Little Truth Does He Know

By Olivia Pierson
​[First published on Incite 1/5/19]

Our current Minister of Justice Andrew Little, wrote a very cunningly crafted article for the NZ Herald titled: “Hate speech threatens our right to freedom of speech.”

Note how the title is designed to appease we freedom of speech absolutists, by stating what we have been saying all along. This is of course, the absolute problem with introducing hate speech laws into New Zealand, a problem which, as it happens, Little himself is seeking to impose on us. 

What a sneaky little man he is, trying to appear as though he understands our point of view when really, he is the one who wants to oppose us by force. Machiavelli springs to mind.

In his article, Little commits the classic cliche of weasel-word wizardry which is always a dead give away of somebody who is hostile to freedom of speech: ‘I agree with the importance of freedom of expression, but...’

"The New Zealand Bill of Rights Act affirms our right to freedom of expression, including the right to impart and receive opinions of any kind. Protecting freedom of speech is crucial to our democracy. But, in the immediate wake of the March 15 mosque attacks, many citizens from minority ethnic and religious communities told of how opinions and statements they routinely see on social media and other public platforms, make them feel threatened, unwelcome and alienated."

Citizens from minority ethnic and religious communities means Muslims of course.
So here, Little is trying to make the case that because some Muslims (or even many) feel threatened, unwelcome or alienated (whatever that means), our freedom of speech needs to be legislated against.

Sensitive feelings are being made an actual reason to trump our natural rights; rights which are not given to us via the likes of Little and all the other would-be globalist tyrants who worship at the freedom-crushing altar of the United Nations, but rather, are given to us by natural law via the hand of our Creator, whether folks believe that creator to be nature or nature’s God.

Our justice minister needs to read his Cicero. 

The great Roman statesman and political philosopher wrote over 2000 years ago what the foundation for jurisprudence was:

True law is correct reason congruent with nature, spread among all persons, constant, everlasting.
[Cicero – On the Republic, 66 BC]

Roman jurisprudence, with its emphasis on natural law, was so richly detailed and considered that it formed the basis of jurisprudence throughout the European Renaissance. It formed the structural pillars of English jurisprudence (a millennium after Cicero), and also went on to form the core axioms of sound political reasoning for the justification of the American Revolution and the framing of the new Constitution. Here’s Thomas Jefferson:

A free people claim their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.
[Thomas Jefferson – Rights of British America, 1774]

As Justice Minister, I wonder if Little understands any of this. 

In trying to tamper with our natural rights, Little and his officious bosses are messing with something much greater than themselves. Much greater than the minuscule amount of time they will spend in office. They’re seeking to mess with something universal and deeply historical. Something we citizens know they do not have the right to give to us and our children, nor take away.

If they arrogate that kind of tyrannical power to themselves, it most certainly will breed seething civil strife and virulent hatred in a citizenry that they are meant to listen to, defend and honour.

Little goes on to pose some questions in his article: Is it right that we have sanctions against incitement of disharmony on racial grounds but not, for example, on grounds of religious faith?

Our Bill of Rights does not legislate against the weak-spirited notion of disharmony. That silly terminology comes to us via the Human Rights Act.  And racial grounds are a far cry from religious faith, since one can do absolutely nothing about one’s ethnic blood, whereas religion is a choice of world-view and ideology.  There exists a world of difference between accidental biology and voluntarily chosen ideas. 

Even so, a law in keeping with natural rights ought not to come down against speech, even if that speech is insulting or disharmonious.  The law needs to focus only on coming down heavily against acts of violence, for on that score there is truly a real victim of a real crime and that should not be tolerated.

Then Little tries on another weasel-word ‘but’ cliche and tacks on the horror of WWII to try and add weight to his weak argument:

The Declaration upholds freedom of thought and religion and the right to hold opinions “without interference”. But, forged in an international effort determined to eliminate the hatred and discrimination that drove World War II, it also called on us all to act towards one another in a spirit of “brotherhood”, and affirmed the right of every person to be protected against discrimination.

Discrimination was not the primary driver of WWII – it was the result of appeasing an evil regime which lied and deceived its way into being elected on the basis that Germany was some poor little mistreated victim. The discriminatory 1935 Nuremberg laws were enacted two years after the Nazi Party came to power. 

One year later Hitler broke the Treaty of Versailles and militarised the Rhineland (1936) without being confronted by a deterrent from the rest of Europe. 

Two years later (1938), the European powers including Britain, led by the appeaser Neville Chamberlain, agreed to the cession of the Sudetenland (Czechoslovakia) to Germany, instead of forcing Germany to be confronted by a deterrent. 

After the Munich Agreement, which Chamberlain authored and signed, a disgusted and prophetic Winston Churchill wrote in a letter to former Prime Minister Lloyd George: 

​“England has been offered a choice between war and shame. She has chosen shame, and will get war.”

For Little to summarise tritely that hatred and discrimination were the drivers of WWII is a strange piece of unhistoric humbug. It’s like saying that discrimination drives psychopaths to rape and murder young girls. No! They do it because they are morally twisted and they wager that they will get away with it, since young girls are too powerless to stop them.

“Drawing the line is not simple” Little continues. “Protecting freedom of speech that challenges authority and orthodoxy will inevitably still cause offence to some.”

So what? Being offended is not an argument, it’s just a feeling which should not set a precedent for anything. Drawing the line is incredibly simple. These freedom-crushers seek to complicate matters in order to justify their morally flawed meddling.  The line is clear between speech and violence. Speech is allowed, violence is not.

Should it happen to be contested in a court of law, defamation is allowed if what is being said is true. Defamation is not allowed if what is being said is not true hence libel and slander laws, there to protect reputation. 

What makes our government extremely nervous is that the criticism of Islam in Western countries very often highlights aspects of the religion which are at odds with our way of life – and they are true criticisms: Female genital mutilation, wife beating, acid attacks, honour killings, rape and jihad against Western civilian life. 

These are the new curses of modern European civilisation as a result of all that immigration from the Islamic world. Many Kiwis have been paying attention. We can see that the more Western governments refuse to deal with these new and imported atrocities, the more acts of violence toward Muslims will steadily grow and where will it all end?  Nowhere good.

While these things have been happening all over Europe, when they happen to be pointed out by some realist who has the nerve to be upfront about them, the backlash is quick and the parroting of sentiments like this are hysterically exclaimed: “But not all Muslims do those things, most of them are peaceful!” 

That may be true. But far too many Muslims do repair to these terrible acts, even when their numbers are comparatively small (under 5%) in European countries. 

The pattern then is for Western governments to clamp-down on freedom of speech laws. Blunt (but truthful) expressions of criticism become framed as “hate speech” and these acts cannot be described truthfully anymore, nor can the regularity with which they occur be brought to the fore. 

That is the coupling that Kiwis are afraid of – as they should be.  This is what the likes of Little can never bring themselves to be honest about. It is what his ilk fears the most – the truth. This is why they seek to shut down freedom of speech. 

Since Little saw fit to bring up WWII, the odd thing is this: I can easily make remarks about Germans in WWII by saying something like, “The Germans treated Jews like animals by torturing and killing them in concentration camps during the Holocaust.”

Nobody interjects with hysterical yelling, “Not all Germans were like that! Many of them were peaceful and were not even Nazis!” 

That would be an accurate statement of truth.  The problem is that far too many Germans did do the actual bidding of the Nazis, either voluntarily or by force. That also is an accurate truth and should always have the benefit of being allowed to be said, lest we forget.

Little ends his article with these words:

Protecting our crucially important right to freedom of speech, while testing whether the balance is right regarding “hate speech”, needs a robust public discussion from all quarters. This way we will ensure that all of our citizens’ rights are protected, and every person can express their humanity without fear.

He simply does yet another equivocation about freedom of speech. There is no testing needed to see if some mythical “balance” is right. Freedom is not meant to be bloody balanced! What makes for a just society is having the scales of justice always tipped in favour of individual freedom and liberty.  Violence and force against life, liberty and property should always be met with swift and strong punishments via the law.

If our Bill of Rights needs any adjustment at all, it should only be to remove Article 4 which allows for it to be trumped by other legislation like for example, the Human Rights Act.  That is its monumental flaw and is how this government will legislate against our freedom of expression, as has already happened in the UK, Germany, France, Australia and beyond.

I’m sure Little will get his wish for this topic to be subjected to robust public discussion from all quarters.  But the very fact that it is he who has called for our freedom of speech laws to undergo an immediate review after the Christchurch massacre, says everything regarding his opportunistic intentions to see it curbed.  

The horror of that mass murder is no fair excuse for our government to become hostile to our natural rights as free citizens. 


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

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