Section 14

Flag burning, like neo-Nazi propaganda, is one of those topics that strains the edges of tolerance for free expression. It has to be repeated over and over: Free speech without the freedom to offend is not free speech.

Idiot/Savant, of No Right Turn, has noted that the Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police has called for a ban on flag burning in the UK.

Even in New Zealand, our half-hearted NZ Bill of Rights has been used to protect flag burning as political expression. In 2003 Paul Hopkinson burnt a flag on the steps of Parliament. He was charged under the Flags, Emblems, and Names Protection Act 1981 and aquitted on appeal by a judge who reread the Act in concert with the NZ BORA.

The argument is bitterly contested in the United States, where the 1989 Flag Protection Act was struck down by the Supreme Court in United States v. Eichman. In the majority decision upholding flag burning as a protected form of expression, Justice Brennan said, “Punishing desecration of the flag dilutes the very freedom that makes this emblem so revered, and worth revering.”

In the wake of their shambolic handling of the election funding scandal and their disgust that people voluntarily give more money to the National Party than to them, the Labour Party called for a raft of changes to electioneering rules at this weekend’s party conference.

The NZ Herald reports that the remit called for state funding of political parties, a ban on anonymous donations to political parties, and constraints on third party advertising. The resolution was passed “unanimously and without debate”. And that’s how they like it.

All of these are attacks on free speech. State funding of political parties subsidises some political propaganda, in effect drowning out opposition. Banning voluntary donations can be seen as a move to protect against any potential corruption but, given the general lack of corruption in New Zealand, is more likely to be used as a way to find out who donates to the “wrong” party. Restricting third-party advertising is the most direct attack on free speech as it prevents unapproved groups from expressing their opinions at election time.

As Pulitzer Prize winning columnist George F. Wills puts it in the Summer 2006 edition of Cato’s Letter (PDF, 485 kB, 8pp),

There is no greater threat to liberty in [America] than the fourth kind of politics, the politics of speech rationing. It is commonly called campaign finance reform, but it’s nothing of the sort. It is simply the assertion of the government of a new, audacious right: the right to determine the timing, content, and amount of political advocacy about the government.

Restricting political speech in the way Labour intends is a serious threat to our freedom of speech and must be opposed vigorously. In the wake of National’s disastrous polling in 2002 some Labour members joked about New Zealand being a one-party state. Some of their leadership, less familiar with humour, may have taken the kidding a bit too seriously.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported yesterday that Google is refusing to remove racist blogs from its Blogger site. (Hat Tip: David Farrar, who’s pictured on one of these sites, wearing a National Party shirt, labelled as a “red”. The days when the web was just for rocket scientists are long gone.)

Google, as a private organisation, has every right to set the terms on which they will host sites but they have chosen to do their bit to uphold freedom of speech and not censor anything.

“We allow our users to create blogs, but we don’t make any claims about the content of these pages. In cases where contact information for the author is listed on the page, we recommend working directly with this person to have this information removed or changed. We would only remove content from this blog if ordered to do so by a court order,” the [Google] spokesman said.

The ‘marketplace of ideas‘ theory of free speech, first given form by Oliver Wendell Holmes in Abrams v. United States, says “the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market.” Another Supreme Court judge, Louis Brandeis, put it “the best disinfectant is sunshine.”

John Locke cautioned against using force to quash unpleasant or incorrect ideas, saying “truth is not taught by laws, nor has she any need of force to procure her entrance into the minds of men. If truth makes not her way into the understanding by her own light, she will be the weaker for any borrowed force violence can add to her.”

Defending people like neo-nazis can leave a nasty taste in one’s mouth but it is worthwhile remembering the words of H.L. Mencken: “The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.”

I’ve received a reply from Reporters Sans Frontières about why New Zealand’s press freedom index rank slipped this year.

RSF preface their comments by saying that in the past New Zealand’s ratings have been “especially good, even perfect”. The two reasons given for our drop are

1. tensions and pressure around the Mohammed cartoons [when Helen Clark attacked the Dominion Post and The Press for printing the cartoons, saying the issue “is not one of freedom of the press but of taste and judgement and the cartoons will do nothing to bring communities together”], and
2. TVNZ’s Board being hauled before Parliament’s Privileges Committee during the Ian Fraser affair.

RSF gave New Zealand black marks for having Parliament interfering in the running of TVNZ (interference from the politically appointed Board was Fraser’s original reason for resigning) and then, when the TVNZ Board punished Fraser for what he’d said to the Select Committee, the Greens defended Parliament’s punishment of TVNZ’s Board on freedom of speech grounds.

Both of these comments are about government meddling in the media. The temptation to meddle will always be there for politicians who think they know best, but clearly the meddling is more effective when the medium in question is state-owned.

Reporters Sans Frontières (Reporters Without Borders) has released its 2006 Worldwide Press Freedom Index.

New Zealand has been ranked a creditable 19th behind a number of Scandinavian and Central European countries and ahead of the likes of the UK, the USA, and Australia. (The previously mentioned Turkmenistan came second-to-last with only North Korea worse.)

New Zealand’s ranking has dropped this year and, more importantly, our absolute score has got worse. My guess is that this is due to the handling of the Mohammed cartoons brouhaha and I have written to RSF to ask for the details.

This blog is dedicated to promoting freedom of expression in New Zealand. Often that will involve pointing out what’s wrong with the situation in New Zealand.

To get things in perspective, though, it’s worth noting that things are far, far worse in other parts of the world. Like in Turkmenistan.

Earlier this week, President ‘Turkmenbashi’ Saparmurat Niyazov, the man who puts the ‘menace’ in ‘Turkmenistan’, opened the House of Free Creativity (pictured right) and dedicated it to a free media. This is in a country where the government completely controls the media, where contact with foreigners is illegal, where libraries have been ordered closed, and where the only readily available books are those written by the Turkmenbashi himself, such as his gripping sequel to the Koran.

No doubt many people will be accused of having dictatorial tendencies in future posts on this blog but they are all mere amateurs compared to the relentlessly grandiose Turkmenbashi.

Hat tip: Boing Boing.