oliviapierson.org Free Thought Advocate - reason, freedom, beauty
  • New Book: "Western Values Defended"
  • Blog
  • About

Kiwis Just Put Their Money Where Their Mouths Are

18/7/2018

2 Comments

 
Picture
By Olivia Pierson
[First published on Incite Politics 12/7/18]

The response to the brand new NZ Coalition for Free Speech asking for donations to bring judicial proceedings against Auckland Council for denying Stefan Molyneux and Lauren Southern a taxpayer-funded venue to speak in has been surprisingly heartening!  The required 50k was raised in 24 hours (actually quite a lot more).

What this shows is how ready Kiwis are to literally put their money where their mouths are.

Almost nothing is as important as the law of free expression in our nation, for on it hang all our other freedoms. Free speech and free thought are inextricably bound; to censor speech legally by making certain views or utterances a crime is exactly the same impetus as seeking to prosecute citizens for thought crimes.  

The Englishman and political philosopher John Locke was the intellectual founding father of America’s founding fathers. America’s foundational documents are laced with Lockean language, and we know he was the great breeze of inspiration that filled the sails of Thomas Jefferson’s broad mind.

Locke and Jefferson, born a century apart, were the two men most responsible for bringing ‘liberalism’ to the modern western world. Liberalism equates to individual liberty, and should not be conflated with anything resembling ‘progressivism’ which always calls for more government interference around matters of personal liberty, not less.

When writing his “Act for Establishing Religious Freedom” for America, Jefferson explains the broader principle for freedom of speech, which he gleaned from Locke: 

Truth is great and will prevail if left to herself; that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate; errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them.
quote.
This is where Phil Goff and his ilk go awry in their thoughts and actions. They fear something they shouldn’t from views that they personally find repugnant, but instead of taking actions to intelligently counteract the views, they arrogate power to themselves to stop those views from even being expressed. Free argument and debate are the natural weapons we possess to fight error where it is exists. They are also the only method of opposing ideas without resorting to force or violence.

As an important side note, the couple who were shut down from speaking, Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux, do not actually hold dangerous or repugnant views; they hold perfectly rational classical liberal views – and had they been allowed to speak that would have been made clear.

Goff & co, through their authoritarian opposition to the speaking engagement, actually managed to vilify and smear the duo in our press just because they happen to be provocative. Provocateurs are as meaningful in our modern civilisation as they were in France and England during Voltaire’s time, or in ancient Athens during the time of Socrates.

If they had any sense of honour, Goff, Seymour, Bridges, Davidson, the pathetically thin-skinned Muslims and all the other public figures who piled on to insult the duo, should apologise for seriously misrepresenting what the duo stand for. Lauren and Stefan hold views that are widely held by millions and millions of people around the western world – and this is the real reason why they are often so stiffly opposed by progressive globalists, for their views are becoming more paramount.

When Thomas Jefferson became president for the first time in 1801, and after a bitter election full of muckraking and slander between Republicans and Federalists, he spoke these words to the people in his first inaugural speech:

If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.

That is the very spirit of true liberalism.

Let the benevolent principles of Locke and Jefferson guide us, not the small-minded authoritarianism of Stalin and Mao.
​

If you enjoyed this article, please buy my book "Western Values Defended: A Primer" ​ 

​
2 Comments
Doug Longmire
19/7/2018 01:28:26 pm

Well said Olivia.
I was absolutely appalled at the attitude of the mainstream media towards this issue, in particular the total falsehoods (lies actually) told about Lauren Southern. Wendyl Nissin was one particular example.
And how often did we hear the comment (from Goff and other critics) along the lines of :- "Yes - of course we support Free Speech, BUT ......." and the "BUT" means that the speaker does NOT support free speech.
As put very clearly by Lindsay Perigo and others free speech is FREE SPEECH. There are no BUTs.
PS - I have bought your book and I recommend it highly, reviewed on Amazon

Reply
Olivia
21/7/2018 12:04:15 am

Thanks Doug for the review - appreciate it!

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    The Ridiculous Row over Blackface
    Trump Delivers the Antidote to the Toxic Left
    The Left is the Enemy of the Free World
    Casual Racism is Healthy
    Phil Gifford Writes Cam Slater Deserves his Stroke: The Compassionate Left speaks
    Politics & War
    Ardern & Peters Rule in Darkness
    Brexit Won then Stymied, Thanks to Nigel Farage
    A Tale of Two Revolutions
    Reject the UN Global Migration Pact!
    Steve Bannon and The Movement
    Saving Free Speech from Profa, by Lindsay Perigo
    The Trump Trigger
    Letter to Immigration NZ: Asylum for Asia Bibi
    The Murderers Exchanged for Bergdahl Fight on for the Taliban
    The Postwar Hangover
    Schumer and Pelosi: Two Bad Faith Sewer Rats
    Of Truth and Human Decency: to Speak, to Hear. By Graham Hill
    Khashoggi and Middle Eastern Grotesqueries
    Postmodernism, not Humanism, Eroded our Cultural Values
    Heroic & Future Oriented: President Trump's U.N Speech 2018
    How the Enlightenment Ends: by Henry A Kissinger
    Dr. Christine Blasey Ford: An Emotional Cloud of Camouflage
    The #MeToo's Attempted Castration of Kavanaugh
    Casual Remarks about Trump's Assassination now Commonplace
    Obama & Biden: Any Excuse to not Move on
    The Deep State Resistance is Real
    McCain's Brand of Patriotism is Questionable
    An Evening with Douglas Murray & Cornel West: Polarised
    There is no Measure for Hate Speech
    Where are all the Literal Fascists?
    The Angry, Very, Very Angry Hazim Arafeh
    Of Godfathers and Presidents
    Kiwis Just Put Their Money Where Their Mouths Are
    Victor Hugo: the Soul of Politics
    Free Speech Coalition NZ is Launched: Media Release
    Phascist Phil and Islamophascists Ban Stefan and Lauren: by Lindsay Perigo
    The Fault Line Tommy Robinson's Imprisonment Exposes
    Hating Your President More than Loving Your Country
    Letter From Tommy Robinson in Prison
    The Human Rights Commission & Free Speech
    The War on Beauty (guest post by Ed Cline)
    Swamps & Vipers
    Ding, Dong, Devoy Is Gone—but Her Evil Flourishes Everywhere! (Free Tommy Robinson!) by Lindsay Perigo
    The Pathetic Palestinians
    The Bad Deal Iran Never Honoured
    NZ Racism & Unearned Guilt
    For Anzac Day: The Lost Generation
    The Red-line of Chemical Weapons
    Syria: the Makings of a Sustained Foreign Entanglement
    The Atavistic Impulse to Tear Down History
    A World where Men are not Angels
    The Philosophical Side of Politics
    A Couple of Brilliant Battle-axes: Rand and Paglia
    Obama: an Extraordinary Apprising
    The Gift of Colonialism
    Satire Died a Quick Death in New Zealand
    Fottles, Fatwas and Free Speech: Guest Post by Lindsay Perigo
    The Female Matrix - take the Red Pill!
    History is a Harsh Mistress
    America Never was "a Nation of Immigrants"
    Guest Post by Ed Cline: Malice Aforethought, an Exercise in Impotence
    Thank God It Left NZ - Can We Please Have Peterson Instead?
    Jacinda Ardern as Inspiring as Benazir Bhutto?
    Oprah: A Coloured Woman or a Woman?
    Lessons from Lincoln
    Jayda Fransen - Doing the Lord's Work
    Feminist Foreign Policy - Sweden's 'Screwtape' Initiative
    President Trump - One Year In
    NZ Herald Oozes anti-Trump Psychobabble
    Anna Netrebko Graces Auckland
    The Spiritual Experience
    Massey University Spreads Trump Derangement Syndrome
    An Intellectual Debt Owed to cicero
    Bravo President Trump!
    The Problem with Women
    The President's burden
    Guest Post by Jennifer Grossman: Date the Atlas, Not the Shrug
    The West has Brought this upon Itself
    Europe Welcomes Returning isis fighters back home
    We Must Speak Freely - it's Holy Ground!
    climate alarmism is the opiate of the people
    Guest Post - Trump vs The Filth: 100 Days In, Trump is Winning! By Lindsay Perigo
    Marine Le Pen a Nationalist? You Say that like it's a bad thing
    The Assad Regime is Secular, My Foot
    Hager Tryng to Mess with the Big Boys Again. Yawn
    Ayaan Hirsi Ali vs the Muslimas Downunder
    Rape Culture Carping
    New Zealand Lashed by Constant Race Relations Propaganda
    International Women's Whining Day
    New Zealand Media Afflicted with Bad Case of TDS
    Of Giants, Syndromes & the New Zealand Way
    Letter to My Prime Minister, Bill English: Re Murray McCully's Appalling Actions
    2016: The Year of the Bold Iconoclasts
    A Crisis Averted
    On the Eve of the Election, from Downunder: Dear America...
    The Puritans of the Republic Clutch at their Pearls
    Civilization's Precondition - Freedom from restrictions imposed by others
    Guest Post by Edward Cline - Review: Western Values Defended - a Primer
    I, Clinton.
    "Terrorism Has no religion?" - don't be absurd, ms. devoy!
    Feminists, not men, lead the war against women
    Why Trump Deserves to Win the American Election
    The Beautiful Lady in the Middle - Hypatia of Alexandria
    a republic, madam, if you can keep it
    Multiculturalism's treachery
    Heroes of the Enlightenment (Film)
    Religion & State got a Divorce (thank goodness)
    Elizabeth I: High Renaissance Queen
    Why Sneer at Capitalism?
    Unity through Diversity Equals Cultural Death
    What was The Enlightenment?
    stability over insanity in Iraq... yeah, right.

    Post Archives

    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    January 2015
    August 2014

    RSS Feed

    Links to Other Blogs

    TrueblueNZ
    Solopassion
    Edward Cline Blogspot
    Whaleoil
    The Rule of Reason
    Ann Coulter's Blog
    Mark Steyn Online
    Breitbart
    ​
    Not PC Blogspot
    Newberry's Cipher
  • New Book: "Western Values Defended"
  • Blog
  • About