18C Complaints In Australia over Hate Speech

A poster at Free Republic had an interesting rant about 18C complaints:

’18C’ has become a shorthand in Australia for a fight concerning freedom of speech and freedom of the press. In my opinion – and in the opinion of a great many Australian conservatives, I think – this is the single most important current ideological battleground concerning fundamental rights in Australia.

It refers to section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act of 1975. Let me be clear on this – very few conservatives have any great problem with most of the Racial Discrimination Act. We utterly condemn genuine racism and support the idea that you need laws to protect people from genuinely discriminatory behaviour. But Section 18C which was added to the Act in the 1990s goes far further than is reasonable in a society that supposedly values freedom of speech.

It states that it is unlawful to say or do anything in public that might offend, insult, humiliate, or intimidate a person or group of people, on the basis of race, colour or national or ethnic origin.

The big problem with this is the ‘offend’ or ‘insult’ clauses. These mean that even totally trivial matters can come under the scope of this law…

There are three main cases that show the problems with 18C in my opinion.

The first of these is the case of Andrew Bolt. Bolt is probably Australia’s most prominent conservative newspaper columnist. He is a regular writer for the (Melbourne) Herald Sun, and he often writes for other papers with the same owner (News Limited), notably The Australian and the (Sydney) Daily Telegraph. He also has a regular TV show on Sky News Australia. A few years ago, he wrote a couple of articles where he raised the issue of people claiming ‘Aboriginal’ heritage in Australia. I don’t even dare describe the articles in detail – they are now banned in Australia. Censored out of existence in what I regard as the most shocking example of censorship of the press in recent history.

Note the poster, who is not even posting under his name, feels he can’t recite the article’s content, on a conservative website.

That is the rabbit’s optimum goal. They have pitted government K-strategists against citizen K-strategists, to enforce the exact, non-competitive, non-aggressive, amygdala-angst-free environment they are designed for as r-strategists.

They can do this, because things are r, and the K-strategists are satiated enough that even they have ended up r, through the calculation that fighting would not improve their lot enough to be worthwhile. Just don’t talk about the issues the rabbits are irritated by, enjoy the free food, and wait things out.

Even the Law Enforcement that carry out the policy have made similar calculations – that it is easier and more cost effective to simply show up and carry out orders to detain bad-thinkers, rather than stop by the armory, arm up, and kill all the rabbits to initiate a coup.

Once things turn K, the worm will turn. K-strategists, laden with amygdala, will actually be looking for a reason to vent their rage. Under those conditions, rabbits will avoid little things like this, lest the right decide to detonate their rage over it.

Help spread r/K Theory, because rabbits can’t pit K-strategists against each other if we recognize they are rabbits – and we recognize each other