When Jim Wallace of the Australian Christian Lobby tweeted on ANZAC Day that whatever the ANZACS fought for “..it wasn’t gay marriage or Sharia Law”, I was one of the thousands on twitter and elsewhere who gave him what could loosely be called a serve.

It was a loathsome thing to say at any time, but on that day, to co-opt the spirit of dead teenagers even more shamelessly than the AFL does each year, he deserved every bit of bile that was spat his way.

Wallace later apologised, sort of, and deleted the offending tweet, but as we all know, once you tweet something it’s out there forever. Then he spent a good few days qualifying and prevaricating and issuing what was duly reported by the MSM as an “unreserved apology”, despite the blatant reservation it included.

What was interesting was the squawking from Bill Muehlenberg of the Australian Family Association, a delightful little organisation that promotes hatred of gays, lefties, Muslims, women, and just about everyone else who isn’t Bill Muehlenberg. I won’t sully these pages with a link to his drivel, but the crux of his argument in defence of Wallace, aside from the “gaystapo” slur, was that, apparently by excoriating him on Twitter, we were crushing free speech.

Which got me thinking about Free Speech as a concept, how it applies in the Bolt case, and how it is constantly misused by the likes of Muehlenberg to decry people who disagree with them.

The right to Free Speech is the right to say anything. It is not the right to say anything without criticism or disagreement or a boot up the date.

Jim Wallace has the right to say what he did. I have the right to say, in response, that Australia in 1915 wasn’t, in many ways, a place that we would very much recognise or even like (rape legal in marriage, Aborigines not classed as people, beards on right wingers etc) and, by the way, Jim Wallace, You Are A Fuckwit.

Likewise, Andrew Bolt’s fans have the right to say “Good on you, Jim, bloody oath”.

Which brings me to our outing last Thursday night at the Wheeler Centre. Jonathan Green, editor of The Drum and living embodiment of charm and intellect, moderated “Gagging For Freedom”, a panel discussion on free speech, which centred on the Andrew Bolt case.

Bernard Keane of Crikey, Leslie Cannold of Heath Callaway’s dreams, and Professor of Law, Jim Allen touched on the legalities, but more important were the questions raised about why exactly the complainants felt that the right thing to do was to take Bolt and News Ltd to court for Racial Vilification. Surely a more effective response would have been to write, in the Herald Sun or elsewhere, a blistering reply and raise awareness of what a piece of crap it was that Bolt had written?

Professor Allen, like anyone who knows much about the law, opined that court is absolutely the worst place to settle anything and, now that the evidence and submissions have been heard, it’s all about legal fees. If the complainants lose, they will have to pay at least two thirds of Bolt’s legal bill, which is well over a million bucks. Should they win, News are likely to go straight to the High Court, which will take the total closer to eight big ones. This is not a case anyone can afford to lose now.

Bernard Keane, who, it must be said, looks a lot like a thin Henry Rollins with better hair, took the complainants’ barrister to task for breaking Godwin’s Law (whoever raises the Nazis in an internet forum immediately loses the argument) in his opening submission, taking hyperbole to a level unseen this side of sports commentary.

Ron Merkel QC for the complainants had hoed straight into the eugenics line: this kind of thinking led to the holocaust, Oh MY God Your Honour, look he’s bayoneting a kitten as I speak (well I made that bit up, but you get the drift).

Bolt is a rabble-rouser, he’s a shoddy writer (which was deliciously exposed in court as he was forced to admit to factual error after factual error), and he’s a bully. But I am yet to be convinced that he’s a racist and stiff shit anyway if he is. He can write his stuff, and some of us can hate it and say so, and dismantle it with our own writing.

But far more people like his stuff, they agree with it, they enjoy that he somehow legitimises their anger and gives them a forum to spit it onto his comments page in Caps Lock and appalling syntax.

Which leads me to the high point of the evening: my somewhat rambling question about whether we are trying to stop Bolt dog-whistling because he has Done The Wrong Thing and influential people like him should be subject to some sort of regulation according to the Niceness meter, or because we’re scared and offended by the Mob that hears his whistle?

Is it that Bolt’s writing is offensive, vilifies people and should somehow be stopped or at least limited? Or is it that so many agree with him and are all too ready to jump to his tune?

I know I’m right and my opinions are valid, but so do the racist goons on #auspol and so, for that matter, do Catholics and Muslims and Jews and Greens and atheists and Creationists and Bill Muehlenberg; none of us, repeat, none of us has the right to impose our beliefs on any of the others.

We all have the right to believe what we want, and say what we want and we have the responsibility to accept that others can and will disagree with us.

So long as the argument is kept out of the courts and doesn’t descend into violence, that is the best that a civil society can hope for.

* * *

I’m six coffees into my Monday and I’ve just run out of cigarettes, but I cannot move for fear of missing the news: Osama Bin Laden is dead, killed in a compound outside of Islamabad.

Given that the news is about an hour old and I do not profess to be any kind of authority on the War On Terror, a couple of quick thoughts:

He doesn’t seem to have been playing much of a role lately, so I can’t see this having an impact operationally, other than that terrorist activity and unrest will spike for a while in celebration of his “martyrdom”.

He was killed inside Pakistan. It’s obvious that he was there with the assistance of elements from the security/military complex within that rapidly-disintegrating nation.

I wonder how pissed Bolt et al are that this was accomplished under Obama rather than their blundering idiot hero, Bush Jr?

Discuss.

Love to those who love us, a bus tour through Pakistan for those who don’t.

J&J Shaw

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