The Demonstration Effect.

She’ll Be Back! A fortnight out from the General Election, with early voting already underway, it is difficult to think of any person the Labour Government would be less likely to welcome than Posie Parker. 

WHAT HAPPENED IN AUCKLAND on Saturday, 25 March 2023, revealed the power of officially-sanctioned protest. That power was demonstrated to even greater effect the following day in Wellington. New Zealanders are blessedly unfamiliar with this type of politics, which is more commonly associated with authoritarian regimes such as Viktor Orban’s Hungary, or Nicolás Maduro’s Venezuela. Nevertheless, the mass demonstrations against Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull (aka “Posie Parker”) strongly backed by government ministers and the state-owned media, revealed just how potent a weapon the mass mobilisation of sympathetic citizens by official, or quasi-official, forces backed up by the news media, can be.

Since Keen-Minshull has announced her intention to visit New Zealand again in September of this year (perilously close to the election date!) it will be interesting to see whether the same politicians and media outlets who denounced her attitudes towards the trans community back in March – “inflammatory, vile and incorrect” – are prepared to offer the electorate a repeat performance six months later. Were they to do so, there can be little doubt that the result would be the same. New Zealanders sympathetic to the transgender cause would rally against Keen-Minshull in their thousands.

The response of those who share Keen-Minshull’s views about the impact transgender ideology is having on the rights of women and children will, however, be very different the second time around. Should Keen-Minshull return to these shores in September, she is certain to arouse a powerfully demonstrative response from those who support her cause. The March spectacle of 2,000 transgender activists and their supporters drowning-out and then physically attacking Keen-Minshull and her fewer than 100 supporters is unlikely to be repeated.

Citizens hailing from both the left and the right of the political spectrum will not be backward in coming forward to Keen-Minshull’s defence. Moreover, since the trans community set the rules of political engagement so violently in March, Keen-Minshull’s defenders in September are unlikely to pull their punches.

Given, that Keen-Minshull is calling for New Zealand women to speak up for their rights outside the Auckland courtroom in which the person who showered her with tomato juice back in March is set to stand trial, the egregiously “hands-off” policing on display on 25 March (now the subject of an internal Police investigation) will not be an option. Indeed, if two vast crowds of mutually hostile demonstrators seem determined to confront one another outside His Majesty’s courthouse, then Police Commissioner Andrew Coster will have no option but to prepare a very “hands-on” response. Hundreds of police officers will be required to maintain public order.

Scarcely a fortnight out from the General Election, with early voting already underway, it is difficult to conceive of anything the Labour Government would welcome less than dramatic evidence of the deep political animosities dividing New Zealand society. The very real possibility that some deluded individual, inflamed by the white-hot passions besetting the transgender issue, might turn protest into tragedy, will only heighten the Government’s trepidation. Political violence on the streets is the last thing Prime Minister Chris Hipkins needs as he goes head-to-head with the Opposition leader, Christopher Luxon.

Which is why Immigration Minister Andrew Little will be under enormous pressure to deny Keen-Minshull entry to New Zealand under Section 16:1(iii) of the Immigration Act – the sub-clause which authorises the Minister to deny entry to any non-New Zealand citizen who “is, or is likely to be, a threat or risk to public order”. This was the clause cited by the trans community back in March as they attempted to keep Keen-Minshull out of the country. The courts ruled against them then, but they may not to do so a second time. It would not be difficult for Little to make the case that Keen-Minshull’s arrival in March did, as predicted, contribute to a breakdown of public order, and that given the intensity of feeling aroused by her ideas, and by other people’s reaction to those ideas, it risks doing so again if she is granted permission to enter New Zealand.

What Little almost certainly would not mention is that, back in March, Keen-Minshull’s opponents were arguing that public order would be threatened by attacks on the trans community perpetrated by Keen-Minshull and her supporters. If a second attempt is made to keep her out, Keen-Minshull’s defenders will, quite justifiably, respond that on 25 March it was the supporters of the trans community who broke through crowd barriers to harry, harass, and inflict serious physical and emotional harm upon the few dozen people, many of them elderly, who had assembled in Albert Park to join Keen-Minshull in speaking up for women’s rights.

If Little does decide to bar Keen-Minshull’s entry, then the story is most unlikely to end there. The Free Speech Union (of which the author of this opinion-piece is a member) is practically certain to launch a bid to rescue Keen-Minshull from the so-called “Thug’s Veto”. It will argue that those presenting disorder as the most likely outcome of Keen-Minshull’s visit and, hence, the best reason for banning it, are the very people most likely to cause it. Equivalent to Ku Klux Klansmen warning a civil rights worker that if she insists upon addressing the local Black Baptist congregation, then there’s just no telling what might happen to their little church.

Recognising Labour’s discomfort, National and Act would be most unlikely to refuse the political gains of presenting themselves as the staunch defenders of Free Speech. Nor would they likely forgo the opportunity to castigate the Labour Government for lining-up with extremists who cannot give a straight answer to the question: “What is a woman?” They would pillory Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori for lacking the guts to defend the core principles of a democratic society. The Right’s message to the country would be unequivocal: Those who threaten the right of freedom of expression must not be appeased, they must be fought!

The parties of the Right might even feel emboldened to take a leaf out of Labour’s own playbook by throwing their weight behind a mass demonstration in support of New Zealanders’ right to speak freely and without fear of being shouted down or attacked. Were they to help organise such an event, they could be absolutely certain that elements of the Left would not be able to resist organising a counter-demonstration. Like Keen-Minshull, herself, they could rely upon the intolerance and aggression of their political opponents to clinch the argument.

What the Labour Government should do, of course, is what any democratic government should do in such circumstances: uphold the right of both sides to make their case. Let Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull and her supporters have their say. Let the trans community register its disagreement and disgust. And make damn sure that hundreds of cops, in full riot-gear, are standing between them. Holding the ring, as the state is bound to do, and keeping the peace.

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Friday, 28 July 2023.

The Woke Supremacy.

Sowing The Wind: The backlash against wokeism will be made much more aggressive by the difficulties its opponents encounter in making their voices heard. The mainstream news media – and especially the state-owned media – have become increasingly intolerant of ideas and opinions which directly, or indirectly, challenge the wokeists’ view of the world. 

IT IS DIFFICULT to attach a name to the ideology currently guiding the actions of the New Zealand ruling-class. For the past twenty years the Left has been content to call it neoliberalism, but in the third decade of the twenty-first century that term has less and less purchase on reality. The new ideology which has emerged, let’s call it “wokeism”, is a radical fusion of neoliberalism, environmentalism and identity politics – and its powerful enough to disrupt profoundly the political, social and economic institutions of New Zealand society.

That wokeism will generate massive resistance is certain. Its assault on the traditional order will leave more and more people feeling unmoored and vulnerable. Inevitably, a political movement will arise to contest the wokeists’ claims and policies. This movement will not, however, be driven by the traditional Left, it will be the creation of an angry and radically populist Right. What’s more, the transformational ambitions of wokeism will provoke its opponents into advancing an equally comprehensive programme of revocation and reconstitution. The result will be a deeply divided society, with tolerance and empathy in short supply.

The backlash against wokeism will be made much more aggressive by the difficulties its opponents encounter in making their voices heard. The mainstream news media – and especially the state-owned media – have become increasingly intolerant of ideas and opinions which directly, or indirectly, challenge the wokeists’ view of the world. Stuff, the largest newspaper publisher in the country has embraced wokeism wholeheartedly and set its face resolutely against the errors of “racist” New Zealanders. Even more significantly, citizens determined to spread “unacceptable” ideas can no longer rely upon the major social media platforms for their dissemination. Increasingly, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are “de-platforming” individuals and groups (including a former President of the United States!) whose beliefs have been anathematised by the woke.

This de-platforming of dissenters by the woke media – often facilitated by threats from major corporate advertisers to withdraw their financial support – will complicate the mobilisation of wokeism’s opponents, but it will not prevent it. Inevitably, the sheer number of New Zealanders shut out of the wokeist discourse will persuade conservative investors to offer them a Fox News-like outlet for traditional views and values. As Rupert Murdoch knows well, there are big profits to be made out of alienation and anger. Those corporates hitherto persuaded to embrace (and enforce) wokeism may experience second thoughts when the enormous size of the traditionalist audience is revealed.

Right-wing political parties will likewise be forced to decide whether or not the game of accommodating themselves to the demands of wokeism is, in the long term, worth playing. If they decide not to place themselves at the head of a movement fuelled by rising anger and resentment and strongly supported by a major media outlet devoted to its cause, then, most assuredly, someone else will. National and Act will not be slow to understand that if they do not get on board the radical right-wing populist bandwagon, then it will roll right over the top of them. As with the Republican Party in the United States: they may not like it, but they will not fight it. Their biggest challenge will be to find a Trump-like politician to front it.

The key insight of the world’s most successful populist leaders is that the voters will not punish a politician for farting in the wokeist church: who simply refuses to be daunted by charges of racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, or any of the many other “thought crimes” promulgated by the woke. The politician who responds to all such accusations with a straightforward “Yes, I am. And if you expect me to apologise for it, you’re going to be bitterly disappointed!” That sort of politician: Trump, Duterte, Bolsonaro, Orban; receives as many cheers as jeers – probably more. Yes, liberal Americans were horrified when Trump branded Mexican border-crossers drug-dealers, rapists and thieves; but conservative Americans were delighted to have finally encountered someone willing to “tell it like it is”.

The other key insight of the right-wing populists is that most people really don’t like the news media. The politician who viciously attacks reporters: who accuses them of manufacturing “fake news”; who bans them from his press conferences and brands the newspapers and networks they work for “enemies of the people”; will emerge from the conflict stronger – not weaker. So long as they have their own equivalent of Fox News to carry their message to their “base”, it simply does not matter if wokeist media outlets rebuke and revile them as right-wing “fanatics”. Indeed, such charges will only succeed in further burnishing their reputations as champions of the “deplorables”. CNN didn’t bring Donald Trump down. What defeated him was his own woefully inadequate response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Couldn’t happen in New Zealand. How often has that “argument” been advanced by those whose salaries depend upon it being true? If these political Pollyannas had the slightest familiarity with the history of their own country, they would know that it already has.

Much of the populist National Party prime minister Rob Muldoon’s popularity was generated by his heated exchanges with journalists. Long before Donald Trump crossed swords with CNN’s White House correspondents, Muldoon was ordering the removal of the Listener’s parliamentary reporter, Tom Scott, from the Beehive theatrette. When the TV news showed the prime minister ordering his aides to “take him away”, liberal New Zealand was horrified. For “Rob’s Mob” of conservative New Zealanders, however, is was thrilling proof of their leader’s strength. The media had it coming!

Muldoon’s most apt pupil in the dangerous game of right-wing populist politics was Winston Peters. Openly challenging the news media and arguing aggressively with journalists live on television became a key component of his enduring electoral appeal. Once again, liberal New Zealanders were perplexed: what could Peters possibly hope to gain by such vulgar displays of political truculence?

What Peters understood, and his well-educated and refined critics tended to forget, was that half the population falls on the wrong side of the bell-curve. Instinctively, the vulgar masses recoil from the lofty condescension of professional middle-class journalists. By attacking the news media, and its “sickly white liberal” assumptions, Peters, like Trump, secured the votes of the “poorly educated”.

All of which raises the critical question: Who will take on the right-wing populist mantle of Muldoon and Peters? Certainly, National’s Judith Collins and Act’s David Seymour would like to, but are they temperamentally suited to the role? Do they have the necessary slivers of ice-cold steel driven deep enough into their souls? Are they able to deploy the sort of cruel humour that lacerates their opponents’ self-confidence? Can they make people laugh at their vicious jokes in spite of themselves? It is certainly very difficult to imagine either Collins or Seymour successfully delivering Muldoon’s brutally funny quip: “I have seen the shivers running around Bill Rowling’s back, looking for a spine to crawl up!”

There is no shortage of applicants for the job of radical right-wing populism’s “drummer”: the leader who will make the hearts of the angry and the marginalised beat faster. The rabble-rouser who will cause them to clench their fists and clutch at their grievances more tightly. The messiah who will inspire them to set aside their ingrained sense of inferiority and their deep fear of being laughed at and/or condemned, and demand their own version of paradise. The demagogue who will impel the unmoored and vulnerable towards the clamour of ideological battle with the relentless and pitiless beating of his rhetorical drum. Oh yes, we’ve seen Billy Te Kahika, Jami-Lee Ross, even Hannah Lee Tamaki, make their pitches. But – no sale. The next drummer has yet to step out upon the national stage.

While New Zealand waits for that perilous person to appear, the woke supremacy will continue. Hate speech will be outlawed. The nation’s history will be re-written. Even the country’s name will be driven relentlessly towards the memory hole. Were these assaults upon tradition to be offset by decisive governmental action making rents and homes affordable, forcing the rich to pay their fair share of tax, and restoring a rough balance of power in the workplace, then they might be forgiven. If the democratic rights of New Zealand citizens were being beefed-up – instead of being whittled away – then wokeism might have a future. But, they aren’t, and it doesn’t.

Only when the drum-beat of right-wing populism starts to shake New Zealand’s windows and rattle its walls, will wokeism’s fondness for silencing its enemies finally begin to make a kind of desperate sense.

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Thursday, 4 February 2021.

Is Billy TK Shouting “Fire” In A Crowded Theatre?

Fire-Starter? The claims advanced by BillyTe Kahika are false. The matter to be determined, therefore, is whether or not they are likely to cause panic. In ordinary times, the answer would be “No.” In ordinary times, the opinions of conspiracy theorists may be safely ignored. Indeed, in ordinary times, the state protects their opinions. Mr Te Kahika’s freedom of expression, as set forth in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, would not be infringed – in ordinary times. But, these are not ordinary times.

 JUST OVER A CENTURY ago, an American socialist, Charles T Schenck, tested the boundaries of free speech. He and his fellow socialist, Elizabeth Baer, were convicted under the Espionage Act (1917) for distributing pamphlets opposing the conscription of young American men for service in World War I. The pair appealed their conviction to the US Supreme Court, citing the First Amendment to the US Constitution’s protection of Freedom of Speech, but their conviction was upheld. The celebrated American jurist and Supreme Court Justice, Oliver Wendell Holmes, explained his decision in the following, famous, passage:

 “We admit that in many places and in ordinary times the defendants in saying all that was said in the circular would have been within their constitutional rights. But the character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done. The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting ‘Fire’ in a theatre and causing a panic… The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent. It is question of proximity and degree.”

 The “theatre” Holmes refers to is, of course, the United States at war. Schenck’s arguments against conscription – by undermining the US war effort – were, in the unanimous judgement of the Supreme Court, a direct violation of the people’s will – as expressed in the US Congress’s declaration of war against the Central Powers. Context, argues Holmes, is everything.

 One hundred years later, and half a world away, the issue of free speech and the context in which it does, and does not, require the law’s protection is still very much alive.

 Earlier today (13 August 2020) in Whangarei the Leader of the New Zealand Public Party, Billy Te Kahika Jr, addressed a small crowd of people who had joined a protest against the Government’s latest efforts to control the community transmission of the Covid-19 virus. In the course of that address, Mr Te Kahika alleged that the Government’s actions were part of a preconceived plan to deprive ordinary New Zealanders of their rights. His speech reinforced arguments he had already voiced on Facebook earlier in the week. Patriotic New Zealanders, Mr Te Kahika advised his audience, were leaking information to him about the Government’s plans to deploy the armed forces against its own citizens. Very soon, he claimed, soldiers would be testing New Zealanders compulsorily for Covid-19.

 These are inflammatory claims, prompting the question as to whether or not Mr Te Kahika is guilty of “falsely shouting ‘Fire’ in a theatre and causing a panic”?

 Certainly, the claims advanced by Mr Te Kahika are false. The matter to be determined, therefore, is whether or not they are likely to cause panic. In ordinary times, the answer would be “No.” In ordinary times, the opinions of conspiracy theorists may be safely ignored. Indeed, in ordinary times, the state protects their opinions. Mr Te Kahika’s freedom of expression, as set forth in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, would not be infringed – in ordinary times.

 But, these are not ordinary times.

 New Zealanders need only look across the Tasman Sea, to the State of Victoria, to understand the threat posed to society by an inadequate official response to any resurgence of the Covid-19 virus. Many people will become sick. Others will die. The local economy will be devastated. Any activity which threatens to facilitate and/or augment these evils must, therefore, be considered, in Holmes’s compelling phrase “a clear and present danger” to the common welfare.

 It is very difficult to interpret Mr Te Kahika’s activity as anything other than an attempt to impede, undermine and in every way frustrate the Government’s attempt to respond adequately to a proven resurgence of community transmission of Covid-19 in the city of Auckland and, quite possibly, across the rest of New Zealand. His unsubstantiated claims seem calculated to arouse fear, anger and hatred among those least equipped intellectually, emotionally and materially to challenge their veracity. When directed against those in authority, for expressly political purposes, such falsehoods have the power to cause immense harm.

 If Holmes’s important stipulation that “the character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done”, then Mr Te Kahika’s actions can only be described as extremely reckless and irresponsible. Conscious, that they could quite easily contribute to a significant lessening in the public’s willingness to comply with the Covid-19 regulations – and, hence, to the spread of the virus – the Government would be entitled to take all necessary measures to silence Mr Te Kahika and his  political lieutenants.

 

The only consideration militating against such a course of action is likely to be whether or not the silencing of Mr Te Kahika would be more, or less, likely to facilitate the very substantive evils it was intended to prevent. While the crowds he speaks to remain as small as Whangarei’s, it is probably not worth making a “free speech” martyr out of Mr Te Kahika – especially if such martyrdom constitutes an important part of his election campaign. The Government would, nevertheless, be wise to keep a close eye on the NZPP and its inflammatory leader, and both eyes on the size of the crowds they attract.

 My own principled attachment to free speech is well attested, and, just for the record, I believe the US Supreme Court was wrong to convict Schenck and Baer for opposing the draft. I do, however, concur entirely with Justice Holmes that freedom of speech gives no person the right to shout “Fire!” in a crowded theatre.

 Nor to undermine the efforts of our government to preserve New Zealanders’ lives in the face of a global pandemic.

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Friday, 14 August 2020.

Long Live The People's Dictatorship!

Doing What The People Say: If Jacinda Ardern’s Government is to be branded “near dictatorial” for doing everything New Zealanders expect of it, then: “Long live the people’s dictatorship!” is the only democratic response.

DEMOCRACY AND DICTATORSHIP have always been curiously intertwined. I say “curiously” because, contrary to the generally accepted view, they are not opposites. If democracy reposes power in the people, then dictatorship provides an answer to the questions: Who should give expression to the people’s power? Who guarantees that what the people say is done? A dictator may also be a protector. Someone to whom the people voluntarily entrust their safety and security in times of dire emergency.

At moments of extreme peril to the state, the Senate and People of the ancient Roman Republic would confer upon a trusted citizen the extraordinary office of ‘dictator’. For a limited period of time that citizen was permitted to exercise all political and military authority single-handedly.

The most famous Roman dictator was Cincinnatus. According to legend, this conservative aristocrat was called away from his plough by a delegation of the Republic’s leading citizens to defend Rome from its enemies the Aequi. Having fulfilled this mission, Cincinnatus dutifully relinquished his power and returned to his estate.

Kings and dictators also have a lot in common. A strong king was able to defend his subjects from the depredations of his nobles. The “King’s Justices” overruled the functionaries of the local aristocrat against whom humble folk ordinarily found themselves powerless. A “good” king was one who protected the bodies and property of his subjects. A “bad” king allowed his barons to run riot with both.

It is not the unimpeded exercise of executive power that is in-and-of-itself evil; but the purposes to which such power may be put.

Those who protest the “undemocratic” and “near dictatorial” emergency regime set in place to combat the spread of the Covid-19 virus in New Zealand are guilty of seriously mischaracterising the present Lockdown and the necessarily comprehensive restrictions required to give it force.

The Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, along with her ministers and public officials were vouchsafed emergency powers by the House of Representatives in the name of the New Zealand people. It is in our name that she is waging the campaign to eliminate Covid-19. We have the right to demand that she protect us, and she has the duty to do exactly that. What could be more democratic than a political leader armed with all the power necessary to carry out the people’s will? If she stops doing what we have asked her to do, then we have plenty of ways of letting her know. (Anyone who doubts the power of the people to make their displeasure felt should take a look at Simon Bridges’ Facebook page!)

No, those raising all these “democratic” objections to the Covid-19 Emergency Regime do not strike me as having the people’s interests at heart. Quite the reverse in fact. Like the robber barons of old, they resent the power of the Prime Minister to protect our bodies at the expense of their property.

For thirty-five years, those same robber barons have steadily stripped the state of the power to intervene on behalf of its people. They are terrified that the Covid-19 Pandemic is exposing the enormous risks imposed on ordinary people by this deliberate policy of disempowering the state. They are even more frightened of the example our Prime Minister is providing of how beneficial the power of the state can be when applied conscientiously. The world looks at the egregious failures of Donald Trump and shudders; it observes the astonishing successes of Jacinda Ardern and cheers.

But surely, as a defender of Free Speech, I must uphold the rights of “non conformists and dissenters” to question authority? Questioning authority in good faith and without the dishonourable intentions of “Gotcha! Journalism” is one thing; shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theatre is another.

But if the theatre really is on fire? What then?

Well, then you do your best to assist the theatre staff evacuate the building swiftly and safely. You certainly don’t stand up and start telling the terrified patrons that they’re being led in the wrong direction; that the exit is actually over here; and, anyway, the staff of the burning theatre across the street are doing a much better job!

If Jacinda Ardern’s Government is to be branded “near dictatorial” for doing everything New Zealanders expect of it, then: “Long live the people’s dictatorship!” is the only democratic response.

This essay was originally published in The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 24 April 2020.