There is a famous painting that you may have heard of, called "Stag at Bay". It depicts a stag, if you follow me, at bay. Beset by ferocious dogs, the majestic beast finds itself making a last stand against these lesser creatures who, through weight of numbers, are about to bring down their proud, noble adversary.
I could not help but think of this image as I followed the travails of professional journalist, humanitarian and ethnologist Andrew Bolt in his battle against legalistic opinion-fascists who have been trying to shut down his free and open discussion of things that we are all thinking but are afraid to say because of political correctness and civil libertarians who are trying to get the Greens to make us all illegal.
You see, as a crusading journalist myself, I have always been one to stand up most vehemently for victims’ rights. And if ever there was a victim, it is Andrew Bolt. How did this simple, gentle, simple man become the target for so much vitriol and opprobrium from the self-appointed moral guardians of our decaying society? Was it around the same time it became a capital offence to call it as you see it? Was it around the same time women won the right to neglect their children? Was it around the same time Natasha Stott Despoja was invented? All of this and more.
Let’s examine the facts of this case. What did Bolt actually say? All he said was that certain high-profile Aboriginal people were in fact certain high-profile white people, and therefore should not be receiving the special privileges which our welfare state gives to Aboriginal people, like instant law degrees and free Liquorland coupons. Bolt’s point is simply that just as it is scandalous that benefits should be made available on the basis of race, it is even more scandalous that they should be made available to people who aren’t really of the race that they are made available on the basis of.
Or to put it another way, why do we have to divide our society on superficial racial lines, and when we do so, why don’t we do it properly?
And for this, he is to be pilloried? Attacked? Excoriated? To have apologies demanded of him as if he were a common drunken footballer? To be violated by the fiddling fingers of leftist social engineering? Remember, this is the man who has ALWAYS stood up for the ordinary Australians against those who would threaten their way of life, whether it was the Stolen Generations, or asylum seekers, or climate scientists, or talking cartoon fish — Bolt has always been there for us. Yet suddenly, it seems, we are no longer there for him.
Remember the old saying: "First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out, for I was not a socialist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out, for I was not a Jew. Then they came for the highly-paid right-wing opinion columnists, and I did not speak out, for I was busy because the kids had soccer practice. Then they came for me, and I had to pay them a million bucks to mine uranium in their backyard." These lines, today, are more chilling than ever.
The case is all about free speech, and as someone who often says things it is a subject very, very dear to my heart. I am all too aware that if Andrew Bolt loses his right to say, "Hey Larissa Behrendt, how about you go back to Dortmund where you came from, you pasty-cheeked tax-leech?" I may lose MY right to say witty things about how recordings of Penny Wong’s voice are being tested by the CSIRO as a potentially humane way to exterminate locusts. And then we are ALL the loser, especially me.
Free speech, after all, is non-negotiable, unless you want to shout "Fire!" in a crowded theatre, which is why so many people die in theatre-fires — nobody ever warns them. And that fatal restriction on free speech, which prevents people from knowing about fires, could soon be extended to preventing people from knowing about white Aborigines stealing their money unless we are all very careful and write a lot of articles about it as quickly as possible.
The question is, why has Bolt been forced to defend himself against these craven carpers in such a humiliating fashion? Why is it suddenly "taboo" to discuss the pale Aborigine crisis besetting our country? Surely when a nation’s prosperity is menaced it is a patriot’s duty to speak out and alert others so that an organised and efficient response can be implemented. We did this during World War II. We did this during Big Brother. Why can’t we do this during WhiteBlackPeopleGate? Why can’t we have a healthy debate about the problem?
Surely a mature society wouldn’t silence people for speaking out about the issue, but would instead institute a sort of ranking system akin to the Dulux Colour Chart to determine who is and isn’t eligible to receive free money. Anyone who wants to receive benefits reserved for Aboriginal people must stand against the colour chart, compare their skin colour to the "Indigenous Threshold Hue", and be categorised accordingly: those who are of the ITH or darker get benefits, and those who are lighter have to feel guilty about it.
And that is all that Andrew Bolt is saying. All he is proposing is that we have an objective scale on which to measure people’s racial identity, since only then will we be able to live together without rancour and hitting each other with broken bottles.
After all, as Bolt says, he is radically opposed to the very idea of race: we are all members of the ONE race — the HUMAN race — and it’s time to get over what divides us, and concentrate on what unites us. For example, what divides us is white Aborigines, and what unites us is the fact that Sudanese people are criminals. When will we realise this and move into a post-racial world? A world where people are not judged on the colour of their skin, but rather on the immoral and criminal acts they are driven to perform because of the colour of their skin? A world where people are not just allowed to "choose" what race they are? A world where influential media commentators are not torn down by the tall-poppy-syndromites every time they dare to express an opinion that doesn’t fit in with the eco-Nazi crypto-Menshevik ideology that dominates public discourse in Australia today to the extent that Pauline Hanson can’t even get elected anymore? When will this world come about?
I hope it comes about soon. I hope we can stop worrying about what race people are and start measuring their skin colour in a calm and rational way. I hope we can call off the dogs and let the mighty stag of the News Ltd empire go about his business in peace. I had to apologise to Andrew Bolt once before for the shameful way this country had treated him. Don’t make me do it again. I don’t think my heart could stand it.
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