They Think What You Say is Violent, By George Christensen

That collapse of nuance from the left isn't just rhetorical sleight-of-hand, it's a loaded weapon. Because when you start branding ordinary Australians as "extremists," you begin to dehumanise them. You remove their right to speak. You strip them of moral legitimacy. And when speech loses its legitimacy in the eyes of a movement obsessed with moral purity, then suppressing that speech becomes not just acceptable, but necessary.

This is where the left has gone off the rails. Conservatives generally believe that bad speech should be countered with better arguments. More free speech! We believe in discourse. We understand that people have different views, and that a nation becomes stronger when those views can clash without violence. But increasingly, the radicalised left doesn't see speech as discourse. They see speech, in particular our speech, as violence. As literal harm. As trauma. As something that causes damage simply by being spoken aloud.

And if speech is violence, what then is the moral response?

It's self-defence.

This is the grotesque logic they've normalised. If you say something that offends them, you've attacked them. If you criticise immigration policy, you've harmed migrants. If you defend traditional marriage, you've inflicted violence on someone's identity. It doesn't matter whether your words are peaceful. It doesn't matter whether they're backed by facts or grounded in your faith or your conscience. If they hurt someone's feelings, if they challenge the sacred cows of the woke elite, they're classed as violence.

And if words are violence, then stopping the words becomes a moral act. Blocking speeches. Deplatforming voices. Smearing reputations. Demonetising them. Shutting down events. Cancel culture isn't a glitch in the system, it's the system working as designed. Because in this inverted moral order, stopping conservatives from speaking becomes heroic. Even if it takes fists. Even if it takes threats. Even if it takes knives. Even if it takes bullets.

Charlie Kirk's assassination didn't come out of nowhere. It wasn't some random act by a deranged loner. It was the fruit of a culture that's been marinating in this ideology for years. A conservative Christian commentator who said things the left didn't like was gunned down at a university while talking to students. Some on the left celebrate his murder openly. Others, equally sickening, frame it as understandable. They whisper that his words provoked people. They hint that maybe, just maybe, he brought it on himself. Do you see what that means?

We are now living in a framework where mainstream conservative speech can be framed as provocation for murder. That is how far gone things are.

And don't think Australia is immune. I've seen this firsthand. I spoke at the Q Society fundraiser in Melbourne in 2017. The event location was so secret, even attendees didn't know it. They were told to gather at St Kilda Marina, where buses would transport us to the venue. Why the secrecy? Because organisers knew the left would try to shut it down, violently if necessary.

They weren't wrong.

Over a hundred Antifa and socialist protesters swarmed the Marina. They surrounded the bus, pounded on windows, screamed at attendees, and tried to blocked people from boarding. There was pushing. Shouting. One man's throat was grabbed. A little old lady was pushed over. For over an hour, they held the event attendees hostage, not through reason or protest, but through brute intimidation. And what were we there for? A fundraising dinner about defending freedom of speech… nothing more. That's what qualified as a threat to the left in Australia almost a decade ago.

The media spun it as if we'd provoked the violence. The ABC and Fairfax painted us as bigots. The violent protesters were cast as heroes. Politicians like Di Natale and Dastyari demanded that I be barred from even attending. Not for committing violence, but for speaking. For showing up. The moral inversion was complete.

This is what happens when institutions, media, and activists all buy into the lie that speech is violence. Universities start banning events that might cause "harm." The media stops distinguishing between conservatism and extremism. Protesters feel entitled to use force because the people they're attacking are already framed as dangerous. The logic is terrifying: If someone's words are violence, then actual violence becomes justice.

You'd be forgiven for thinking this is just political theatre. It's not. It's an existential war on the very concept of peaceful disagreement. And it's happening right here in my homeland of Australia. We've seen protesters try to shut down Christian events, anti-lockdown rallies, anti-immigration discussions, and conservative student groups. Antifa-style violence isn't imported, it's here. It's been tested. It's been justified.

And if they keep pushing the lie that our words are inherently violent, then they give moral cover to the next act of real violence. That's not speculation. That's where this ends. We've already seen it.

Charlie Kirk is dead. Killed for speaking. And the system that shaped his killer is the same one that now calls you dangerous, for simply believing what you believe.

It's time we saw this clearly. The left no longer believes in debate. They believe in domination. And if they must redefine your speech as violence to justify theirs, they will.

They already have.

https://nationfirst.substack.com/p/they-think-what-you-say-is-violent