{"id":949,"date":"2014-04-22T08:07:47","date_gmt":"2014-04-21T20:07:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=949"},"modified":"2014-04-22T08:07:47","modified_gmt":"2014-04-21T20:07:47","slug":"bigots-are-not-always-bad-guys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=949","title":{"rendered":"Bigots are not always bad guys"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AlfG2\"<\/a>Debate is important.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t always lead us to the definitive answer, but it often takes us closer.<\/p>\n

Recently, Australia\u2019s Attorney General, Senator George Brandis, suggested \u2013 in the Australian Senate \u2013 that people should have the right to be bigots.\u00a0 And many, many people were shocked, horrified, and deeply offended by this.\u00a0 How could he say such a thing?<\/p>\n

According to my dictionary, a bigot is someone who is \u2018an obstinate and intolerant believer in a religion, political theory, etc\u2019.\u00a0 To be bigoted is to be \u2018unreasonably prejudiced and intolerant\u2019.\u00a0 Perhaps not surprisingly, few people consider themselves to be bigots.<\/p>\n

Since taking office in 2013, Mr Brandis has devoted himself to reforming the section of the Racial Discrimination Act that forbids people from offending, insulting or humiliating a person or group on the basis of their racial or ethnic origins.\u00a0 By all accounts, Mr Brandis believes that the Act inhibits free speech.\u00a0 And Mr Brandis does not think that this is something which the Australian government \u2013 or any government, for that matter \u2013 should do.<\/p>\n

Mr Brandis is not the first person to hold this view.\u00a0 In varying degrees, John Milton, Baruch Spinoza, Voltaire, John Stuart Mill, and many others, have been of a similar mind.<\/p>\n

Spinoza was of the opinion that people should be allowed to think<\/em> what they think and say<\/em> what they think.\u00a0 And, if you disagree with what others say, you should have the right to put forward you own view \u2013 but not the right to silence those whose opinions you don\u2019t share.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s interesting, isn\u2019t it?\u00a0 When adherents of anthropomorphic global warming tell their less-sure opponents \u2013 emphatically \u2013 that \u2018the science is settled\u2019, they are, by definition, being bigots.\u00a0 They are being obstinate and they are being intolerant of other opinions.\u00a0 And yet it is the deniers who are generally labelled as bigots.<\/p>\n

I have a notebook (it started out on paper, but now it is digital) in which I jot down the (to me) interesting thoughts of others.\u00a0 One such thought comes from the economist Paul Krugman.<\/p>\n

\u2018If you hear that \u201ceveryone\u201d supports a policy,\u2019 he says, \u2018whether it\u2019s a war of choice or fiscal austerity, you should ask whether \u201ceveryone\u201d has been defined to exclude anyone expressing a different opinion.\u2019<\/p>\n

It seems to me that the bigots are not always the bad guys.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Debate is important.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t always lead us to the definitive answer, but it often takes us closer. Recently, Australia\u2019s Attorney General, Senator George Brandis, suggested \u2013 in the Australian Senate \u2013 that people should have the right to be … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/949"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=949"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/949\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":950,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/949\/revisions\/950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}