a classic for eliciting stupid “yes buts”. It staggers me how many people can’t see the wood for the trees. But one of the problems is the strong tendency we all have to think our preferred rules and mores are special.
Pedro
21 Feb 13 at 11:44 pm
Over Here, Over There. Its The Same, Everywhere.
A Boy Cries Out For His Mother, Before He Dies For His Home.
“He died for the flag” and “He died for our freedom” rhetoric is the stuff of schoolboy comic books and B-grade movies, but if truth be told, I suspect Master Roskam knows little of the true reasons his grandfathers fought. More to the point, what do they matter? Does fighting a war today give one the right to dictate policy 100 years hence?
Silly stuff.
William Bragg
22 Feb 13 at 1:56 am
Demonstrating an absolute lack of class and character there, Bragg. I would suggest that John Roskam is much more likely to know the reasons for which his forebears fought than you are, and I see no good reason to question his statement. They made no contradicting statements of their own that any of us have seen, and it stands to reason that most people want to leave a legacy of greater opportunity for their progeny.
After all, despite their sublime indifference to the hundreds of billions of dollars in debt they rack up to be paid off by their children and grand-children, aren’t warmists always boasting about how they’re saving the environment for future generations?
Marky
22 Feb 13 at 3:45 am
Oh god, let me guess?? They all died for Da Oil. That’s where you were going with this, right Braggs?
Fisky
22 Feb 13 at 3:59 am
I take it Bragg, trying to redefine what wars were about is your support of Roxons anti free speech legislation? Do you condemn or support the legislation?
brc
22 Feb 13 at 4:13 am
Bragg has no idea what the limits on free speech should be. Incredibly, despite being obsessed with the Roxon laws, always popping up when the laws are being discussed, he hasn’t even got an opinion on them.
Fisky
22 Feb 13 at 4:25 am
Fuck off, Bragg, you offensive piece of shit.
perturbed
22 Feb 13 at 4:31 am
FWIW, broagg you effing arseclown, my father told me he risked his life for two and a half years during WW2 for the principle of freedom, including freedom of expression. He hated fascism, communism and islam.
What do they all have in common? That’s right, no freedom of speech.
Freedom of speech is also why you’re able to post on this blog and make a goose of yourself.
Well done.
Rabz
22 Feb 13 at 6:56 am
In its earliest incarnation, Offend meant – to transgress, or to sin.
It seems we are enjoying a resurgence of the merging of state with religion. Is the Green faith so fragile that it requires legislative protection, its adherents so unable to rationally defend their political position that they need threaten any questions illegal. If so, it deserves to die.
simon
22 Feb 13 at 7:02 am
Yes
That is exactly why Labor needs to control what you can hear or see.
johno
22 Feb 13 at 7:12 am
My father didn’t fight in New Guinea in WW2 and I wasn’t conscripted in 69/70 to preserve a national culture that tolerates vilification and hate, especially when creeps like Bolt make a living from it.
It’s a novel and profitable form of prostitution.
1735099
22 Feb 13 at 8:02 am
If you fighting for elites to control other people’s thoughts and words then you were fighting on the wrong side in both cases.
John Mc
22 Feb 13 at 8:07 am
Considering the section highlighted in italics is false and you purposely stated it in full knowledge it is false, we should question if the first part is true.
How many minds did you pollute with your ignorance across the years?
Token
22 Feb 13 at 8:11 am
The first part can be verified on line in 30 seconds.
The second part is also verifiable on-line. Check his blog. He’s a serial offender, as the courts have found at least twice.
You’re the one displaying ignorance, or perhaps you’re simply in denial.
1735099
22 Feb 13 at 8:18 am
Just to be clear, with regard to the proposed legislation and all other chipping away at the freedom to offend and be wrong, I am a tower of furious indignation as tall as Sinclair et al.
But I must also point out that the historical replacement of the real reasons young men and women serve with ones that suit a contemporary political cause is not a particularly strong or decent tactic.
Wars represent a breakdown in the rules that keep resources allocated in a particular way, and the ensuing chaos has always represented an extremely egalitarian opportunity to help yourself to maidens and fortune. Foot soldiers have always been drawn by the prospect of booty, dress it up anyway you like. They are still doing it now: The Greens saying to uni graduates “If elected we will cancel all HECS debts” is exactly the same as the general saying to his troops out side the town they are about to attack “Get me to the castle on the hill and you can do whatever you want with all the gold and girls in the township.”
The reason it is so popular to rewrite the reasons for people having served though is that it is such a blank slate. History is littered with examples that prove my point. I also don’t doubt that there were many people who joined up to defend abstract political concepts (a few anyway), but in the majority of cases, we simply don’t know why people joined up. So we can make up what we want.
I don’t give a shit what my grandfather’s motives were. The attacks on free speech must be opposed vigorously. All the reasons for this may be discovered in the here and now.
Ooh Honey Honey
22 Feb 13 at 8:22 am
If that loathsome, utterly worthless, hypocritical commie imbecile the spudpeeler hadn’t been conscripted, he still would have been a disgusting, creepy, state dependent marxist cretin who attempted to brainwash children for a so called living.
Rabz
22 Feb 13 at 8:26 am
So Numbers are you saying that the current Australian culture (whatever that is) tolerates vilification and hate?
What do you suggest we model our culture on: North Korea, Cuba, USSR, Cambodia under Pol Pot, Venezuela?
Bear Necessities
22 Feb 13 at 8:30 am
My God, you are a fucking moron.
This syphilis addled commie scumbag believes that courts presided over by arrogant unelected leftist totalitarian wankers have the power to regulate the speech of the citizenry.
You suck arse, spudpeeler.
Rabz
22 Feb 13 at 8:33 am
If the loathsoame utterly worthless hypocritical imbecile the shit-shoveller Rabz had been conscripted he/she/it wouldn’t have lasted more than two weeks in rookies.
His/her/it’s bizarre and demented utterings would have either generated a discharge on mental health grounds or a permanent allocation to dixie bashing in a back pantry to keep him/her/it separated from other diggers with access to lethal weapons.
1735099
22 Feb 13 at 8:34 am
Yes. And thanks for highlighting that point.
Tapdog
22 Feb 13 at 8:34 am
Goodness me, but you live in a strange Australia. Wherever do you see examples that ‘Australian culture’ tolerates these things?
You no doubt see examples of hate and vilification – unfortunately that’s the human condition – but point us to toleration by the national culture…
Dr Faustus
22 Feb 13 at 8:35 am
A culture modelled on what is obvious across the Pacific would be only slightly less tolerable than those you’ve listed.
Neither is aceptable here, and we are rapidly heading down the track towards the toxic US model.
1735099
22 Feb 13 at 8:37 am
Wherever do you see…..?
Generally I don’t, except when I read this blog, Bolt’s and Blairs.
1735099
22 Feb 13 at 8:39 am
You really are pathetic, spudpeeler, you syphilis addled old cretin.
Give it away, you’ll have long overdue massive fatal coronary if you’re not careful.
Rabz
22 Feb 13 at 8:41 am
Prove it. We will not accept referencing to left wing nutjobs, we want hard evidence.
Otherwise, you are proving you are someone making statements you know are untrue to indulge your endless well of anger which comes from your inability to be accountable for your own actions.
Token
22 Feb 13 at 8:41 am
Bear Necessities
22 Feb 13 at 8:43 am
I hope Bolt, Blair and the Cat are full of vilification and hate in your eyes until you are peeling spuds in the sky.
Least I know if you are complaining about these forums then some form of free speech remains in this country.
Bear Necessities
22 Feb 13 at 8:46 am
I love that Australia is becoming more like the US and less like the ugly socialist hellhole dreamt up by the spoilt 1970s leftist generation.
John Mc
22 Feb 13 at 8:47 am
No – you prove it.
My father’s service is verifiable on the AWM website – mine on the nominal roll. Surprising that you regard the AWM as a haven for “left wing nutjobs”.
Pretty fair indication of your tenuous grasp on reality……
1735099
22 Feb 13 at 8:48 am
We both know I am talking about the part I highlighted in italics Numbers.
In other words you can not substantiate the statement you made.
Therefore my follow on statement stands…
…you are proving you are someone making statements you know are untrue to indulge your endless well of anger which comes from your inability to be accountable for your own actions.
The anger, envy and hate will never end. Get some serious professional help with your emotional issues Numbers.
Token
22 Feb 13 at 8:53 am
10 months of your life numbers. 10 months.
The rest of it is so utterly worthless that that’s all you can talk about.
jupes
22 Feb 13 at 8:56 am
Yes, but he’d no doubt try and sic ‘da courts’ onto us if he had his way, the syphilitic ol’ stalinist.
Rabz
22 Feb 13 at 8:57 am
Let me see if I follow this argument. Bad laws are written which erode free speech, and when a popular columnist is dragged to court under these bad laws, this proves that the bad laws are good?
What we are complaining about is the existing bad laws, and the attempts to pass more bad laws. So using those bad laws as some sort of example is very strange indeed.
I can’t wait until some lefty cultural warrior gets dragged into court for a show trial. Then we’ll see how the leftists suddenly discover that these bad laws need to be removed. Nodoubt it will be abbots fault at that point.
brc
22 Feb 13 at 9:06 am
Numbers, you seem to be passionate and angry because you care.
What mystifies me is why you attack the people who are trying to make your society better and defend the heartless people whose policies have killed thousands of the same people you say you care about.
Does this not get you into a righteous anger Numbers?
FFS, why do you defend the people who created and sustain this trade that has lead to so many preventable deaths.
Token
22 Feb 13 at 9:08 am
“We both know…”
You can’t read. Go back and check your posts.
“The anger envy and hate”…, for anger, envy and hate in spades, simply spend 10 minutes reading the rantings on this blog.
And thanks for the on-line analysis.
Tell me, do you bulk bill?
1735099
22 Feb 13 at 9:08 am
Let’s not be too hard on Ball Bagg above at 0156.
He has firmly planted his flag here.
True, it’s the flag of a totalitarian police-state, and his little racist lap-dog Brave Sir Numbers is forming a conga-line of suckhole behind him, but at least Ball Bagg has openly stated his national Socialist/International Socialist stance as a card-carrying totalitarian.
Mk50 of Brisbane
22 Feb 13 at 9:10 am
There is a wonderful tone and great spirit in most dialogs that are not interupted by angry old men who refuse to take account of their actions and their inability to control their emotions.
Why do you not see that you may be the problem? Is it because to admit what we say would force you to face so many other mistakes you’ve made in your life?
I don’t live in Toowoomba. You need the help of a professional who can dedicate real time to you.
Token
22 Feb 13 at 9:11 am
Nice try, Token, but Brave Sir Numbers is a left-wing racist (I repeat myself, I know), and is doubtless delighted at the deaths of 100 ‘little brown people’.
His view’s that of the card-carrying left-wing racist he proudly proclaims himself to be: ‘were not white, after all, so why do they count?’
Mk50 of Brisbane
22 Feb 13 at 9:13 am
Show me anywhere I’ve defended current asylum seeker policy.
Both parties have toxic policies that make me ashamed to call myself Australian, and to all intents and purposes, their policies are identical.
The flow of boats (and the drownings) will continue despite Australian government policy. Blaming the current government for the drowning deaths is a political meme.
The solution will take twenty years and it involves regional cooperation. The short attention span of the MSM can’t abide that reality, and neither, apparently, can many of the cretins who post here.
1735099
22 Feb 13 at 9:15 am
Another statement you know is untrue. The Howard government policies stopped the boats.
Token
22 Feb 13 at 9:16 am
Mark, I just wish we could find a way to break the loop he has fell into.
The passion Numbers shows is based upon a moral foundation, though it got lost and went off course many years ago. Compare that to Bragg who is malicious.
Token
22 Feb 13 at 9:19 am
Bragg is bragging again? The quote isn’t about Roskam’s grandfather but from an IPA member who telephoned Roskam.
However as Bragg isn’t a member of the IPA he may be excused for this factual lapse this time.
Louis Hissink
22 Feb 13 at 9:26 am
Incidentally The Oz has flagged religion is also being targeted by this new law in terms of discrimination.
As the elite who are framing these laws would be extremely discriminative over which sup of shiraz or chardonnay they may indulge themselves, perhaps an advertising campaign on this topic to ram home their crass hypocrisy? It could be extended to their choice of gourmand confections etc, but maybe not gourmand lasagne in the EU – it’s a bit horsey apparently.
Louis Hissink
22 Feb 13 at 9:30 am
numbers, you say:
What examples of vilification and hate are you thinking off; this perhaps?
cohenite
22 Feb 13 at 9:32 am
numbers also says this:
Boat arrivals.
cohenite
22 Feb 13 at 9:34 am
He’s right about the culture of hate and vilification. Just look at the thugs who were trying to prevent people attending a speech by Greet Wilders. Or the thugs who tried to shut down a chocolate shop in Melbourne because the owners were jewish. The union thugs behind the racist protests trying to force employers to sack overseas workers.
He’s right. The Left is behind the hate and vilification in Australia’s culture.
johno
22 Feb 13 at 9:49 am
Don’t think the asylum seeker policies are “toxic”, why be ashamed?
There’s definite tension amongst Australians about the number of asylus seekers – are they economic cases or genuine? – what is the effect on welfare budget, and so on, and it appears there is no control over our borders.
Perhaps it is a foolish government that ignores the people’s concerns.
candy
22 Feb 13 at 10:24 am
Both parties have toxic policies that make me ashamed to call myself Australian
Well, most of us are ashamed you call yourself Australian!
John Mc
22 Feb 13 at 10:26 am
Strangely Numbers attacks the people that:
1. Defends the right to free speech
2. In the spirit of that right, exposes the hate & bile at a Islamacist conference that the lefty rent-a-mob will never picket & protest
3. Warned about the dangers of removing the Howard government policies around asylym seekers, and
4. Were lone voices in exposing the deaths that come from the change of policy.
Rather, due to his emotional issues that stem back to adolescence, Numbers stays true to tribal allegences he was born with and attacks those who would speak truth to very autocratic power.
Token
22 Feb 13 at 10:36 am
Brave Sir Numbers:
Here he is confirming his racism in the most blatant possible manner.
1. Howard was vilified by the left for the ~300 dead aboard SIEV X, which sank inside Indonesian territorial waters and deep inside their MARSAR.
2. Howard stopped the boats, and, on quantfiable attrition rates, saved at least 4000 lives in doing so.
3. The alpgreenfilth scrapped Howard’s approach and re-started the illegal immigrant trade. ~1200-1500 have died since that we know of and several boats with perhaps another 800 aboard have vanished.
To the racist Brave Sir Numbers, four figures of ‘little brown people’ dead is nothing, becuase “Blaming the current government for the drowning deaths is a political meme.”
What the racist piece of filth is really saying is that: ‘when I can’t blame the deaths of thousands of darkies on conservatives, who cares about them? Maybe I can stand on their corpses and get a few political points by saying how rude it is for the conservatives to apportion the responsibility for all these dead darkies on the people whose policies actually caused their deaths.‘
Nothing more clearly shows what a contemptible racist Brave Sir Numbers is than his own words.
Mk50 of Brisbane
22 Feb 13 at 10:42 am
Mk, true, but you’re talking about a syphilitic ol’ bumpkin with all the comprehension skills of a cane toad and none of its redeeming features.
Rabz
22 Feb 13 at 11:12 am
Cane toads don’t have redeeming features; oh, I see, you’re saying numbers is a cane toad?
cohenite
22 Feb 13 at 11:15 am
Cohenite, no need to over analyse.
Rabz
22 Feb 13 at 11:23 am
Yeah those guys are chumps alright, missing a plant operating vehicle smashing up infrastructure over 3 km of a named highway highway at a snail’s pace under a police escort.
.
22 Feb 13 at 11:23 am
With numbers that would be impossible; sorry, I’m in a last word sort of mood today.
cohenite
22 Feb 13 at 11:29 am
Cohenite,
Cane toads are one of God’s many creatures, the spudpeeler is a spawn of satan, if that helps.
Rabz
22 Feb 13 at 11:36 am
There is an overlap.
cohenite
22 Feb 13 at 11:59 am
To which tapdog responds
Well no it doesn’t. Put simply, not everyone who fights in a war fights for the same reasons, and deciding which of those reasons will influence policy will not be a matter of dictation, because voting for your favourite reason is the best way to choose policy. A lot of people fought for that idea.
Like it or not, Commie dingbats who joined up also have the right to vote.
Ooh Honey Honey
22 Feb 13 at 12:19 pm
I think my great uncle got torpedoed and drowned in the merchant marine so that we would make the miners pay a fair price for mining our minerals.*
Oh and I think he also drowned so I could win a cheap argument on the internet.
* I think this should be better written as: My Great Uncle didn’t drown in the merchant marine keeping food on Britain’s tables so that fat wealthy white males could make billions looting the public commons.
Grey
22 Feb 13 at 5:22 pm
Oh well, he died for nothing. He should have signed up for the Red Army and Stalin’s glorious socialist republic.
John Mc
22 Feb 13 at 5:30 pm
Really? And WTF are you basing that assertion on, numbers? Do you have evidence that any “solution” will take 20 years?
John Howard effected a 99% reduction in boat arrivals in a matter of months. Once offshore processing was added to TPVs, the people smugglers had nothing to offer queue jumpers.
Fisky
22 Feb 13 at 5:30 pm
Now, there was a guy who knew how to prosecute people who said things the state didn’t like.
John Mc
22 Feb 13 at 5:33 pm
Grey, what ship? Failing that, what company or date. I have copies of Lloyd’s War Losses and Rohwer’s Axis Submarine Successes.
I’d be happy to tell you all available data on the incident.
Mk50 of Brisbane
22 Feb 13 at 6:34 pm
I regret to say when I was a nipper and it was discussed I never had thought to enquire as to the name of the ship. It always remained a sensitive subject and not talked about lightly.
Actually I had a great grandfather who was a major at Gallipoli and later on the Western Front – although for obvious reasons I rate my Great Uncle’s service as more important.
Grey
22 Feb 13 at 8:23 pm
We should put somevof these Fascist Communist Self SeekingTurds should be put against a wall and Shot as Traitors To Democracy,put it on TV to encourage the other Soshalist Fascist Clowns to Pull their Heads in.
Borisgodunov
22 Feb 13 at 8:49 pm
Grey, that’s still not hard at all. The British retain records in all cases where a ship was under MoWT charter (and all of them were),and all records pertaining to any ship lost.
Ask around your family, someone will know skeletal details than just his name, even if it’s ‘Uncle Fred was lost on the Silver Cedar in ’42′.
Mk50 of Brisbane
22 Feb 13 at 9:05 pm
It is basic psychology that people will often rationalise their choices or situations in ways to put the best slant on their actions or circumstances. Saying that one is fighting for one’s flag, or for grand ideals, is far better for one’s sense of worth than admitting to more social or personally self-interested drivers.
In any case, the key point from my initial comment is really in the last lines: does fighting a war today give one the right to dictate policy 100 years hence?
It is clearly a nonsense view that it does, yet that is a pillar in Roskam’s argument, apparently.
So, even if Roskam’s (or his correspondent’s) grandfather knew his own mind, and Roskam then knew his grandfather’s mind, it bears little on what constitutes appropriate policy today.
William Bragg
22 Feb 13 at 9:55 pm
I think it’s fair to say, generic as it is, that people did ‘fight for freedom’. The allies didn’t fight for the right to nationalise people’s property or remove rights from minority groups, and no one who volunteered for the Vietnam War on our side was doing so to help the spread of communism. So if people say X made a sacrifice for freedom, there’s enough truth for it to be valid.
However, the military in the Australian mindset is far too prominent. I am sick of people trying to justify their opinions because they did a bit of time in the military, as more or less admirable as it may be.
John Mc
22 Feb 13 at 10:06 pm
In 1942 my father was a devout Catholic and a freshly minted doctor.
He volunteered for active duty because he knew the way of life of those he loved and millions of other innocents was under imminent threat – and by an utterly depraved enemy that was seemingly armed and driven on by Satan himself.
Thus spake koba the dread.
Rabz
22 Feb 13 at 10:15 pm