A Heretic's Manifesto: Essays on the Unsayable

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This led her to conclude that ‘It will be for us to invent now what we can do about this presidency’. We need to retire the word ‘disinformation’, the apparent dread of governments, BBC specialist reporters and NGOs everywhere. MEPs are terrified of the rise of populism and of movements committed to national sovereignty, and they are directing their anger towards Hungary. And if Roberts-Smith or anyone else feels they’ve been wronged, then of course they must be free to make their case too. But here’s the thing: it is precisely because words can wound, precisely because of their power to unsettle, that they should never be restricted.

The EU plot to humiliate Hungary - spiked

We see a pregnant woman on the front of this month’s Glamour magazine and they say it is a ‘pregnant man’. We need to stop reacting to their branding of speech as a weapon, as a tool of ambush and degradation, by effectively draining speech of its power and saying: ‘It’s only speech. The plot against the Hungarian presidency is ultimately an attempt to prevent the Hungarian government from having a platform to promote its own values, such as its attachment to national sovereignty and to tradition.He was fined, publicly whipped, put in the pillory, had the tops of his ears cut off, and his cheeks were branded with the letters ‘S’ and ‘L’ for seditious libel.

Gender Wars: why the trans lobby hates debate - spiked

Brendan will be interviewed by the great Andrew Doyle and you’ll also get the chance to put your questions to Brendan. So now we know why transgender-rights activists are so keen on No Platforming speakers and shutting down debate. Then this morning, in a newspaper report on a new landmark study from Johns Hopkins University, we see the headline: ‘Lockdown benefits “a drop in the bucket compared to the costs”. They’ve been described by one legal expert as the ‘most media-hostile laws in the common-law world’.Gwendoline Delbos-Corfield, a French Green MEP who helped draw up the resolution, has admitted that ‘official texts from the treaties are not very talkative about what we can or cannot do. Our elites have become convinced of some very strange and destructive ideas, meanwhile the space for ordinary people to dissent is shrinking. Safe Spaces recreate the state of childhood, complete with colouring books and ice cream, speaking to how determinedly some long to retreat from the adult world of hurtful chatter and brickbats.

A Heretic’s Manifesto - spiked A Heretic’s Manifesto - spiked

It brings to mind the David Irving case in London in the late 1990s, when the cranky historian sued the heroic Deborah Lipstadt after she accused him of Holocaust denial. The delusions of the elites carry more weight than truth itself – that is how arrogant the new authoritarianism has become; how determined our rulers are to remake reality in the image of their own fevered opinion. I argue that we are living under a ruling class that aspires to the purest form of tyranny: the right to define reality itself. It is precisely the unpredictable energy and influence of speech that means it must be put beyond the jurisdiction of all earthly authorities. Surely our psychic wellbeing should be accorded as much respect by the powers-that-be as our physical integrity is.And yet, the failure of Roberts-Smith’s suit is only a partial victory for press freedom in Australia. Would we have had to accept that as fairly dispensed ‘justice’ too, despite the chilling impact it would have had not only on the Sydney Morning Herald, the Age and the Canberra Times, but across Australia’s media landscape? It is good that they won’t be hit by costs in the tens of millions, which would have devastated their day-to-day operations. Most entitled of all are the interviewees who demand to know why there even has to be a discussion about gender identity. There is something undeniably enjoyable about seeing well-connected wrong’uns take illiberal, punitive measures to defend their reputations only to find out that their reputations aren’t worth shit.