Guest post by Alec Rawls
Andrew Bolt has been blogging for the past week about the totalitarian tendencies in the just released “Media Inquiry” commissioned by Australia’s Labor government.
This “Finkelstein Report” advocates unlimited regulation of virtually all published and broadcast speech in Australia.
The actual proposal can be scanned in a few minutes (pages 290-300 here). It would set up a 21 member News Media Council, charged to enforce at least some level of oversight:
While the setting of standards should be left to the News Media Council, they should incorporate certain minimum standards, such as fairness and accuracy [§ 11.52, p. 291].
But there is no corresponding limit on how much the Council is allowed to regulate. Just the opposite, the Report explicitly declares that protecting freedom of speech is not part of the Council’s mission! §11.55, p. 292:
The News Media Council requires clearly defined functions. It is not recommended that one of them be the promotion of free speech. There are ample bodies and persons in the community who do that more than adequately.
Really? In a country that has no constitutional or statutory protection for speech, how are non-governmental “bodies and persons in the community” more than adequate to protect speech from a governmental body that is endowed with unlimited power to regulate speech?
The report explicitly calls for opinion to be regulated along with news (§11.64, p. 294) , and while low-readership blogs would possibly be exempted, Bolt notes that the suggested threshold for regulation would cover any blog that averaged even one reader a day, and even that would be at the complete discretion of the Council (§11.59, p. 293).
In addition to making whatever rules they want, the Media Council will also sit in judgment (§11.70, p. 296):
If not resolved informally, complaints should be dealt with by a complaints panel consisting of one, three or, only in exceptional cases, five members of the News Media Council.
Envisioned remedies (§ 11.74, p. 297-8) include forced corrections, forced withdrawals, and forced publication on the offender’s website of contrary views.
Crime and punishment
Elsewhere the Media Inquiry makes perfectly clear which views are to be corrected: global warming skepticism and criticism of the Labor government.
Skeptics could even be forced to take their own views down and post contrary views in their place. Just impose all the contemplated remedies at once, and why not? There are no stated limits. There are no limits on scope: that political speech is to be granted wide play, or even whether challengers for office must submit to oversight on their claims about the incumbent regime. Neither are any procedural limits imposed. The Council can make up whatever rules it wants. And if people refuse?
Failures to comply (§11.77, p. 298) are to be turned over to existing courts (civil or criminal not specified) which would be called upon to punish non-compliance as contempt of court (i.e. running fines or jail until compliance is forthcoming). In other words, unlimited punishment.
In the name of efficiency there are to be no “internal” or “external” appeals (§278, p. 299), but judges deciding on contempt charges would be allowed to review Council rulings if they feel that their dockets are not full enough already (§11.79, p. 299).
Orwellian “benefits”
§11.86 (p. 300) lists the proclaimed benefits that justify this system of unlimited regulation. Compared to the barbaric system of liberty, where people compete to offer the most convincing arguments, having the government be the arbiter of truth will:
[enable] the public to have confidence that journalistic standards will be upheld and that complaints will be resolved without fear or favour.
Yes, government is well known to never play favorites, and Solomonic power is famous for its even handed wisdom: “Cut the baby in half!” Liberty is way overrated.
Solomon did not actually cut the baby but we can be certain that this 21 member Council, all appointed by a single “independent committee” (like the authors of the Finkelstein report!), would be an abattoir.
“Independent” the report clarifies (§11.46, p. 291), means “Independent from government” (emphasis added), and yet it is to have the power of government. In other words, it is to have unaccountable power, and this independence from accountability is to be conferred upon a well known permanent Labor constituency, Universities Australia, which would get to appoint a majority of the “independent committee.”
Thus the entire enterprise would have the great virtue (from the Labor point of view) that unlike the sitting government, the voters cannot “throw the bums out.” Here the appointing committee and the appointed Council will violate the fundamental principle of republicanism as articulated by Alexander Hamilton, who appealed at the New York Convention that:
The true principle of a republic is, that the people should choose whom they please to govern them.
Too bad the Australian Constitution also lacks a republican guarantee.
The final punctuation mark on Finkelstein’s plan, the last proclaimed benefit of allowing dissidents to be swallowed whole by the Ministry of Truth, is timeless virtue:
Enhancing the public flow of information and the exchange of views.
“War is peace,” and “we’ve always been at war with Eastasia.” As Brendan O’Neill writes in The Australian:
…we’re witnessing the unravelling of many of the values and virtues of the modern era.
All in a knee-jerk snit over the fact that the left-dominated media does not yet have a complete publishing monopoly. Dissenting voices can still be heard, and Finkelstein finds that very disturbing.
Negative liberty: non-existent in Australia and in peril in America
To an American, what is most striking about the Australian plan is the complete absence of any statement of negative rights, or freedom from restrictions on speech. Our entire concept of free speech is framed in negative terms: “Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech.” The Australians have no constitutional protection for speech, but it is still astounding to see how readily the left would overthrow this pillar of Western liberty in exchange for partisan advantage.
The same totalitarian ambitions are at work in America too. They face greater legal obstacles here, but key actors are powerfully placed. Obama’s “regulatory czar” Cass Sunstein wants to use the system of “notice and takedown” from copyright law to shut down “conspiracy theories.” As an example, he wants to suppress claims that:
the theory of global warming is a deliberate fraud.
If SOPA had passed then all of the necessary machinery would have been in place, ready to expand from copyright infringement to the suppression of conspiracy theories at the drop of a one-line rider on any bill. At that point our freedom to speak our minds would lie in the hands of Sunstein booster Elena Kagan (who brought Sunstein to Harvard, calling him “the preeminent legal scholar of our time”); the racist Sonya Sotomayor (a long-time member of La Raza, or “the race“); and a borderline Court-majority of similar un-worthies.
We dodged a bullet and it looks like Australia will too, given how well the Finkelstein report is being received down under, but dodging bullets is a precarious business. If we don’t somehow manage to effect a fundamental retrenchment of liberty it won’t be long before we lose it.
Last week I wrote to the Prime Minster Julia Gillard, Senator Stephen Conroy, and my local MP as follows:
————————————————– INCLUDED TEXT
REGARDING: Finkelstein Independent Media Inquiry recommendations
Dear Prime Minister,
I have just been reading about the recommendations of the recent Finkelstein Independent Media Inquiry.
I’m a really calm, logical, sensible, conservative sort of chap. But if your government adopts such dreadful recommendations that restrict the freedom of speech of ordinary Australians, well, not only will the Australian Labor Party) earn my undying opposition but you will also turn me into a political activist.
Surely the ALP doesn’t want to do anything so silly as to turn people like me into political activists?
Does the ALP really believe it can control the people’s right to speak? You need to tell your colleagues Prime Minister: tell ’em they’re dreaming! Its a bad idea. Its bad policy. Its political death for the ALP if you are seen to be removing people’s basic rights.
Please allow me to remind you of something:
“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”
— Article 19 of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights
We are a signatory. That should be the end of the discussion.
Yours sincerely,
etc
The only thing Andrew Bolt was convicted of was thought crime. And for that you ought to be ashamed.
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
LazyTeenager says: ” Yep. Let’s take a lesson from history. The Nazi Party was elected to office via lying, cheating and manipulation. The lesson to be learn’t (sic) is that freedom of speech that allows unlimited rights to lying cheating and manipulation is a bad idea…”
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What inane ignorant thoughts, well reflecting your choosen handle. Hitler used the leftist writing of Max Weber to institute rule by decree, which is percisely what this Aussie “Ministry of Truth” proposal is striving for. In the marketplace of free ideas, lying, cheating, and manipulation has to swim against truth. The debate between CAGW advocates and skeptics is an example of how the small independent grass root skeptics, in the internet of free ideas, are steadily winning the debate against CAGW advocates who have hundreds of times the funding. Peter Glick, Mann, Hansen, and other members of the team are a prime example of how lying, cheating, and manipulation only work when free speech is supressed.
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep arguing over what is for dinner. Our aim is to have the same argument but with a well-armed sheep. — Benjamin Franklin
Another evil force is still with us, appealing to the fools in our midst, especially the angry young ones.
SPM says:
March 15, 2012 at 8:10 pm
jim says:
March 15, 2012 at 6:29 pm
My Dad passed last year. His favorite t-shirt had a picture of a pile of guns on it. You know, the ones the aussies confiscated about ten years ago. I think it was an nra t, but I’m not sure. I’ll have to see if mom still has it. Anyway, He always preached that the reason they were taking the guns away, was to restrict free speech. He kept waiting for it to happen. I find his wisdom remarkable. Take care of your house, Australia.
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Here’s an example of your free speech, Jim.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Arthur_massacre_%28Australia%29
And to borrow a line from Jay above :
Go F**K yourself with your AK47.
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Nowadays, the only members of the public that are armed in Australia are the bikie gangs … an AK47 is childs-play for them. Pictures of their captured arms caches are unbelievable as is the identification with many of the proponents being ex-Iraq military personal … that came here as illegal immigrants. The police force is petrified of them !
They will hang themselves with their own words. Problem is, people need to be made aware of these what these persons say. I go by the supposition that 50% of the people are uninformed (such as misinformed, don’t know exists, heard something different, believe the lies, etc.). You can more or less add on ‘stupid’ to this group where they can’t differentiate or zealous bigots.
When government no longer fears the people, a tyranny it becomes. You must show through demonstrations that you are aware. Doing that will simultaneously inform the ignorant, as well as, inform the would-be-tyrants, there are peoples willing to act. No one likes to have something taken away, everyone likes to get stuff. Which is why the conversation is couched in what people will receive. Inform them what they will lose. Explain that without this report, those voices for which it pretends to speak, are already heard. Net result is a loss.
LazyTeenager says: ” Yep. Let’s take a lesson from history. The Nazi Party was elected to office via lying, cheating and manipulation. The lesson to be learn’t (sic) is that freedom of speech that allows unlimited rights to lying cheating and manipulation is a bad idea…”
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Yet another appallingly ignorant claim… Hitler got into power by declaring a state of emergency when his own group burnt the Reichstag. He also had in possession a private army of thugs to intimidate people and so on. 70 percent of the German people *voted against* Hitler in the national elections… to suggest he got into power because of his undue media influence… honestly. It’s worrying what teenagers know about the world or history…
As a completely stunned Australian I am now discussing the likelihood of whether ‘publishing’ your own Tshirt (eg I love CO2) would be regulated?
another potentially very expensive result of the CAGW scam:
16 March: Ninemsn Australia: Qld flood report strengthens case: lawyers
Maurice Blackburn partner Rod Hodgson said the report, including its finding that Wivenhoe Dam’s operating manual was breached during the disaster, confirmed victims’ suspicions.
“… too much water was allowed to accumulate in Wivenhoe Dam and the strategy for water releases was botched,” Mr Hodgson told reporters after the report’s release on Friday.
“This extraordinary report says that beyond any doubt that dam was not operated the way it should have been.”
He said the findings gave the firm confidence to recommend a class action to any flood-affected businesses, community groups and home owners downstream from the dam.
But he said a class action was not a fait accompli.
“Further investigation work is needed to be done,” Mr Hodgson said.
“The investigations need to include how much difference to the flood level the proper operation of the dam would have made.
“We sense that it would have made a significant difference, but we need to conduct independent hydrodynamic modelling.”
He said he expected that would take some months…
Ipswich Councillor Paul Tully said the report was not the whitewash he’d expected.
“It is quite explicit. It really opens the doors for a class action,” he said.
“It is an opportunity for people who were not insured and lost everything to be able to recover something.”…
The lawsuit could potentially run into the billions…
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/floods/8436441/qld-flood-report-strengthens-case-lawyers
It appears the attempt to regulate blogs may be illegal.
http://www.australianclimatemadness.com/2012/03/legal-advice-sinks-bloggers-finkelsteinian-nightmare/
It will be interesting to see if they ignore the law.
SPM says:
March 15, 2012 at 9:09
Typical foul mouth. You hate and I emphasize the word hate, Andrew Bolt because he is understood by the ordinary people in the street in Australia. He tells it like he sees it, and you can’t stand that but others appreciate his commonsense. He took on the cabal of leftist academics, the demigods you put on a pedestal despite them lying in their reconstruction of history, and challenged them to put up or shut up. They could, not because they were wrong, their lies didn’t hold water or stand scrutiny.
You and your like can’t stand being bested, you want the mailed fist of radical power to achieve your agenda, right or wrong, you don’t care, Its the cause and you don’t want to ask, happy to use anything, lies, force,violence to achieve your own ends, a veritable white ant munching away at the structure of the country. so cop a bit of your own slop!
The climate change argument is a new form of Lysenkoism the purpose of which is to achieve Marxist Revolution without War. Until 1997, it even appeared to be true despite Hansen’s outrageous claim in 1981 that present GHG warming is 33 K, when he concatenated lapse rate and the much lower real GHG warming [~9 K].
However after 1997, the subject has been based on altering past data: hockey stick and the ongoing reduction of past temperatures to pretend modern warming is unprecedented. In parallel with this the left, uniquely in politics in association with the right in the form of the carbon traders and windmill makers, has been steadily attempting to close down free speech before the public realises it’s been conned.
In the UK there is a sea change as academics decide that the destruction of the ethos of science for political purposes has run its course and the counter revolution by the people against the rent seeking landowners, who Cameron represents, is in full cry.
As for Australia, it is the bellwether for international Marxism. To enshrine Marxist academics with the right to close down free speech would be a last desperate move with the next step being to use the threat from the Right as an excuse to delay elections.
Old England says: @ur momisugly March 15, 2012 at 5:22 pm
….Mankind has a major battle to fight and the first stages (which I believe are already underway) are to bring realisation to the public in democracies of the nature of the threat; it seems the Labour party in Australia may be bringing that realisation to the people.
We have to win this fight.
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Amen.
This fight is not just in Australia but all over. The Regulating Class lost their bid for a world government where our national sovereignty would have been ceded to an unelected group of global bureaucrats. Thankfully China and India torpedoed the “Copenhagen Treaty” in 2009. As Dr. Evans has said the Internet broke the MSMs monopoly on the news just as the printing press centuries earlier broke the Church’s monopoly. The free exchange of information is not only necessary for freedom but also necessary to prevent stagnation.
But do not think the Regulating Class has given up because they have not! World Trade Organization Director, Pascal Lamy is pushing Global Governance for all he is worth as are many other “national leaders”
http://theglobalist.com/StoryId.aspx?StoryId=5740
http://theglobaljournal.net/article/view/56/
In looking into the USSR laws against freedom of speech, I came across the following: Law and Human Rights in Russia and the USSR. According to that essay, it would seem that most of our nations have signed treaties protecting our human rights. The key section was entitled “Respect for Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms Including the Freedom of Thought, Conscience, Religion or Belief.”
I would suggest that every Aussie send reminders to their representatives, friends and the news media about how “relatively minor Soviet laws” in the hands of zealots were used to jail many literary, journalistic and philosophic critics. Reading Law and Human Rights in Russia and the USSR should remind us exactly what we stand to lose and what international treaties were put in place to protect us.
yokomo99 says:
March 15, 2012 at 5:35 pm
Is it just me or is the world becoming more and more like the world of Atlas Shrugged.
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No it is not just you. Read Climate Coup — The Politics If you want some real nightmares.
There are some people out there who want an worldwide totalitarian government using the EU as a model. Just google “Global Governance 2025” or World Trade Organization Director, “Pascal Lamy” and “Global Governance”
I’m wondering if this Finkelstein has been coordinating his message with Media Matters the way Media Matters has been coordinating their message with MSNBC? Anytime some “think-tank” dictates the lies carried by a “news organization”, the truth suffers and people are mislead into believing lies.
So is this a global effort? I personally believe it is–there’s a sense of coordination on several fronts that makes it appear almost like a conspiracy, but not as secret as a conspiracy requires; it’s there for everybody to see.
julie says: March 15, 2012 at 11:39 pm
It appears the attempt to regulate blogs may be illegal.
http://www.australianclimatemadness.com/2012/03/legal-advice-sinks-bloggers-finkelsteinian-nightmare/
It will be interesting to see if they ignore the law.
Julie, the one thing we know by now is that they always ignore the law. Whether it is the law of FOI, the law of theft, forgery. The laws of science, that the evidence must support your assertions not that you can say anything you damn well please which isn’t disproven by the facts.
In all respects, they are law breakers … of course they are going to ignore the law!
SPM says:
Andrew Bolt is a buffoon, idiot and fool.
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Coincidentally, I happen to hold the view that people who describe Bolt as above, are in fact buffoons, idiots and fools… Don’t agree with everything he writes but then again I don’t know anyone I completely agree with on most issues. But it’s interesting that your rebuttal of Bolt’s credibility is based on an ex lover who doesn’t now like him recalling events from 32 years ago. Doesn’t that say more about your credibility than his? 😉
Ian H says:
March 15, 2012 at 6:34 pm
It is a generational thing…..
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I disagree. I was of the 1965 to 1975 generation, a member of Green Peace, Sierra Club and all. But I grew up and figured out they were “wacho” organizations within a few years of graduating.
What we are seeing is just plain GREED for power and wealth. As Dr Evans stated and I figured out separately, the “Regulating Class” is getting tired of having to manipulate public opinion to get elected and stay in power. They have tried different methods and have come to the conclusion that something like the EU works best It lets the “Great Unwashed” think they have a democracy by in actuality 80% of the laws are made by an unelected bureaucracy. That is why the World Trade Organization was set up. To become the worldwide version of the EU.
George says: March 15, 2012 at 10:32 pm
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep arguing over what is for dinner. Our aim is to have the same argument but with a well-armed sheep. — Benjamin Franklin
At the time of Benjamin Franklin, the meaning of democracy was “ordinary people”. What he was actually saying is that ordinary people shouldn’t be allowed to decide things, and instead it should be up to people like him. In fact, the modern idea of voting = democracy, is a wholesale misunderstanding. Democracy actually was a system to prevent isolated power groups like institutions, wind lobbyists, greenspin, political parties, wealthy individuals from dominating in the public forum and instead allow people like you and me a real say.
Like now, the big danger was that powerful interest groups (the wolf) would buy up elections so that is why the Greeks were against elections as the following show:
It is accepted as democratic when public offices are allocated by lot; and as oligarchic when they are filled by election. (Aristotle, Politics 4.1294be)
The rule of the people has the fairest name of all, equality (isonomia), and does none of the things that a monarch does. The lot determines offices, power is held accountable, and deliberation is conducted in public. (Herodutus)
Louis Hooffstetter says:
March 15, 2012 at 7:27 pm
Australians have no constitutional protection for speech, equivalent to the 1st amendment of the U.S. constitution?
Let’s hope they have something equivalent to the 2nd amendment of the U.S. constitution.
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The gun control laws hit Australia first (1996) The totalitarians are not dumb.
LazyTeenager says:
March 15, 2012 at 8:02 pm
Let’s take a lesson from history. ….
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You would be right at home in the USSR.
In 1966, a section was added to the Soviet penal code (Article 190-1) which banned “systematic spreading… of deliberately false fabrications defaming the Soviet state and social system.” In the hands of zealous prosecutors, such an open-ended criminal offense was used to prosecute and jail many literary, journalistic and philosophic critics of even minor failures in the Soviet system.
I found the “Finkelstein Report” frightening. It strikes me as a group of people behaving in a very defencive manner. They are aware questions are being asked, and they don’t want to answer the questions. However there is a point where defenciveness becomes offencive.
It is one thing to “circle the wagons,” and defend yourself from critics. It is quite another to launch a pre-emptive strike from your circle of wagons, attempting to take out all critics, and in this manner to avoid the bother of having to answer questions.