I am wrestling with the concept of, and practice of, free speech. There are the so-called “purists” who say they will defend the right of the most aggressive, false, crude, intimidatory and hostile speeches, because they claim no one has the right to decide what is good or not with reference to speech. The constant warning is that if “You let government take control of X, they might one day take control of Y”.

Their go-to reference is J.S. Mill’s On Liberty. But Mills does not say this at all. He was interested in personal freedom of choice – that no one had an ultimate right to decide what you do personally in what we might call ‘life-choices’. But he had at least three qualifications about such liberty: (1) Those who were too young to make good decisions should not be allowed to think and act as they want. (2) Likewise, those who were not yet civil enough – those he called ‘barbaric’. (3) And those whose actions became a nuisance to others who simply wanted to go about their daily lives should try to be convinced to stop, and if that failed, then authorities should restrict them.

My further concern about the parameters of free speech is also related to a conceptual difficulty that has a massive impact on how we live together. What if the free speech is aimed at, and starts to be manifested in, tearing down that which enables free speech? As Carl Trueman noted in his review of the social theorist Marcuse: “… how far can such things as the right to free speech can be extended before free speech itself is jeopardized by the results.” (To Change All Worlds, p. 104)

That kind of self-defeating virtue signalling that Trueman describes is what I see in the language and actions of some of what is being defended in Australia today, particularly with the use of the phrase “the right to protest”. Listening to our leaders is like hearing a ship’s captain saying, “It’s OK that these passengers want to use our fuel the way they like”, even though that fuel is essential to the running of the ship. Those kinds of leaders have no idea what it means to use what they have for good. ‘Good’ to them seems to be keeping as many people as happy as they can. 

When we have groups of people calling for the death of another group, why are we surprised that some of them will act violently – first towards freedom of access to public places, then against freedom of safety and maintenance of property, then against people themselves? That is why we have one group of people who need security to simply move around their suburbs, to go to school or go to worship. This is far beyond ‘being a nuisance.’ It is literally one group’s aggression removing the freedom of others to move freely while working and living in our democracy. 

There was a clearly visible manifestation of the reluctance to call out the danger of these anti-civil protests in the first Opera House march two years ago. Even beyond the debate about what was being yelled out in clearly aggressive and threatening modes, flares are not allowed to be used in public places. But they were. Police stood and watched. No-one to my knowledge was prosecuted. Appeasement was the order of the day, and all the apologies from leaders since have been hollow, because there has been no subsequent substantive correspondence between their leadership words and actions (unless they want to take credit for a court ruling keeping the Opera House clear because of ‘safety’ – not from aggressive intimidation, but for physical crowding reasons – would they allow a chanting mob of 20 calling for the blood of those from another nation to carry on?). Want another example? How can the Prime Minister of the nation allow his office to be blocked for years without authoritative action? Again, this is far beyond the ‘nuisance’ level of Mills – it speaks to the foundational freedoms of movement and right to work. 

I suggest – strongly – that the underlying issue in this loss of confidence about what is good for civil life, in the Christian heritage, is a loss of understanding in what it means to be human. We no longer have a common mind about the essentials of our natures as individuals within community. Thus, we cannot recognise deconstructionist words that are, by definition, for any loyal leftist, focussed on tearing down what has built our democracy. And if we cannot recognise these ideological forces (that ironically create false consciousness while aiming to tear down the West’s supposed false consciousnesses) then we cannot respond constructively to those threats. 

For example, even the Human Rights Commission (Protest rights in Australia – an explainer Australian Human Rights Commission) highlights that protests are to be ‘peaceful’, even if they cause some disruption. Their ‘explainer’ notes:

The right of peaceful assembly shall be recognized. No restrictions may be placed on the exercise of this right other than those imposed in conformity with the law and which are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security or public safety, public order … the protection of public health or morals or the protection of the rights and freedoms of others. [emphasis added]

We have all seen that not all protests have been peaceful. We have all seen them systematically disrupt public order (beyond ‘reasonable disruption’). We have seen the freedoms of movement, speech and association of those who support Israel severely curtailed. But we have not seen definitive action against such grievous behaviour.

 The Human Rights site also clearly states that the right to protest is not within the Australian Constitution (a claim I hear too often) but falls within our International Covenants (did we vote on those?) and some states’ local legislation. This site about protesting does include, among other things, this clarification: “any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law.”

So, we seem unable to implement even our current commitments to freedom of expression (for and against) – in balance with the safety of all citizens.

This loss of confidence in who we are as people together is also why our leaders, who have acted in ways to let the traditions of initiative, transparency, prudence, family and faith decline, have no alternative vision in response to this growing cancer of hateful protests. It is why they are great on announcements and bereft of detail. They take no meaningful action in the face of the explicit anger and threats, despite their sometimes-affirming words of keeping all Australians safe, because they simply do not know what a good society looks like.

They are captured by the vision of decimating the past in order to correct their ideologically defined injustices, while having no preferred future. They believe in globalism, while ignoring the question of the clash of beliefs that is inherent in allowing our borders to be open to traditions that wish to tear down Western beliefs, values and lifestyle. They believe in care for the environment through the lens of alarmist activism, with no idea how to maintain affordable and sustainable energy for work and home. They desire all students to end up the same, with no idea of what is good truth is that those students should learn about. They want all disabled people to be cared for, while ignoring the realities of limited resources in the face of pragmatic diagnostic concept creep by health professionals.

And during this anniversary period of the horrific attack in Israel two years ago, their mumblings of care and concern ring as worthless while people (Jews) are still having to avoid walking freely in their neighbourhoods to the shops, work and church.

The Socialist Left has taken the motif of care and torn it apart from realities of who we are as people. Whenever they do this, they cannot be trusted. Words are simply used to push the revolution forward. This is their progress. It is why ‘progressives’ live within a deception. Their idea of improvement is actually a tearing down of what is, without any coherent alternative, beyond ‘we are taking care of you’. Thus the piggies snorted in Animal Farm.

I saw this clearly at the start of the Black Lives Matter activism. Not knowing who they were, I went to their website. They openly described how intentional their actions were because of their good training in communism. A number of weeks later, when this fact became public, they deleted that part of their website. Socialism, thy true name is deception. 

And thus God said to the Israelites, “Pray for the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.” (Jeremiah 29:7). 

When will we pray, and pray for a different wisdom to sweep through the halls of leadership in our nation? Soon, I hope.