Deborah Coddington kicks off her column in today’s Herald with a reference to Voltaire’s lofty quote- ” “I disagree with what you say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.” Which is a fine idea to follow, but I find it curious that people fond of using this quote often do it very selectively. Deborah is talking about gang patches in this instance. I wonder if Deborah supports the speech codes that are enforced by the odious Jores De Bres and his fake Human Rights Commission.

The same speech codes that are found throughout NZ universities and protect all kinds of special status groups (homosexuals especially) from “offensive” language. Codes that have been turned into hate crime laws in some countries and see people like Mark Steyn and Gert Wilders facing prosecution in Canada and Holland.

When simultaneously, one can say anything at all about Christians. Things of the most offensive nature are actually applauded if they attack that religion, but with Islam it is the opposite. One must walk on egg shells when discussing it or risk being called xenophobic or racist, or possibly (in Holland for example) even ending up behind bars.

Deborah says another thing that makes me frown in that she wonders why making the joining of student unions voluntary was such a long hard fight. Really?? That’s a staggering degree of political unawareness on display there. She must know that today, rather than fostering intellectual diversity, our colleges and universities are increasingly bastions of political correctness hostile to the free exchange of ideas. Compulsory unionism is an essential part of enforcing that collectivist uniformity.

Universities serve as a vast training and recruitment system for left wing political activists and/or Labour Party activists. They systematically expose all young people to leftist ideology, show them a community and a culture they can join, select out the most promising ones, and plug them into a network that can give them a political career. And of course, they show them how this system works, enabling it to be replicated by the next generation in perpetuity.

Compulsory unionism allowed the left to finance and organise these operations. In losing the ability to force students to join unions, the left have lost a traditional recruitment tool and a large part of their party’s foundation. That is why it was “such a long hard fight” Deborah.

One more thing. I notice the sarky snarky snipe at ACT in the use of the phrase “Association of Compulsion Touters”. Compared to whom Deborah? Labour? National? The Alliance? The Maori Party?? Using such a phrase in respect of ACT whilst all of these other groups far less concerned with individual liberty are apparently spared such criticism would seem a bit bigoted if not spiteful. Still smarting over your own brief and fruitless entanglement with the party are you?