Check out Labor’s recent attack ad on One Nation.
It’s actually quite revealing.
The ad reads, “ON’s Roberts backs rights of Nazi party in podcast.”
Labor NSW appears to treat it as scandalous that One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts “backs the rights” of a particular group of people. Which seems to suggest that Labor believes one’s political views determine whether their “rights” are worthy of recognition?
But there’s an important distinction between disagreeing with a political position and questioning whether the people who hold it are entitled to the same rights as everyone else. The former is legitimate political debate. The latter is a little more disturbing. And it appears to be a position that Labor unashamedly embraces.
They may not intend to make this argument, but the ad, at least, inadvertently exposes an underlying assumption that some people’s rights become less legitimate, or less deserving of support, depending on which side of the political spectrum they occupy.
But “rights” aren’t supposed to be rewards for holding the correct political opinions.
If a right is genuinely a right, it doesn’t cease to be one because the person exercising it votes differently, belongs to the wrong political movement, or holds unpopular views.
You can strongly oppose a political group. You can reject its policies. You can argue that its thought-leaders are dead wrong. But the moment you start treating the rights of a particular group as objectionable simply because you don’t agree with their ideas, well, you’ve become the fascist you’ve been resisting.
Labor appears to think your rights depend on your politics. Consider the implications of that for just a moment.
If your rights are only worthy of recognition when they are defended by the politically approved people, then they aren’t really rights at all. They are privileges, granted by the state to those who hold the right opinions and denied when they don’t.
That’s a far more revealing message than Labor’s attack ad probably intended to send. It’s not One Nation that’s endorsing authoritarian politics. It’s Labor.