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Right Charlies, but not Charlie

By David Leyonhjelm - posted Tuesday, 27 January 2015


18C is far from the only potential constraint. The equivalent Victorian legislation explicitly takes in religionas well as race. A smart lawyer would bring suit in Victoria, because Charlie Hebdo would probably be caught there.

The confusion of religion for race is so pervasive – even in the United States, where people ought to know better – that French people across the political spectrum have been forced to point out – while France does indeed have 'hate speech' laws – they are used to protect characteristics that people cannot change, like being black or gay.

'We do not conflate religion and race. We are the country of Voltaire and Diderot: religion is fair game,' French left radical Olivier Tonneau wrote in response to repeated claims that attacking Muhammad or Islam was racist.

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Apart from being unsupported by anything approaching evidence, hate speech laws have serious unintended consequences. Recently, UK polling firm YouGov surveyed British attitudes to Muslims, and discovered that Britons see Islam negatively, but are unwilling to say so.

In other words, governments and law enforcement have to rely on anonymised polls conducted by private firms to find out what people really think.

It's not maintainable to have partial freedom of speech. The fact that most Western countries now do makes what little freedom we still have harder to defend. Muslims who respect arguments for free speech can't help but notice our inconsistencies. Anyone who thinks they don't notice is guilty of treating people who profess a certain faith like children.

We won't be Charlie until we have purged 18C, its state-based equivalents, and the illiberal national security legislation from the nation's statute books.

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David Leyonhjelm is a former Senator for the Liberal Democrats.

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