It’s sweet that our Capital banned their fireworks for the South Right Whale in their harbour.
I hope we can get the Whale an emotional support peacock.
I’m also glad our Auckland Mayor smacked down two far right hate merchants from using Council property.
Of course far right polemicists have the right to speak in NZ – what they don’t have a right to is community funded space to speak in – but nothing is solved by banning this toxicity – if the left can’t argue the far right and win, we’ve lost, not them.
Progressives didn’t win anything here, they’ve gained a propaganda win and will be live streaming their poison to us. Sunlight solves this, not rabid screams of ‘no platforming’. They show up, we show up and we counter argue their infantile debates. Better we reveal their weakness now than when economic shockwaves makes desperate people more open to its message.
Oh and if you are a Right Winger who can’t tell the difference between a crypto-fascist and Jane Kelsey when debating who can or can’t use Council buildings to speak in – you are not championing free speech, you’re failing basic comparison skills.
Bloody right there martyn,
If you stop the voices of difference from speaking then we all have failed.
They will be given more power to speak as martyrs.
Our histroy is lotered tyrs who eventually got their power recognised so will these two Canadians.
I completely agree, but part of the problem with Lauren Southern is that she doesn’t seem able to debate, or to even want to debate. Libertarians tend to be sociopaths and given to slogans with scant informed follow-up.
No-one – I hope – likes hate-mongers, but just looking at New Zealand and the fact that so many mistook John Key for a good leader , shows that the great unwashed aren’t necessarily greatly discerning.
Southern thrives on being a look-at-me martyr – let her be one – and stop all this polarising right wing/left wing nonsense when there are just and decent people right across the whole political spectrum.
Seriously if southern is that much of a threat to New Zealand’s democracy we’ve got way bigger problems.
Very well said. Banning them gives the Hateful Right a cheap win, and makes the left look weak. These commercialised alt-right entrepreneurs can say nothing that a reasoned argument can’t win over. Part of the advantage (IMO) we have in this country is that we don’t have a big history of these types whipping up mass outbreaks of violence on the streets….we tend to tut tut disapprovingly, ring talkback, post on blogs and gather in our dozens in Aotea Square before marching down Queen Street telling everyone how really really really annoyed we are …
Bring them here, let the people who SAY they will go to the event brave the cameras (and embarrass their Mothers who always thought they were actually such a nice boy) and then generally laugh at them. Or debate them. But yeah…laugh at them.
After watching the person in question in England I’m sure she would be torn to bits by a fair amount of outraged commentators here.
As one person said,… ‘Southern thrives on being a look-at-me martyr’,… and she seemed pathetic.
However I wouldn’t grant her permission to speak in our civic places. They would be sullied. Let her take her place on a wooden soapbox on some street corner .With no loudspeaker and only her signs.
Then we would see the courage of her convictions as she struggled to rant above the noise of the traffic.
You don’t let cancer survive so why let cancerous messages and propaganda survive. We’ve just put up with 9 years of far right wing shit under Key and gotten rid of that odious lot.
Why be a masochist?
By chance, I ended up watching videos by both of these people when they came up on my Youtube feed. I knew nothing about previously. I found Lauren Southern’ videos on the reverse racism that is occurring against white South Africans, especially poor whites and farmers, very disturbing and far from hypobolic, given that the South African government has indicated it now plans to take farms of the white South Africans and give them to black South Africans. Apart from being a recipe for disaster, this is as much an injustice as similar things taking place in other parts of the world. The sad fact is that the progressive movement, of which I would fit into by definition, refuses to acknowledge what is going on, because of that country’s past history of aparthied. However, both empathy and racism are colour blind and the same judgement should be applied to all cases. In this area at least, Southern should be seen not as a far right hate merchant, but a journalist doing a necessary job. By the progressive movement not speaking up, it enhances the following of Southern by far right extremists
I question your use of the term “far right,” of course if you are far right you should probably be locked away if not shot on the spot. Atleast that’s how it was explained to me by my grandfathers who had intimate knowledge of the far right. Perhaps far right means something different today. Perhaps young people do have the courage to face up to oppressors. Perhaps.
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