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Do you remember this video clip, of Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s prime minister, early in the pandemic? What a little fascist she is.

You know, sometimes people tell me to change the name of Rebel News, and I think the number one suggestion people give me is to call it “Truth News”. And obviously I believe we tell the truth. But I also know that there are other points of view out there; and from time to time, we can get things wrong; and someone can see things from another angle.

It’s like a car accident — two different witnesses standing in two different places can tell two different stories — but they’re both telling the truth as they saw it. And so, I would never say we’re called Truth News, because I would never be so absolutely certain that we could never be wrong and that our critics could never be right.

That’s not false modesty; it’s just that there are some things that we don’t know; and there are some things, I’m sure, that we think we know, that we will one day realize were wrong.

I suppose that’s all obvious; our command of the world is imperfect, and always will be. Only God is omniscient and omnipotent. We are flawed, and anyone who tells you they are not is either misleading you or misleading themselves.

That’s why we’re not called Truth News. And that’s why Jacinda Ardern is a wicked tyrant when she tells you to dismiss anything else you hear, dismiss anyone else who contradicts her — and she says that sight unseen, in advance.

Without even hearing the objection, she rules it out, “We will continue to be your single source of truth.”

A Christian pastor could say the Bible is the perfect truth; and maybe he’s right; but he doesn’t have the power of the police state to back him up, or even the power of censorship over YouTube and Facebook to back him up. And I think that pastor would say the Bible is the perfect truth — I doubt he would say that he, himself, a flawed sinner, was a source of perfect truth.

Imagine saying that about yourself — dismiss anything else; we’re the single source of truth; and that if anyone else says anything contradictory — ignore it without question. 

And don’t you worry about any of this — don’t you worry your pretty little head. “We will continue to provide everything you need to know.” Really? Who talks like that? 

Well, Jacinda Ardern does.

And you know, she hitched a ride with Justin Trudeau, her left-wing, globalist mini-me, from London to New York. They were both in London for the Queen’s funeral — and in Trudeau’s case, to do some drunken singing in a bar. Yeah, classy.

So, what did they talk about on the flight to New York? They’re both young WEF types. I mean, Klaus Schwab is so proud of them.

I think they talked about their love of authoritarianism — taking rights away from people; replacing local sovereignty with globalist control; censorship; forced vaccines; gun control. But out of all of those things, censorship is the most important — because with free speech left, you can fight to regain your other rights. Without free speech, you can’t.

So let me show you what Trudeau — and you as taxpayers — paid to bring Ardern to New York to say. Here are some clips from Ardern's visit to the UN and her big speech. 

Of course, she starts off in Maori. I mean, if you think Trudeau is woke and loves virtue signalling, he’s never tried this before:

E ngā Mana, e ngā Reo, Rau Rangatira mā kua huihui mai nei i tēnei Whare Nui o te Ao. Ngā mihi maioha ki a koutou katoa, mai i tōku Whenua o Aotearoa. Tuia ki runga, Tuia ki raro, ka Rongo to pō ka rongo te ao. Nō reira, tēnā koutou kātoa

I don’t think Ardern actually knows how to speak Maori — she just memorized it. Like an actor. Like Trudeau is. Like when he rattled this off, for a reporter, on command. He’s good at memorizing a few lines.

Back to the speech:

COVID-19 was devastating. It took millions of lives. It continues to impact on our economies and with that, the well-being of our people.

That’s not quite true. It did take millions of lives — if you trust the statistics. I know that in the West, the statistic included anyone who died within 30 days of a diagnosis of COVID. So, they could have died from some other cause, but COVID was to blame — it made more money that way, for hospitals, for TV doctors, for politicians, for vaccine companies.

That’s the disease. I’m not minimizing its actual deaths. I’m saying there was massive overcounting — as many jurisdictions have since acknowledged.

But look at what she moves to immediately. Sure, she cares about COVID. But she cares about using COVID for other political goals:

It set us back in our fight against the crisis of climate change and progress on the sustainable development goals while we looked to the health crisis in front of us.

Global warming. That’s what she cares about.

The lessons of COVID are in many ways the same as the lessons of climate change. When crisis is upon us, we cannot and will not solve these issues on our own. The next pandemic will not be prevented by one country's efforts but by all of ours. Climate action will only ever be as successful as the least committed country, as they pull down the ambition of the collective.

She really is doing that. She really is using the deaths of people as a political platform to stand on, to push her obsession with global warming. If you think it’s absurd for Canada, with our tiny population of 38 million, to try to stop the world from warming, imagine how nutty it is for New Zealand to do so — they’re just five million people. And you have to fly across the ocean to get anywhere.

Imagine being obsessed by that. 

So naturally, she goes to globalism — giving the power to far-away organizations like the UN:

We need a dual strategy. One where we push for collective effort, but we also use our multilateral tools to make progress. That's why on pandemic preparedness we support efforts to develop a new global health legal instrument, strengthened international health regulations and a strong and empowered World Health Organization.

The WHO? The one that’s run by China? The same WHO that told the world not to worry, it wasn’t contagious? That WHO? Has anyone over there been fired? I know you can’t un-elect them. But seriously, not a soul fired?

She talked more about global warming — you know, you know in her bones she wants to bring in climate lockdowns just like COVID lockdowns. You know it. She did some virtue-signalling about Ukraine; and calls for the abolition of nuclear weapons. By the West, of course — do you think China or Russia would ever give them up?

Nuclear weapons do not make us safer. There will be those who agree but believe it is simply too hard to rid ourselves of nuclear weapons at this juncture. There is no question that nuclear disarmament is an enormous challenge.But if given the choice, and we are being given a choice, surely we would choose the challenge of disarmament than the consequences of a failed strategy of weapons-based deterrence.

What does that mean? I mean, she has no nukes in New Zealand. Neither does Canada. So she’s calling on America to disarm — but let China and Russia keep theirs? You know she used to be the head of the Socialist International’s youth movement. She’s still got that pro-Soviet sound to her. 

But look, she’s got no chance to eliminate nukes. She was just saying that to impress her old socialist friends. She does, however, have the power to censor New Zealanders. And that was the main point of her visit:

Traditional combat, espionage and the threat of nuclear weapons are now accompanied by cyber-attacks, prolific disinformation and manipulation of whole communities and societies.

Remember, she’s your only source of truth. Ignore everyone else. And if she has to call everyone else a foreign spy or disinformation agent, she will. I mean, she would never engage in misinformation. Oh no. Just her critics. 

As leaders, we have never treated the weapons of old in the same way as those that have emerged. And that's understandable.  After all, a bullet takes a life. A bomb takes out a whole village. A lie online or from a podium does not.

But what if that lie, told repeatedly, and across many platforms, prompts, inspires, or motivates others to take up arms? To threaten the security of others. To turn a blind eye to atrocities, or worse, to become complicit in them. What then?”

Every action comes from an idea; but there is an enormous difference between an idea and an action. She would literally ban any thought, any word, that in her prophecy, could possibly lead to a conflict that she doesn’t like.

I’m not sure what words she thinks led to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. I’m not sure if she’s blaming some Facebook post in New Zealand. I think it was Russia’s Vladimir Putin that did the invasion, not someone on Facebook or YouTube. I think it was the state that did the violence, not a citizen, certainly not one of her citizens. But she somehow has blamed everyone who has an idea she doesn’t like, who says a word she doesn’t like, she blames them for an invasion by an authoritarian ruler, halfway around the world!

This is no longer a hypothetical. The weapons of war have changed, they are upon us and require the same level of action and activity that we put into the weapons of old.

We recognised the threats that the old weapons created. We came together as communities to minimise these threats. We created international rules, norms and expectations. We never saw that as a threat to our individual liberties - rather, it was a preservation of them.

The same must apply now as we take on these new challenges.

She’s speaking vaguely, but her point is clear: words are weapons. And she wants to ban word she doesn’t like. Now, she briefly tips her hat to freedom of speech. And then the word “but” comes in. It’s like Salman Rushdie says — ignore everything before the word but. Listen for the word “but”.

In Aotearoa New Zealand, we deeply value our right to protest. Some of our major social progress has been brought about by hikoi or people power - becoming the first country in the world to recognise women's right to vote, movement on major indigenous and human rights issues to name but a few. 

Upholding these values in a modern environment translates into protecting a free, secure and open internet. To realise all of the opportunities that it presents in the way we communicate, organise and gather.

But that does not mean the absence of transparency, expectations or even rules.  If we correctly identify what it is we are trying to prevent.

Did you hear the word but?

But: 

And surely, we can start with violent extremism and terrorist content online.

OK, terrorism is already banned online. Of course, she means incitement of terrorism; no-one is actually killed online. But that’s already banned, under criminal law and by the social media platforms themselves. But she uses the phrase “extremism” and “content”. Which only she will define. Like Trudeau. He called the peaceful truckers extremist. He actually defamed them as violent, too.

Ardern moves from rare terrorist attacks to treating everyone online as a potential terrorist; and getting algorithms to suffocate dissenting opinions:

This week we launched an initiative alongside companies and non-profits to help improve research and understanding of how a person's online experiences are curated by automated processes. This will also be important in understanding more about mis and disinformation online. A challenge that we must as leaders address.

Sadly, I think it's easy to dismiss this problem as one in the margins. I can certainly understand the desire to leave it to someone else."

She’s saying it’s not rare. Not on the margins. She’s saying everyone could be a potential terrorist — anyone who has “extreme” opinions. Like opposing her on climate or the lockdowns, I imagine. 

As leaders, we are rightly concerned that even those most light-touch approaches to disinformation could be misinterpreted as being hostile to the values of free speech we value so highly.

But while I cannot tell you today what the answer is to this challenge, I can say with complete certainty that we cannot ignore it. To do so poses an equal threat to the norms we all value.

Did you hear the word but there again? I love free speech. But we can’t ignore the problems with it. It’s a threat. But. Always the word but. 

After all, how do you successfully end a war if people are led to believe the reason for its existence is not only legal but noble? How do you tackle climate change if people do not believe it exists? How do you ensure the human rights of others are upheld, when they are subjected to hateful and dangerous rhetoric and ideology?

Is she saying that censoring people in New Zealand will cause Putin and Zelensky to end a war? Did the war start because of something her citizens said? If not, why are they all being punished?

She literally says that free speech is a weapon of war that needs to be defeated:

The weapons may be different but the goals of those who perpetuate them are often the same. To cause chaos and reduce the ability of others to defend themselves. To disband communities. To collapse the collective strength of countries who work together. But we have an opportunity here to ensure that these particular weapons of war do not become an established part of warfare.

That’s what she’s saying. She’s saying that free speech is what caused the war, so it must be stopped. It’s violence. 

And so, we once again come back to the primary tool we have. Diplomacy, dialogue, working together on solutions that do not undermine human rights but enhance them.

By the way, what diplomacy in Ukraine has she suggested? I haven’t seen any.

Jacinda Ardern is an even more authoritarian bully than Justin Trudeau; and because New Zealand is an island, she can be more abusive to her citizens, than Trudeau could. Their media is even worse than ours, in a way.

But she and Emmanuel Macron and Justin Trudeau all share the WEF globalist view on free speech: it is the problem, not Putin. Free speech is a weapon that needs to be destroyed. 

But really — if all you need to know, if all the truth you ever could want comes from Jacinda Ardern herself, why would you ever want to think a thought yourself?

GUEST: Gordon G. Chang (Follow @GordonGChang on Twitter)

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