Rising Authoritarianism

Shut Up, Shut Down, And Shut Out

One of the surest indications that an opponent is either pedalling a shonky argument or he is too incompetent to press his case intelligently is when he attacks the opponent (ad hominem) or attempts to silence him.  What has been dubbed the "new authoritarianism of the Left" has all the hallmarks.

We see it on every hand these days.  We will doubtless continue to see it.  The whole brouhaha resembles a dirty bomb: lots of heat, not much light, but plenty of poison.

The laziness of the Left over climate change is a case in point.  Not willing to face up to the debate, it sought to elude the argument by leap frogging it, declaring "the debate is over; the science is settled".  This casts  opponents as reactionary idiots--a modern type of flat-earthers, or geo-centric astronomers.  But anyone who knew even the barest basics of science, or the elementary principles of logic, or the primary hermeneutics of the scientific method knew instantly this was balderdash.  Feeding hypothetical projections into an electronic calculator to "prove" the reality of global warming has been the biggest instance of question-begging since Adam was a boy.
 

Andrew Bolt summarised this example of the Left's inferiority complex, as it has rolled out in Australia with respect to climate change:

Attorney-General George Brandis, raised a Catholic, was right last week: “The Left has embraced a new authoritarianism.” They have given us a “new and illiberal climate of anti-intellectualism” so that “rather than winning the argument (they) exclude their antagonists from the argument”.  Brandis said he first realised this when Senator Penny Wong, Labor’s former climate change minister, falsely claimed the debate on global was over because “the science is settled”.  She wasn’t alone. The only time the ABC ran a documentary questioning global warming extremists, its own staff, led by Science Show presenter Robyn Williams, revolted. Warmists such as Professor Tim Flannery now refuse out of principle to debate sceptics.

Then there is the anti-Christian invective of the Left and the Commentariat in general.  Some Unbelievers are willing to debate issues--such as the late Christopher Hitchens.  But most of his colleagues are so insecure and uncertain of their positions, the stock-in-trade is fourth form ad-hominem and authoritarian attempts to silence opponents.

Last week, Dyson Heydon, the former High Court judge now running the royal commission into union corruption, also criticised this fashionable new intolerance.  “Anti-Catholicism in Australia now might be called the racism of the intellectuals,” he said in last week’s Acton Lecture for the Centre for Independent Studies.

Indeed, we’ve seen the media class try to drive Catholicism from public debate.  Prime Minister Tony Abbott has been repeatedly mocked and vilified as “Captain Catholic”, with Labor even running a disgraceful cartoon video showing him with a priest’s cassock in his wardrobe.

Meanwhile, much of the media has eagerly seized on undoubtedly terrible stories of child abuse told to recent inquiries to trash the reputation of the Catholic Church, which has actually also given us schools, hospices and hospitals.  The media class’s hostility to traditional Christians hasn’t stopped with Catholics.

Joe Bullock, a conservative Christian and long-time union official, was last month elected to the Senate, but Labor colleagues are already calling for him to be driven out.  His main offence? To have what his defeated running mate, Senator Louise Pratt, last week claimed were “fringe of mainstream views” — particularly his opposition to gay marriage and abortion, and his publicly admitted confusion with Pratt’s lesbianism, given her partner has changed gender.

For Pratt this seems to make Bullock unfit to further serve the Labor Party he joined 36 years ago.  “It is a blow to progressive voters that I would be replaced in the Senate by someone who I have known for many years to be deeply homophobic, to be anti-choice,” she declared.  “It’s not for me to call for Joe Bullock to resign and act in my own self-interest. That is a question ... the party needs to take seriously.”

What Pratt wants is for her colleague, the Christian, to be shut up, shut down, and shut out--voters notwithstanding.  Clearly, the disappointed Senator is either incompetent to argue her ideological positions or the positions themselves are so stupidly irrational as to be indefensible. Maybe it's "all of the above".

The Greens are equally anti-logical.  Consider the following example of a bald assertion begging the question:

The Greens best represent that new authoritarianism in which people who oppose the killing of babies weeks from birth are deemed not fit to sit in Parliament, and people opposed to being classified by “race” are banned from speaking.  It is a new dictatorship of the mind. And sure enough, here comes Greens acting leader Adam Bandt to prove how right Brandis is about this new anti-intellectualism.

How dare Brandis say sceptics should be heard: “I mean, if someone said ‘two plus two equals five’, would you insist on giving them as much airtime in the media as someone who said ‘two plus two equals four’?”     Sadly, Bandt is confused about just which side indeed peddles untruths.

But far worse is that he and his kind have no confusion about debate.

They’re against it. Be warned.

It's a sign they cannot cut the mustard.  Behind every authoritarian likely lurks someone uncomfortably insecure with their opinions, view, and positions.