I only heard about this horrible tragedy late yesterday as I was away and out of touch. I didn’t feel able to make an immediate full comment on it as I was still in the process of comprehending the enormity of it and I felt I needed time to come to terms with what had happened. I did not want to feed on it by simply making an emotional knee-jerk response.

It is still too soon to respond in full. Something like this takes time. But I do feel ready to say something about it. First, my heart does go out to those who died and those who lost loved ones. This has nothing to do with religion or ethnicity or people with different customs. It is simply a terrible human tragedy that should never have happened. I embrace all who are reeling from this and I share their pain.

I tend to hold strong opinions and I have always been opposed to censorship as a matter of principle. I have now changed my mind. I am convinced that nationalist fascist white supremist alt-right or whatever you want to call it ideology is a poisonous infestation that needs to be stamped out. There should be no tolerance for this kind of thinking in a liberal society. It must be stomped on wherever it emerges. People who think this way or even start to think there is anything to it should be slapped silly. These ideas have nothing to do with conservative principles. They are evil and toxic. No right-thinking person should be prepared even to hypothetically entertain them for the sake of argument. There is nothing worthy of argument here.

The diseased minds that believe in this kind of crap and try to spread it and – in the worst cases – try to act on it, receive encouragement and validation from others around the world who are able to join together because of modern communications. Even today these evil low-lifes are very much in a minority in any one place, but the Internet and broadcast media allow them to form communities that add weight and legitimacy to their twisted beliefs. I now think they must be silenced wherever they occur. They must be deprived of oxygen. There should be no tolerance for this kind of thing. As a society we cannot control what people think in private, but we can control what gets communicated in public. Bad language and child abuse images are already censored. It is time to add hateful ‘free’ speech. I now believe this is a war, and in war civil liberties get restricted for the sake of the bigger cause.

Shock jocks who even hint at racism or cultural prejudice should be banned. Who needs that kind of free speech? Nationalist alt-right sites should be shut down. The slightest peep of this kind of stuff should be enough for an instant ban.

My model for this is Geekzone. This site is heavily moderated by intelligent people with solid values who fully allow divergent viewpoints but have no tolerance for fake news or personal attacks or propagandistic right-wing crap. Some don’t like that and have been banned without apology when they complained about it, but those of us who appreciate genuine debate and a real exchange of views don’t have a problem with it. You can be right-wing and get along fine here. You cannot spout political BS and expect a good reception.

I am sick of ‘free speech’ arguments about the right to say whatever you like. I think that ‘right’ has been well and truly abrogated by the vicious and devious abuse of it. Right-wing extremists are the enemy and it is time we stopped inviting them in. This cannot be properly encoded in a judicial system that tries to see everything in terms of absolutes. I am all in favour of a Geekzone moderator type of panel that decides issues like this entirely on the basis of common sense and decent values without being tied to formal legal proceedings. A panel of censors, I guess. Their decisions will no doubt be arbitrary and inconsistent and some people will complain. Too bad. That goes with the territory. Still infinitely better than the horrendous stuff currently allowed.

I never thought I would come to this but I can’t think of anything better and extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. At least this should shut up those who think I cannot change my ideas in the face of new evidence.