Blog description.

Accentuating the Liberal in Classical Liberal: Advocating Ascendency of the Individual & a Politick & Literature to Fight the Rise & Rise of the Tax Surveillance State. 'Illigitum non carborundum'.

Liberty and freedom are two proud words that have been executed from the political lexicon: they were frog marched and stood before a wall of blank minds, then forcibly blindfolded, and shot, with the whimpering staccato of ‘equality’ and ‘fairness’ resounding over and over. And not only did this atrocity go unreported by journalists in the mainstream media, they were in the firing squad.

The premise of this blog is simple: the Soviets thought they had equality, and welfare from cradle to grave, until the illusory free lunch of redistribution took its inevitable course, and cost them everything they had. First to go was their privacy, after that their freedom, then on being ground down to an equality of poverty only, for many of them their lives as they tried to escape a life behind the Iron Curtain. In the state-enforced common good, was found only slavery to the prison of each other's mind; instead of the caring state, they had imposed the surveillance state to keep them in line. So why are we accumulating a national debt to build the slave state again in the West? Where is the contrarian, uncomfortable literature to put the state experiment finally to rest?

Comments Policy: I'm not moderating comments, so keep it sane and go away with the spam. Government officials please read disclaimer at bottom of page.


Monday, November 11, 2013

Gender Politics / Rape Culture: The Unbearable Silencing of Willie Jackson and John Tamihere.



When she told her French friends about [why she would not attend a street protest against the communists], they were amazed. "You mean you don't want to fight the occupation of your country?" She would have liked to tell them that behind Communism, Fascism, behind all occupations and invasions lurks a more basic, pervasive evil and that the image of that evil was a parade of people marching by with raised fists and shouting identical syllables in unison. But she knew she would never be able to make them understand.

Milan Kundera: The Unbearable Lightness of Being.


I’ve run the full gamut of gender politics this month, albeit without contradiction. From my blog piece against that brand of radshitzy neo-Marxist feminism suggesting the ludicrous notion that women should not be prosecuted for making false rape complaints, to adding my voice against a rape culture that has been driven painfully, finally, into our consciousness’s by the rapists calling themselves Roast Busters. My position on that is unequivocal:


… sex without consent is rape: it doesn't matter what a woman, or worse, a girl, wears, or if she is intoxicated. In a civilised, free society a woman can expect by right to not fear rape no matter her state. Just as men can expect to be victim of no violence.


But equivocation has beset me with the silencing of Willie Jackson and John Tamihere’s radio show. I don’t listen to Willie and JT’s show; their Left politick is anathema to me. I haven’t listened to their interview with Amy, in which their attitude was apparently supporting rape culture, making me most probably as uninformed in this piece as the Commissioner of Police was when he allowed himself to be interviewed on Campbell Live. But I have this inbuilt freedom loving radar that responds to individualism, and recoils from mob group think.

Nothing surrounding the silencing of these two men breaches Libertarian philosophy in any way. Blogger Giovanni Tiso started a campaign of putting pressure on their show’s advertisers, and those advertisers submitted to it, pulling their paid time. There was no government coercion involved: every action has been voluntary … that’s the correct way to bring about change. Good on Tiso.

My trouble is, as Lindsay Mitchell aptly put it:


But it's still a disturbing example of the repercussions of thinking the 'wrong stuff' out loud.


Yes. That. On the surface, everything is right here. Real strides are being made to turn back the insidious rape culture destroying our society. And yet … and yet, in my mind there ‘lurks a more basic, pervasive evil and that the image of that evil was a parade of people marching by with raised fists and shouting identical syllables in unison.’ But I know I will never be able to make the radshitzy clique understand. Nor even the centre anymore.





Mindful that the mob believes, seriously believes, despite the lessons of history, that it owns my income, that I should not drink so much, I should not smoke, nor ensconce a high sugar-content jam. That I am owned, in other words, by them.

Individuals: we’re complicated. But long live the individual. The silencing of Willie and JT doesn't fit right with me. While there must be admonition, there must also be room for grace, learning, changing, and carrying on. What was ever solved by forcing voices into the void?




Update 1:


Below is simply a comment I’ve put up below in answer to a questioning of my approach. I reprint below simply because it explicates in some important ways, my position above. (Not in any way to ‘get at’ commenter Katie who I am delighted is, for now at least, reading my blog).


Albeit short, my piece had the nuance of Kundera's quotation, yet you've read it in a straight line, Katie.

Nowhere in my post do I admit the ultimate result was wrong, necessarily, just that it did not 'sit right with me': and because I understand the evil of the mob baying for blood, over an individualistic sensibility, it still does not fit right with me.

I vested myself mainly in the last two paragraphs, but some random points that are important to me:

A man I have been following for a long time on Twitter, a very technical, reasoned man, who's opinion I have grown a lot of respect for, has said of the interview - which I no longer have a concern to listen to - quote:

" I did listen to Amy's interview and it could easily be mostly (&properly) playing devil’s advocate to elicit all her views."

I suspect I would take that point of view over a mob that starts out bent on change, then converts to bent on retribution (that ugly thing).

Giovanni Tiso has tweeted of at least one advertiser who is angry with what has happened. That advertiser was quite willing to accept Willie and JT's apology and continue on advertising, and became quite infuriated after saying so, and themselves coming into the mob's anger fuelled frame. That was their right to accept the apology.

Back to my own stance, if I had my livelihood taken from me every time I made a mistake I'd be broke: we all would. I, too, would have been happy - if I listened to their show - with a personal apology, and thus changed behaviour. We learn from our mistakes, change, move on. Giovanni's campaign turned from light to dark, when it became a campaign not to show the presenters' they were necessarily wrong, but to seek retribution by taking their livelihoods from them.

That's my opinion, that's what would have sat right with me. But I said quite plainly that what did happen breached none of the libertarian principles I hold. Good on Tiso.

Regarding my last two paragraphs, don't ever confuse morality or the truth of an issue or fact, with having the numbers: when Galileo's lone voice stated the Earth moved around the Sun, the Catholic Church tried him for heresy: the opinion of the numbers didn't change the truth of Galileo though. So with many moral issues. That Kundera quotation is one of the wisest writings in our modern literature, informed as it is by an underlying humanity born of reasoned observation.

I hate a mob in almost every instance. It's a sensibility that is part of me. I hated being forced to play team sports at school, I keep pretty much my own company, I don’t go on street protests even for issues I care for greatly. Because the mob can so easily turn against you. And especially as this particular mob also thinks they own my income and can tell me how to live my life regardless I harm no one. That is unfortunately the fundamental basis on which our democracy is constructed, a tyranny of the majority, in the ugly face of which my single voice saying no, that is immoral, will always be the truth.

Here's an interesting question for you. Despite my vociferous condemnation of rape culture on my Roast Busters post, last year I wrote a post that defended the ability of a comedian, or person in certain circumstances, to make a rape joke (even if I would never do same). Here’s the post, does it make me guilty of the sins of Willie and JT? Am I to be run out of town by the mob also? Does it make me a misogynist? (An offensive accusation I am seeing tossed so flippantly around against anyone who puts themselves against the radshitzy cliques). 

11 comments:

  1. We may be largely talking to each other Mark, but well said. Seriously.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Cheers Lindsay.

      There's a dwindling number of us unfortunately.

      Delete
    2. Yes there is.

      http://localbodies-bsprout.blogspot.co.nz/2013/11/roast-busters-rethink.html Invercargill Green Candidates take.

      Delete
    3. Still, it can't be easy being a Green candidate in Southland?

      Delete
  2. I would like to think so.

    However, our usual idiot is away for a while.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I can see that you can see this was the result of the very voluntarism that you support, yet you reject the outcome. Can you offer a solution that doesn't rely on force?

    The oddest thing is that you seem able to lay all the dots out here but you just cannot or will not connect them. You cannot have a situation in which people can say whatever they want on the radio and be free from consequences without employing force because the only way to achieve this "freedom to be free from consequences" and "freedom to broadcast your message on a commercial radio station that doesn't want to broadcast you right now" is to bring force into play.

    Force the market participants you call a mob to shut up (revoke their freedom of expression), force advertisers to advertise and in effect endorse messages or people they don''t want their brand associated with (revoke their freedom of expression while forcing them to pay for that privilege), or force a commercial radio station to broadcast people who have caused the radio station a lot of trouble when the radio station perceives that it is not in its interest to do that.

    You might not like the result and it might remind you of outcomes you expect to see in the absence of voluntarism, but it is an outcome of voluntarism, entirely consistent with the processes you preach.

    Have you ever considered that the market you promote is also the mob you denigrate?

    What would happen if everyone else in the market stopped buying tobacco and sugary snacks? Do you think some commercial concern is going to produce these things at a loss for your benefit?

    If you can name a solution that doesn't entail force I'd be interested to read it (and "if only other people wouldn't is not a solution any more than the mob wishing you wouldn't smoke or eat sugary snacks is a solution to the concerns you attribute to them).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Albeit short, my piece had the nuance of Kundera's quotation, yet you've read it in a straight line, Katie.

      Nowhere in my post do I admit the ultimate result was wrong, necessarily, just that it did not 'sit right with me': and because I understand the evil of the mob baying for blood, over an individualistic sensibility, it still does not fit right with me.

      I vested myself mainly in the last two paragraphs, but some random points that are important to me:

      A man I have been following for a long time on Twitter, a very technical, reasoned man, who's opinion I have grown a lot of respect for, has said of the interview - which I no longer have a concern to listen to - quote:

      " I did listen to Amy's interview and it could easily be mostly (&properly) playing devil’s advocate to elicit all her views."

      I suspect I would take that point of view over a mob that starts out bent on change, then converts to bent on retribution (that ugly thing).

      Giovanni Tiso has tweeted of at least one advertiser who is angry with what has happened. That advertiser was quite willing to accept Willie and JT's apology and continue on advertising, and became quite infuriated after saying so, and themselves coming into the mob's anger fuelled frame. That was their right to accept the apology.

      Back to my own stance, if I had my livelihood taken from me every time I made a mistake I'd be broke: we all would. I, too, would have been happy - if I listened to their show - with a personal apology, and thus changed behaviour. We learn from our mistakes, change, move on. Giovanni's campaign turned from light to dark, when it became a campaign not to show the presenters' they were necessarily wrong, but to seek retribution by taking their livelihoods from them.

      That's my opinion, that's what would have sat right with me. But I said quite plainly that what did happen breached none of the libertarian principles I hold. Good on Tiso.

      Regarding my last two paragraphs, don't ever confuse morality or the truth of an issue or fact, with having the numbers: when Galileo's lone voice stated the Earth moved around the Sun, the Catholic Church tried him for heresy: the opinion of the numbers didn't change the truth of Galileo though. So with many moral issues. That Kundera quotation is one of the wisest writings in our modern literature, informed as it is by an underlying humanity born of reasoned observation.

      I hate a mob in almost every instance. It's a sensibility that is part of me. I hated being forced to play team sports at school, I keep pretty much my own company, I don’t go on street protests even for issues I care for greatly. Because the mob can so easily turn against you. And especially as this particular mob also thinks they own my income and can tell me how to live my life regardless I harm no one. That is unfortunately the fundamental basis on which our democracy is constructed, a tyranny of the majority, in the ugly face of which my single voice saying no, that is immoral, will always be the truth.

      Here's an interesting question for you. Despite my vociferous condemnation of rape culture on my Rape Busters post, last year I wrote a post that defended the ability of a comedian, or person in certain circumstances, to make a rape joke (even if I would never do same). The post is below, does that make me guilty of the sins of Willie and JT? Am I to be run out of town by the mob also?

      http://lifebehindtheirondrape.blogspot.co.nz/2012/09/of-comedy-whaleoil-kimdotcom-freedom-of.html

      Delete
  4. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  5. The ongoing problem in your response is it still doesn't reconcile the problem of the market being the mob writ large and the mob being the constituents of the market.


    People routinely lose their jobs for making mistakes. how do you feel about government or mob mandated laws that protect people from losing their jobs when they make mistakes?

    If people like Willie and JT lack the bargaining power to not lose their jobs over mistakes, where does the ordinary person stand?

    But again these two have not been silenced. They don't lack any ability to communicate that is accessible to you or me. A commercial broadcaster has decided to not broadcast them for the rest of the year (are they still being paid? possibly) because other commercial enterprises decided that associating their brand with these two would effect their marketability.

    My main objection to your point of view here is not with your discomfort with the outcome, nor even with conflating a commercial radio station not broadcasting someone with silencing them, but rather the notion that there is some fundamental difference between the mob and the market. But these advertisers didn't pull out because they were worried about the mob so much as worried about their marketability in the marketplace. The only reason "the mob" could sway the hand of advertisers is because their PR departments understand that they are just as much the market as they are the mob.

    When you say the mob shouldn't decide, how do you reconcile this with the fact that the market is the mob writ large.

    I don't think defending peoples' right to put their foot in their mouth and be offensive to a broad section of the population means you need to be run out of town, or even should necessarily lose your job, but I point out that there is no town in New Zealand that has run Willie and JT out. For reasons pertaining to the marketability, they are currently not being broadcast on this particular commercial radio station. I'm not being broadcast by that radio station either. Have I been run out of town and failed to notice?

    I also don't think your employer should be able to fire you for what you say in your free time, or even for making a single mistake on the job that you learned from, but that's an employment rights issue and if Willie and JT lack the negotiating power to protect themselves from their employer's decisions be they motivated by the mob or the market (or both since the market is the mob writ large) then where do ordinary New Zealanders who are not media celebrities stand in trying to negotiate employment contracts? On quick sand I might suggest. Yet wouldn't you leave such rights to the market, a.k.a. the mob writ large?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Katie, it's just about martini time Friday here, after a long week. So, I can give my answer to your main concern: The ongoing problem in your response is it still doesn't reconcile the problem of the market being the mob writ large and the mob being the constituents of the market.

      Quoting my post here:

      http://lifebehindtheirondrape.blogspot.co.nz/2013/05/of-market-signals-toilet-paper-and.html

      "Statists from both the Left and Right, though in every case regarding the Left, too often view the ‘free market’ as some type of cold, impersonal machine that rides cruelly over individuals, thus must be regulated by the caring hand of government. This could not be further from the truth. The market is, indeed, that most intensely personal thing: it’s you and me. It is as simple, but complex, as the expression of all the needs and desires of every individual in a market community searching for resolution, and the means by which those needs and desires are first matched, then priced and allocated as to the resources available. This wondrous social meeting place, based on the voluntary transaction, not the cold dictates of the machine of state, has increased the standard of living of all those communities that have embraced free markets, as well as bringing those communities the concomitant freedom that free markets exist on: there is no free market without freedom, and no freedom without a free market. It therefore follows, put the oafish fist of the central planner into that complex, living market place, that is, into the lives, hopes, and desires of individuals, at this crucial micro level, and despite it can take one hell of a shellacking, ultimately a market, and with it liberty, plus the community, will be destroyed."

      Delete
    2. Whoops.

      Giovanni Tiso's campaign is one of uniting a mob on a narrow issue to, as it has ended up, seek retribution. A market is simply one individual trading voluntarily with another, both seeking their self-interest, both gaining from every transaction, because a voluntary capitalist transaction is not a zero sum game: both parties gain value.

      Delete