New Zealand leads the way.
- Both Australia and New Zealand blocked 4chan & 8chan for spreading that bloody murder video.
- A New Zealand bookstore chain yanks all copies of Jordan Peterson’s book off the shelves.
- New Zealand passes legislation to ban assault rifles within days.
But what about Free Speech, you say. What about the right to life, liberty, and happiness, I reply, because right now there are assholes everywhere who feed off that hate and fantasize about slaughtering more people. Like this guy.
Isn’t it nice that he’s Unafraid to speak the Truth? Truly, a great Free Speech Warrior. It’s too bad that what he does with that speech is plan and incite the murder of multitudes of human beings.
Human ideals are often contradictory and none are absolute, and I’m afraid that on the hierarchy of needs, the right to live is far above the right to speak, which is in turn far, far above the right to carry around a big fuckin’ murder gun.
This probably amounts to a criminal offense in Australia. I hope the authorities have been notifiied. Also hope Eggboy (or at least some other egg person) turns up in the story somewhere.
Note the dates. He was planning to murder 10 Muslims a day in 2015, and is now crowing about the death of 50 of them in 2019. We at least know that Facebook doesn’t give a fuck.
Went to Christian Brothers College in my hometown. That overpriced exclusive nursery for future Tory politicians must be where he learned his humility and love for humankind.
Quoth a scumbag:
Not if exposure to the Australian sun kills you of skin cancer first, you pasty ginger homunculus.
See, this guy right here–he utterly disproves white supremacy by his very existence. How the hell did such a self-negating philosophy survive the invention of the mirror?
Or…are all white supremacists secretly vampires? It would explain a lot.
You mean sucking the blood out of terrified helpless victims (who often don’t even realise they are being drained dry until it’s too late), scurrying around in the dark, dissolving in sunlight, an aversion to garlic, “living” in coffins / dank cellars / crypts / basements, … Hum, put like that, there does seem to be a similarity. It should be noted, however, the opposite, “all vampires are (secretly) racist” isn’t true. For instance, Otto Chriek (and perhaps even Count Orlok?).
Seems to me you have a basic category error here: rights (inalienable? legal?) vs. needs (Maslow? Scheler?). Apples and oranges. The conflict between limiting one right while asserting another is rather obvious. Not too many people would argue that a right to live (not the same as a right to life as commonly understood) comes before anything else. However, people act to contravene that right all the time. Bans, censorship, and legislation in New Zealand and Australia may curb additional violence, but there’s scarcely any way to know with much certainty. It’s all hypothetical. Do those things anyway in knee-jerk response to the latest calamity? Sure, why not? That’s what we in the U.S. did in response to 9/11. Does anyone feel safer?
Single and “self-employed”. Another deadbeat, loser incel.
Simply another worthless loser goon dead end job holding wannabe somebody with a needledick.
Ideal situation proving the supreme being has a sense of humor: he blows off a hand playing with a gun, goes to the hospital, and has his life saved by a surgeon whose name begins with “Mohammed.”
@7 Yeah Brutus.. I would call decades of study by countries that give a crap about gun violence, and the decision to take immediate action to curtail more murders exactly the same as the US charging into, with the intent to murder more people, not just the country that sent the terrorists, but Iraq, and then failing to actually solve anything in the process, while ignoring just about everyone telling them it wasn’t going to work. Because, both are “totally” based on purely random guess work, right?
Wonder what et tu brute’s facebook page looks like…
FWIW, I went to his page, and reported his page to FB for violations of rules against fomenting violence.
everybody concerned about nutters like this needs to actually take the step to physically report them to FB. don’t expect them to do anything if you don’t actually report them.
<That’s what we in the U.S. did in response to 9/11
you also went and attack entire nations that had fuck all to do with 9/11, threatened former supporters to jump in or face severe costs, and basically ruined any good will the world ever felt for the US.
if you don’t feel safer now, it’s not because of any legislation passed, it’s because of that.
run along and play, you ignorant little fuckwit.
I don’t know, I don’t think I’m OK with countries banning websites, even if they are trash sites that breed hate. Private providers, ISPs, etc. are fine because they are private companies. But when a government bans website access, I get nervous.
The NZ murderer has a history of being in that space:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-23/christchurch-shooting-accused-praised-blair-cottrell/10930632
pita, lemme get this straight: You do NOT want sites whose only purpose is to inject malware into whoever visits them to be banned.
I find that hard to believe.
pita wrote:
Don’t be. The *chans have repeated failed at self-regulation of this sort of thing. It isn’t the first mass murderer out of there, and if nothing is done, it wouldn’t be the last. If they had even taken a minor effort to stamp out the open fantasies of mass murder on their platform, they might’ve earned a little bit of this nervousness, but instead they’ve ever seem to have done is wait until after the tragedy to delete the evidence.
And needless to say, since they were willing to tolerate this, there is plenty of other illegal or harmful acts they were happy to host, as well.
It’s important to realise neither the New Zealand government or Austalia’s blocked those channels.
It was a decision by local ISP’s – which if people think is wrong might convince them to support net neutrality laws, either way it may be considered competing approaches to utilising freedom of speech.
It isn’t an example of a government suppressing citizens rights.
Over the past decade, my attitudes grown increasingly negative towards the the libertarian notion of “individual freedom” (be it personal or economic) and more sympathetic towards an idea of authoritarian Left that puts an iron-shod foot upon the satisfyingly crunchable throat of the Right.
Screw “freedom.” We’ll discus what “rights” you have only AFTER we’ve eliminated social and economic inequality. Until then, shut up.., or we’ll happily shut you up… forever.
Keeriiist, I wish professor Meyers would stop muddling the free speech issue. Whatever his position is he should state it clearly.
1) First, we are talking about a foreign country here. The meaning of ‘free speech’ varies by country. Try to be clear on what meaning of free speech that you agree or disagree with.
2) Even in America where free speech is at its strongest, a publisher has no duty to publish a book they don’t want to publish. In fact, their right not to publish is itself an expression of their free speech. In no way is it a violation of free speech in any country anywhere that I know of.
3) In America, free speech is a negative liberty created by denying a power to the government. There is no room for discussions on what rights are more important. The government simply does not have that power. If I want to publish something that right is as close to absolute as anything can be. Any exceptions are very very narrow.
Now professor Meyers can agree or disagree with the way free speech is practiced in America. But as a professor, he should be clear enough in what he is saying that he avoids making people stupider. It is not clear to me that professor Meyers understands the free speech right at all.
Akira MacKenzie,
I desperately hope that you are a right-wing provocateur here to troll the blog. I fear that you are not.
In any case, this is what Russia tried to do after the revolution. They filled the gulag system for decades and still the people weren’t ready to have rights.
paulparnell, what a weak criticism.
Perhaps it’s muddled, perhaps you’re confused.
Ahem — two foreign countries. But clearly he refers to the sort of things which he approvingly cited, that is, blocking, yanking, and legislation — that is, epiphenomena.
Non-sequitur.
Ditto.
Well, he’s clearly unclear to you. :)
[erratum]
1) Ahem — two foreign countries. But clearly he refers to the sort of things which he approvingly cited, that is, blocking, yanking, and legislation — that is, epiphenomena.
2) Non-sequitur.
3) Ditto.
(Combox filtering here sucks)
There won’t be a “Day of Reckoning…when Islam tries to take over.” Muslims make up 1.5% of Australians. Of those Muslims, two-thirds are foreign-born, mostly refugees who fled violence from other Muslim groups. The idea that some tiny minority within 1.5% of the population will ever seriously try to take over Australia is sheer moonbat thinking and exists in these nazi thugs’ minds for the sole purpose of rationalising their homicidal rage.
I’d also add that the idea that one should fight Islamic extremism by vigilante murder of random Muslims is itself terrorism.
John Morales,
Yes, Australia and New Zeland passed laws. Those laws are possible there apparently because they have a different understanding of free speech. They are not possible in the US unless you can get a 2/3 majority in both the house and senate. It is a constitutional issue.
Does he understand that these laws are not possible in the US? What fundamental principles underlie his understanding of free speech? Is it in conflict with the pretty clear words in the constitution?
paulparnell–
[1] According to the Supreme Court, “consistent with the First Amendment, [the state] may ban cross burning carried out with the intent to intimidate.” Obviously, this applies to other forms of intimidating speech, such as threatening to murder en masse members of a religion or ethnicity.
[2] In addition to threats of violence, there are many exceptions to the First Amendment. Wikipedia has a helpful list of them. It is far from “very narrow”.
[3] Yes, you’re correct that different countries have different regulations on speech. Which makes it weird that you chastise PZ for misapplying US consitutional nuances to Australia when PZ said no such thing.
[4] Knock it off with the American Exceptionalism.
1) Yes, there is a true threat exception to free speech. But it is very limited. For example, burning a cross cannot itself be Prima facie evidence of a true threat. You have to prove intent by other means. Burning a cross is legal even if it is done in the service of a horrible political goal. A poster on 4chan can be guilty of a true threat but 4chan cannot. 4chan cannot have the required intent. They are just a utility.
2) yes there are other exceptions to free speech. They are all very very narrow to serve very specific purposes.
3) I didn’t chastise PZ for misapplying US constitutional law. I chastised him for not giving a clue what principles he was applying. What are his fundamental principles? Where does he draw the line?
4)Yeah, I’m not seeing American exceptionalism in my post. In its extreme form where we have a mission from God to free the world, it is one of the most pernicious beliefs around. I do believe we have much to offer the world. But then many countries do. I do favor the American brand of free speech. But I can only have a discussion of it with someone who understands it and also is willing to precisely define their own. Thus my frustration with PZ. I do not know if he understands it and I don’t know his preferred principles.
Why is it that the loudest spokes-Nurgles of the “master race” always look like their family tree is the result of a Chia Pet shagging the lowest ring of branches on the proverbial Ugly Tree?