Time and free speech

Unfortunately my current lifestyle is proving that I don't have the time for this blog that I would like.
At the same time there has been some clear sighted discussion in, at least, The Australian about free speech. An issue close to my heart. I'm glad it's getting the attention it needs as a cornerstone... the keystone of democracy. Without the freedom to criticise the government, companies, representative bodies, other organisations, and religions, people are subject to the potential tyranny of those institutions, inevitably limiting other basic freedoms. I'm astounded at the irony of people enjoying their freedom of expression calling for limitations on the free expression of others. Sure express your disgust at their views, do debate the merits of their utterances, but calling for limits on their voice? It's just a small step then to screaming for their suppression and baying for their heads. Where have we seen that recently. We still have anti-defamation laws in Australia and other liberal democracies, people can and do vote with their feet, their dollars and their ears. So what's the problem with other people saying unpalatable things, just because it upsets your sensibilities and your moral outrage. No media reform in Australia thankyou, we have enough. And no limits on free speech!

The Australian

I have been amazed daily at the quality of this newspaper. The scope of its coverage of national and world events and the strength of its opinion pieces are second to none in this country. Especially the past fortnight I have deeply appreciated the depth of analysis and variety of commentators published in the opinion section and elsewhere. From journalists to academics to politicians, we've read the clearest commentary on the protest-riots in Sydney, the terrorist attacks on the embassy in Libya and all the "muslim anger" in between. Today's opinion piece from The Australian's own Janet Albrechtsen on the global threat of blasphemy laws to free speech is one such "full-throated defence of western values". As she says, "...defaulting to lazy moral relativism, looks like appeasement to radical Muslims, who will demand only more and more special rules..."

We must make the case for our Enlightenment ideals. The post-modern, deconstructionist tool of contemporary academia should be put back in the box where it belongs. It may be usefully employed to critique conceptual categories and rethink the status quo, but its overuse has lead to an undervaluing and undermining of the roots of our intellectual culture. Without upholding the very bases for the development and maintenance of the West's philosophical discourses and humanistic political systems we will lose them.

Those values and ideals articulated in the founding documents of Western, and now global, political institutions are devalued when we are charmed by the sophistry of arguments for the equality of cultures. In many western countries, policies of multiculturalism have lead to a weakening of the once commonly held values that bind our societies. Without some values we at least tacitly agree on, what can possibly keep us peacefully living and working together?

I intend to take up a number of the topics raised in this and my previous posts as well as those implicated in recent world affairs. I don't know yet how much time I will actually have for this blog, and there are many fine news and opinion sources out there—which I intend to provide links to—that deal with the issues that concern me (and in a far more thoroughgoing and articulate way than I am capable of). So I will finish up this post as it started, as a plug for The Australian. Like my left-leaning friends, who sometimes baulk at the mere mention of this paper, you may not always agree with the opinions aired within its pages, but you must concede it is the standard bearer for the mainstream press in Australia, and as such it cannot be ignored. Thank Christ and Janet Albrechtsen (amongst others) for that.

Reason for Existence

This blog is a work in process. I don't quite have the raison d'etre nailed down yet. And I hadn't considered who the audience might be. Initially I just started writing it for myself. But since I could write without actually blogging, I should give some thought to who might be readers. And maybe it helps to start with where I'm coming from.

I wanted to start a blog as a forum to air and share my views on current affairs. I am a passionate Australian who is proud to live in a liberal democracy that upholds the rule of man-made laws applying equally to all its citizens. I want to develop the knowledge, skills and the confidence to claim my birthright as a citizen of this country and defend the hard-won cultural values for which it stands. It was not for nothing that my grandfathers and their fathers fought in successive world wars in the name of freedom on this fatal shore.

I don't really like politics. It's a messy business. But there is no better frame for guaranteeing the widest possibilities of individual freedom than democracy. In essence I agree with the Winston Churchill quote, "No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." So I'm an idealist. But free of ideology. Maybe that's why I never completely agreed with my socialist friends but could sympathise with their basic motivation. As an Australian I am essentially egalitarian, but apparently that means different things to different people. I'm a humanist. I believe man is the measure of all things. And as a staunch secularist, when it comes to the state, I've been disturbed over the last so many years at how supposed secularists have apparently sided with other religions against Christianity. As if it were something of threat to some kind of secular utopianism. I couldn't understand the vitriol reserved for an historical font of our civilization. Being critical of religion is essential for the practice of freedom, but it is patently hypocritical and even dangerous to heap critique and loathing on one religion whilst shielding others from the rigorous analysis of scholarship and the mockery of the marketplace of ideas.

Religions weren't all created equal. Few of them could lead to societies where we in principle believe that all men and women were created equal. We have that basic belief in Australia (and other so-called Western countries) in part because of our Christian heritage. I respect that. What I don't respect are religions that denigrate women and non-adherents. That doesn't mean I don't respect, as human beings, the adherents of such religions. And that's where people tend to get confused and can't handle honest conversations about funny and dangerous faiths. Ideas are only as influential as the people who believe in them, and so people are involved, and if the ideas are dangerous so are their adherents.

This blog will be critical of Islam, and especially the more expressly political variety referred to as Islamism. That by no means requires me to hate Muslims, although it's apparently incumbent upon them to hate me. It says so in their holy book, for I am a non-believer. Sometimes I will generalise. How else can we talk about the world? Cups are useful, but I wouldn't drink out of all of them. Snakes are generally dangerous, but if you're familiar with them some can be milked to make anti-venom and others can even be kept as pets. I have nothing against Muslims in general. As people, I'm looking out for them. I mean, for their best interests. If they want to live a peaceful life in accordance with the law and the spirit of secular social values, such as egalitarianism and not imposing one's beliefs on others, then each to their own. But there are some Muslims, as evidenced by the protest-riot in Sydney on September 15th, that have other ideas. And we have to talk about them. They won't just disappear, them or their ideas. If we just stick our head in the sand we will loose everything we now have and value, and that generations of Australian (and generally western) men and women fought and strove for.

I want us to preserve our freedom. And I want it to be enjoyed by many. But that won't happen if we just open our borders to anyone. Not everyone is prepared to share the values that shape our way of life. Some people don't like to hear talk about values, they assume it's conservative and reactionary. But they could often equally be called principles; perhaps that's a little more palatable to progressives. I don't know how to define my own political views, perhaps I don't want to, and I shouldn't need to. I'm a bit sick of the tired old left-right divide. I don't think Westminster style democracy is the only way. But hopefully for better it's what we've got. And there is good and bad in all mainstream political parties. I just don't like the screaming socialist fringe. And they don't really like democracy. They can't seem to politely listen to other people's unpalatable opinions. And it's very popular amongst young people, a kind of unconscious communist totalitarian bent. The educated left doesn't seem to trust the ordinary citizen voters to make up their own mind. Consequently, I don't trust the educated left to make up my mind for me. Thus I prefer to consider myself a freethinker. Since much mainstream media and academia is ideologically hamstrung by the left, to the young educated reader I might appear right-of-centre. However, I'm no dyed in the wool conservative either. No one apart was born to rule, certainly not religious ideologues or true believing racists (who fortunately are actually few) and there is much positive change I'd be happy to see in our society; such as a healthy disregard for dangerous beliefs anathema to our Australian and western societies' utilitarian aims.

So dear reader, who are you? I trust you are comfortable in your country and you want to keep it beautiful. That you're looking for intellectual ammunition in the fight for freedom from oppression and ignorance. Maybe you're an internet ninja or a political provocateur, a counterjihad activist or sympathiser, or just a weary humanist dismayed at the stifling of debate on topics deemed politically incorrect. Let me know. We are part of the conversation in the battle of ideas, the war for the west, or whatever other or future writers will call the outcome of the information age. Like me you are also passionate about freedom in Australia and around the world. We who believe in its value must guarantee it for future generations to enjoy and pass on. It may be that you have also discovered that freedom isn't simply a right or furniture for your nice life style, but that it is a treasured value and a responsibility. 

I trust that all sounds reasonable enough for this blog's existence.

starting somewhere

I'd been toying with the idea of starting a blog; on the nebulous theme implicated by the title—taken from a book by one my favourite Australian historians. But more on that later. 

Today's post is a roughly edited response to the unprecedented riot-protest in Sydney on the weekend. Well unprecedented for Sydney. That kind of crap goes on in a lot of other countries, and has been pretty popular lately. In case you missed it, there has been "a wave of protests over an anti-mohammed movie". But any excuse will do I reckon. It doesn't take much to whip some faithful Islamist hate mongers into a frenzy. And that in Sydney it coincided with a conference convened by Hizb ut-Tahrir heralding the immanent establishment of the global caliphate cannot be overlooked.

In a funny way I'm quite relieved there was all that madness in the CBD over "the movie".
Now that other people are talking about Islamist nut jobs we are in less of a minority for knowing that they're out there. And despite the glorious possibilities of 'taqyyia' I am taking at face value (nice that they show them) the statements by mainstream muslim spokespeople (following the riots) saying they have nothing to do with the extremist protesters. One muslima on the ABC (national TV) even shared some mainstream (basically Christian) cultural norms in saying that typical mainstream moslims (whom she was representing) "like the prophet" do not react to insults with violence. I mean it was more 'turn the other cheek' than anything I've read the prophet actually did! But I'm assuming it's the hopeful truth about the Aussie muslim mainstream. 

As the riot-protest proved, obviously the nut jobs are out there. And thank Christ (if you'll pardon my blasphemy) for free speech since it allows us all to see what other people think, and judge for ourselves. Without it they'd be burning crosses in the night. Perhaps literally. My favourite irony from the media coverage was the guy at the 'protest' annoyed at the police for apparently disrupting his right to free speech... and sharing his opinion about the need for limits on it... in another country.

Get a trial subscription to The Australian or search the Jerusalem post for Caroline Glick. Her article 'US in denial over embassy murders' fills in the MSM blanks on the latest spate of worldwide criticism-sensitive Muslim riots. Actually "a film didn't cause the violence, it was an act of revenge by al-Qa'ida." No doubt about it (the date it all kicked off seems better remembered in the middle east than in the west). And yet the Democrats are 'sorry' about some US citizens enjoying their first amendment rights (to make low budget documovies)! WTF? There must be Democrat re-election campaign money in it!

There's more 'good news' in The Australian and elsewhere today. It's clearing my pessimistic head. Real Australians and humanist westerners are actually affirming our values in response to this 'movie madness' and the Democrat's US muslim vote buying/OIC pandering. I would champion the writers of a few articles if I had more time tonight. But there is now space for that here later. For one, I will be reading more from Kevin Donnelly of the Education Standards Institute. Tony Abbot is my preferred PM for the things he says on this and similar issues. The surprise for me was the impressive statement from Immigration Minister Chris Bowen, who "...will consider deporting foreign troublemakers involved in weekend protests by Islamic fundamentalists in Sydney." Yes! Is this from a politician comfortable enough in his seat to represent his constituency and his conscience? Not what I've come to expect from his side of party politics. Maybe there's cause for hope on the left after all.