Silence hate speech by publicly debating it

SOCALLED hate speech should be not banned but challenged, debated, exposed — and thus ridiculed and shamed into silence.

When the leftwing silences the rightwing, not by public debate but through massed protests and increasingly the threat of violence, then maybe it is they and their speech that is hateful?

Only with open inquiry and public discourse can we decide what separates the rhetoric of extremism from the truth — civilised debate must always prevail over mob rule.

Dave Crooks

St Clair

IF any of the masses now throwing mindless tantrums over the views of Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux have actually listened to what they (and many like them) are saying, and yet still regard them as ‘‘extreme right’’, then they are insane — in which case we are dealing with just another expression of mass, ‘‘politicallycorrect’’, madness.

The only upside to this ‘‘great, liberal deathwish’’ (as written about by Malcolm Muggeridge) is that we have a clear explanation for the unfolding social disaster which has characterised international Western society since the beginning of its infamous 1960s psycho/social meltdown.

There are only two possible outcomes.

Either a sufficient proportion of Westerners will regain their sweet commonsense, or civilisation — all civilisation — will collapse into barbarism.

Colin Rawle Northeast Valley

Charm is not offensive

BUSINESS charm offensive needed?

Great idea. All Jacinda needs to do is grin and lead with little ‘‘bubs’’ and it’s game over.

Nothing ‘‘offensive’’ about that, surely.

Tony Crick Andersons Bay ...................................

BIBLE READING: For it is by God’s grace that you have been saved through faith. — Ephesians 2:8.