Posts Tagged ‘The State’

An over-familiar State

Thursday, March 25th, 2021

There is a scene in George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984, where Winston, the rebellious protagonist, gets ambushed while helping fix his neighbour Mrs. Parsons’ sink by her unruly children. “Traitor!” they yelled while dressed in the uniform of the Junior Spies, “Thought-criminal!” A mere nine and seven years old, they adored the Party, and would Read more

It’s not the state’s role to decide which ideas are right or wrong

Monday, June 24th, 2019

Following the Christchurch massacre, Justice Minister Andrew Little announced a review of our hate speech laws. Little wants the review to focus on “whether our laws properly balance the issues of freedom of speech and hate speech”. He seems to want a bob each way on this question. On the one hand, he has defended free Read more