Agreeing that the insidious is the undeclared, I'll lay my cards on the table and admit that I can't stomache The Australian's Janet Albrechtsen. It's such an ingrained aversion that I now tend to disagree with her before I even glance at her column. Actually, to be honest, I read her column with the aim of finding disagreement. What irks me is the way she pits herself as being somehow honest or pure because she sits on the right; the implication being that all who sit on the left are blinded by PC and "languid moral relavitism".

So I'll admit that I've read into today's article, "Truth the loser in race to gag media"with the aim of being incensed and angered. In the end her contention only allowed me a state of mild discomfort. Her basic point is that we should learn from the wave of anti-war, anti-American protest this country has recently seen, and realise that free speech is a good thing, and then realise that political correctness is a bad thing, as it seeks to erode freedom of speech. It's a bit of a tenuous linkage to build, particularly when the right has been so adament that anti-war feeling should be censored so as not to "upset the troops" (very close to a form of conservative PC in my eyes).

It just seems like the right only starts harping on about protecting free speech when there's a racial context involved e.g.while we don't particularly like this anti-war nonsense, we must protect our ability to criticise racial minorities (or any minority for that matter) under the guise of preserving our freedoms. Fittingly, Albrechtsen goes on to talk about offending Australian Muslims; the NSW anti-discrimination board; criticisms of Aboriginal culture and in the end brands anti-hate laws as "paternalistic laws that tell ordinary Australians they are too racist, too sexist and too homophobic to be trusted to speak freely". It's interesting that these specific strands of public opinion have become the yardstick by which the health of free speech is judged; as if bigotry (not, for instance, discussion of our national military agenda) were the ultimate expression of democratic debate. I guess they technically have a point that is hard to argue with (if one couldn't criticise minorities, one wouldn't have freedom of speech), but I just worry about the true undercurrent of this kind of argument.

Meanwhile, across the Pacific, the right is quashing free speech through this ridiculous redefinition of what it means to be anti-American (of which the Dixie Chicks, oddly enough, have been one casualty). While I'm mixing cultures and political climates here (and no longer talking about Albrechtsen specifically), it does make you wonder what the right of free speech entails: racism, homophobia and sexism, but not the right to question the motivations and intentions behind a war that is, at the very least, being waged upon shaky legal and moral ground?