The Racial Discrimination Act is racist
https://twitter.com/johnsonofdaw
https://twitter.com/johnsonofdaw
In a clear cut violation of the right to freedom of speech, The Federal Court of Australia found journalist Andrew Bolt guilty of breaching the Racial Discrimination Act. Bolt’s crime was comments he made that “offended, insulted, humiliated or intimidated” people, the said comments being made “because of the race, colour or ethnic origin of [those] fair-skinned Aboriginal people”.
The offending comments were made in Bolt’s column in the Herald Sun on April 15th and August 21st 2009. In those columns Bolt questioned why some fair skinned people identify themselves as Aborigines and implied it was because "it's so hip to be black" and because there were material advantages in being black.
Contrary to the attempts of some left-wing commentators to obfuscate the crucial issue of freedom of speech, the judgment against Bolt was not made because of some inconsequential inaccuracies in his columns. Reference to these errors was made in relation to a peripheral (section 18D) issue, the judgment itself was based on the (section 18C) prohibition of acts that are “reasonably likely” to “offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate” people in a manner related to their race.
Contrary to the attempts of some left-wing commentators to obfuscate the crucial issue of freedom of speech, the judgment against Bolt was not made because of some inconsequential inaccuracies in his columns. Reference to these errors was made in relation to a peripheral (section 18D) issue, the judgment itself was based on the (section 18C) prohibition of acts that are “reasonably likely” to “offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate” people in a manner related to their race.
A right to freedom of speech that doesn’t offend anybody is not a right to anything meaningful at all. No one anywhere ever needs to defend his right to say what everyone likes to hear. It is precisely comments that offend, insult or humiliate someone that must be defended by the right to freedom of speech. Offended people have every right to avoid listening to or reading offending comments, but they have no legitimate right to use the force of law to stop such comments being said or written, or to stop other people listening to or reading them.
Read more here
Read more here
Ironically, it is the cultural apartheid enshrined in this Racial Discrimination Act that has injected racism back into Australia
Offended feelings are a small price to pay for freedom of speech, because without it no other freedom can be protected. In the name of equality before the law, justice, and liberty, the deceptively named Racial Discrimination Act must be repealed.
Offended feelings are a small price to pay for freedom of speech, because without it no other freedom can be protected. In the name of equality before the law, justice, and liberty, the deceptively named Racial Discrimination Act must be repealed.
2 comments:
Oh boo-hoo for Bolt. He got caught out by the umpire for his lies and now all you racists are crying about it.
It's not about free speech, its about lousy journalism. The judge made it clear that Bolt could have discussed the genuineness of pale skinned Aborigines if he’d done so fairly and reasonably. He said
“nothing in the orders I make should suggest that it is unlawful for a publication to deal with racial identification, including by challenging the genuineness of the identification of a group of people. I have not found Mr Bolt and the Herald & Weekly Times to have contravened section 18C, simply because the newspaper articles dealt with subject matter of that kind. I have found a contravention of the Racial Discrimination Act because of the manner in which that subject matter was dealt with.”
Doesn’t sound like he’s closing down free speech now does it!
Thanks Anonymous, I’m not a racist and Bolt’s not a liar. You seem to believe that (a) Justice Bromberg ruled against Bolt because of errors in his article, and (b)in doing so he did not violate freedom of speech. I disagree.
a.) Bromberg gives his reasons for ruling against Bolt under section 18C, and they have nothing to do with errors in Bolt’s articles, they have to do with offending feelings. His criticism of Bolt’s errors was made in regard to a secondary issue of whether Bolt could be let off under a provision in 18D that excuses an offence if it was “said or done reasonably and in good faith”. But even there the (few inconsequential) errors were used only to bolster Bromberg's decision that the “tone” of the articles showed insufficient good faith. It is a diversionary distortion for the likes of David Marr to say the judgment was about erroneous journalism.
b.) Yes Bromberg does declare at the end of his summary judgment that it is not against the law to discuss racial identification - which is disingenuously at odds with the rest of his judgement, and makes it worse.
If his ruling was: “you may not discuss racial identification”, that would be bad, but at least it would be the same for everybody and you would know in advance what you could and couldn’t discuss. But a ruling that you may discuss racial identification provided "the manner in which that subject matter [is] dealt with" is acceptable, means that you don’t know in advance whether or how to discuss it. Bromberg ruled unacceptable a manner that is "reasonably likely to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate a group of people" so this "calls for an objective assessment of the likely reaction of those people.” Before you speak you have to make an “objective assessment” of the subjective reactions of people to your words. But there is no “objective” way of assessing subjective reactions, and throwing in criteria like “values and circumstances” of a “reasonable member of the group of people concerned” and the relevance of “general community standards … but only to an extent”, doesn’t help, all it does is multiply the number of the subjective feelings that could make your words a crime.
This is very bad law, not only because it violates free speech, but also because it affords no objective means of deciding what speech is permitted and what is not. So it may be used to shut some people up but not others. Aboriginal activists and their academic supporters challenge the genuineness of other “Aborigines” all the time(read Aird in today's Australian), in terms and tones much less measured and respectful than Bolt’s, and they frequently get their facts ludicrously wrong. So Bromberg couldn’t make the topic itself a crime. What he did was to make certain people’s discussion of it, that could hurt certain people’s feelings about it a crime, or a potential crime, so that those offended people could shut those offending people up.
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