Why we shouldn’t gag Brian Tamaki, Anwar Sahib or the slightly racist guy who looks like Santa

15 Comments

1. Great Post, Martyn, we sadly have a MSM that is pontificating, as Mr Trottoir recently wrote. Here they are again pontificating, about people with somewhat bizarre views, who are not following the PC madness imposed on us for years now.

   While being respectful, correct, honest and so forth are values we should all strive for, some are obviously struggling to be like that, hence the dissent and outrage at the dissent of some, see the ones mentioned.

   Indeed, simply shutting them down, persecuting them, that will only create a NZ version of Trump here, and he will come sooner or later, rather a he than a she, I bet.

   Take issue, argue, discuss and confront, that is what is needed, not this BS that we had yesterday and the day before, about some Muslim preacher, who basically only quoted what the Quran says anyway. Do we then go and ban the Bible, the Quran and all other so-called “holy books” as well?

   I wonder what outrage we would get if the government may propose that to be put into law.

   The otherwise useless MSM love such easy fodder to feed on, do they not, I get sicker of these bastards every day, watching the news and listening to the radio.

   Journalism is dead, that is true journalism sensation reporting and biased reporting is now the norm.

2. When people feel they have no voice, they vote like they did in Brexit and with Trump.
   PERFECTLY SAID MARTYN – OUR SANTA.

   I LOVE YOUR BOLDNESS AND OPEN EXPRESSION SO BE BRAVE AND DONT COWER AS MANY HAVE BEEN.

3. +100…Great Post!…it is far better that people air their opinions and feelings so that they can be countered…no matter how erroneous these opinions and feelings appear, or how nonfactual or unsociable or delusional

   …this way we keep some sanity going ….and an Open Society….and a functioning democracy

   ….freedom of expression and a Free Press is something we must safeguard…(and a Free Press does NOT = the mainstream media )

4. What? Why can’t we just shoot’em????

   In all seriousness, if the media never reported on the likes of Tamaki, Sahib, the Santa look-alike, or even Don Brash’s stupid Orewa speech, then they could be ignored forever.

   But then the racists knuckledraggers would complain that they weren’t getting “fair and balanced” coverage by the “liberal pinko media”.

   Honestly. Just shoot all the racists. Let Gay Allah sort’em out.

5. Allowing free speech is one thing; allowing statements to go uncriticised is another, allowing the perpetrators a tax free pulpit is another. Having used the right of free speech, one should expect others have not only to exercise a right to analyse and criticise the nastiness and stupidity, but also but a duty to do so.

   Certainly I don’t think we should gag them but I do think that if they make a huge income they should be taxed like the rest of us

6. “But all in all your usual South Islander.”…. really!

7. True – except the consequences of each of these examples are radically different. Brian Tamaki will continue to be ridiculed while his followers might try and ‘redeem’ some homosexuals by speaking to them, Racist Santa will get a ribbing at the pub and stir some people to ue a hashtag, while the Imam might inspire a terror attack or the beating of a wife.

   What each have said may not cross a clear line but there is a clear difference in possible repercussions.

   1. True – except the consequences of each of these examples are radically different. Brian Tamaki will continue to be ridiculed while his followers might try and ‘redeem’ some homosexuals by speaking to them, Racist Santa will get a ribbing at the pub and stir some people to ue a hashtag, while the Imam might inspire a terror attack or the beating of a wife.

      Really, Heather?

      You’re minimising the violence and discrimination that Tamaki’s bigotry would inspire amongst some of his followers?

      And what about the US, where religious bigotry has reached a point where gays are assaulted, murdered, and abortion clinics bombed, and their workers shot dead? Does all that count for nothing in your head?

      Whether Tamaki or Sahib, the consequences can be brutal and deadly should any of their followers turn words into action.

      I wondered how long before certain individuals tried to create artificial “degrees of difference ” between religious bigots.Bigotry is bigotry.

      1. I was wondering Frank, if you changed some of the nouns in your post, would you understand other people?

         Don’t freak out. Some of us have seen this coming.

         Don’t forget to look up from your keyboard now and again and you will understand what some of the rest of the real world has. Some times it is not what we would realise.

8. This has got to be one of the silliest posts to have turned up on the Kiwi blogosphere for some time, with a fair number of suspects competing for that dismal accolade.

   Maybe the most disconcerting thing here, Martyn, is your blitheness about the stress that hate speech causes real people: members of vulnerable minorities; especially young people, and children not least of all. “What’s so controversial about claiming Jews and Christians are the enemies of Muslims?” What’s the matter with you, Bomber? How do you imagine that hate speech, or the wholesale denigration of an entire minority actually works?

   A boy of four wearing a yarmulke, assaulted in Mt. Eden last year – because Jews are portrayed by some fanatics as the enemies of Islam and as members of a race trying to take over the world. That’s how hate speech works. A Muslim kindergarten child in the US harassed verbally – and physically – by his TEACHER – because all Muslims are supposed to be terrorists. And one day that child is supposed to grow up to become one. That’s how hate speech works.

   You bring up Gaza. Did the Islamic Women’s Council of NZ, who are a thousand-fold more qualified to talk about Gaza then you are, raise Gaza? Of course not. They rebuked Sahib unequivocally and expressed nothing toward the Jewish community but magnanimity and solidarity. Not much sexy contrarianism there, Martyn. But I’m guessing that they know all too well the thing that you’ve completely managed to miss: that children or young people of any minority are not in the least bit responsible for Gaza, for Isis, for anything else – but they’re always the first victims of the radical evil that hate speech is.

   So talk to any frightened minority child about “countering, arguing and contextualizing.” Talk to a gay teenager bullied in school over the past fortnight by some kid who was emboldened by the hate speech of demagogue in a church and south Auckland about “countering, arguing and contextualizing. Talk “countering, arguing and contextualizing” to the hundreds of U.S. educators who wrote harrowingly of the epidemic of hate speech and racially-motivated bullying in response to a Southern Poverty Law Center survey in April. These are professionals who had painstakingly “contextualized” decency, empathy, respect – only to see one instance of hate speech from the most visible and amplified human presence on the planet blow all of that away in an afternoon.

   And perhaps you begin to see – hopefully – just how fanciful that approach is. If you posit otherwise, then it’s as if hate speech was just one more fascinating facet of human communication, or a genus of rhetorical provocation from which some meaningful counter-discourse could be satisfactorily leveraged at any time! Not as a radical evil to be anathematized, punished. Not, Christ forbid, to be treated as a crime.

   “If you wish the sympathy of the broad masses,” Hitler wrote, “you must tell them the crudest and most stupid things.” But chill; it’s not that serious. After all, we can always counter, argue and contextualize. And yet, inexplicably, in the same post, Mr. Bradbury, you want a religious reprobate to be treated as “a waste of time [because] building him up as more than the charlatan he actually is only increases the persecution mentality of his Stockholm syndrome followers.” Exactly, which spitball are you rolling with, brother? “Countering”? Or treating the man as a “waste of time?” If it’s the latter, that’s exactly the approach they took to Hitler, Martyn! Donald too! Ian Kershaw may have referred to Hitler as a “bizarre misfit” but that was retroactively. 50 million dead retroactively.

   “I disagree with all three of these people.” Really. This isn’t gritty, Martyn. It’s one bar removed from the kind of “good-luck-with-that” liberal fecklessness which holds that we can all sit around on Q&A or the Panel and talk about that shiny new young thing with the updated Adolf comb-over, leading the charge for the “alt-right” with his Heil Donald and “are Jews really people?” How outré! Should he be taken seriously? Oh no; punish him and you just build him up! Treat him as the waste of space he is!

   Just as CBS and CNN did with the “alt-right” “Daddy,” to use Mr. Yiannopolous’ term of suitably deranged endearment.

   Yep, succumbing to radical evil is of that kind. Boy, Martyn, have you bombed major league.

   1. Excellent rebuttal. Brilliant in fact. However I feel it will fall upon deaf ears

   2. Kia ora URI KHEIN, thank you for your comment.

      I disagree.

      I’ve watched the West get dragged into irrational wars in the Middle East based on taking intemperate comments from Muslims and twisting them to justify violence and I am always prepared to stand up and push back against those forces.

      I don’t agree with these three men, but this is a Democracy Uri, and whether I like what they have to say, they have a right to say it. Attempting to gag them or use the fear of children to somehow justify that gagging is emotive but not particularly plausible Uri.

      Your need to drive the comments from this bloke to hate speech levels terrifies the bejesus out of me Uri, you effectively go as far as to attempt to paint me as a crypto-facist to just get your point across which seems pretty silly if you weren’t so self assured that your opinion is right.

      I think I have more to fear from the likes of you Uri than a Muslim angry at the way the West have mutilated his region.

9. Palestine?…and the treatment of Palestinians is one topic which should certainly be discussed!

10. “What’s so controversial about claiming Jews and Christians are the enemies of Muslims?” Nothing more controversial than someone claiming there are only two genders. Nothing more than saying homosexuals should be kept out of sight, out of mind. Nothing more controversial than claiming uncontrolled immigration is bad for us. Nothing more controversial than saying a woman’s place is in the home… We should accept Sahib’s sexist views because the Exclusive Brethren are also sexist?!? Really? Really?!? Just a thought but perhaps we shouldn’t the Brethren’s view of the world either.

    1. Kia ora KS, thank you for your comment

       Except of course most Muslim’s can point to the last 100 years of them being ripped to pieces by Christians and Jews though can’t they? If Christian’s and Jews don’t wish to be seen as the enemy of Muslims, perhaps Christian’s and Jews should stop propping up totalitarian regimes in the region?

       No, I’m not accepting Sahib’s sexist views, I’m saying there are many groups in society who share his sexist views – are you suggesting that we forcibly break into Exclusive Brethren compounds around NZ and force the women out of there so they can be free? Is that the level of force your rights allow for KS? Because you’d need a Police State level of power to be able to do that KS – is that what you are advocating for? A Police State? Can you see the irony in that?

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