Voltaire's bastards

There's always been one debate on which this blog has come down firmly against the majority of anti-Mickey commenters.

Whenever a comment supporting the Mayor appears on the blog, those opposed to him tend to leap to the conclusion that it's Mickey himself in various anonymous guises. And the more odious the response - descending at times into overt racism, sexism and personal abuse - the more they see this as indicating that Mickey himself has been at the keyboard again.

They believe - being in the main kindly people who'll gladly entertain a civilised debate with someone who happens to hold an opposing view on any issue - that the majority of their neighbours are the same. Ergo, it must only be that confirmed bully and potty mouth M.B. Laws Esq who'd visit here and defecate thoughts which read like this:

...you losers contribute nothing except your mostly, foreign, negativism. Piss off home you whinging poms, fat Tongan king lovers and ugly Yanks.

...to cite but the most recent example.

However, we've always disagreed. We're sure the Mayor does visit here - seriously, can you imagine Mickey being able to resist reading anything that's written about him, however uncomplimentary, and then, having read it, being able to resist responding? But we've never ascribed all, or even the bulk, of the abusive comments to him.

Nor do we think, even for a moment, he's called up the organisers of a planned peaceful protest - not even a protest, really, more a sort of harmless hippie hand-holding - and spewed venom and made threats of violence. But equally clearly, the people who did this are people who support him.

Michael Laws knows the effect his behaviour has on a section of society. Just as he knew when crafting NZ First policy that, while it in no way advocated violence or threats against sectors of society, it would nonetheless have that effect by allowing those who would commit such acts to cloak themselves in legitimacy. But he didnt care - the policy (almost) got him what he wanted, and if some people were sacrificed along the way, well... none of them were Michael Laws, so who cares?

It's a sad truism that any town has a proportion of its population which harbours ugly, racist, sexist and even violent sentiments. But usually those people keep their inner demons controlled, expressing their milder prejudices over a few beers with their mates perhaps, but generally keeping their worst excesses in check.

That's because in most towns there's a prevailing climate of tolerance and politeness, and it's obvious that boistrously giving voice to irrational prejudices and threats of violence wouldn't be tolerated.

But what happens in Wanganui, where the town's First Citizen is wont to descend to personal abuse - everything from"single issue nutters" to "fat brown slug" to "useless ____" at the merest whiff of an opposing opinion? It doesn't take a highly-subsidised team of sociologists to figure out that, for the small proportion of other citizens who harbour extreme ill-will toward others, this lowers the bar.

If the Mayor has no standards of personal behaviour in terms of what he says, a small number of people will see that as a reason not to have to exercise restraint in what they do. After all, they're not in an exalted position like the Mayor, so their standards can be even lower, right?

The inevitable end result is that some citizens start making gutless, anonymous threats of violence against other citizens, particularly those who wish to peacefully protest the words and actions of the person they see as their de facto leader.

We're not breaking any new ground in pointing out that denigrating and dehumanising some people removes an important barrier which prevents other people feeling able to openly abuse and threaten them.

The end results of that are always ugly. It's happening here in Wanganui. And it's happening because of Michael Laws.

(The title of this post, for those that were wondering, is both a reference to Voltaire's famous statement that he disagreed with what the speaker was saying, but would defend to the death his right to say it, and to John Ralston Saul's excellent book of that name in which, amongst other things, he critiques "the news media's focus on false events and manufactured celebrities". Are you listening, Mrs Pickett? Incidentally, Voltaire also said "Prejudices are what fools use for reason".)

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