Summary
Candace Owens, a U.S. conservative commentator, has been denied a visa to enter New Zealand for a speaking tour after being banned from Australia.
Australian officials barred her in October, citing her Holocaust denial remarks and potential to incite discord, following calls from Jewish groups.
New Zealand immigration laws prohibit entry to individuals banned from other countries.
Owens, known for controversial statements on topics like Black Lives Matter and vaccines, had planned to discuss free speech and Christianity at events in both countries. Tickets for her tour remain on sale.
But what if your opinion is threatening to others? If you believe that white people are inherently superior to other races and it is right for them to be served by the inferior races, then expressing that opinion is inherently threatening to many non-whites.
Sure, I’ve given hyperbolic examples, because I wanted to demonstrate that you can use freedom of expression to make threats, but there will also be examples that are in more of a grey area. There’s nothing inherently threatening about the Confederate flag. If you had flown it in 1600 people would’ve just said “cool flag, what does it mean?”.
Now however, many people see it as a threat, a constant reminder of how things used to be for their ancestors. Expressing your opinion by flying that flag says to those people “I want your children to live as your forefathers did”
Now, not everyone who flies that flag is making a threat, but some of them absolutely are. So what do we do?
I’m not saying I have a one size fits all solution. Simply banning anything that neo-nazis adopt clearly isn’t practical and could also be easily abused by the government to quash dissent. I’m just pointing out that it’s not a simple fucking problem.
It is pretty simple. If an action\opinion is deemed threatening then laws are created to stop that action\opinion. If there is no law making it illegal then it is just an opinion. So you can have a flag with a swastika, a confederate flag, BLM, OR LGBTQ.
Dude, you’re complaining about a nation using its laws to prevent her from speaking. If your requirement is if laws prevent something it’s fine, then I don’t know what you’re discussing anymore. I think you need to return to the basics of your position and reconsider it for a moment.
So your baseline is whether or not something is criminal.
That’s easily solved, create laws outlawing the undesirable behaviour, such as the ones in Germany regarding Nazi paraphernalia.
Or the ones defining potentially damaging behaviour as a reason for denying visa access… give it a sec, I’m sure you’ll get it.
Obligatory, countries outside of the US exist and, I imagine rather inconveniently for your argument, have their own laws.
But if your definition of the basis of democracy is freedom of speech except for when there is a law specifically preventing it then you probably have bigger concerns than weak foundations for your arguments.
Yes freedom of speech ends at criminal action or illegal behavior. That is where those boundaries exist. If they do not end at that juncture then where do they end?
