PM Jacinda Ardern says we will know ‘hate speech’ when we see it. Whilst her government is very keen to impose hate speech laws on us it is not so keen to define what ‘hate speech’ actually is.
The government’s hate speech game is therefore Russian roulette. You spin the cylinder and hope that the bullet (the court system) doesn’t decide that your opinion is illegal and that you will go to jail for THREE years!
The last thing the government wants to do is to clarify with concrete examples what is illegal speech and what isn’t, as then Conservatives and Christians will be able to protect themselves from prosecution and persecution as there will be crystal clear parameters. Instead, the government proposes to force us all to risk imprisonment every time we express an opinion.
To play the hate speech game fairly we would need to categorise speech as either legal or illegal. At the moment the law regarding incitement is very clear. The average person can tell which of the below fictional examples is illegal speech and which isn’t.
a) All Zebra people are evil and you all should form a vigilante mob this Saturday and march to X and Y and burn their homes down!
b) I disagree with Zebra people’s point of view on the policy of wearing pink lycra no matter what their body shape is. I think that their religion is silly because they wear toilet seats around their necks.
The government’s proposed hate speech laws are to suppress and silence criticism of themselves and their favourite victim groups. They want the law vague and undefined so that they can silence all opposition by making everyone too scared to say ANYTHING as we will not know what is illegal and what isn’t.
The threat of three years imprisonment “for threatening, abusive or insulting communications” is enough to make anyone with half a brain tremble in their boots.
It is simply not good enough for the government to say we don’t want hateful speech and we don’t really know what it is but we’ll leave it to the courts to decide.
They know full well that it is impossible to set crystal clear parameters because what is hateful is completely subjective. That means that the decision made by the courts will also be completely subjective.
What one judge or jury will consider robust opinion another will consider abusive, insulting or threatening. All it will take is one witness to state that you hurt their widdle feelings and the next thing you will hear is the sound of the metal door slamming behind you.
The government want the hate speech game completely open-ended and undefined because a population too scared to express an opinion is a controlled population. It is particularly sinister that they have included political opinion as one of the protected areas. How do you think that is going to work out for those with different political views to the party in power?
As for including religion, we all know which religion has been strongly agitating for Blasphemy laws to be brought back. I will give you a hint…it isn’t Christians. Christians believe in forgiveness and generally don’t have thin skins when it comes to mockery of themselves, their God, Jesus or their beliefs.
The problem with the government’s hate speech game is that there is no way that you can win it. Without crystal clear parameters, every single time you express an opinion you are playing Russian roulette with your freedom.
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