An Insight Into the Mind of Bolt

Andrew Bolt is hated with an intense passion by many on the left and I think some of the infuriation stems from his apparent lack of coherent principle and willingness to simply mouthpiece the current official conservative line. The beauty of his new ‘forum’ feature is that it provides an insight into his broader methodology and ideology as he gives quick responses to a wide range of comments.

I decided to send him a comment on a question of principle which I was sure he wouldn't agree with. The principle in question was freedom of speech. In two posts on my blog I had defended rights of two Christian pastors to say completely outrageous things about Australian Muslims and the Muslim group Hizb ut-Tahrir to advocate, non-violently, for the creation of an Islamic state in Australia. In both cases I applied the same principle to reach what I thought was the right response, but while I knew Bolt agreed with me with respect to the Christian pastors I was equally sure he wouldn't with Hizb ut-Tahrir. This was the message I sent to him:

Given your strident and not unjustified defence of Catch the Fire ministries, I'm wondering if you'll apply the same principles and defend the rights of Hizb ut-Tahrir members if/when the government bans them despite ASIO finding that they were not a threat? It seems to me the principle is the same in each situation - extreme speech which a lot of people disagree with but which falls short of incitations to violence shouldn't be punshed. If Catch the Fire pastors shouldn't be penalised for what they say, surely Hizb ut-Tahrir members shouldn't become criminals for exercising their freedom of speech even if what they say is outrageous.

I wasn't sure that he would know what the group was so I make sure to point out that ASIO had found they weren't a threat to national security (prompting Ruddock to say he'd look at changing the law so they could still be banned). He replied in the latest forum:

Are you serious? Who exactly were Catch the Fire threatening to kill? Abraham Lincoln had good advice for you, Jeremy – decide each case on its merits, to avoid the idiocy that often comes when one tries to apply an inflexible rule to a multitude of cases.

Now he's factually wrong, Hizb ut-Tahrir haven't threatened to kill anyone, otherwise I'd agree with him. The group is genuinely extreme, supporting to the Iraqi resistance and suicide bombings (rhetorically) and one member in Denmark distributed a leaflet which quoted a verse from the Qur’an apparently instructing Muslims to kill Jews but it isn't accurate to say they call their members to violence or make threats to kill.

Anyway, factual questions aside, this reveals a part of Bolt's broader methodology. He explicitly eschews broad principles (inflexible rules as he puts it), even though he'll happily invoke the principle when it suits him (see his Catch the Fire article I linked earlier). What he does is use his infallible powers of discernment to figure out what's right in each circumstance and then he'll use that as a basis for his argument. Based on his reply to my comment, at least one of the rules of thumb he uses to analyse situations is that extremist Christian groups are good and extremist Muslim groups are bad (and probably murderously violent). That's a certain kind of principle, I suppose.