Guest Post: The Window Is Closing, And It’s Getting Darker

A guest post by a reader:

I probably have little in common with a lot of Kiwiblog readers. I’m pro gay marriage, anti smacking, pro decriminalisation of marijuana, support increasing our military by 100% and our police by 50% and funding it via a lot more taxation, nationalising a lot of key industries, and generally could be seen as a leftie. Even worse, I’m a public servant – yes, a dreaded “trougher.”

But the fact is, in the current times, I have a lot more in common with people here than I do with my supposedly “traditional” leftie allies. And it’s all to do with freedom of speech, freedom of opinion, and censorship.

I’ve stated my opinions, but I don’t expect everybody to agree with them. I like debate. I think people can be vitriolically anti-gay. They can say they think homosexuality is evil and should be punishable by death; that’s their opinion, and they have a right to it. It’s not my opinion, and I would try my best to convince them otherwise, but I would never hold they couldn’t have their own opinion.

This “window of opinion” was as broad as could be in the 1980s. Libertarians. Anarchists. Socialists. Big “C” Conservatives. It was a time of intellectual ferment and difference of opinions. It was a child of the liberalism of the 1960s.

Today, that window has shut, and it’s getting darker. The window of acceptable opinion is so narrow nowadays it reminds me of the Victorian era; instead of whether we’re revealing an ankle, it’s whether we’re mispronouncing Taupo. The so-called liberals are about as illiberal as can be. Freedom of speech is being shut down. We cannot have the fundamental debates about what is right, what is wrong, and what’s inbetween because there is a baying crowd that has already decided. I think George Floyd was murdered for being black. Others may disagree. They have the right to their view, and the right to a civil debate.

The “safetyists” will say that there is no need for civil debate when people’s lives or safety are at risk. That’s hypocritical; they are taking it as a given that human safety is the ultimate ethical imperative, when it’s exactly the sort of thing that is open for debate. The people of Great Britain thought that defiance, democracy, and true liberalism were more important in 1940 than saving lives by surrendering to Hitler. Alexander the Great thought fairness in war was more important than achieving an easier, less costly victory by advancing at night. Humanity has always considered some virtues more important than life and safety at specific times and places. What matters is the freedom to debate which values are more important than safety at a given time. If a slave risked his life for freedom, was he doing the right thing? Modern safetyists would be contorted in knots trying to justify that action, as it would bring into conflict their own preconceptions.

I want a country – and a world – where regardless of the economic system or political system, we have the freedom to debate everything. Where ethics classes at universities can ask whether murder or slavery can ever be morally justified. Where people can protest, or not protest, without immense peer pressure.

As a public servant, I value my political neutrality, but it is becoming harder and harder as so many politically-loaded activities (such as karakia before meetings) are loaded in and seen as “neutral” (i.e. they are so normalised now, nobody sees how political they truly are). There are examples the other way; the normalcy of capitalism, for example, is never questioned even though that is also a political, not a technical, viewpoint. When Auckland Council banned those speakers from community facilities, they were bringing politics into a bureaucratic decision.

I hope I haven’t waffled too much, but that my central point – we are losing freedom of debate – has come through. I don’t know what to do.

I’ll be voting National this year, not because I like them, but because they’re the lesser of two evils.

If Trump was here, even though I believe he’s likely a halfwit, sex offending, buffoon, I’d vote for him. Simply because I would feel my freedom of debate would be stronger under him than it would be under Ardern.

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