Random Note #189,526
At the risk of a little cultural appropriation of my own this once member of the Liberal Party, when running as a Conservative Independent in Mackellar last year, referred to many in the Liberal Party a LINOs, Liberals In Name Only, culturally appropriated from the US where they have RINOS and DINOS, for Republicans and Democrats in name only.
Next week, when the rubber meets the road and the parliamentary report on 18c is tabled, will be the real test as to the calibre and true commitment to mainstream Liberal values of the politicians we elected.
Will they recommend its total abolition or as I suspect kick the can down the road and squibb it, with nuance, tweaking and tinkering and stand exposed as a bunch of LINOs as I predicted and give even more people another reason to throw their lot in with Pauline Hanson or Cory Bernardi?
An extract from The Janet Albrechtsen column below
“….Section 18C is part of a growing hypersensitivity across Western liberal democracies. And, unwittingly, Abdel-Magied, who made headlines last year by storming out of the Brisbane Writers Festival, has proved why one person’s sensitivity should not be allowed to undermine freedom of expression.
The Muslim woman walked out during an address by celebrated author Lionel Shriver, who argued that identity politics, hypersensitivity and bogus claims of cultural appropriation are killing good fiction. According to identity politics, it’s cultural theft to step into other people’s shoes if their culture is not your culture. Yet if we can’t do that, we are left only with a personal memoir, Shriver pointed out with impeccable logic.
Section 18C is not a fringe issue. It takes pride of place in the armoury in what Shriver calls an era of weaponised sensitivity. It’s not just what the law expressly prohibits that’s wrong in a free society. By making feelings the measurement of what can and cannot be said, section 18C creates wider norms that fuel a broader hypersensitivity constraining free speech. Those enamoured of section 18C ought to also consider how these new norms of finding offence infantilise people, especially encouraging millennials to see themselves as victims. There will be consequences that we don’t yet fully understand.
It’s bad enough the Labor Party and the Greens have eschewed freedom and empowerment in favour of censorship and victimhood. But when a Liberal-led government refuses to abolish a law that strikes at the heart of Western liberalism, it’s time to change the party’s name to the Illiberal Party. And in that values vacuum you will hear Pauline Hanson’s tally-counter clicking fast and furiously as more voters choose One Nation rather than a misleadingly labelled Liberal government that cannot find the political backbone to defend free speech…” There is no room for section 18c in a truly liberal Australia