They seek them here, they seek them there: those lefties, they search everywhere. Are they on Twitter? Or are they on Telegram? Those damned elusive “Far-Right” bogey-men.
We keep getting told that “far-right extremists” are a bigger threat than Islamic terrorism. Just ignore the facts.
Despite over a decade of repeated, deadly Islamic terror attacks, Australia has never had a parliamentary inquiry into Islamic extremism. Quite the opposite: we’re repeatedly told that Islamic terrorism isn’t a problem. Just a “perpetual irritant”, in the words of Waleed Aly.
So, why are we having a parliamentary inquiry into “right-wing extremism”?
The media-political elite are doing all they can to keep the far-right bogey-man whipped up.
One of the nation’s top security chiefs has warned the threat posed by violent right wing extremists is “no different” to that by Islamist terrorists.
Except in one very important difference: “violent right wing extremists” haven’t been stabbing, beheading, blowing up or mowing down innocent people in the street. Call me crazy, but I think that’s a pretty important difference.
His comments come ahead of a parliamentary inquiry that will consider whether Australian laws are sufficient to address right-wing terror threats, which ASIO has warned now make up 40 per cent of its counter-terrorism caseload[…]
Unlike other Five Eyes security partners, Australia has not officially banned any far-right groups as terrorist organisations.
There seems to be a pretty big disconnect between those two statements. If they are such a threat, why haven’t any been banned? There’s a whole lot of scary, scary, boogedy, boogedy, fear-mongering, not much actual proof.
ASIO deputy director-general Heather Cook warned in September that far-right extremists were using social media propaganda in a similar manner to Islamist groups to “recruit the young and the vulnerable”.
AFP Deputy Commissioner Ian McCartney said in October that young people were being “aggressively” radicalised by far-right groups operating on the internet, and that right-wing extremists had more ready access to weapons than Islamists.
So, where are the “far-right” terror attacks?
Far-right terrorist Phillip Galea, who was sentenced in November to 12 years in jail over plans to wage war against “Muslims and lefties”.
The Australian
Okay…one. One person rightly jailed for being a violent nutbag.
Where’s the rest? Should we believe these statements, any more than the barefaced lies of senior police who said with straight faces that crime in African immigrant communities was not disproportionate to their population – despite their own, official figures showing absolutely the opposite?
In fact, let’s look at the “scorecard”, shall we?
Over the last 40 years, there have been 16 actual terror attacks (the linked list curiously omits the car-bomb attack on the Australian Christian Lobby by a deranged gay rights activist), 12 planned terror attacks foiled. Just two of the actual attacks, and one of the planned attacks were genuinely right-wing extremists.
On the other hand, there were seven deadly Islamic attacks and 11 planned Islamic attacks.
None of this is to say that real violent right-wing extremism (as opposed to a few loudmouth edge-lords doing Hitler salutes) is not a problem at all and should not be condemned.
Just stop blowing smoke up our arses.
If we’re going to have parliamentary inquiries into violently extreme ideologies, then let’s first have them into the ideologies actually committing the bulk of terror attacks and not just the bogey-men of the left-elite.
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