Just to prove that the Australian left has learned nothing from their recent election drubbing, Labor’s Kristina Keneally is stamping her little feet and holding her little bweafs, demanding the right to silence the free speech of yet another big ol’ “far right” meanie.
Keneally is Australian politics’ most egregious example of the adages about unflushable stuff that just keeps floating to the top of the leftist sewer. Despite being repeatedly rejected by voters, Labor insist on parachuting her, unelected, into safe seats and plum jobs. She also vies with “Father Tilty-Head” Rod Bower as the avatar of the kind of dishwater “liberation theology” which happily bends over backwards to submit to the right-on nostrums of “progressive” leftism.
Especially the left’s mania for trying to ban the free speech of people they don’t like.
A British far-right activist has accused Labor’s home affairs spokeswoman Kristina Keneally of “defamation” after she called for him to be banned from Australia.
As usual, the term “far-right” is thrown about even by supposedly responsible media like The Australian, who should know better than to carry on like ABC work experience kids, shrieking “Fascist!” at everyone to the right of Marx and Engels. Kassam is a conservative, but hardly “far-right”.
But then, why let the truth get in the way of a good dose of fake lefty “outrage”?
Senator Keneally told the senate last night that…“He has described the Koran — the holy book of the Muslim faith — as quote, ‘fundamentally evil’. Mr Kassam has campaigned for ‘limited migration’ against what he describes as ‘large-scale Muslim immigration’.”
And?
As a former Muslim who describes his old school as a “hotbed of radical Islam”, Kassam probably knows a good deal more about the Koran than Catholic-lite Keneally. It seems strange, as well, that Keneally gets her knickers so twisted about the Koran, yet has said nothing about regular leftist attacks on the Bible.
Like all good lefties, especially those whose careers are entirely dependent on gender quotas, Keneally is almost as adept at sniffing out imaginary “misogyny” as fake “racism”.
“And, this one…‘Can someone just like … tape Nicola Sturgeon’s mouth shut? And her legs, so she can’t reproduce.’
Not very nice, perhaps, but hardly “misogynistic”. Sturgeon is a typical leftist inquisitor, “whose visage has all the charm and good humor of reinforced concrete” according to Theodore Dalrymple, who also labels her party as “fascists in kilts”: “socialist, or at least corporatist; in politics, their rhetoric is nationalist. They are, in fact, national socialists”.
But Keneally herself is no slouch at saying nasty things about politicians she doesn’t like, notably President Trump. If it’s okay to insult and belittle male politicians, but not females, then who is the real sexist?
Kassam isn’t about to take Keneally’s cheap shots and authoritarian attitude lying down.
He tweeted last night that he would still be coming to Australia.
“Australian senator @KKeneally wants me to freak out publicly over her lies about me in her Senate,” he tweeted…“I’ll see her in court if she repeats her defamation outside the chamber, where she currently hides behind parliamentary privilege.”
theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/politicsnow-labor-keeps-heat-on-ministers/news-story/2790485110b509c4de68e2255d876a10
Meanwhile, after years of gutless capitulation to leftist authoritarians, the government is finally (almost) growing a pair.
The government will reject Labor frontbencher Kristina Keneally’s calls to ban a far-right British writer from Australia over misogynistic, racist and homophobic tweets, as a pair of Liberal MPs defended appearing alongside him…
Liberal backbenchers Amanda Stoker and Craig Kelly…[said] “Trying to shame into silence anyone who would speak to a person who is wrong on an issue damages our capacity for constructive democracy. When we are confronted with people with whom we disagree, we need to talk to them more, not less.
“Clearly Kristina Keneally would rather see Australians silenced and siloed, rather than able to interact with people who have different beliefs…Mr Kelly said Australia cannot ban everyone with offensive views…“If we banned everyone from Australia that said something offensive things on Twitter — our tourist numbers would be well down.”
theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/government-rejects-keneallys-calls-to-ban-farright-activist/news-story/e2b0cf7ebaef8585f3c82ef520de43f6
Unfortunately, Australia has a long and sad history of paternalistic politicians of both stripes thinking that they have some sort of right to treat Australian citizens like children whose delicate ears need to be protected from things they don’t want us to hear. The Morrison government, which just won an election in no small part due to Australians’ rejection of increasing restrictions on liberty, needs to start living up to the name “Liberal”, and actually defend free speech from the censorious left.