Will Freedom of Speech debate become our ‘deplorables’ moment?

By
Martyn Bradbury
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27
1

Watching so much of woke twitter screaming the support of free speech equates to Nazism feels like the ‘deplorables’ moment in Hillary vs Trump.

Sometimes the left are its own worst recruitment tool.

I agree we shouldn’t have public funded venues used for things we find deplorable and I support Goff’s moral line in the sand on this, while acknowledging that the shifting sands of culture moves that line around.

I wouldn’t want ISIS recruitment seminars in the Town Hall, KKK monthly meet & greets in Council Chambers or Man love Boy Association annual sing alongs at Silo Park, but I still support them appearing if they find a private venue, just as I am prepared to protest their appearing!

How about we use a public venue to have a live streamed formal debate with these hard right polemicists and show up the emptiness that is their spiteful rhetoric?

Since when were we on the Left so frightened to argue our cause?

The main argument I have seen from comrades on the Left is we can’t platform these crypto-fascists because you can’t change their minds.

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This is such a glaring absurdity – we debate these clowns NOT to change their mind, we engage to shoot down their nonsense rhetoric to stop them from recruiting others!

Our economy is teetering on a global collapse – economic shockwaves only fuels the desperation the far right feeds on – this is a problem that won’t go away by ignoring it and driving it underground.

You don’t beat crypto-fascists with trigger free safe spaces and emotional support peacocks.

 

 

 

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27 COMMENTS

  1. I agree with Bomber, but I remain firm in my opinion that hate speech is not freedom of speech and I find it most distasteful that these fascist (which is clearly what they are) hide behind the freedom of speech that they have historically been the first to deny others once they are in power

    You can have freedom of speech without demonising any other group on the basis of race, sex, religion or sexuality orientation! That should be a firm line in the sand that the law is very clear about. I am proud of NZ (especially Auckland) and our multicultural society which could stand as a shining example to the rest of the world. As a white male I dispise white supremacy and any one associate it!

    • Can you send a link to one of the you tube videos produced by these two fascists that you have seen so I can see for myself? Thanks

  2. Tbh the coalition of free speech should give the $50k to Bomber and then invite Stefan and Southern with a hand picked debate team I think would make all the deference.

  3. You sure as hell in a hand basket won’t beat Al-Shabaab with an emotional support peacock either, unless its been strapped up with Semtex.

  4. The idea that Far Goff is even vaguely or at all “Left” is laughable… the shark has been jumped…

  5. you need to define ‘fascist’ and ‘Left’….i don’t think they have the meanings they used to have…in fact some would say the Left is authoritarian and fascist

    …I would like to see all these people debate

      • I hope far right neo-nazis know that as well, RB.

        Its nice we debate intelligently and rationaly with crypto-fascists. They’re very rational people. Very evidence-based. Not prejudiced or biased at all against minorities, women, etc. Let’s do it over a chair latte and invite Cameron Slater, Mike Hosking and Bob Jones.

        That’s why they’re far right neo-fascists. Lovely people.

        (And in case anyone missed my sarcasm…….)

        • I didn’t miss the sarcasm and you have expressed the key core issue in this whole “let’s debate this like civilised rational beings” argument.

          In spite of what they may say, crypto-fascists really DO NOT want to debate.

          The issue of having a debate is a myth.

          • that may be the case for the hard core ones/leaders

            …but they have young followers who need open debate so they can see their leaders and their views challenged in an open forum

  7. I am surprised that so many articles on TDB seem to be using complex polemics and big words to appear erudite and of sound mind and tend to be focused on little side shows and symptoms.

    The central issue of our time (aside from climate change), as Madeleine Albright and many others are warning, is the creeping method of Fascism that has entered our lives. Even our own little pile of right wing specimens who support buying bombs and rockets to go spearfishing for Chinese submarines are part of this global trend.

    The Irish Times has one particular journalist who has been very competently exposing the truth. His most recent article:: https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/fintan-o-toole-trial-runs-for-fascism-are-in-full-flow-1.3543375

  8. How do you beat them then, Martyn? Because it sure as s**t isn’t by having debates with them. You don’t convince them, you don’t convince the borderline fascists who might be drawn in by their arguments. The fantasy of the marketplace of ideas, where you just need to “get the right arguments out” does not work. When has it ever worked?

  9. So Martyn, by the same token you would have supported allowing Mosley’s Black Shirts a platform in Cable Street?

    It is interesting that in England where people successfully rallied to prevent the fascists any sort of public presence, recruitment for the Nazi cause was risible.

    Compare this where from a starting as a street gang, Hitler’s Brown Shirts were allowed to rally and grow.

    • yes we all agree Fascism is bad …but what does it mean and how can it be countered?

      …so you advocate shutting ‘fascists ‘ up and closing them down

      ….and the same can be said for what has happened to the Palestinians…not allowed speaking rights in their own country Palestine… and run out of their homes and shot at when they protest….is this not also Fascism?

    • The modern(mordor) world is quite different than the post depression 1930s, the lessons of propaganda and mass media mind control had yet too be learned, but corporate power was on the rise then as now, cut though all the bullshiz left and right, what do you have left? A power move bye corporate entities too do a leveraged buy out of our and every other government around the world, we are their stock, our dept is their control mechanism. The media belongs to them completely and is how they steer the “narrative” its all about control and ownership

      • +100…I do think you have a point there …Soros and the corporates have skin in the game of stirring up trouble

  11. Lauren Southern is a white Canadian that has dated black men and gets called a “coal burner” as a result by the Alt Right

    Stefan Molyneux is a very prolific Youtuber who has covered all sorts of issues including his take on not smacking your kids, other than the infamous Race and IQ debate (which he calls a “tragedy”)

    I have encountered some genuinely disturbing white supremacist types on the internet but these aren’t your guys

    If you actually want to debate them, then by all means do so, but please do your research first.

    • +100…well said…I certainly don’t know anything about them and would like to…however I do know they have a following on the internet

      • Red Buzzard;

        Many will be in the same boat, along with Goff.
        I suspect he will be ‘under orders.’

        I knew Southern had been banned from UK to interview Tommy Robinson a while back who was exsposing child grooming/sex rings in Luton.
        (He now is in jail. Sensitive subject)

        So I went to her website to find out more.

        She is a journalist, author and documentary maker.

        Her feature is a doco called ‘Farmlands’ – highlighting white genocide in South Africa.

        FARMLANDS (2018) Official Documentary
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=114&v=a_bDc7FfItk

        Lauren Southern website.
        https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCla6APLHX6W3FeNLc8PYuvg

        Stefan Molyneux has been called “Canada’s Chomsky”.
        He prides himself with Reason and Logic. Highly intelligent.
        Would out-debate most in NZ.

        Has one of the largest and most popular Philosophy sites on the Internet.
        Many might view him as a ‘smarmy smart arse.’ His humour is subtle. Entertaining.

        His controversial interview on Race and IQ.
        “Stefan Molyneux on Race and IQ (Pt. 2) – The Rubin Report”
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0KKc6GbeNo

        Stefan Molyneux website.
        https://www.youtube.com/user/stefbot

        Makes you wonder what all the screaming hordes are all frightened about.
        Truth maybe?

        Hope to be some help.

  12. There’s something perversely exciting about imaging oneself as part of a modern-day French Resistance, fighting a fascist regime that can be blamed for everything wrong with one’s country, or the world. It’s a convenient excuse for dehumanizing one’s political opponents, and an easy justification for the excesses of one’s own group or its movement allies. But let’s not be too quick to start flinging the label “fascist” at people we disagree with.

    Contemporary fascism is just as likely to emerge from a militant, conformist, mass movement that uses “anti-fascist” symbolism as its unifying ideology, as it is to occur through the growth of movements that consciously ape historical fascist regimes. Proto-fascist movements may be more likely to succeed if don’t declare themselves to be fascist, and perhaps don’t even *know* they are fascist, because the fascism that declares itself as such is much easier to identify and resist.

    The only effective way to prevent the emergence of fascist regimes is for every person to cultivate a deep understanding of what fascism is, and challenge ourselves and each other to think and behave in ways that deny proto-fascist fires the oxygen they need to spread. We need to do this constantly, but also compassionately and respectfully. These articles are a good place to start.
    http://www.buildinghumanrights.us/task/multimedia/dox/umberto-eco-on-fascism/
    http://www.findingfascism.com/2017/06/a-re-evalution-of-laurence-britt.html

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