More on Australian “Right-Wing” Christendom’s war on open society

A little while back I wrote in response to some disturbing elements in a Family First YouTube video that was brought to my attention by The Editor at GrodsCorp. It looks like Family First don’t want free advertising space on our blogs, because the embedding of Jemma Tribe’s Orwellian little missive is now disabled. A bit pointless, it can still be linked to to be viewed.

Now the Editor is speculating on Family First’s dedication to free speech. This is because in addition to removing embedding, the comments following on from the clip have been edited so that only cheerleader type responses remain. It’s about as obvious a ploy as the staged, in-house vox pops at the end of Jemma’s video (hint for Josh Reid: include some vox pops from your out-groups) but I’m not sure this constitutes a suppression of free speech.

I haven’t seen the comments, so I’m not drawing conclusions here, but freedom of speech is not an absolute. There was a great example of the conflict in free speech inherent in some discussion on The Chaser tonight; the cut-off. Using your own voice to drown out the opinions of others, especially where pertinent, has the effect of lowering the diversity of discussion (which free speech is supposed to facilitate) and also places restrictions on information that should be in play. Democracies only function with an informed populace.

Put more simply, the “cut-off”, like flooding comments threads and threatening and harassing participants, should not be afforded unfettered protection vis-a-vis free speech, because the impair free speech themselves. Allowing this kind of behavior empowers the worst in our society: the bullies, the thugs and the proponents of the argument from volume. Viewing free speech as an absolute (as with other absolutes) creates unresolvable conflicts.

So considering this, it is conceivable that Reid was bumping abusive comments and the like off of the list. I’m not credulous to this though.

What is for sure, is that Reid at least doesn’t like scrutiny of Family First members. Now if that’s typical of Family First types, then we have a problem. Parties who don’t like scrutiny of pertinent aspects of their party, candidates and policies are a blight on open society because if elected within such a society, being subject to scrutiny isn’t just something that will happen but also something members of parliament are supposed to facilitate.

Unfortunately, this is an attitude I’ve come across from the “Family First Types” in various instances. You apply criticism or scrutiny to Family First (or perhaps Hillsong or Paradise Community Church) just as you have been doing to both of the major parties, to the Greens and Dems and so forth long since before FF was a new kid on the block, and suddenly you aren’t playing fair. You are oppressing them! You are called a bigot and so on and so forth.

Romana could tell you about an episode that happened back in 2005/2006 amongst the online Linux community, where she was berated with dishonest allegations from a FF/Pentacostal-friendly when she undertook and shared her scrutiny of Family First and Hillsong Community Church. It wasn’t fun to watch and I dare say she didn’t find it fun herself.

Hillsong Community Church itself isn’t particularly fond of scrutiny, demanding that Ian West recant public statements and surrender his parliamentary privilege in as far has Hillsong-Emerge was concerned after this little episode. Now think and say what you will about the accuracy of West’s claims, a part of his job as a democratically elected representative was to scrutinise grant applicants and it was utterly inappropriate for Hillsong-Emerge to shut him down.

Now some of you may think that there is some kind of demarcation between Pentacostal churches and Family First, and you would be right technically speaking. Family First isn’t Hillsong. Family First isn’t even Paradise Community Church (although its origin stems from that church). However, you really need to qualify this technical truth with some context. To say that Family First aren’t a creature of the Christian Right is misleading.

In terms of those with executive power in the party, pastoral/administrative power in Pentacostal (and other politically “right-wing”) churches, and influence within various right-wing Christian Lobby groups, these lines of demarcation are like those in a Venn diagram where many of the lines overlap, so many in fact that you can’t have circles; you have a big confusing mess. Just to get all the sets in it’s a case of Venn in eleven dimensions and on LSD.

The degrees of political separation are small and travel contrived vectors. The Bacon numbers between players in the Australian Christian right are abnormally small. Many seem to be working directly with each other in some capacity. Sort of Alabama Bacon numbers.

Now this may confuse you. No biggy. The complexity is mind numbing. The stuff that Alan Matheson uncovers about the way the Christian right networks and cooperates is enough to make me feel like my head is imploding and exploding at the same time, but he hasn’t uncovered half of it! There’s still the similarly obfuscationist network of the Exclusive Brethren (having links to both John Howard and Family First) to contend with.

There is one thing we can say about this complex network; it’s damn good at blocking scrutiny. Is it really such a good idea in an open society to have this kind of network pulling the strings? Strings that at one end are tied to our liberties and at the other end to hegemons with indistinct and obfuscated interests.

I suspect that the Australian Christian right’s network is either complex through design, or rather the more likely (and ironic) scenario that it evolved that way being raised in a community phobic of scrutiny (thus being selected for relative to more open models). There is something scary about this though.

The Christian Right apparatus amalgamates sects that relative to each other are out-groups, creating a large artifical in-group. They don’t agree on everything, and likely are more diverse in religious beliefs than political. Religious beliefs that all take very seriously. How does the Australian Christian Right maintain itself if it doesn’t like scrutiny, a natural product of such a religiously diverse group?

As a goal, hegemony has the effect of making a group outward looking rather than introspective. They have already have an agreed list on what they have in common, then they focus their efforts on how to bring their shared vision to power, distracting themselves from the remainder on the list; their differences.

Why is this scary? Because in order to prevent scrutiny amongst its constituent out-groups, they have to remain in a state of perpetual hegemony-grabbing. The Australian Christian Right as an amalgam is like the lovechild fathered by a mutant breed of Trotsky’s Permanent Revolution and mothered by AMWAY. It has its mother’s smile, its mothers goals but daddy’s modus operandi.

Family First is just a part of this. It’s tied into the whole movement. Hardcore theocrat Danny “No More Bottleshops” Nalliah was a Family First Candidate at the last Federal Election, Family First like the Liberals enjoys support from the Exclusive Brethren and contrary to their claims about not being a religious party, it still engages in religious campaigning (thanks again to The Editor at Grods).

This reminds me of the tax suits being filed by the IRS in the US against political organs in drag as churches and taking the tax exemptions. I’m not so opposed to politicians talking religion if they aren’t being authoritarian about it, nor do I really take issue per se with politics being discussed in church. Not my church, not my business.

What I take issue with is the culture of obfuscation.

Labor isn’t exactly quietly, quietly about having unionists in its midst or in taking union funding. The machine men can be a contentious topic, but that fact that Labor has them isn’t something that the party widely denies. The Greens aren’t half as obfuscationist as Labor are while the Libs are somewhat more hush hush about the bankers, lawyers and party hacks.

But none are in the same order of magnitude as Family First who make blanket categorical denials. Again, this obfuscationism isn’t appropriate in an open society. Not from candidates (there is a reason we have electoral laws that force disclosure of X,Y and Z) nor standing members of parliament.

Family First is a part of a political black hole. Information isn’t destroyed but it has a hard time escaping the political equivalent of cosmic censorship. All the time, the black hole hungrily draws political mass from its surroundings to accumulate amongst itself, the more mass it gains the more it can devour.

When you cast your vote this election, be sure to steer clear of the black hole.

~ Bruce

Disclosure: I’m a member of the Australian Labor Party.