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The drift towards authoritarianism

‘THE AUTHORITARIAN LEFT’S WAR ON FREE SPEECH

The drift of Australian governments and institutions towards authoritarianism, is becoming truly alarming.

A recent submission by the Australian Academy of Science recommended stronger censorship of those it accuses of spreading “climate denialism” online.

Sky News Australia and its “media personalities” are singled out as a “key source of climate science misinformation globally”:

“During COP26 in particular, they downplayed the climate emergency and amplified accusations of hypocrisy against politicians and other figures attending the Glasgow summit”.

AAS calls on Big Tech to:

“Stop promoting and funding climate denial, start labelling it as misinformation, and stop giving the advantages of their enormous platform to lies and misinformation.”

The submission even refers to a recent report from AIMS which shows how the Barrier Reef’s coral extent is the highest on record, describing “such material” as a “barrier to good policy and a healthy society.”

There is a word for this kind of mentality – it’s called “authoritarian.”

Everywhere we look today, Australians’ hard-won right to freedom of expression is being actively undermined by this ‘authoritarianism’ of our so-called ‘governing classes’.

And every little restriction they impose on one sort of speech, is used as mission creep towards censoring another.

Without free expression, it will soon be impossible to criticise government or elected officials without fear of retaliation.

As Ira Glasser, former director of the ACLU once said:

“The real antagonist of speech is power”.

There will always be speech in defence of existing power structures, he argued.  But speech that opposes these power structures CAN ONLY EXIST WHEN AND WHERE IT IS FREE.

Lord Sumption outlined the importance of free speech by saying:

“We have to accept the implications of human curiosity.  Some of what people believe will be wrong.  Some of it may even be harmful, not just to those who hold those beliefs but to others.  We cannot have truth without accommodating error.  It is the price that we pay for allowing knowledge and understanding to develop and human civilisation to advance.”

Australian governments and institutions, however, have become increasingly hostile to the whole idea of freedom of inquiry, freedom of thought and freedom of expression.

The public are treated as children who must be protected from ‘harmful’ ideas, while those with contrarian views are demonised as ‘thought criminals’ and silenced.

The goal is no longer to encourage free discussion but to strongarm people into conformity with a particular ideology.

They aren’t known as ‘the Authoritarian Left’ for nothing.

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Teachers – punished again

THE ‘CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS’ OF STATE POWER IN QUEENSLAND

The Palaszczuk Government’s war on ‘non-compliant’ teachers reached a new low this week.

Not content with all the earlier punishments it has inflicted on this courageous group of workers, the State decided to administer one final kick to the guts by cutting their pay for 18 weeks.

Health Minister, Grace Grace, said the teachers were “lucky they weren’t sacked”.

Federal Health Minister, Anika Wells, even more cold-blooded, said:

“Everyone has the right to make a choice about whether or not to get vaxxed, but no one has the right to be free from the consequences of that choice”.

This spiteful form of ‘gaslighting’ has become the norm for most officials in Australia today.

“Everyone has the right to make a choice”?

Minister, PLEASE.

I would have a lot more respect for them if they were just honest about what they were doing.

It’s all this tactical ‘gameplay’, ‘gaslighting’ and ‘weaponised’ language’ that I find most contemptible.

As someone said recently:

“It would be easier if they just dropped a bomb on us”.

For over a year the Queensland Education Department has taken steps to isolate, segregate, impoverish and punish non-compliant teachers.

And to ‘position them within the narrative’ as ‘enemies of the state’.

I know of many wonderful teachers who have lost everything as a result of these mandates.

Not just state teachers either.

By all accounts, the role played by ‘CathEd’ has been particularly shocking.

The Church didn’t even allow its dissenting teachers to return to work.

It just sacked them, or so I’m told.

I have also heard several heartrending accounts of individual priests, nuns and charity workers being cruelly coerced into compliance.

The tiny few who stood their ground were mercilessly excluded.

A sad come-down for a Church that once played a vital role in defending “individuals” and “outcasts” from the excesses of state power.

Archbishop Mannix comes to mind.

So does the Church’s lone battle against the Queensland Eugenics Bill of the 1930s.

None of what the Qld Education Department is doing has any logical basis to it.

The shots do NOT come with zero risk and no-one knows for sure what their long-term effects will be.

“Proven safe and effective”.

Hardly.

So why not allow people to rationally weigh the risk/reward balance for themselves?

Because this was NEVER about public health.

It was about the right of the State to impose its WILL on individual citizens and to ruthlessly punish those who oppose it.

That’s it in a nutshell.

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