Category Archives: Free Speech

What Daniel Hannan Should Have Said About The BNP

Britain, Constitution, Free Speech, libertarianism, Liberty, Natural Law, Private Property

The brilliant Sean Gabb, academic, broadcaster, Director of the Libertarian Alliance in England, and a friend (who is not too good at keeping in touch), says what Daniel Hannan (scroll down) ought to have articulated about the British National Party (BNP), instead of disgorging the fascist epithet. The column you want to read in its entirety is “The British State and the BNP—The Post-Modern Tyranny of ‘Human Rights.'” Here are excerpts:

“We in Britain are endlessly told nowadays that freedom of speech does not involve the right to preach hatred and ‘intolerance.’ But it does. Freedom of speech means the right to say anything at all on any public issue, and to make any recommendation on what the law should be.”

“I was born into a Britain where this understanding was broadly accepted. I live now in a country where it is not. Thus Simon Woolley of Operation Black Vote dismisses freedom of speech as an ‘almost sacred cow.’ He even appeals for support to the majesty of the British Constitution:

Over centuries our unwritten constitution has given us a framework for our democracy. From Magna Carta to the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000, our democracy has evolved to reflect our changing times. This framework gives us a democracy which, for all its limitations, seeks to balance individual freedoms with fairness and tolerance.

“In the technical sense, Woolley may be right. Being unwritten, the British Constitution is whatever the authorities decide it to be.

But his claim is irrelevant. A constitution does not legitimise oppression. Rather, it is legitimate so far as it protects rights. If the British Constitution no longer guarantees freedom of speech, so much the worse for the Constitution.

* Second, as said, the authorities are frightened to make a direct attack on freedom of speech. Instead, they are relying on laws that abolish freedom of association.

But this is barely less important within the liberal tradition than freedom of speech. The two rights complement each other. Freedom of speech is the right to say anything. Freedom of association involves the right to propagate what is said. It means the right of people to come together for any purpose that does not involve aggression against others. …

I am not frightened that the BNP is a party of national socialists, and that its leaders are counting the days till they can rip off their business suits, to show the black and red uniforms beneath. Under its present leader, Nick Griffin, the BNP has become a white nationalist party. The party believes in the expulsion of illegal immigrants, an in some voluntary repatriation of non-whites who are legally here, and in dismantling the Equal Opportunities police state from which people like Mr Wadham benefit. Other than this, a BNP Government might easily show more respect for the forms of a liberal constitution than have the Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown—after all, this would not be difficult.

The problem is that the BNP and much of its leading personnel used to be national socialists. There are too many published statements in praise of Hitler or denouncing the Jews.” …

READ THE COMPLETE COLUMN, “The British State and the BNP—The Post-Modern Tyranny of ‘Human Rights,'” on VDARE.COM (where else?).

Updated: WikiLibel (Pitfalls Of Populism In Data)

Africa, Free Speech, Internet, libertarianism, Propaganda, Pseudo-history, South-Africa

Wikipedia is the Southern Poverty Law Center of online “resources.” It is an example of why populism in data is a piss-poor idea. Any rightist who’s had to fight that outfit for the removal of libel and lies knows of what I speak.

In short, Wikipedia is the encyclopedia of and for the Age of the Idiot. (And the malevolent.) Of course, libertarians love it—and their motives are lefty, as is often the case: Behold spontaneous order! (More like disorder.) The fact that millions of people have mastered enough technology to post online falsities masquerading as fact about those they dislike is no more significant to freedom than the fact that billions of humans have a bowel movement every day. So there!

And, as Derb demonstrates, Wikipedia makes “correcting” very difficult indeed. personally, I’ve opted for letters c/cd to a lawyer (and when I obtain proof traceable to the woman I suspect of saucing up the barely true tales posted about me … it won’t be pretty).

Truth in advertising is the issue here. Wikipedia needs to be labeled differently. It cannot be allowed at once to post lies and pose as a purveyor of truth. Right now, it uses its credibility as an encyclopedia to damage the good name of a person and present it as fact. Think of the debate over holocaust denial. Free speech always. The only question vis-a-vis denial is how and where you file it. In the library, the Dewey Decimal Classification for denial ought to be “Pseudo-history.” Right now Wikipedia bios fuse fact with fiction, yet this amalgam is filed as fact. This dubious syndicate needs to be “reclassified” itself. (Ideas?)

So far generalities. Now to more particulars. Today I was researching Dr. Mangosuthu Buthelezi for a section of my interminable book. Without going into detail, the Zulu chief is one of the good guys of South Africa; Mandela’s mafia—the ANC—is the bad element. Of course, Buthelezi being a free market man, who fought for the devolution of power rather than its concentration in a dominant-party state (the endgame of the ANC and its Anglo-American buddies)—he was tarred as the bad guy by the same axis of evil.

And by WikiLibel. As far as I know, “necklacing,” the indigenous practice of placing a car tire around a putative offender’s neck and igniting it with gasoline, was invented by the ANC as a method of punishing collaborators. Nelson’s wife, Wini Mandela, was an avid practitioner. No, I’m not claiming there was never any cross-fertilization in the ethnic war between the Xhosa (ANC/Mandela) and the Zulu (Buthelezi). However, the ANC should take credit for inventing and perfecting this technique.

But not according to our falsifiers, who give Buthelezi the good old WikiLibel treatment.

Update (August 3): AGGRESSION AGAINST NON-AGGRESSORS. A syndicate poses as a transmitter of immutable fact. The outfit’s process allows for the repeated trashing of vulnerable individuals in its bio section—vulnerable because mass support is not behind them. Individuals enjoying the support of the masses and their crooked cognoscenti are spared. All this under the guise of truth and objectivity.

As I predicted, those whose life’s work is in undermining ordered liberty, and elevating the virtues of populism and anarchy, rush to the defense of this bully pulpit. I speak of libertarians, naturally.

Their analytical tools? Accuse the “little woman” (moi) of personalizing the matter, sulking, and not being willing to, periodically, forfeit her good name and the integrity of her record on the alter of the Collective Good—namely data disseminated by the masses.

Predictable.

It doesn’t take much mental acuity (entirely lost in the herd instincts of my interlocutors) to distill the argument of this post. All one has to do is READ IT. Again.

What moved me to write was not my ongoing libel by Wikipedia, but the blatant, malicious, cunningly embedded slander in the bio of Prince Mangasutu Buthelezi. The latter is one of the good guys of South Africa, RIP. Yet the Zulu royal has been tarred over the decades by westerners—from the state department, to the New York Times to every petty diplomat blindly doing the business of democracy in that part of the world.

In their support for Saint Nelson and the revolutionary ANC—Acorn with machetes—the majority of libertarians (not all, mind you) have been as zealous as the neoconservatives. So sure, they’d dismiss my motives for writing this post. What do these plebs, every bit as ahistoric in their sympathies as the neoconservatives, know of Buthelezi?

According the WikiLibel, the grisly tradition of necklacing (see above), originated with the prince and his political party. Wrong. Necklacing was invented and perfected by the Saint’s syndicate and put to use by his wife.

If you’re not really famous—anointed by the intellectual monopoly in the Age of the Idiot—and WikiLibel doesn’t look too shabby if it lies about you; then they’ll sanction your maligning. Good luck in trying to remove the libel. Read Derb’s experience, one among many. Otherwise you, a non-aggressor, is aggressed against and it’s up to you to keep fending off attacks you did not provoke. How excellent

Some anarchists have no problems with libel, and even advance arguments for it. Free speech baby. Fist in the air; power to the pitchfork wielders.

I predicted libertarians would ooze all over this particular spontaneous bowel movement. I was right.

Updated: We Get It: Museum Shooter Is a Hateful Honky

Crime, Criminal Injustice, Elections 2008, Free Speech, Homeland Security, Islam, Jihad, Journalism, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media, Regulation, Terrorism, The Zeitgeist

The excerpt is from my new column, now on Taki’s Magazine, “We Get It: Museum Shooter Is a Hateful Honky”:

THE MORE OBVIOUS MORAL of the von Brunn attack relates to media coverage. If you’re a white supremacist caught in the act, intrepid, mainstream journalism will not rest until it has dug-up, divulged and dissected everything about you.

Scarcely had the cowardly attack taken place than the mug of the hater was plastered on every TV station across the country. (I can’t tell you what the Jihadi du jour looks like.) Ditto details of von Brunn’s dysfunctional biography and ideology.

In no time the usually lackadaisical liberal media expertly knitted together von Brunn’s years in irons, unsavory associations, and the ins-and-outs of his holocaust-denying, anti-Semitic belief system. …

On the other hand, does anyone … know who Wael W. Kalash is?

I didn’t think so. If you’re a swarthy supremacist, driven by devotion to a vampiric prophet and his deity, you can count on the ‘discretion’ of those whose job description is vigilant indiscretion.”…

The complete column is “We Get It: Museum Shooter Is a Hateful Honky.”

Miss the weekly column on WND? Catch it on Taki’s Magazine every Saturday.

Update (June 14): In addition to the assorted protected-species murder charges (hate crimes), “Von Brunn, 88, has been charged with first-degree murder in the death of 39-year-old Stephen T. Johns, who was black.” (via FoxNew)

I’m beginning to get the gist of equality under the law in America. If you aggress against a gay, black, or Jewish individual, then you’ve earned the severest of sanctions: first degree murder, in the case of von Brunn. If, in the course of being Muslim, you behead your wife—well then, Muslim acts in mitigation. You’re charged with second degree murder, only.

Muslim Fit Over ‘Fitna’

Europe, Free Speech, Islam, Jihad, The West

The excerpt is from my new WND column, “Muslim Fit Over ‘Fitna’“:

“Those who’ve been following the latest installment in the saga know that [Geert] Wilders released a film: ‘Fitna.’ ‘Fitna’ is unremarkable: it’s your basic primer to Islam.

The Koran commands the faithful to kill the kafir. Wilders excerpts these Koranic commandments, and shows Muslim believers articulating and acting on them.

Wilders could have easily been neutralized had Muslims across the West, and their puppy-dog proxies, allowed the screening of “Fitna,” and adopted a Western, live-and-let-live stance toward this tradition of benign protest. …”

Read the complete column, “Muslim Fit Over ‘Fitna.‘”