But first, me:
Someone who actually lives in Australia is welcome to confirm or deny this, but — isn’t the REAL reason this cartoon is “offensive” that the artist didn’t, er, soften Aboriginal physiognomy?
(In this cartoon, they actually look a lot like the Irish as depicted in Nativist caricatures, and even a bit like the Red Queen in the most famous Alice... illustrations.)
Anyhow, here’s Steyn:
One of the more depressing moments of my Australian tour a few months ago was a private dinner with a handful of prominent conservative parliamentarians – by which I mean men and women to the right of Mr Turnbull. The most eminent among them declared confidently that scrapping 18C was “not a first-order priority”. We then moved on to discuss what he regarded as the first-order priority, Islamic terrorism in Australia and elsewhere.
I pointed out that one of the reasons why the former (free speech) most certainly is a first-order priority is because, without it, the latter (Islam and the west) cannot be honestly addressed.
