The SMH reports on some left wing groups trying to get this blog and this blog removed from Google’s Blogger. OK, so I may not particularly agree with all the views expressed on either blog, but this doesn’t give me a god given right to demand that they be taken down from Blogger or anywhere else for that matter. Indeed, some of the groups online jumping up and down about these two blogs have highly questionable, at least in my opinion, left wing beliefs as well, with supporters who are typical of the usual bunch of communists and Marxists you find around these sorts of “kill the fascists” style groups. Personally I find their beliefs abhorrent as well (and that’s no secret, I’m a libertarian capitalist through and through) however do we hear calls for these people to be censored online? Where’s the calls for those advocating destruction of our democratic society to be replaced by something between Cuba and North Korea to be censored? Of course in a free society they’re entitled to have their say as well, just as the 2 blogs that these people want banned. The cost of free speech may be high on either side, but we should still defend it, and indeed, it’s worth defending the most when we disagree with it. After all, any totalitarian society starts with the minority groups before its gets to the general populous, and that could well be you.
The cost of free speech may be high, but we should still defend it
I had this same issue on YouTube. I joined an “anti-racism alliance” and made a video denouncing racism in response to the huge amount of pro-nazi videos on YT. Then someone asked me to join a campaign to ban racists outright and I wouldn’t go along with it because free speech is free speech even when i don’t like the speech involved.
I titled a vid giving my reasons “Should racists be banned from YouTube?” Ironically, I now get heaps of abuse from racists who see the title but don’t watch the video and think I’m trying to have them banned.