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Yesterday, I reported to an American audience a legal case that is widely known of in Australia. A man named Brendon O'Connell put up anti Jewish diatribes on You Tube, for which he was charged with hate crimes under Australian law. I got two replies, one to Rudistettner.com and the other on Rantrave.com. Both comments took issue with my conclusions. Both comments raise serious questions. Both comments came from members of the Perth Jewish community and offer background not mentioned in the mainstream media. Gedalia responded as follows.
"I have had a personal encounter with Brendan - not pleasant. He has physically threatened people, and is quite capable of crazy actions. I agree that a person should not be arrested for their attitude. However when that attitude is expressed in a way that is potentially harmful (in a very real sense) to other people, then the situation changes. As the article notes, only 2 people have been charged under this legislation, showing that it is only applied in instances of absolute necessity. You only need to watch his latest video posting to see that in this case, the charge was quite justified"
On Rantrave.com, Perthguy posted the following reply.
"And I have news for you. Hate crimes have taken place. This lunatic has threatened the lives of men, women and children in the Jewish community, personally, by phone and email. On the very night he was charged, he rang a Perth based Jewish centre and told them he was coming around to "finish them off". The centre, which was full of children, had to have a police guard. This is beyond harassment. This guy hasn't just made videos out of the blue in the background, like the media is making out. He's being assaulting and threatening to kill Jews, in person, by email and by telephone, for almost a decade."
Both Gedalia and Perthguy rounded out the picture with accounts of a ten year campaign of harassment by O'Connell. Non stop harassment, assaults and even threatening the staff and children in a day care centre are criminal behavior. The presence of a police guard at the day care centre is proof that the public suffered expense. The fear and anxiety suffered by the Jews of Perth is no different than that of a girlfriend or public figure who is being stalked by an angry ex love or fan. Threatening physical harm is not and never was "protected speech." It is one thing to post on You Tube or a blog one's anger at Jews, Catholics, African Americans or Chinese. It is another matter entirely when one starts harassing strangers who belong to a group against whom one nurses a grievance.
Given the reports from Gedalia and Perthguy, I believe that it is proper for Brendon O'Connell to be facing possible jail time. But I still take issue with which of the existing laws were used to bring him to justice. Furthermore, it should not have taken ten years for Australian legal authorities to provide relief from O'Connell's outrages. A bad law can have a desired outcome and unforseen negative consequences. Hate crimes laws can be used to stifle the political free speech of individuals who have no intention of doing violence.
Orianna Fallaci, the late great Italian journalist wrote books and articles slamming radical Islam and the violence committed in the name of Islam. Not long before her death, legal charges were filed against her in France for "hate crimes."
In San Diego, a group of lesbians and agnostics has sued the Boy Scouts for hurting their feelings and self esteem and calling for the city to throw the Boy Scouts off land they lease from the City of San Diego to run a camping facility and an aquatic park. No one who filed the lawsuit had been to either facility or suffered any sort of discrimination there.
Great Britain has now banned Michael Savage from entry for the sole crime of runnning his mouth in front of a live microphone.
A British diplomat Rowan Laxton faces felony hate charges for mouthing off against Jews and Israel while exercising at a gym. The gym would have been within their rights to revoke his membership. The foreign service would have been within their rights to fire him. (Although his opinions are probably quite normal in the diplomatic service. )
All of these instances of the use of hate crimes laws create disturbing precedents for regulating speech. The possibility of progressive encroachments upon the boundaries of permitted speech is very real and very disturbing. Such laws even provide cover to prevent protests against human rights violations in Arab countries.
Brendan O'Connell should have to face the Australian justice system and the people he has harassed over the years. But the hate crimes laws used to stop him are like medicine that cures a disease and kills the patient.
A proper outcome for the Brendon O'Connell case would be for him to be taken out of jail, back down to the judge and back to jail on charges related to his conduct rather than his thoughts. There are enough laws to protect the people of Perth without hate crimes laws. These laws should have been invoked ten years ago to stop Brendon O'Connell in his tracks. And they should be used today as well.
Reprinted with permission from Rudistettner.com