ACT and the political price of free speech
The danger for us progressives this election is the ACT fault line erupting and handing National the election with a sub 5% representation via Epsom.
ACT has been a dormant political movement for over a decade, locked into a 1% result, they have never managed to match the crazy heights of Rodney Hide’s time as leader and were seen increasingly as irrelevant.
David Seymour has taken a long time to find his rhythm, but his masterclass shepherding of the Euthanasia Referendum, his pandering to paranoid gun nuts and his championing of free speech in an age of social media culture wars has built a momentum that if Progressives aren’t careful, could create a National-ACT Government.
Act’s David Seymour starts setting conditions for coalition
Act leader David Seymour has started to set out some of his bottom lines as a condition for going into Government after the election, including a repeal of any hate speech laws and reversing some of the firearms reforms in the aftermath of the Christchurch massacre.
“A Government dependent on Act will never pass laws that restrict your speech,” he said in a state of the nation speech in Auckland yesterday.
“We will expect National to join with us in repealing any hate speech laws introduced in the dying days of this Government.”
We can’t do anything about the coverage he will gain with his Euthanasia referendum, we can’t calm the paranoia the Police are generating amongst the gun nut fraternity, but one thing we must not give Seymour is free speech ammunition.
The woke can’t help themselves. In their world view, the one we saw the Greens and woke activists espouse during the Christchurch atrocity, is that all white people are racist and micro aggressions lead to macro violence so all white people are responsible for this terrorism and the only way to stop this terrorism is censoring speech that might create it.
There’s much to challenge in that worldview, but in woke world anyone defending free speech is a Nazi and this is the problem.
The ubiquitous of social media means everyone has experienced a woke activist screaming you are a racist, sexist, Transphobe at one stage or another, and it is this experience that ACT are exploiting.
All ACT has to do is hold up some of the captains of the Wellington Twitteratti and ask, ‘do you want this person to be the judge of what hate speech is’, and the fear of the wholesale censorship of what the woke Greens consider hate speech will be enough to cause a stampede towards ACT.
Which is why it is ESSENTIAL that the Government kick any review of hate speech till AFTER the election.
Look, the woke can’t help themselves, me even saying, ‘The woke can’t help themselves’ can be interpreted as my hateful white cishet male privilege denigrating PoC, WoC and the Q community and thus bordering on hate speech and as such, I must be deplatformed.
For the vast majority of Kiwis, that cult like thinking is an anathema to what it is to be a New Zealander and if displayed during a debate on what speech should be censored and what should not, it will cause a fucking avalanche towards ACT.
Can the woke activists and Green Party MPs just stop giving bloody David Seymour the ammunition he’ll need to get to 3%?
PLEASE.
You can censor ideas that trigger you and strangle off free speech AFTER the election you morons, don’t do it before the election!
The phrase ‘Free speech’ gets alot of air time over ‘due process’. Seymours response of course to the select committee on firearms laws was instinctively to appeal to those most affected -firearms owners and secure their votes. What national and labour failed to understand was by fast tracking the select committee hearings and the legislation, it became was a charade of democratic process in favour of seen to be ‘doing something’. It was apparent that providing a little over a week to make submissions on what was then a unclear new law and then almost rubberstamping a forgone conclusion, this would result in was legislation that couldn’t have been written by lawmakers in the time given, but by police who of course would be aiming for the greatest possible impact and making it up on the fly. Seymour rightly addressed that this process was not the correct way to write good laws. It strengthened ACTs hand in being the only party that is interested in due process perhaps regardless of the outcome. We have a wierd system now where politicians will happily make rapid decisions on somethings and outsource other decisions to referendums.
David Seymour is regarded by the elders in NZ as the “harvinger of death” with his euthanasia bill, wanting to elimate all elders in NZ.
ACT will never get their vote.
the “harvinger of death”
You mean the harbinger of death, as in the omen, the foreshadowing …
There is something inexplicably creepy and repulsive about him, that I don’t understand. Just seeing him on tv sometimes, I start to retch, without knowing why.
At 72 I know a few old people and most say they prefer a quick out than a lingering death of pain and mental anguish. Obviously some are governed by their religion but end of live is a choice and not for all but all should have the choice
Quite so (myself 77). Thank you, David
Is that David S. in the centre of the pic with the BBQ tongs ?
Mr Seymour’s free speech is really an invitation to the boofhead and reactionary sector to “go for it bro…” regardless of the hurt or damage they may do via indulging their anger and inadequacies.
Arseholes like Seymour should be taken on for the length of their time in public office, but certainly tactically at least, the Govt should leave hate speech to one side prior to the election–like so many other things unfortunately. The prize here surely is to keep National from office until the younger generations have the numbers to consign them to history for good.
“PC gone mad!” is usually the cry of the thwarted bigot, and “woke” has really passed its useby also as a useful term. Switched on, informed people are often caring and sensitive people–why should they have to self censor when the racist/sexist/anti working class filth pump is on twin turbo boost day in day out on social media and talkback radio?
Very well said, Tiger Mountain.
Freedom to write/say, freedom to shoot, freedom to die (decide to die), freedom to inhale (to decide to inhale) and freedom to exhale/speak.
And then there is the 1977 legislation, consensual use of the body and use of contraception and …
Maybe, maybe there is so much for people to have a say on this year, restricting what people can say, or how they go about it, could be left for later.
You gotta a cheek accusing others of deplatforming