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.
It rather depends on who is determining what is “true” doesn’t it?
Truth about an objective fact is not something you can subjectively decide. You can’t have your own facts or your own truth.
Russia is at war after illegally invading Ukraine, is an objectively true statement, but is an illegal statement in Russia.
“Duh”
But laws are decided by humans. And humans are falable. One person’s “objective fact” is another person’s “lie”.
So when you give a state power to punish people for lying you have to ask yourself - “who is deciding what ‘true’ is?” in that scenario. And will they be the ones deciding it in the future?
You have no clue what you are talking about, the falsifying of history that is illegal is very well defined, as for example denial of holocaust. This is not something that is arbitrarily decided by political changes, but is based on actual well documented historical facts, only denied by extremists.
Just because Putin uses similar rhetoric, against people who call the war a war, doesn’t mean the 2 are the same. There’s a huge difference between a well functioning democracy, and an authoritarian dictatorship.
“only denied by extremists”
And what happens when they are behind the bench?
I’m curious about these arguments that people put forward. Pretending to be some kind of ‘absolutist’. Are you really so deluded that you think these efforts to address misinformation and extremism might somehow be used by bad faith actor? Like ‘we shouldn’t do this, what if the bad guys are in charge?’. We all know that when they’re in power they wouldn’t care about the laws or would just make their own up!
Or are you batting for the fascists and autocrats and want to give them more power faster?
There are levels of extremists. It’s not clear “good” and “bad”. Look at the US who is putting s vaccine denier in charge of health policy.
Vaccines objectively work. That is the truth. But “Truth” isn’t always universally agreed upon.
Don’t be a dick.
Science is a bad example. It’s a field where our understanding continues to develop. Whether something has happened or not, like the Holocaust, or Russia invading Ukraine, are completely different.
‘Vaccines works’ can mean a lot of things, different types of vaccines, for different issues, and different side effects, and how people personally weigh side effects with the benefit.
That said, you don’t stop trying to do the right thing because it might backfire, because not doing anything at all will probably baby make things worse.
Politicians shouldn’t consider whether the laws they pass may have bad consequences later on?
These people are insane, so then it’s obviously no longer a well functioning democracy, and fair and reasonable laws cannot be expected. It will probably be illegal to show documented actual facts about how they lied their way to power.
So “all is good” and “all is lost” are the only two viable options then?