Huh? you say. Pay attention, you’ll get an education like I just did.
Andrew Bolt of the Herald Sun in Australia linked to one of my Elizabeth Warren posts in his post titled, Cherokee no more. The following sentences at the end of his post jumped out at me:
I would like to discuss certain Australian analogies, but lawyers advise me the risks are now unacceptably high.Such are our disgraceful laws against free speech.
What was that all about?
Herald Sun columnist Andrew Bolt says a Federal Court judgment against him makes it a terrible day for free speech in Australia.Federal Court Justice Mordecai Bromberg has found Bolt breached the Racial Discrimination Act in two articles which implied some fair-skinned Aborignals were not really Aboriginal but claimed to be for the benefits.Federal Court Justice Mordecai Bromberg said it wasn’t covered by free speech or fair comment provisions because the articles had factual errors, distortions of the truth and inflammatory language.Outside court, Bolt said the judgment placed too many restrictions on the discussion of multi-cultural issues.The group of fair-skinned Aboriginal people who’ve won the Federal Court action against Bolt say they don’t expect the Herald Sun columnist to apologise for breaching the laws.
Here are the provisions of the law in question:
“(1) It is unlawful for a person to do an act, otherwise than in private, if:(a) the act is reasonably likely, in all the circumstances, to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or a group of people; and(b) the act is done because of the race, colour or national or ethnic origin of the other person or of some or all of the people in the group.”
One of Bolt’s colleagues noted the irony of the social media mob celebrating:
The cesspool of hate that threatens to engulf most social media was at its vociferous worst when commenting on the Federal Court ruling that my colleague, Andrew Bolt, had violated Australia’s racial discrimination laws.Violent, obscene language that cannot be printed in a family newspaper was employed against Bolt by people who hide behind anonymous avatars.Serial Twitter offender and former Age columnist Catherine Deveny wrote: “The boys in the big house are going to love #Bolt. He has such a pretty mouth.”The Twitterati voiced delight as well: “Great victory against Andrew Bolt, hope one day he will be removed from radio and TV”.One tweet said: “now for Alan Jones”.The irony, of course, is that the chortlers are so stupid that they don’t realise they are next.The Federal Court has shown us that the Racial Discrimination Act can be used to silence unfashionable opinion.
We are heading there, folks. One can’t have a discussion about gay marriage without supporters of one man / one woman — the standard which has been in place for millenia, being accused of hate speech. People who question climate change dogma are accused of hate speech. Everything with which the left-wing disagrees now is hate speech.
But we’re not Australia yet.
In Australia, Elizabeth Warren would still be 1/32 Cherokee. In the land of the free, she’s just someone who claimed to be Native American for benefits.
Update: Victor Davis Hanson, Diversitygate:
I guess some of us are on a different planet, because both Warren and Harvard University seem to have been unethical at best and unlawful at worst — if she or anyone from the Law School (no less!) signed forms or affidavits attesting to Warren’s Native American status in accordance with federal affirmative action/diversity guidelines.
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