You Only Love Guys

Prisoner Monkeys wrote:

"YOU DON'T THINK THE WAY I DO SO YOU'RE WRONG!"

Glad you've summed up your position.

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Tony Abbott's entire policy seems to be "do or say whatever it takes to be Prime Minister, and figure it out from there".

As opposed to all the other politicians in human history.

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He criticises Gillard for the carbon tax, but he has no environmental policy of his own.

I just fucking mentioned the Direct Action environmental policy in my first post in this thread. Go read up on the policy and stop fucking lying.

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He demands to know why Labor hasn't considered an ETS, conveniently forgetting that they tried to introduce an ETS, and it was the Liberals who shot it down.

The fuck? Abbott opposes an ETS full stop, why would he want Labor to consider one? Do you even read what you type?

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He attacks Gillard for the "Malaysia Solution", and puts forward the "Pacific Solution", which is essentially the same thing, just in a different country.

No, on Nauru, asylum seekers would be in Australian facilities under Australian supervision and would be Australia's responsibilty. Gillard wants to dump men, women, and children into someone else's lap and wipe her hands clean.

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At least Labor are actually trying to do something.

You've got to be fucking trolling. Labor is in Government, the Opposition, by definition, is not in government. If you want the Coaliton to do something then you can do your bit by voting for your local Liberal or National candidate. Though funnily I don't think you'll be whining about the soon-to-be Labor Opposition not executing government policy or not supporting Abbott's positions slavishly.

Prisoner Monkeys wrote:

Bolt believes that people with a mixed or undefined heritage will claim aboriginal ancestry for their own gain.

This would be his opinion, which I believe in a free society he would be entitled to, so yes he is guilty of having an opinion.

Prisoner Monkeys wrote:

So Bolt is in the right because they took him to court? That doesn't make any sense to me.

It doesn't need to make sense, because no-one has actually said that, other than you. What is wrong is taking someone to court because they have an opinion that you don't like. That's not how a free society works.

CJB wrote:

What a laughable excuse to stamp out free speech.

Prisoner Monkeys wrote:

Bolt could have said what he wanted to without being offensive about it.

Somehow I doubt that. The left have an unlimited capacity for being offended. In a free society btw, assuming the left even believes in the notion of a free society, offending is allowed, legal even.:affraid:

CJB wrote:

Ban dissent!

Prisoner Monkeys wrote:

I have no problem with people talking up the opposition - if they've actually done something worth talking up.

This is a rather scary comment. What authority might you suggest be empowered to vet worthy dissent vs unworthy dissent.I guess I should look at the silver lining. At least you are not calling for legal action against incorrect opinion. Do read Levant's book. It's a good primer on how totalitarianism can insinuate itself, even into liberal democracies, under the guise of something as disengenuous sounding as a Human Rights Tribunal. Although the ominous sounding "tribunal" should be a giveaway.....that something is not quite right.

Look I can respect you as a Bond fan with an opinion on anything and everything, but its got to work both ways. Galt offers up opinions, and in a free society it doesn't matter if some find his opinions "offensive". That goes with the territtory. Its perfectly normal.

I'm quite offended btw, that that there are persons in this world that support cap-and-trade or a carbon-tax. I'm offended that such people can't see that either policy will effectively serve as a tax-on-everything and do zilch to reduce emissions, meanwhile reducing my standard of living and everyone else's, rich or poor. In fact, I know that I am right. I'm very offended that others are too blind too see, but c'est la vie. In a free society, even the people that are wrong must be allowed to make noise too.

tiffanywint wrote:

CJB wrote:

Ban dissent!

Prisoner Monkeys wrote:

have no problem with people talking up the opposition - if they've actually done something worth talking up.

This is a rather scary comment.

I mean that if the opposition could find a solution to the problem of asylum seekers - an actual, feasible solution, one that does not involve offshore processing - then by all means, talk it up. If it's a good idea, I'll hear it. But they haven't done anything like that. Andrew Bolt talks them up for the sheer fact that they exist, and he attacks Labor for the sheer fact that they exist. Tony Abbott came out tomorrow and annouced "I'm a pedophile, I worship Satan, and I think a woman's place is two steps behind a man", Bolt would still put a positive spin on it.

CJB wrote:

Labor is in Government, the Opposition, by definition, is not in government. If you want the Coaliton to do something then you can do your bit by voting for your local Liberal or National candidate.

Being the opposition doesn't mean they only have to oppose. What they should do is oppose and provide an actual policy of their own. Which I believe they have not done. Any policy that they have put forward leaves me unconvinced as to their worth. And until such time as they do start coming up with actual policies, I'll continue to believe that (assuming all things remain constant) the worst-run Gillard government will be better than the best-run Abbott government.

But it's fairly obvious that this conversation is going nowhere, and judging by your increasingly-hostile choice of words, we can only end up in a flame war. If you can convince me - and I can be convinced, provided the evidence is as compelling as it is overwhelming - then I will hear any argument you put forward. But until then, I will remain steadfast in my belief that if Tony Aboot takes power, he will repeatedly run the country into the ground, and Andrew Bolt will expect everyone to applaud him for it.

What about "innocent until proven guilty?"

If you don't know Abbott's policies, why are you so steadfast in your belief that he'll ruin the economy? If he follows John Howard's line of fiscal conservatism, what's to worry about?

Good for you (Prison Monkey) ^ above. Now you are just telling us what you think.Somone might even agree with you. But it looked there for a while like you were advocating some sort of legal crackdown on "offensive" speech.

tiffanywint wrote:

But it looked there for a while like you were advocating some sort of legal crackdown on "offensive" speech.

No, just a crackdown on the egoes people who think their position gives them the right to say whatever they want without thought for the consequence. Bolt knew his comments were controversial at best, but seemed genuinely surprised that someone dared challenge him.

And that is all I will say on the matter.

Bolt just speaks his mind. Good for him. But those that would drag him before a government or judicial authority would fit in real nice in Stalinist Russia.

Here's James Delingpole's take on the situation, in a piece for the Torygraph:

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Freedom of speech is dead in Australia

For my money probably the best political blogger in the world is Australia's Andrew Bolt. He was one of the first journalists onto Climategate (he got there before me) and his takedown earlier this year on his radio show of an EU Climate Commissioner spouting nonsense was magisterial. But he's by no means a single issue commentator: he has strength in depth. His war, like mine, is against those who would constrain our liberty by imposing on us more tax, more regulation, more control. He's firm but fair: one of the good guys.

This is why we should all worry greatly about the latest bizarre ruling from the Australian federal court, which has found Bolt in breach of the Racial Discrimination Act.

Ozboy has the details:

Newspaper columnist and blogger Andrew Bolt was today found guilty in the Federal Court of breaches of the Racial Discrimination Act. Justice Mordy Bromberg in his ruling, found two articles written by Bolt in 2009—claiming that self-proclaimed aborigines of caucasian descent and appearance were “political aborigines”, who used their legal “indigenous” status to intrigue themselves into lucrative positions open only to indigenous Australians and further their (predominantly activist) careers—left it

…reasonably likely that fair-skinned Aboriginal people (or some of them) were offended, insulted, humiliated or intimidated…

What this precedent means, is that the legal test of vilification now turns on the degree of offence experienced in the mind of the claimed victim—an impossible legal criterion, one which is open to any imaginable distortion of meaning, and one which opens the way to the tyranny of the hypersensitive.

This sounds to me very much like our own Macpherson Report's perfectly ludicrous definition of a "racist" incident as "any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person". That definition – I wonder if Sir William Macpherson will ever come round to recognising this – has done immeasurable damage to social cohesion in Britain, further encouraging a poisonous culture of victimhood, grievance and entitlement, as well as serving to increase the racial tension it was supposed to diminish. And now the Australians are following our idiot example.

"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," Justice Bromberg said.

Oh well that's all right then. Australians are still allowed freedom of speech. So long as it's the right kind of speech, blandly expressed, offending no one, as decided by such perfect arbiters of truth as Mordy Bromberg. Presumably he's never read Milton's Areopagitica, which addressed these issues with an intelligence and subtlety and nice sense of judgement decidedly lacking in this culturally suicidal court ruling.

UPDATE: check out this brilliant Mark Steyn speech, sticking up for Bolt, Free Speech and our unalienable right to sing Kung Fu Fighting to whomsoever we choose – up to and including the extended disco mix.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100108024/freedom-of-speech-is-dead-in-australia/

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What this precedent means, is that the legal test of vilification now turns on the degree of offence experienced in the mind of the claimed victim—an impossible legal criterion, one which is open to any imaginable distortion of meaning, and one which opens the way to the tyranny of the hypersensitive.

That's it in a nutshell. The left hates free speech, not only because their positions are impossible to defend, but also because they genuinely do subscribe to a doctrine of "correct thinking" Watch them debate amongst themselves. They try to find the correct thinking on the matter at hand.They will always look to label thinking that they don't like as rascist or sexist or homophobic or whatever, in order to avoid dealing with the actual merit or truth of the argument.

It was very revealing watching the leftist protestors during their G8 rioting here last year. They came across the Zanzibar strip club. The hooligans in the group, dutifully smashed the windows but suddenly, the vandalism stopped as they debated the worthiness of the enterprise. Then a chant erupted from the mob, "sex work is work" and they moved on to smashing the windows of the next unworthy capitalist retail outlet. But even more revealing was a city council debate I witnessed many years ago, on whether the G-string bylaw would remain in force in local strip clubs. The conservatives or simply non-leftists on the council argued amongst themselves. There was diversity of opinion based on a variety of reasons, ranging from community standards, licensing issues, to potential for vice. Some clearly didn't care and just made lame jokes.The leftists on the other hand struggled to find the correct-thinking, that they might all conform to. Was full nudity exploitave and thus in violation of some right or was it a right to be fully nude? Quite the dilemma for them.

In otherwords they couldn't simply state individual opinions as to the appropriatness of full-nude stripping. They had to figure out amongst themselves what the correct-thinking was. It was comical to watch. Making things even more farcical was that the actual strippers, watching the debate were divided. Some didn't want to have to parade full nude, while others saw a chance to make more cash, so they were all for it. If the strippers can't even agree amongst themselves, then where do a bunch of idiot leftists get off thinking there might be some correct-thinking on the matter that they need to uphold. Its absolutely bizarre the way they enforce their group-think.

Its only leftists that try and enforce correct thinking at the expense of free-speech. But they generally bite off more than they can handle. The Bolt ruling could very well spark a public backlash. It happened here. Legislation is being tabled in parliament to drastically overhaul our Canadian Human Rights tribunals, thanks to concerned citizens and media protesting the tribunals abuse of constitutionally protected rights to free speech.

The left are basically a public nuisance. While normal people are going about the day to day business of making a living and raising their families, the left, continue their tireless efforts to create their utopian collectivist society, free of injustice, where a government program is the solution to anything and everything that might ail society.

You got to love guys like Bolt, who just let them have it with both barrels.

Poor old Tux ... I'm sure he didn't foresee all this upon starting the thread.

I'm happy to vigorously debate on political matters if they're grounded in basic facts. To suggest one side of the parliament has no environmental policies is a straight up untruth. You don't have to like a set of policies to at least acknowledge they exist. And to suggest that Tony Abbott is pressuring the Labor Government to introduce an emissions trading scheme is like suggesting Ronald Reagan wanted Jimmy Carter to nationalise the means of production- i.e. it could only have happened in an alternate dimension and not this one.

But alright, those were my last volleys. Peace.