Scroll Top

The Decline and Imminent Fall of the West – Part 3

The remorseless assault on free speech

I don’t think most people really understand how advanced the Left’s assault on this core Western liberty actually is.

Once the intellectual, cultural and moral foundations of American universities crumbled under the onslaught of the Communist/Marxist-led radicals, it was relatively easy to advance to the next stage; the attack upon freedom of expression, utilising political correctness and racial vilification laws. Such attacks were assisted by conventions passed by the Soviet/Chinese/Muslim dominated United Nations, each of these groups having a vested interest in suppressing free speech.

Racial vilification laws

The United Nations Convention on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) states that “any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law.”  More specifically, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) requires all signatory states to “declare an offence punishable by law all dissemination of ideas based on racial superiority or hatred… as well as all acts of violence or incitement to such acts against any race or group of persons of another colour or ethnic origin…”

Across almost all the Western world apart from America, the state grows ever more comfortable with micro-regulating public discourse—some political parties find it convenient to regulate the press to prevent scrutiny of their performance.

A word about racism.

Nothing more starkly demonstrates what Diana West calls the capture of the American mind than the demonisation of “racists”.   The use of the word “racism” is a prime example of the re-definition of words as propaganda tools. The original meaning of racism is quite innocuous. The 1980 edition of the American Heritage Dictionary defines racism as “the notion that one’s own ethnic stock is superior”.  By this definition, most people could be described as racists.

The Marxist propagandists and their minions have re-defined the word to make “racist” and “racism” an emotional battering ram to stifle free speech and public discussion of ethnic crime and Muslim immigration. A “racist” in the public mind is a criminal, comparable to a paedophile or terrorist. Just watch how politicians cringe in fear when accused of racism.

Another innocuous word that has been re-defined by the propagandists is the word “bigot”. The only definition of bigot in the Australian Oxford Dictionary is “an obstinate and intolerant believer in a religion, political theory, etc.” Sounds like most left-wing journalists and Greens members to me. These same people love to apply the “bigot” epithet to any person opposed to their ideology.

 The infamous Bolt trial

Aboriginals are Australia’s sacred cows. They are beyond criticism. No one dares criticise them for fear of being howled down as a racist. Years of political correctness and bleeding-heart paternalism has seen special laws passed to favour them and untold billions of taxpayers’ dollars lavished on them.

Journalist Andrew Bolt wrote two articles critical of certain persons clearly of European descent who claimed Aboriginal status to receive, according to Bolt, some of the special benefits available only to Aboriginals.

In two columns written in 2009, Bolt says a number of people, often more European than indigenous, have been able to advance their careers by applying for positions, prizes and scholarships by self-identifying as Aboriginal.

Nine fair-skinned “Aborigines” brought Federal Court action against Bolt and his publisher, The Herald & Weekly Times claiming that he “offended, insulted and humiliated” them in breach of the federal Racial Discrimination Act.

These are four of the so-called “Aborigines” who brought the Federal Court action against Bolt and his publisher. These four, together with their cohorts, will forever live in infamy for their attack on free speech in Australia.

       Larissa Behrendt        Bindi Cole          Pat Eatock             Anita Heiss

On 28the September 2011 Justice Bromberg in a long, rambling homily, found Bolt and the Herald & Weekly Times guilty of conduct that contravened section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.

In a massive blow to freedom of speech in Australia, Bolt, on the advice of his lawyers, has not been able to comment on Aboriginals and part-Aboriginals since that time. Read the full story here.

In Canada, Mark Steyn, another conservative writer, was hauled in front of a human rights commission to defend his views about multiculturalism and the growing conflict between Islam and the West.

Mark Steyn noted;

Out of this lofty statement of human rights, grew human rights commissions and bureaucracies populated by human rights commissars.

As bad as they are, the government’s criminalizing all of them and setting up an enforcement regime in the interests of micro-regulating us into compliance is a thousand times worse. If that’s the alternative, give me “Kung Fu Fighting” sung by Mohammed’s nine-year-old bride while putting down two lesbian hecklers sending back the Cat of the Day in a Chinese restaurant.

As John Milton wrote in his Areopagitica of 1644, “Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.”

Or as an ordinary Canadian citizen said to me, after I testified in defense of free speech to the Ontario parliament at Queen’s Park, “Give me the right to free speech, and I will use it to claim all my other rights.”

Conversely, if you let them take your right to free speech, how are you going to stop them from taking all the others?

Political Correctness

In an address to American University, conservative commentator, Bill Lind said:

Where does all this stuff that you’ve heard about this morning – the victim feminism, the gay rights movement, the invented statistics, the rewritten history, the lies, the demands, all the rest of it – where does it come from? For the first time in our history, Americans have to be fearful of what they say, of what they write, and of what they think. They have to be afraid of using the wrong word, a word denounced as offensive or insensitive, or racist, sexist, or homophobic.

If we look at it analytically, if we look at it historically, we quickly find out exactly what it is. Political Correctness is cultural Marxism. It is Marxism translated from economic into cultural terms. It is an effort that goes back not to the 1960s and the hippies and the peace movement, but back to World War I. If we compare the basic tenets of Political Correctness with classical Marxism the parallels are very obvious

First of all, both are totalitarian ideologies. The totalitarian nature of Political Correctness is revealed nowhere more clearly than on college campuses, many of which at this point are small ivy covered North Koreas, where the student or faculty member who dares to cross any of the lines set up by the gender feminist or the homosexual-rights activists, or the local black or Hispanic group, or any of the other sainted “victims” groups that PC revolves around, quickly find themselves in judicial trouble. Within the small legal system of the college, they face formal charges – some star-chamber proceeding – and punishment. That is a little look into the future that Political Correctness intends for the nation as a whole.

That address was back in 2000. Since then, political correctness has spread from American campuses to envelop the entire English-speaking world with its totalitarian suffocation of free speech.

Continue to Part 4 of the Decline and Imminent Fall of the West

Related Posts

Leave a comment