Man charged over racial slurs/online abuse (Nic Nat)

[Tannin]

Not at all.

When you call someone the N-word, that is offensive and threatening and a breech of the peace and they have every right to seek redress. The N-word taps directly into a long and sorry history of violence and intimidation directed at that person and his family, intimidation that continues to this day.

Pretending you can use the N-word to intimidate or harass and then say "it is just my right of free speech" won't wash. If it wasn't designed to cause harm, you wouldn't use it in the first place.

The law recognises this, and (contrary to your outrageous distortion) it doesn't make it illegal to offend anyone. No law could ever stop someone taking offence or feeling intimidated. What the law can (and does) do is prevent gratuitous offensiveness directed at particular people because of the colour of their skin; offensiveness which, having regard to all of the circumstances, is likely to be seen by a reasonable person as what it is: naked, ugly racism.

[woodisgood]

[pietillidie]

The opposition to the law is a religio-legal fundamentalist paranoia with no empirical support in actual reality. As expected, society has seen zero decline in fair competition between citizens on the basis of not being able to use race to isolate and damage people. That's a zero decline in fair competition, and for those less bullied no doubt an improved sense of social safety and protection. All for the cost of something far less onerous than any number of daily commonsense constraints tolerated without notice.

Revoking the law will do only one thing: Signal a decline in the social acknowledgement and protection of minorities. Meanwhile, it goes without saying that it is a basic need for citizens, tourists, temporary workers and businesspeople in a complex multicultural world to feel socially safe and not at risk of racial violence caused by primitive human urges to isolate and persecute outgroups.

In terms of human development and enlightenment, I would rate the current Australian racial vilification law as possibly the high water mark in human history. Few other places on the planet in history have looked minorities in the eye with such a degree of comprehension, and looked in the mirror of human nature with such scientific clarity and commonsense, as to institute such protections.

The rightness of the current law cannot be assessed on the basis of a shorthand slogan we were told as children. We now know that one of the primary flaws of the primitive brain is its tendency to isolate, react towards, and indeed commit acts of violence against minorities. The science shows we are all prone to such irrationality, but mercifully the more advanced features of our brain - sometimes with the prompting of helpful social habits, signals and deterrents - override the Neanderthal within.

We also know that at the macro mob level our ability to override the primitive brain is easily lost under the slightest degree of stress or excitation. This is a risk that needs to be guarded against if we're at all serious about the safety of all within our borders; it's too late once the mob has been whipped into a frenzy to deploy rational arguments as if racial vilification has something to do with the thinking brain.

And just as violence against outgroups is a feature of human behaviour that has to be permanently constrained in some way, racial prejudice is a feature of human behaviour at no risk of extinction whatsoever; why anyone would think it needs protection is beyond me. Surely the least we can do is encode a red light in our legal system concerning the risks of racial persecution and violence, acknowledging the real safety issues and stresses minorities in a multicultural, highly compressed 21st century face daily.

Australia has done as much and is currently leading the world in this regard. To unwind such progress to satisfy a bookish, oversimplistic understanding of "free speech" is bizarre. To favour some mental legal symmetry over the actual dangers and felt stresses minorities endure, and in the face of twenty years of empirical evidence that shows the law has had no unintended negative effects whatsoever, is to miss the moral boat by a mile.

Interestingly, the favouring of mental symmetry over real human experience, and "purity" over human wellbeing, are among the classic hallmarks of fundamentalist religion. And that is exactly what opposition to this law looks like, sounds like, and quite possibly is.

[think positive]

[Wokko]

[King Malta]

[Pies4shaw]

Meh - 9 years imprisonment seems like a harsh maximum sentence, given that's more than most people ever get for manslaughter. I'd be keen to distinguish between the need for the offence and the size of the potential penalty. But, carry on.

[watt price tully]

[Piesnchess]

AND, I see Attorney General Brandis, Tonys mate, now reckons its perfectly ok to be a Bigot, and you have the right to be Bigot. Guess that makes Andrew boltheads heart leap for joy. !

[watt price tully]

[Wokko]

[David]

Out of curiosity, for all those who ardently support racial vilification laws, what do you believe is the extent to which free speech should be curtailed? Is it any speech that could cause harm, or speech that feeds into oppression? Do you think you would you be likely to favour further restrictions if proposed (if the goal were, say, protection of minorities or further prosecution of bigotry)?

[Tannin]

[Wokko]

[Tannin]