Fairfax scribe joins CAFE (Columnists Against Free Expression)
Defending your right to say whatever you want ... so long as you do it with profanity
Sydney Morning Herald columnist Tim Dick looks at the often vexing issue of freedom of speech, yesterday:
The section (18C of the Racial Discrimination Act) makes it unlawful, but no crime, to do something in public reasonably likely to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate others based on their race. The ideologues never detail precisely what they want to say that they can’t say now … The only established 18C poster boy is Andrew Bolt, who got his facts so badly wrong he lost the good faith protections. Some poster.
Has Dick never heard of the Queensland University of Technology? The Australian reporting on developments in another 18C case, August 22:
A student being sued for $250,000 in a section 18C racial hatred case was cleared of any wrongdoing three years ago by university executives over his Facebook post about his eviction from an indigenous-only study area … Mr Wood had written on Facebook on May 28, 2013: “Just got kicked out of the unsigned indigenous computer room. QUT stopping segregation with segregation?”
What does the public think? More from The Australian, October 26:
A majority of Australians — including Coalition, Labor and Greens supporters — oppose the legal case being taken against Queensland university students for alleged racial hatred under section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.
Maybe the QUT students should have enlivened their language with some swear words. Tim Dick, February 14:
If Bill Heffernan had said “f..k, that’s risky shit” on the street, the Liberal senator for NSW could have found himself among thousands of Australians whose swearing made them criminals … Heffernan should be able to swear on the potentially catastrophic use of an airport, or on any other topic, without risking criminal sanction or relying on parliamentary privilege to avoid it. It may not make his argument more compelling, but the state shouldn’t ban his choice of language.
Former Democrat staffer Bruce Wolpe cites Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein to defend the Clintons, ABC Drum website, Monday:
Trump’s supporters may love it, but there is no historical analogy — it’s not even close — between the Clinton emails and Watergate. Take Carl Bernstein’s word for it.
We’d rather not think about “Deep Throat” in connection with Anthony Weiner. Bernstein, Twitter, Sunday:
No way [Hillary Clinton] emails ‘bigger than watergate’ — or close. Watergate was about a criminal [president] & 48 aides/co-conspirators found guilty.
Bob Woodward, who broke the Watergate story with Bernstein, on the Clinton family’s foundation dealings, Fox News, October 23:
It’s corrupt. It’s a scandal … the mixing of speech fees, the Clinton Foundation and actions by the State Department — which she ran — are all intertwined and it’s corrupt.
And we thought millennials were ruining everything with their $22 avocado toasts. Vice Magazine, October 27:
Millennials on spirit quests are ruining everything about ayahuasca: From Brooklyn to Australia, there’s a growing demand for ayahuasca, a tribal, hallucinogenic tea said to have both spiritual and curative properties. “The sacred art of Indians has been transformed into entertainment,” said Moises Pianko, a member of the Ashaninka tribe of northern Brazil.