Topher takes an irreverent look back at the unpopular people of history and finds that sometimes it's the 'crackpots' who are right... meaning that there's a real benefit to ensuring everyone has a right to free speech, even if they're a crackpot!
Conservative philosopher Roger Scruton delivers the keynote address at the Institute of Public Affairs' 2014 Foundations of Western Civilisation Symposium.
The zealots will never desist. Only their opinions matter and their oppressive decrees are not only to be accepted but enforced as absolute. They have usurped the authority of God.
How different from the 1960’s when I listened to the most outrageous and diverse tirades and expositions, often delightfully challenging and humorously insulting, in London at Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park. How wonderful it was to be able to listen to and evaluate these messages for myself. Some of the speakers knew themselves that many or all of the ideas they were uttering were nonsensical and they were just honing their literary and elocutionary skills.
Last month I placed a blog entry about 'The Responsible Vote'. It is a process of individual engagement with their representatives by regularly communicating about current issues.
...we must write to the successful representative telling them how we voted and why. We must also keep in regular contact with the representative and inform them of our views in regard to matters of concern. The electors responsibility does not end on polling day.
It is not at all surprising to see the breakup of that monolith called the EU.
Run by unelected bearucrats, answerable to only themselves (soviet style), people have finally had enough.
Similar to Australia, the ferment against the elites is taking shape, as people everywhere begin to take back their countries.
from Andrew Bolt's Blog
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/abc_bias_exposed_and_turnbull_fell_for_it/
VIEWERS of the ABC were recently shown an emotional, one-sided Four Corners program on juvenile detention in the Northern Territory. It was frightening, but deliberately misleading. It relied on old footage and I believe the program was an abuse of the ABC’s charter and an abuse of taxpayers’ money…
With my distrust of computers and all things IT and AI, I of course did not go on-line to fill out my census form. Why, it was invasive enough without Skynet looking over my shoulder. I predicted, the inevitable, that hackers would sneak into the site and drain away all vital information, described by one defense/IT expert as a “honey pot.”
What I have seen on the net, if that can be trusted, is that the hack occurred from “overseas.” I am not sure why a hack would bring a site down, for wouldn’t true professionals go in and out without a trace, not stomp around cybernetically like a proverbial elephant in a china shop?
Some salient points raised by Jennifer Oriel the other day.
21st-century Left waging new war on free speech by Jennifer Oriel
James Reed has described globalism as a “failed experiment,” and I could not concur more. I intend to devote a number of articles to this topic in due course. But to get the ball rolling, I draw the reader’s attention to an article which lets the cat out of the bag, and throws away the bag.
Alex Tabarrok, “The Case for Getting Rid of Borders – Completely,” The Atlantic, Ontober10, 2015, is an article well worth reading just to see how the globalist mind ticks over.
When I say cartoonist Bill Leak’s cartoon about an Aboriginal police officer approaching an Aboriginal father about his delinquent son’s behaviour, and the father giving a delinquent response, I knew that many would find the cartoon offensive.
Although I am a free speech advocate, I do not believe that such comments are particularly helpful, merely getting a chuckle out of a terrible situation where there is genuine human misery. Such comments do not help, although peole should be free to make them. But, then, I am a Christian.
We know that the high court of Australia, has ruled that the definition of “marriage” in the Constitution is such that it embraces same-sex unions. This was done through using a “living” method of constitutional interpretation, saying that words should not be defined as the Founders used them, but as, well, modern progressives use them. This is a handy dandy way of making the Constitution mean anything that progressives want.
Perhaps you hope that the same sex marriage agenda may be defeated in the plebiscite, and will then go away? Think again!
There has been weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 8:12) in the media over Scott Morrison’s decision to reject two Chinese bids for majority control of NSW’s electricity assets, on national security grounds. This is seen as pulling the plug on china, a retreat from our “Chinese future,” and numerous other nauseous phrases.
But the decision is right, and a good start in regaining some sense of national identity and sanity from the insane cult of globalism. In a nut shell, China and no other Asian nation would even dream of allowing Australia to own its vital infrastructure, such as electricity assets.
Pride is said to come before a fall. But in actual fact pride is often the cause of a fall, what is called hubris. Research published in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, studied the brain activity of 308 people using MRI scanning. The subjects evaluated their own performance in a cognitive test.
People who were confident about their performance in the test showed higher levels of brain activity in those areas of the brain normally associated with reward processing.
That would be all well and good, except for one fact; those over-confident people actually got poorer test results than more modest subjects. Over-confidence led to an inflation of these people’s abilities, and a delusion about their capacity to succeed.
The headline from Natural News.com, proclaims that a full-on race war is in motion in America.
Mike Adams does not mince words:
“it is now obvious that American society is breaking down into social chaos characterized by racially motivated black-on-white mob violence. As much as I have repeatedly called for peace and unity among all citizens to realize the TRUE enemy is a corrupt, criminal government, there are still sectors of society where so-called "Black Lives Matter" rioters have become de facto Black Power terrorists who are deliberately hunting down and targeting white people for beatdowns and murder.”
See: http://www.naturalnews.com/054977_Black_Lives_Matter_Milwaukee_violence_citizen_self_defense.html
In an article in The Australian by Jared Owens & Andrew Burrell
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/state-politics/senator-urges-axing-of-discrimination-acts-insult-and-offend/news-story/7e865d0783673e29b2dffac9345ff4f5
libertarian senator David Leyonhjelm is reported to have lodged a formal complaint before the Human Rights Commission under race hate laws for being publicly abused as an “angry white male”, contained in a column by Fairfax Media’s Mark Kenny.
Ref: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=18449
Mr. Aitkin’s OnLine Opinion.com.au article (15 August 2016) which prompted his “Left and Right in Australian Politics" discussion reminded me of Geoffrey Dobbs’ article titled, “The Left and the Right and the Truth” written many years ago.
Tony Abbott has bemoaned the fact that 'our Parliament prefers to tolerate over-the-top prosecutions than to upset thin-skinned activists' (The Age - 'Reflective Abbott reopens racial hate-speech debate', 13/8). Also regrettable is the lack of concern in ordinary, thoughtful Australians over the fact that honourable and informed dissidents can be wrongfully attacked under the present law. This in turn is perhaps an aspect of a greater problem here: the growing selfishness of individuals, which seems clearly linked to the diminution of religious observance.
Protecting disadvantaged persons from malicious abuse can be achieved without infringement of free speech. However, another roadblock to reform is the fear of both major political parties that they will lose key votes from minority groups if they defend free speech and that this could cause them to lose an election. The remedy to this situation is more outspokenness from citizens generally to defend dissident speech.
NJ, Belgrave Victoria
Not only do all Australians know about the Census disaster we would think: so does the rest of the world!
But what we especially noted was taken from the Sydney Morning Herald:
Peter Martin
“A former head of the ABS described the grab for names as the “without doubt, the most significant invasion of privacy ever perpetrated by the ABS” – like an “Australian Card”.
Directed to actually conduct the census, and keen to extract some value from it, (David) Kalisch and his team (had) revived an idea categorically ruled out by his predecessor. Brian Pink had said no to retaining names...Names had always been retained for a short time in order to eliminate duplicates and establish the relationship between household members, but destroyed after checks, usually well before 18 months.
Appearing before the Senate economics committee...Kalisch said nothing about the plan to retain names and addresses. He made a short statement to "update the committee about our census preparations". Things were "on track" and momentum was building. A few months earlier he had told the committee things were coming along "beautifully".
...Information from the census on ethnic or religious backgrounds could be linked to information from the immunisation register to work out what type of families on what types of incomes were the least likely to immunise.
Criminal records could be linked to census records, if permission were given, to see what sort of Australians were convicted of what sort of crimes…”
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37064327
A royal funeral takes place in central Romania on Saturday for a queen who was never crowned and never served and yet still commands full state honours...
