Okay. I read Stuff this morning & I’m just going to raise again that it is deeply concerning that we’ve handed more power to someone who is smart enough to understand that by championing hate speech he is implicitly accepting racism.

It is also really worrying that that the “silly comment” on Facebook was to “destroy mosque after mosque until I am taken out” - in light of all the things we know about terror, about emboldening these people, I’m still just mind-blown that this is apparently just sweet as now.

This was framed as a “scrap” by Stuff and the quote was “menace to freedom”, not “menace” - Ghahraman needed a *security escort* after he said these things on a radio station that strongly caters to people who are 100% on board with women, & woc in particular being a threat.

To my knowledge David Seymour has never spoken up about racism in the NZ police, OR the fact that the experience of reporting harassment is made worse by NZ police culture, both of which are deeply disturbing.
But right-wing gun owner?

The things you protect, when you refuse to stand against hate speech, are views like this - from an ACT Party candidate who resigned a couple of months ago.

I keep talking about this because the very fact that ACT has more seats is evidence that these very disturbing things get lost, they don’t get challenged, they don’t get referenced in articles for a balanced view. They just become... fine.
Because, y’know. Dancing with the Stars.

There is a difference between free speech and hate speech.

When we normalise the kind of hatred we’re seeing in the US (& UK) right now we devastate the values that we should also be fiercely protecting.

It’s on us to decide if normalising hate speech is ever about “freedom”. /