Close Down the Thought Police!
SOLO-NZ Press Release: Close Down the Thought Police!
December 18, 2011
The Race Relations Commissioner's call this morning for golliwog wrapping paper to be withdrawn from the shelves of a popular chain store underscores the need to abolish that office and repeal the odious legislation under which it pursues its anti-freedom agenda, says SOLO Principal Lindsay Perigo.
Commissioner Boris (aka Joris) de Bres says the paper might cause offence.
"What's beyond offensive is Boris's ongoing state-sponsored attempt to police our thoughts," says Perigo.
"Equally offensive is the legislation empowering goons like Boris to do this. Under our grotesquely misnamed Human Rights Act:
Every person commits an offence
and is liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a
term not exceeding 3 months or to a fine not exceeding
$7,000 who, with intent to excite hostility or ill-will
against, or bring into contempt or ridicule, any group of
persons in New Zealand on the ground of the colour, race, or
ethnic or national origins of that group of
persons,—
(a) publishes or distributes written matter
which is threatening, abusive, or insulting, or broadcasts
by means of radio or television words which are threatening,
abusive, or insulting; or
(b) uses in any public place
(as defined in section 2(1) of the Summary Offences Act
1981), or within the hearing of persons in any such public
place, or at any meeting to which the public are invited or
have access, words which are threatening, abusive, or
insulting,—
being matter or words likely to excite
hostility or ill-will against, or bring into contempt or
ridicule, any such group of persons in New Zealand on the
ground of the colour, race, or ethnic or national origins of
that group of persons.
"Is Boris going to deem this golliwog wrapping paper matter likely to excite ill-will, and prosecute personnel of the Look Sharp chain of stores if they don't remove it?
"Kudos is due to Tainui spokesman Jeff Green, who says it's nonsense for anyone to be offended by golliwog wrapping paper, and the episode shows the extent to which New Zealand is bogged down in political correctness.
"It's also a reminder that the whole world is bogged down in the tyranny of umbrage, to which the best rejoinder was recently offered by Stephen Fry: 'You're offended? So fucking what!'
"I call on John Key and his new government to abolish Boris and his Thought Police and repeal the legislation that spawns them," Perigo concludes.
Lindsay Perigo: linz@lindsayperigo.com
SOLO (Sense of Life Objectivists): SOLOPassion.com
ENDS