A poll on the Sydney Morning Herald about the Australian Federal Court's decision to find against Australian journalist Andrew Bolt, asked if it had limited free speech.
75% of respondents said that it had not limited free speech.
Now that's nonsense, because by definition -- by punishing Bolt and requiring the expunging of the two offending articles -- speech was constrained, was limited, was purged.
The question should have been:
"Andrew Bolt has been punished for what he said. Should he have been?"
In which case the answer's not so clear. For, let's say that he talked of "dirty n*****s", in any context, that would surely be racist and punishable, and rightly so, I think (though perhaps it would be allowed in the US, where the laws for free speech are rather more robust).
The point is that he was not being racist. He was discussing race, to be sure, but only in the context of an issue that is innately race-based: the fact that some Australians are identified as "Aborigine", even if they have only a tiny amount of "aboriginal blood" in their make-up, and that in so doing they are eligible for all sorts of benefits made available to aborigines to make up for our terrible treatment of native Australians in the past.
Bolt made an egregious error in claiming that the people he named had taken up the "Aboriginal" label later in life in order to partake of these benefits and prizes. In this he was wrong. They had all been identified as aboriginal from birth and had been brought up with that as their cultural background. But, as the judgement notes, they would have found judgment against Bolt if they had taken the route of Defamation. That would have been a better route, as it's for individuals not for a whole race.
Still, Bolt was focussed on his main points, both of which are relevant:
He made two points:
Mark Steyn has a succinct take on this:
If the state creates a human right to be offended and extends it only to members of certain interest groups, it is quite naturally incentivizing membership in those membership groups. Andrew Bolt, Australia’s leading columnist, was struck by the very noticeable non-blackness of so many prominent Aussie “blacks”, and wrote a couple of columns on the theme of identity-group opportunism. He’s now been dragged into court and denounced as a “racist” – “racism” having degenerated into a term for anyone who so much as broaches the subject. But, if the law confers particular privileges on members of approved identity groups, how we define the criteria for membership of those groups is surely a legitimate subject for public debate.
75% of respondents said that it had not limited free speech.
Now that's nonsense, because by definition -- by punishing Bolt and requiring the expunging of the two offending articles -- speech was constrained, was limited, was purged.
The question should have been:
"Andrew Bolt has been punished for what he said. Should he have been?"
In which case the answer's not so clear. For, let's say that he talked of "dirty n*****s", in any context, that would surely be racist and punishable, and rightly so, I think (though perhaps it would be allowed in the US, where the laws for free speech are rather more robust).
The point is that he was not being racist. He was discussing race, to be sure, but only in the context of an issue that is innately race-based: the fact that some Australians are identified as "Aborigine", even if they have only a tiny amount of "aboriginal blood" in their make-up, and that in so doing they are eligible for all sorts of benefits made available to aborigines to make up for our terrible treatment of native Australians in the past.
Bolt made an egregious error in claiming that the people he named had taken up the "Aboriginal" label later in life in order to partake of these benefits and prizes. In this he was wrong. They had all been identified as aboriginal from birth and had been brought up with that as their cultural background. But, as the judgement notes, they would have found judgment against Bolt if they had taken the route of Defamation. That would have been a better route, as it's for individuals not for a whole race.
Still, Bolt was focussed on his main points, both of which are relevant:
He made two points:
- One: Why did these people identify themselves as Aborigine, when they could just as easily -- and arguably more correctly -- have identified themselves as something else. Or better yet, simply identify themselves as "Australian", with no appendage, or hyphenated form. He made this point repeatedly in the two articles, and I think that's a fine point.
- Two: in so identifying, these "fair-skinned Aborigines" (the description in the judgement against him), were muscling in on prizes and subsidies that were meant for less "fair-skinned" Aborigines.
Mark Steyn has a succinct take on this:
If the state creates a human right to be offended and extends it only to members of certain interest groups, it is quite naturally incentivizing membership in those membership groups. Andrew Bolt, Australia’s leading columnist, was struck by the very noticeable non-blackness of so many prominent Aussie “blacks”, and wrote a couple of columns on the theme of identity-group opportunism. He’s now been dragged into court and denounced as a “racist” – “racism” having degenerated into a term for anyone who so much as broaches the subject. But, if the law confers particular privileges on members of approved identity groups, how we define the criteria for membership of those groups is surely a legitimate subject for public debate.
