Considering joining Pirate Party; have questions about policy on speech

General
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I’m thinking of joining and I wanted to get some elaboration on the reasoning behind the party’s position on 18C (specifically the one I know is “Repeal section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act[17], ensuring that pre-existing common law protections are sufficient to manage all cases of intimidation and harassment.” If this is out of date I’d appreciate the current policy, I’m very new so I’d love a hand).

Specifically, what’s PPAU’s position on other types of speech inciting unjustified violence or harm? Examples are the prototypical shouting “Fire!” in a crowded cinema, or publishing insufficient justifications for violence against particular individuals or groups in the knowledge that they would result in violence against them, organising with people you know to gather weapons and attack a group, hiring an enforcer to enact violence, hiring a contract killer to perform a killing, etc, all in ascending order of negative sentiment in public opinion, from my understanding.

If those or a subset of them should still be criminalised (or go unmentioned in the policy, forming tacit support for the status quo), could someone elucidate the distinction with the speech criminalised by 18C, speech inciting hatred or vilification based on someone’s race and thus, in a culture where violence based on race is regularly practiced (and assumed here to be unjustified, unless my impressions of the pirate party are very, very wrong) and the outcome of such speech can be easily predicted, constitutes organisation to cause unjustified violence?

I’ve been lead to believe the only thing that will matter here is the content of my argument, which I hope is true :stuck_out_tongue: but if anyone’s wondering what my political motive and desired outcome is, I’m opposed to most criminalisations as they exist in the current justice system and think significant reforms of the justice system at a fundamental level (towards a system of restorative and rehabilitative justice rather than punitive, with a separate system for organised application of self-defence) are necessary to address societal issues.

Having established that I’m fundamentally against heavy-handed repression in general, I’m very cognisant of the real societal effects of the order in which we challenge heavy-handed laws and the current justice system, and I put forward that supporting the repeal and opposing the reinstatement of 18C is an immoral political target at this point in time.

My reasoning is that we’d be arguing alongside those who desire organised violence against people of colour and consider this campaign a crucial step to normalising and expanding that violence (so, in other words, we’d be inspiring and emboldening them). The other moral reason is that the policy would be intentionally decriminalising a specific type of incitement to harm based on race, simply because it’s an easy political target and before the larger systematised causes of racialised violence are adequately addressed.

I would also argue that the policy is a non-strategic one for achieving the agenda of the Pirate Party because the political actors in support and opposition of 18C being gone are generally in opposition and support of the rest of the Pirate Party’s policies, respectively. Look forward to the discussion, I’m sure this will be a good introduction to the party.

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In which Alex tries to unpack this:

  • does PPAU policy currently hold that any speech should be unlawful?
  • if so, what are the distinctions between that speech and speech unlawful under 18C, considering:
    • speech in support of violence, even speech that ‘merely’ creates a favourable climate for violence, is effectively organisation of violence
      • Alex’s side note: filter bubbles are a thing
    • Australia does have a problem with (or at least the strong potential for) racial-related violence
    • repealing 18C would therefore be enabling violence
  • everyone else in favour of repealing 18C are utter ratbags, or at least people we don’t get along with

@committed_to_truth is this a fair summary?

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Yes, I think that’s an accurate summary of my questions and points.

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As a new member I would like to add that I agree with @committed_to_truth’s analysis of the situation regarding 18C. In an ideal world, or at least a better one, racialised violence would no longer be a threat, causing there to be no need for laws around this sort of speech. We don’t live in this world, sadly. I had similar misgivings myself when thinking of joining the PPAU (though ultimately ended up joining as other pros outweighed this particular con). I’d also be interested in hearing the answers.

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When the repeal of section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act was proposed, it wasn’t a complete repeal, it was an amendment. The change was removing the words ‘offend, insult, humiliate’ and adding the sentence to ‘vilify another person or a group of persons’. This was what we were okay with.

Basically, we think that the limitation on speech that includes to ‘offend’ and ‘insult’ are too vague and too broad. Speech aimed to stir up hatred, IE ‘vilify’ and ‘intimidate’ would still be illegal.

Ideas that fuel bigotry need to be combated and discredited. For this to happen they need to be exposed and debated, and shown to be baseless. What is a more effective way to combat homophobia fo EG? Ban the use off offensive words to describe queer people? Or challenging people when they show themselves to be bigoted by using offensive language? We think the antidote to bad ideas is free speech.

For example, I work in a warehouse, the staff are mostly high school educated, most haven’t been to University. They were kinda homophobic when I started there. I have queer friends, been generally friendly with the local queer community and have been part of a float at Mardi Gras one year. I would just talk to them about my queer friends whenever they were being bigoted and say ‘I don’t think you have a clue’ (or whatever). Other more enlightened workmates started doing the same and now no-one gets called ‘gay’ as an insult. Having the same people dragged into court for saying the same dumb things wouldn’t have changed their minds, and it probably would have added to their resentment.

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No freedom without responsibility, no responsibility with freedom.

Free speech should have responsibilities attached to it, the larger the audience and reputation of the speaker, the greater the responsibility. e.g. if an average person had have said what bolt said, but to a small group of friends then it probably shouldn’t be a much of an issue (not that i even remember what he said)

It is important that people feel they can share their honest opinion with others, the only way to resolve some issues is to bring the issue out into the open and talk about them, if we discourage such frank conversations then we deny those with extreme ideas the feedback that they need if they are going to change. We should not obligate people to hide their problems so we can delude ourselves into thinking the problem doesnt exists. If people cant talk about their differences, the only thing left for them to do is to fight about them

It really comes down to intent, its very different for someone to offend someone out of hatred than it is to offend them out of ignorance.

More generally freedom of speech should permit anyone to tell the truth, there shouldnt be laws against whistleblowers.

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I used to support 18C, but changed my mind (reluctantly) in 2013. That was when the Gillard government tried to extend the provisions of 18C to cover a bunch of other areas - creating a regime that would have “protected” everything from religion to political opinion from offense and insult. It would have been a horrible thing in practice, and it came incredibly close to passing, stopped only when indies in the lower house withdrew support (this was the reason; disregard anything else you might have heard).

The thing about censorship is that it’s always in motion. It creeps. You can’t just shoot at it where it is, but at where it’s going to be. If we agree that ruling opinions in and out is a legitimate function of the state, there’s no clear line where it stops.

And that’s not just bad for us, its bad for dissidents and liberals all around the world. Since Western countries started exhuming their censorship laws, the floggers and tyrants in Saudi Arabia and China have been able to shut down criticism merely by quoting our censorship arguments back at us (they literally say: we have to stop hate speech, protect dignity - just like you do in the West). And having conceded on the major point of difference, all we can do is quibble over how much punishment is warranted for expressing an opinion, or what opinions should be counted as bad.

Anything that creeps as censorship does always ends up serving power and privilege in the end.

A couple more points:

  • Censorship of opinions (18C) is different from stopping direct threats and violent incitement. They are distinct concepts covered by different laws.

  • Our opposition to censorship is different from the right-wing opposition. They fixate on 18C and ignore everything else. We apply a board principle across the board. (This is also why the right can’t be given sole carriage of the free speech cause - if we outsource defence of the enlightenment to Family First or the Australian Liberty Alliance, we deserve everything we get).

  • AFAIK, no Pirate Party in the world supports censorship. I don’t think it’s wise to be the first.

  • You might be interested in this earlier discussion on the topic.

  • You might also be interested in this reasonably relevant article by Glenn Greenwald.

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A lot of what you’ve written is in dense chunks, so I’m extracting what I consider to be the essential questions. I’m happy to expand on my reply if necessary.

The Pirate Party’s approach does not oppose legislation that infringes on free speech. In general it supports freedom of speech, unless there’s a very good reason to restrict it — and causing offence is not one of them. Australian common law prohibits acts that intentionally or recklessly causing another to apprehend immediate and unlawful violence — ie, making someone fear for their bodily integrity. The Pirate Party’s policy accepts this, among many others.

RDA s 18C does not criminalise any kind of speech. It does not provide any criminal penalty for the speech it is directed toward. This distinction may seem obtuse, but it is very important.

RDA ss 18B–18E were added in 1994/95 to fulfil international obligations under the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination, which Australia had not fully implemented. Currently these provisions go beyond what is required by the Convention.

There were three separate reports in the early 1990s that considered racial vilification legislation at the federal level by the

  • Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission (1991),
  • Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (1991), and
  • Australian Law Reform Commission (1992).

Each of these reports recommended the same thing — the introduction of a civil offence of incitement to racist hatred and hostility, but not a criminal offence because this would unduly restrict freedom of speech.

The Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission specifically recommended that the threshold be higher than ‘hurt feelings or injured sensibilities’ to avoid a repeat of the New Zealand situation ‘where legislation produced a host of trivial complaints.’ This advice was ignored.

It is a civil offence, meaning the injured party may take the matter to court and be awarded damages plus an injunction. They can basically get money for anything from being offended to being vilified or being part of a racial or ethnic group that someone has encouraged violence toward. They can have the statements retracted. Prison is not on the cards. Ever.

As a further note, I wrote the Pirate Party’s submission to the Attorney-General’s Department on the proposed repeal of s 18C. The opening remarks read:

Pirate Party Australia is a strong advocate of freedom of speech and expression. However, the Pirate Party acknowledges that few rights exist in isolation. In certain circumstances exercising the right to freedom of speech and/or expression carries consequences which may restrict that exercise.

This bill fails to provide genuine freedom of speech in its ordinary sense. Instead, it repeals what is effectively a very narrow limitation on freedom of speech, while not protecting or creating freedoms of speech on other issues.

The submission had to ‘creatively interpret’ the policy as not being a total repeal of s 18C:

Pirate Party Australia believes the removal of the terms ‘offend,’ ‘insult’ and ‘humiliate’ is appropriate, and is supportive of the retention of ‘intimidate’ and the addition of ‘vilify.’

Pirate Party Australia is in favour of the revised subsection (2). The Pirate Party notes that the definitions of ‘vilify’ and ‘intimidate’ bear resemblance to assault in that they may create a fear of harm (immediate or constant). These definitions shift the unlawful activity away from subjective notions of offence or insult and towards a more objective basis of creating fears of actual harm and encouraging hatred based on race, colour or national or ethnic origin.

Subsection (3) provides a satisfactorily objective test. Unlike ‘offend,’ ‘insult’ and ‘humiliate,’ the intentions to ‘vilify’ or ‘intimidate’ due to race, colour or national or ethnic origin would seem more objectively observable.

We did not, however, support the bill in its proposed form:

Subsection (4) undermines the proposed section entirely, and as a result Pirate Party Australia cannot support the bill in its present form. The subsection provides far too much by way of exception, and is an unsuitable replacement for the current s 18D.

Pirate Party Australia cannot see a justification for why vilification or intimidation would be acceptable in the ‘public discussion of any political, social, cultural, religious, artistic, academic or scientific matter.’ That is to say, the Party is experiencing difficulty in understanding the value of allowing the incitement of hatred or the causing of fear of physical harm in those contexts, particularly as the contexts are very broad. It would seem there are few activities that fall outside those categories, and this subsection would undermine the purpose of the proposed section.

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Very interesting, thanks for that clarification.

I wouldn’t have known all this from reading the mention of 18C in the party platform wiki:

“Repeal section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act[17], ensuring that pre-existing common law protections are sufficient to manage all cases of intimidation and harassment.”

I had read that as emphasising the “repeal” bit. I can see that the “managing all cases of intimidation and harassment” part of the sentence is there, but I wonder if this wording could do with some strengthening and clarifying. “Managing” sounds a bit, well, managerial. I think it needs to be crystal clear that we are against speech that creates harm and hatred based on race etc. (Especially seeing as though, for political / strategic reasons, we don’t want to be confused with unsavoury rightwing libertarian-types.)

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Dunno on that point I for one would enjoy the Schadenfreude of outraged conservative voters realizing they had mistakenly given preferences to an unashamedly progressive party. Their indignation would be like birdsong on a spring morning.

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I would tend to agree that this point in our policies needs to be refined.

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On the topic of banning the use of offensive words, http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com.au/2016/06/in-praise-of-reprehensible.html is an interesting read. Here’s some choice snippets regarding the Victorian era attempts to suppress discussion of sex:

Human cultures are governed by something not too different from Isaac Newton’s famous third law of motion: “every action produces an equal and opposite reaction.” The Victorian moral crusade against sexuality thus generated its inevitable countermovement, and for most of a century—from the 1890s until the late 20th century—just about every avant-garde literary, artistic, and cultural movement in the English-speaking world went out of its way to reject Victorian sexual morality and glorify casual sex.
[…]
The difficulty that Thomas Bowdler and his many equivalents had not foreseen was that erasing sex from literature and popular culture doesn’t make people innocent and pure, it just makes them clueless. Growing up in respectable Victorian society, young people were kept ignorant of every attitude toward sexuality except the one hammered into them day after day by all the officially approved voices of their society, and the result was that they had never learned to think critically about the ethics of sex.
[…]
The strategy of bowdlerization assumes that the best way, or even the only way, to discourage undesirable expressions and ideas is to keep people ignorant of them. The history of previous attempts at moral censorship shows that exactly the opposite is the case: since it’s never yet been possible to get rid of every expression of an undesirable idea, making people ignorant of that idea simply means that they’ll react to it uncritically when they do finally encounter it—and while some of those reactions will amount to uncritical rejection, there will also be cases of uncritical acceptance.

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Thank you everyone! This has been very informative, particularly @Mozart’s contribution of the actual content of the Pirate Party’s policy on the matter, and I agree with the reasoning in that policy. Is there any reason that information doesn’t seem to be available to the public, or at least I couldn’t find it when searching “Pirate Party Australia 18C policy”? How hard would it be to correct the public record? The current entry on the Wiki that alexjago, iamtheblob, and myself found seems to be inaccurate given that context. All of that said, I’m no longer concerned about the Pirate Party’s ‘actual’ stance, just the one that’s publicly available. Knowing that it was only ever a civil penalty is also useful, as the redress of damages is a significantly lesser penalty than imprisonment and thus requires less justification.

@Frew, I appreciate your response and think it’s worth discussing, even though I no longer have concerns about PPAU’s policy on 18C. I think you’re correct that, given two people in a neutral environment, the most effective antidote to an incorrect opinion in one is not for the other to force them to stop talking. This includes an opinion that materially draws its power to affect others from unequal power structures, and perpetuates those power structures, if we’re only talking about correcting that opinion and not considering other factors (such as the welfare of the person they’re talking to).

Of course, once that escalates to threats of violence or (if there’s an audience) incitement of violence, that’s completely different. But in a neutral two party situation, denial of speech is not the most effective way to prevent that opinion from recurring in future. It might be excusable in certain situations (like where the welfare of the recipient is affected), I don’t know, that’s not what we’re discussing here.

What I would like to examine is how the justification of denying speech could change when it is no longer two neutral actors. In our society, particular people have significantly greater capacity for speech (as in the, communication of information to individuals) than others; you could say they have enhanced access to the means of speech.

If someone with enhanced access to the means of speech, whose speech reaches thousands or tens of thousands of people or more, makes a statement, that’s going to have a significantly larger impact than one person talking to one other person, even accounting for the enhanced effectiveness of one-on-one discussion in affecting sentiment and action. Given their increased capacity to effect change with their speech, any negative impact of their speech would be very significantly magnified.

The speech itself could be negligible in a one-on-one conversation, if Bolt went up to his mate and said “These specific people aren’t indigenous, they’re faking it because indigenous people have it so good, it’s contemptible” the damage would be there but restricted to those two people and their flow on interactions. If either of them ever encounter a light-skinned indigenous person and harm through causing offence, there’s some damage; if they become political activists to remove funding for indigenous services to light-skinned indigenous people, there’s significantly more damage.

When Bolt broadcasts his racist accusations to tens of thousands of people (probably many more, just going with the safest bet), he’s causing significantly more harm and likely actual incidences of violence, through a false accusation, because he has significant access to the means of speech. I don’t personally think the courts as they exist in Australia today are a great way to resolve damage and harm done between individuals and prevent it occurring in future, but in the society we exist in currently they are the sanctioned option and many other effective options would, amusingly, run afoul of the law.

In this context, where Bolt and his ilk have large scale access to the means of speech and use it to cause harm to indigenous people on a regular basis, while indigenous people have very, very little access to the means of speech and use what they have almost entirely in a self-defence capacity, this seems manifestly unjust.

There are a number of options, from redistributing the means of speech to make freedom of speech and the battlefield of ideas an actual rather than superficial right (that’s a whole lot of time and effort though, and beyond the scope of any parliamentary party), to civil redress (like what actually happened in the Bolt case), to options that I’ve heard people suggest but that I’ve never seen any evidence actually cause an effect, like attempting to debate someone with large-scale access to the means of speech with our comparatively tiny ability to speak. I would like a redistribution of the means of speech, as I think it’s the fundamental issue in this specific problem and it’s better to fix a fundamental issue than to address its symptoms.

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The reason Australia has no bill of rights is because no-one wants to have free speech for their enemies. - Wish I could remember who said it because they hit the nail on the head and I would like to credit them.

The political right are always looking at ways to limit the right to protest, disempower unions, limit the effectiveness of environmental campaigns etc. The (authoritarian) left want to shut up the Murdoch press and limit the discourse of the bigoted right (although I am sure that extends to the IPA). To have the freedoms that progress society, such as having unfettered right to protest (not existing in NSW for EG), being able to freely criticise religion and being able to organise to negotiate with employers, we have to put up with the speech of our opponents too. Rights are for everyone, or they are not rights.

It’s called the Internet. It already exists. The mainstream media as it exists is founded on the requirement of having serious industrial infrastructure such as printing presses, distribution networks and newsrooms. I have all of that now, sitting on my desk and in my pocket. I have access to social media and when I say something profound (or stupid) enough, it goes viral.

The power of the mainstream media is declining, sales are down. The Daily Telegraph in Sydney doesn’t even publish its distribution figures after the last election because their readership plummeted. Major change like this takes time because it is a fundamental change to how society communicates.

The only way I ever come across what Andrew Bolt ever says, is when someone is slamming him for what he said through their social media posts. The media no longer exists in the context where it can control its own meaning. The means to criticise what is said in the media is at our fingertips and is used and shared. I don’t think he is that influential, certainly not influential enough to write laws to curb what he says.

I accept that in order to say what I like that may offend others, I have to sometimes hear stuff that is offensive to me. This is why we draw the line where we do.

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This is policy as voted on by the members. It can change with a vote of the members at the end of July, if someone is willing to draft an appropriate amendment.

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I’m not sure how to quote your comments, I’m still learning this platform, my apologies. You’re correct that the ability to write and potentially distribute to large numbers of people exists in your hand, I use a smartphone for everything including everything I write. That ability is not enough (maybe yet, maybe the traditional media owners will adapt and continue business as normal like they did with television and tabloids) to equal the ability to actually distribute information to large numbers of people. You brought up Murdoch media, so let’s use that as an example. If you wanted to get a message read by as many people as possible (the content could be whatever, racist diatribe against immigrants or heartfelt plea for an end to systems of oppression), who do you think would be read by more people out of you and Rupert Murdoch, should you both use all the means of speech you can access? It’s an honest question so I’d appreciate an honest answer.

Personally, I prefer not to talk about the ‘Murdoch media’ because it implies there is an issue with him and him alone, when many of the issues in discussion would arise when any single person or small group of people can give orders to large numbers of influential people in the industry of propagating speech. I’m happy to continue using him as an example because he’s reasonably well known and you clearly already have knowledge of him sufficient to discuss.

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Totally not a leading question there. You could have answered it yourself and got to whatever point you were trying to make, but fine. Uncie Rupes can reach a wider audience than me due to him being the last of the great industrial age media barons and a billionaire too. I am not but a humble pirate. Money can buy you a greater audience (see: millions of dollars worth of ‘donations’ flowing to the major parties).

There are times though, where something I have said has reached many thousands of people because I am the President of a minor political party in Australia. Other times I just hit the nail on the head and what I tweeted went viral. If you have the talent and the drive, you can match a mainstream media baron. Wikileaks is a sterling example of what can be achieved by a handful of smart and courageous people.

So, the unequal distribution of information is unjust. So is the unequal distribution of wealth, so is the unequal distribution of land. What do you propose?

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It was a leading question in retrospect, because you understood the context, but I wasn’t certain if you did because I didn’t want to make any assumptions. I just wanted to know if you perceived an imbalance in ability between you and Murdoch. Many people making your prior arguments don’t, it wasn’t intended as a slight or disrespect, just clarification as to what your understanding was.

If you wish, I won’t use leading questions, and I apologise if I slighted you. My objective in this discussion is to determine what society should do about speech if it should do anything, in a local and contemporary context of what the Pirate Party should adopt as rational, evidence-driven policy.

Now I want to know whether you believe ability (in the sense of “possession of the means or skill to do something”) to be granted by the decisions of structures within society, or to be inherent to people, which (to clarify so this isn’t taken as an unfair leading question) is a question as to whether people are fundamentally equal to each other within a small margin of error, and if the very large inequality in ability we see in current society is then due to the organisational structure of society affording some people ability and not others. If people are fundamentally equal in ability to each other within a small margin of error, this would mean that assignment by society of ability is arbitrary (normally by birth, occasionally by accident, rarely by a lifelong devotion to working as hard as possible to gain as much money as possible).

In this example, Murdoch has the ability to communicate information to many more people than you granted him by societal structures (very specific ones, if we want to go into them, News Corp and the governments whose laws ensure protection of his control of the company), all else being equal. You mention a few incidences of you reaching quite a large audience with your position, and I’m going to assume for this conversation that the only reason you have the position you do is because of your hard work. After listing those incidences, you assert that:

Both talent and drive have connotations of being inherent rather than assigned by society, but I won’t put words in your mouth so I’ll let you clarify whether that’s what you meant. This sentence I think is saying that talent and drive (it’s probably worth just saying hard work, I think that’s what you mean if you aren’t saying people are inherently unequal to an extent reflected by the society we see around us, correct me if I’m wrong) are factors that have the capacity to overcome all of the structural barriers between a given person and Rupert Murdoch. This statement sidesteps the argument about what society should do about speech pretty significantly, but I recognise you’re trying to address fundamental concerns rather than surface ones and I’m happy to address it.

My main contention with this argument is that if all that was required was talent and drive to achieve the level of control over various structures Murdoch has then we would presumably see many, many other people as powerful as him, because his personal pluck, moxy, hard work, talent, drive, bootstrap-pulling-ability etc is really nothing special in the grand scheme of humanity. Day labourers in Bangladesh, soldiers in trenches, builders etc all have very significant levels of talent and drive, I’d venture higher than someone who inherited a position and exploited a rare accident to arrive where he is.

Many labourers have more talent and drive than I think it’s reasonable to expect any human to have in order for them to survive and live in peace and comfort, certainly more than Murdoch, but instead we see the world around us, where more than a billion people are in desperate poverty and hunger, and I find it hard to believe it’s because all of them didn’t have the talent and drive necessary to rise to the top. I think factors assigned largely at birth, like their country of origin, race, gender status, and probably most importantly the amount of wealth or ability to control they will directly inherit determine where they sit between the top and the bottom.

In Australia and Denmark, “class mobility” is amongst the highest in the world, at just under 20% of the population rising a decile in income over their lifetimes (this is while income inequality is increasing). That means that, statistically at the time of your birth, you have a 1 in 5 chance of having your income raised to the decile above that of your family (moving beyond that decile gets exponentially harder with each decile). Another way of looking at that statistic is that 80% of people will remain at their level of wealth or poverty, or drop, over their lifetime. As long as income and wealth inequality is increasing, it’s numerically impossible for these statistics to combine and mean that anyone has much of a chance at all of rising to a position where they can control large numbers of people and amounts of production, including speech (like Murdoch). If we accept that people are fundamentally equal to within a small margin of error, then this situation is either arbitrary at best and unjust at worst, if we consider human suffering to be a negative, but either way I think it disproves the idea that talent and drive are all that’s required to rise to the level of Rupert Murdoch.

WikiLeaks achieved what it did by engaging in illegal organisational activities that fundamentally challenged the current structure of society. It’s why their leader is currently wanted on espionage charges, likely to face the death penalty if he’s ever captured by the US, and why the financial institutions that manage this system try their hardest to obstruct anyone materially supporting them. It’s an inspiring example of what can be achieved by a handful of smart and courageous people if they’re willing to break the law and resist the status quo, but as inspiring as it is it hasn’t achieved the end of the unjust status quo and the implementation of a just status quo or at least an earnest attempt at creating one. It didn’t even achieve any material change in the US military, except for a crackdown on operational security.

I’m a critic, not a driver (I don’t even have a licence). If we lived in some radically different societal structure I’d be critiquing that instead, with the aim of living in a better world. I have ideas about policies that seem like they’d work, like democratisation of feasible decision-making areas (which could also be called redistribution of those decision-making areas, but I think it’s important to specify how they’d be redistributed) and mass education and organisation campaigns, but unfortunately most of the methods of achieving those aims that have worked well historically are illegal, and I’m unwilling to break the law. The legal methods to achieve them (like voting or having conversations like this, assuming I’m not tried for sedition) haven’t worked at any point historically, but I see no reason to stop trying. Nothing else to do really, I suppose. Do you have any suggestions?

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I’m just going to ignore all of the rhetorical questions, not my sort of game.

You don’t like the someone can be born into money and power while other don’t have it. I get that. It pisses me off too. Our policies address all of these issues to push society in the right direction, without resorting to authoritarianism. Controlling the media can only be authoritarian. What we do want to do is to ensure they don’t have the monopolistic power they once had, which is being massively helped by technology.

I have been an activist for over 20 years. Before there was much of an Internet there was literally no way to compete with the media. You had to own serious infrastructure to be even able to get your message to a wide audience, or have a message that the media wanted to publish or was too big too ignore. Today is much better, in terms of access to an audience for your message.

We address unequal access to media through reducing the scope and length of copyright, by supporting 'Net neutrality to stop some companies from being able to pay for preferential treatment from ISPs and demanding transparency in trade agreements, so they can’t secretly add more authoritarian IP clauses.

Wealth inequality is alleviated through our basic income policy and other tax measures and inequitable access to land is addressed through a land tax.

(Edit: Sorry if I am coming off harsh, last few days of the election campaign.)

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