July 12, 2003

DISSENT CRUSHED AGAIN

The free-speechin’ Ken Park Six is speaking a little less freely. Compare the group’s letter to The Age earlier this week with their letter in today’s Sydney Morning Herald.

They’re identical, apart from the omission in the SMH version of a certain controversial paragraph. Have the KP6 censored themselves? Is the demand to “end politically conservative appointments” now off the table? Maybe Media Watch will tell us.

Posted by Tim Blair at July 12, 2003 06:19 PM
Comments

Did someone frighten this bunch of cowardly kiddyporn promoters? Could it be that someone did not like being characterised as Politically Conservative Appointees who are (in) competent people with axes to grind and with (no) understanding of Australia as a country of diverse communities.

But what has "diverse communities" got to do with this nonsense?

Could it be that we now have to be tolerant of Ethnic Groups who like KiddyPorn ? If so let them go watch SBS they seem to troll the sewers of the globe for lots of their “films”. Pathetic Porn Promoter Pomeranz could no doubt provide programme details,

Posted by: lawrie at July 12, 2003 at 07:20 PM

hey tim, you've still not said where you stand vis-à-vis the nanny state. is it the case that you have a problem with laws that deny people the absolute freedom to kill themselves, but you have no problem with laws banning actual sex in the movies? also, you might want to credit the person who thought up the "kp6" abbreviation.

and to lawrie, how is a film acted by people aged 18+ [who, according to the NZ classifiers, play characters aged 16+] kiddy porn?

Posted by: adam at July 13, 2003 at 03:17 AM

also, there's a chance that the letter writers just got cut by the herald's letters editor. i don't think the paragraph you took so badly really added much to the letter that wasn't also said in the final paragraph.

anyway, how likely is it that the KP6, based in sydney, first wrote a letter to the age in melbourne, waited to see what tim blair said about it, then fired off an improved letter to the herald in sydney? the letter to the herald got published only a day after the letter to the age, so it's at least plausible that the two letters were written and posted at the same time. the letter to the herald is, incidentally, dated "July 10" by the letters editor, which you'll note is consistent with the two-letters-same-day theory, and is the day before your post on the topic.

Posted by: adam at July 13, 2003 at 03:40 AM

Be careful Adam. You're coming across as awfully anti-Semitic with comments like that

Posted by: Tom at July 13, 2003 at 04:47 AM

A day without Adam is like a day without sunshine.

No, wait; I've got that wrong. I meant to say that "a day without Adam is like a day without eating bugs."

Posted by: tim at July 13, 2003 at 02:22 PM

i see that you've still not given your opinion re the censorship of ken park, but your cryptic comment is nevertheless noted.

also, it was sunny today.

Posted by: adam at July 13, 2003 at 03:55 PM

Adam
I think the point is that Tim is not giving an opinion about Ken Park, but about those who think that poltical conservatives should not be allowed to hold public office.

Censorship is a difficult issue. I'm sure that those on the left would censor any work of art that was "sexist" or "racist" or "homopghobic" as quick as they could. In fact they do it all the time. Personally I'm against censorship in all bu the most extreme cases. Of course the problem is that hard cases make bad law.

Posted by: Toryhere at July 14, 2003 at 11:10 AM

well i think the point is that tim blair is not giving his opinion on account of the fact that he realises his audience is half rightist-conservative and half rightist-libertarian, and he doesn't want to alienate whichever one of them he doesn't agree with on this.

so he's just taking pot-shots at what the left thinks, without saying what he thinks. it's just a little evasive.

Posted by: adam at July 15, 2003 at 01:02 AM