March 19, 2024

The Advertising Standards Authority is Becoming the Ministry of Truth

August 20, 2019

By VJM

In George Orwell’s 1984, one of the major departments of the Big Brother government is the Ministry of Truth. Ostensibly, the purpose of this division is to determine truth from falsehood, and to discourage the latter from being spoken or written. The reality, of course, is much more sinister. New Zealand is seeing the emergence of its own Ministry of Truth, in the form of the Advertising Standards Authority.

New Zealand doesn’t have a constitution, but we do have a Bill of Rights Act. Modelled on the American constitutional version, our Bill of Rights Act is meant to clearly delineate the areas in which the Government may not act to restrict our freedoms. Section 14 of this Act describes the right of every New Zealander to “freedom of expression, including the freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and opinions of any kind in any form.”

The right to freedom of expression includes the right to say things that aren’t true. I’m allowed to say that the world is flat. I’m allowed to say that cannabis has no medicinal value. I’m allowed to say that the Germans started World War Two. I’m allowed to say that a warlord who raped a nine-year old was the perfect man, that consciousness is extinguished when the physical body dies or that anyone who doesn’t worship Rabbi Yeshua ben Yosef is going to burn in eternal hellfire.

I’m even allowed to write an entirely fictional novel about a two Anzac machine cultists and a machine that can control minds by satellite (as I did here), and present it as if were true for the sake of taking the reader for a ride.

Not only am I allowed to express any number of false ideas, but I’m allowed to express them in any form.

The first sign that alerted New Zealanders to the monster that the Advertising Standards Authority was becoming was the actions it took over the One Treaty One Nation flyers, published by the 1law4all movement. In an incredible act of arrogance, the Advertising Standards Authority ruled that these flyers were not allowed to be distributed.

Incredibly, they ruled that speaking of the benefits of colonisation to the various Maori tribes “was likely to cause offence”, and was therefore verboten. Maori alt-media figure Tim Wikiriwhi wrote about how he did not find the flyer offensive, calling the Advertising Standards Authority’s move “yet another example of patent hypocrisy and pretentious arrogance against a legitimate political perspective that is calling for the abolition of treaty separatism.”

New Zealanders have the right to freedom of expression. Therefore, there is no Governmental agency that can arrogate to itself the right to decide when we’re not free to express ourselves. Unfortunately, evil individuals and groups have the free will to defy and deny these rights if we can’t stop them.

The Advertising Standards Authority shows no sign of wanting to end their power trip any time soon. Their latest effort involves forcing themselves into the political arena, by claiming the right to decide which political statements are permissible and which are not. Ominously, the Advertising Standards Authority has ruled that an advertisement made by the National Party “will be investigated for being potentially misleading.”

This move is in line with the wider agenda of the Sixth Labour Government to crack down on free speech by censoring everything that doesn’t suit their narrative. Megalomaniacal “Justice” Minister Andrew Little has already suggested as much. He weighed in on the issue to promote his pet project of criminalising hate speech by saying that the flyer “peddled myths” and calling its author an “ignorant fool”.

Given that it’s a fairly extreme move for a Government Minister to take to the mainstream media to insult and threaten a private citizen who is acting within his rights, many will be astonished to find out what the flyer actually claims. It’s actually a very tame document that merely asserts obvious and well-known truths, such as the fact that Maoris benefitted from colonisation.

The grim fact is that New Zealand is rapidly moving towards the point where we will only be allowed to express opinions that are on a pre-approved Government list. We are aided towards this miserable goal by entities such as the Advertising Standards Authority, who are acting exactly like 1984‘s Ministry of Truth.

The solution is to organise around the Sevenfold Conception of Inherent Human Rights. This would involve all true Kiwis agreeing that we have the God-given right to free expression, and that this right cannot be abrogated by arrogant shitheads in Parliament, no matter how narcissistic they are.

This would necessitate that all Kiwis agree to what is known as the Right of Silver, which is that all of us have to right to free expression, and that no Kiwi shall act to abrogate the right of any other Kiwi’s free expression. This means we agree that anyone acting to abrogate this right is an enemy of the New Zealand people on account of that they cause us suffering.

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If you enjoyed reading this essay, you can get a compilation of the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2018 from Amazon for Kindle or Amazon for CreateSpace (for international readers), or TradeMe (for Kiwis). A compilation of the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2017 is also available.

Post syndicated from http://vjmpublishing.nz/?p=15145.