Yet Again a Leftist Equates Disagreement with "Gagging"

It happens in Australia too. Leftists are such emotionally fragile creatures that they just cannot cope with contrary arguments -- understandable, given how shallow their own arguments are. The editorial from "The Australian" below is a tad sarcastic:

"There is no better way to start the day than with a good chuckle. Happily, there was Robert Manne in the letters pages of The Australian yesterday to give us one. Manne was all upset about Monday's editorial: "Reality bites the psychotic Left." He objected to the idea that the Left is obsessed with issues of the 1970s. He is also interested in Iraq, and climate change, he sniffed. That's quite right: in The Age in 2003, Manne wrote about Iraq, saying suicide bombers were "brave" and could not plausibly be described as "terrorists" because they were not "wantonly" taking the lives of innocent civilians. No? Not even those who later took the lives of children and UN staff? ....

Manne's most astonishing claim is that the Left has been silenced by the Howard Government. In the foreword to a new book, Silencing Dissent, he laments the "absence of powerful scrutiny" of the current government. Is Manne unaware of the relentless coverage of the AWB scandal, to use but one example? Could there have been any more written in the nation's media, in particular this newspaper, about the Tampa, or the children overboard affair? Does he know that 120,000 new blogs are started every day?

[sarcasm on] Manne says debate is "presently under threat", which would be why people were too terrified to march in their hundreds of thousands against the war in Iraq. You hardly ever hear a word against the Government's Work Choices legislation either, do you? David Marr can never get a word in. And, if the polls are any guide, Labor is really struggling to be heard. It is way ahead in most Australian states only because . . . well, who knows? Perhaps Robert Manne can tell us. Pity we won't be able to hear through the mouth gag he is forced to wear, both hands tied behind his back to prevent him from writing books, essays, columns and, now, letters to The Australian. [end sarcasm]

Source

There is a more extended comment on this nonsense here

Nearly as amusing as the comments by Robert Manne referred to above are some comments from an Australian Leftist blogger who attracts a huge volume of comments to his posts -- the no-longer-anonymous Jeremy Sear. The Searing one also objects to the editorial that Manne objected to.

But the Searing one's main objection is that the editorial sets up a "straw man" version (false picture) of what Leftists are. So how does he deal with that? By setting up his own straw man version of what what conservatives say Leftists are! In good Leftist style he projects his own straw-man style of argument on to his opponents.

He claims that conservatives say Leftists are "baby-eating progress-denying decadent "elites" who hate "ordinary people" and love it when their homes burn down".

One can only pity such a weak mind.

(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)