Do Neo-Nazi’s, White Supremacists or Jihadist Muslim groups have the right to free-speech?
In my opinion they absolutely have the right to speak no matter how hateful or offensive their speech may be. However that does not mean I have to agree with them nor lend them my platform to speak from. However if I do not respect their right to freespeech then I cannot reasonably expect society to respect my right to freespeech in return. It is not alway’s easy to defend the rights of people that we so thoroughly disagree with but supporting those rights does not mean we have to agree with them and can in turn exercise our own rights when we speak out against opposing view points.
When we deny free-speech to one particular group of people we eradicate the justification for our own and the downward slide towards totalitarianism begins. First we block the neo-nazi’s then the white supremacists and who’s next, Atheist’s? we do have allot of religious politicians so is it really that far fetched to expect that Atheist websites may one day find their way onto the blacklist.
Who is going to decide what should or should not be added to the blacklist? What if the person adding sites to the blacklist has an opposing opinion to that of your own, what if they are a Muslim and you are a Jew, what if they find violent video games offensive but you enjoy playing those games, what if you hate opera but they love it. This list is potentially limitless, the Human race is so diverse that any attempt to have a Human decide what is or is not desirable content is a complete failure of logic. The blacklist is inherently flawed due to the vast differences in interest and opinions within Human society.
Censorship is cumulative it may well start by blocking only the “worst of the worst” but is it really that hard to imagine a gradual expansion of the list, especially with all the special interest groups lobbying like crazy to have their personal dislikes added? I find it especially alarming, although not surprising that the Australian Christian Lobby has been very pro-censorship and has an especially powerful influence over religious politicians. This is demonstrated by the fact that Senator Conroy, a Catholic provides the Christian Lobby with special privileges.
This is only the beginning of Australia’s landslide towards totalitarianism.