Tim Blair

No, no Tim. They "misunderestimate" Bush. ;->=

Also, did you really mean tautologies?

You don't think "French resistance" is a tautology?

And yes, it was "misunderestimate" in the original copy. It was unremoved by a subeditor.

Not tautology, oxymoron maybe. It's a shame the subed didn't pick that one up.

I love, it, love it. Those who are championing free speech are often the ones denying it to others. You have made my day Tim.

Tim doesn't know the difference between an oxymoron and a tautology. Please don't pick on his poor language skills - he's only a journalist, remember.

And his assertion that people are free to order Ken Park over the internet is incorrect - your shipment would be liable to Customs seizure as the film's been refused classification by the OFLC.

This was explained to Tim the other day in comments, but let's be generous and assume that was after his deadline...

Stupid me -- oxymoron it is. Not the subs fault. I sent it that way.

Can customs seize downloads?

Come on Tim, now you're just looking for a way out of the hole you've dug yourself. Keep diggin', big boy.

Ken Park is prohibited content under the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Online Services) Act 1999.

Hang on, Bonster -- you're the one who mentioned "shipments". I only wrote that it could be ordered. The film that was shown in Melbourne was a download, apparently, and not a DVD.

And I mentioned that it could be "viewed privately without the likelihood of punishment". As in, you are not likely to get caught if you order the film. Which is true, yes?

Surely, if you've decided that you are going to break a law because you think it's wrong, it's more admirable to do it publicly and openly than to do it in a way that is unlikely to come to the attention of authorities. No?

And the free speech/Pauline Hanson riff is a complete straw man. No-one said that Pauline Hanson should be silenced. Many people said that she shouldn't be listened to. Why do so many people confuse criticism with censorship?

Many people tried to silence her. A Sydney Morning Herald bureau chief argued that her maiden speech should not be reported.

And what were all those protesters doing at her rallies? Throwing flowers?

I didn't know about the SMH bureau chief - but clearly he or she was outnumbered, even at the SMH. I don't recall any lack of press coverage of her antics.

And now you oppose heckling? It may, in certain circumstances, be ill-mannered and offensive, but it's as much an expression of free speech as anything Ms. Hanson had to say.

One guy was heckled into unconsciousness.

"Hang on, Bonster -- you're the one who mentioned "shipments". I only wrote that it could be ordered. The film that was shown in Melbourne was a download, apparently, and not a DVD."

no one who "ordered" ken park received their copy by spending between 1 [cable modem] and 45 hours [56k dial up] downloading it. people who "ordered" ken park receive a physical copy of it.

The film that was shown in Melbourne was a download, apparently, and not a DVD.

It was also not "ordered", but downloaded illegally [in two senses of the word].

And I mentioned that it could be "viewed privately without the likelihood of punishment". As in, you are not likely to get caught if you order the film. Which is true, yes?

no, you're not likely to get caught if you illegally download the film. if you "order" it, customs can seize it.

also, from your column:

This isn't a free-speech issue, because such films are easily obtained, and may be viewed privately without the likelihood of punishment.

i believe pauline hanson could speak in the privacy of her own home without being shouted down by protesters, being vetted by capricious smh editors, or being ludicrously prosecuted for fraud, so by your logic the treatment of hanson is not a censorship issue either. which is absurd. also, aren't blairite conservatives supposed to dislike the nanny state? where's the outrage at being treated like a 5 year old, tim?

I attended a Hanson rally. My mates and I turned up as protesters - we chanted a few slogans to show we disagreed with her policies and then, when we got bored with that, we went in to listen to what she had to say. Anyway, a number of the other protesters stormed the hall and stopped her from talking - the meeting was abandoned. Was that censorship Mork?

Heckled, Mork, on that score, what the Sydney communards, who reckon themselves students, did at Syd.Univ. the other day, for violence matching some of the scences of Hanson heckling, must also be treated as heckling.I have to run off to the puke bucket which is difficult , I am laughing so hard my side hurts and simultaneously is agitating the old bile.

also, in that link to the 60 minutes transcript, you can read honest-to-god leftists like margo kingston critique their own censorship of hanson and decry the treatment she received in the media. and you ask us "Where were these advocates of free speech?" giving interviews to 60 minutes, apparently.

I think the "Ken Park" mob only pulled this stunt not in the name of "free speech" but so they can fantasize on being a martyr. l

Adam,

They're giving interviews after earlier deliberately quashing reports, yes. She was censored.

And on the word "ordered" -- it covers both the DVD and the download. You order something; it is ordered. The form and delivery of the ordered product is irrelevant.

Just don't ask me to advise on the meaning of "tautology".

look, you don't "order" something if you pay no money for it and receive it in breach of copyright law over the internet. people do not, for example, "order" music when they download mp3s. i mean, i didn't "order" tim blair's blog, notwithstanding that information on it was downloaded onto my computer.

"They're giving interviews after earlier deliberately quashing reports, yes. She was censored." uh, yeah. and? the point is that she was censored and people on the left admitted it was wrong to censor her, thereby undermining your whole hypocrisy shtick in the bulletin.

No, Alex, I don't think it was. Deplorable, yes. Censorship, no. I would reserve the term for situations where a person is left with no legal outlet for expressing their views - otherwise becomes something any crybaby can start whinging about when people fail to treat their views with the awe they deserve, and the term quickly loses all meaning.

Put like that, it's difficult for anyone but a government to censor free expression. As for private actions, well, free societies have ways of working through these things: take the meeting you attended, for example - do you think the people who attended were more or less likely to vote for Ms. Hanson by the time it ended? Not to mention, of course, all the additional publicity she and her ideas received as a result of being targeted.

But I mean really, censored? Who among the Australians reading this site feels that any information about Ms. Hanson or her ideas has been kept from them. I suspect many would say the opposite.

As for Tim's charge of hypocrisy, if he's basing it on the people who actually went to those meetings and behaved offensively, then he's clearly got the wrong crowd. They were overwhelmingly from the fringe international socialist/resistance/anarchist dole-bludging, tea-cosy wearing group of professional troublemakers. The Ken Park crowd is mostly middle class, black turtlekneck wearing macchiato-sippers. I mean, the Balmain Town Hall, for Christ's sake!

This is part of Tim's habit of rolling up every group with whom he disagrees into this one big multi-headed hydra, each part of which is responsible for the actions of every other. It makes him sound like one of those foaming lefties who imagine a vast conspiracy connecting everyone from the League of Rights and the H R Nichols Society through the Liberal Party, international freemasonry and the board of BHP.

You issue an order through your computer, Adam. An order doesn't have to be legal, or involve payment. "Order" covers lots of situations. You can order a free meal. You can order a crime.

The fact that SOME believed they'd done the wrong thing by Hanson after the fact doesn't alter the circumstances of their original censorship, which is what I refer to. "Sorry" doesn't fix anything.

"multi-headed hydra" Thanks for demonstrating to Tim what a tautology is.

Comment of the day, Simon ...

I thought I was demonstrating to Tim what a hydra was!

So Tim, you're saying that because the law isn't completely enforced, it doesn't matter?

An interesting conservative position, to say the least.

Come on, have another go - surely you can come up with something at least superficially convincing, rather than this semantic dodgeball.

In the same week that half a million of us (around 7% of the total population) marched in Hong Kong against proposed legislation that we believed restricted our freedoms, Ken Park started its run at the Hong Kong Arts Centre in Harbour Road (a stone's throw from the Convention Centre, which was extended in 1997 to mark the Handover). It's a weird world.

of course i can order something using a computer. for example, i can order ken park from amazon.com. but i think it's clutching at straws for you to suggest that you "order" a file when you download it from the internet. i have never before been exposed to this usage of "order".

also, go on the record as an opponent of the nanny state, so i can still at least respectfully disagree with you. i mean, if you actually believe in the inherent idiocy of this, then the censorship of ken park should piss you off, a least a little bit.

So guys, is this film any good, or what? I figure it has to be spectacular for you to get so hot under the collar over it's censoring. Or, well, under something.

It is inherently disturbing for me to admit, but I have to agree with Mork in relation to the issue of censorship in relation to the movie. Having seen some parts of it after "ordering" it via download, I can honestly say that the movie is completely fucked with absolutely no bearing on Australian society. For fuck's sake, I have seen more flesh on a Chances re-run than I did in the movie.

Despite the, and lets face it, truly fascinating debate on the usage or otherwise of the word "order" I really can't see the point to the whole bullshit.

If you want to go and check out soft porn badly disguised as an arthouse flick, watch SBS. Watch whatever the hell you want, but just make sure that it is restricted to people who can make an informed decision. Up the price of a ticket and put a bouncer on the door.

Of course, this still doesn't mean that I am happy to be agreeing with Mork, and I will endeavour to never let it happen again. ;-)

Tim
Regarding today's "continuing crisis", what Barry Humphries collects, judging by the examples you have provided, are not tautologies but oxymorons. To be tautological they'd have to be reworked, for example, biased ABC. I'm not so sure it works as well for all of your examples.
Cheers

It's actually a pretty crap movie.

So I've heard.

if teenage caveman is a yardstick by which to judge larry clark's work, i wouldn't hold up too much hope for this movie. but i should still get a chance to find out for myself how pretentious and stupid it is.

Uh, make that two entertaining blunders.

Media are plural.

Re: Hanson. Surely freedom of speech contains some restraint of the "heckler's veto." Using your free speech to shout down someone else's attempt at using their free speech would appear to be hypocritical at best. It would also appear to be the weapon of choice by Palestinian supporters in Canada and the US, PC types in the US and "progressives" in most of the world.