To begin with, a caveat. Someone has said that I obviously don't read Beeld enough, the proof being that I am clearly not familiar with the details of the gratuitous, bizarre and seemingly inexplicable violence that is often perpetrated in this country (mostly, though not solely, by feral "youths") as part of housebreaking and robbery.

He's probably correct, so I'll keep my speculation to a minimum. But I do find it a little unbelievable that Eugene TerreBlanche was bludgeoned to death because of a "pay dispute" - that the two so-called farm workers, who apparently worked for TerreBlanche, returned to his farm home, broke a window to get in, and smashed his skull his smithereens, because of money. There's something missing.

I find it even more unbelievable that - as reported in one newspaper - ["TerreBlanche's] killers are believed to have pulled down his trousers after the attack to humiliate him". How do you humiliate someone after he's dead? Or, if the grievance driving you is so powerful that you need to "humiliate" someone after killing him, then I would suggest that at stake was not money or not money only.

But I leave it there for the moment and say only that I have a sense that there might well be some gruesome evidence - besides the details of the slaying of TerreBlanche, and very different to it - that will emerge from the forthcoming trial of Mahlangu and the youth.

I turn now to Eusebius McKaiser who wrote a column in Business Day on Tuesday morning. According to the learned McKaiser, "many who debate the connection between the song [which has in it the words "Kill the boer"] and the [TerreBlanche] murder (both those arguing for the connection and those arguing against it) implicitly assume that if a connection came to light, Malema would be politically responsible or blameworthy (at least in part) for the death of TerreBlanche."

Not so, wrote McKaiser: "This assumption is hasty and, in my view, wrong."

Why? Well, I didn't exactly follow McKaiser's argument. In truth, I quickly grew weary with the convoluted and clever-clever rationalising. But the kernel of his piece seems to have been contained in this paragraph: "[I]t seems odd to impute moral or political guilt to someone based on how his or her rhetoric was recklessly misused by some other party. If we applied this principle consistently, we would place undue pressure on each other to take responsibility for other moral agents' actions which were based on their own moral reasoning about what is right or wrong."

So, assuming we had been able to do something about it, we should not have done or said anything about, say, groups of feral Hitler Youth running around the streets of Hamburg, singing "Juda Verrecke!" (Jews die!). There was nothing repugnant about this, after all. All we needed to understand was that we should not blame those who popularized this chant if their "rhetoric" should happen to have ended up being recklessly misused by some other party. They clearly had no "political blood" on their hands.

Pass the sick bag, Alice, and let us turn to a column of the following day, also in Business Day, and written by the learned Steven Friedman (see here). Friedman is director of the Centre for the Study of Democracy and is of course a great champion of democratic rights, unless you happen to be the Israeli government. But let's focus on this piece.

Friedman argues that going to court to have the song - or the words, "Kill the boer" - banned is "bad for democracy".

Why? Because "if the courts are used to impose on the racial majority the will of a minority, majority politicians will resist and the independence of the courts will be destroyed."

What? I'll give to you again: because "if the courts are used to impose on the racial majority the will of a minority, majority politicians will resist and the independence of the courts will be destroyed."

That's what the man said. And that's why, in his opinion, "the court actions against the singing of a struggle song by African National Congress (ANC) Youth League leader Julius Malema are bad for democracy, the constitution - and minorities themselves."

One reason why Friedman says this, so he explains, is that it enabled Malema to create a diversion and thereby escape "accounting to society". If no one had made a, er, song and dance about "Kill the boer", the "storm would have blown over". But now, because of the court action (Friedman really says this), Malema's finances will be placed on a back burner while everyone fusses about that vershtunkende song.

Another reason why it was bad to go to court about "Kill the boer", says Friedman, is that it opens the door for "majority politicians" (aka ANC politicians) to silence "minority songs" such as, say, ‘De la Rey". And it could go further, warns Friedman. "Once minorities rely on bannings, judicial or otherwise, they are certain to invite unwelcome scrutiny of what they say". And this is bad for the constitution, Friedman says, because it could prompt assaults on judicial independence and free speech.

And so he goes on, though he does add that: "Of course no one should be allowed to incite violence against anyone else. But using the law to prevent incitement requires clear evidence that the speech or song directly encourages acts of violence by someone specific on someone else."

Our Stevie is off target by about 74 miles.

First of all, the whole point - or one of the major points - of the constitution was to assuage the fears of minorities. Besides the majority, this is a country if minorities - the good ol' rainbow nation - and they got together at Codesa and asked: what about us? In other words, the constitution is there to protect minorities. You don't need to protect the majority. It's in power and will be until Jesus comes, or whatever it was that JG Zuma said.

As one of Friedman's readers commented, this is not about imposing minority rule but rather protecting minority rights - which is what constitutional democracy is supposed to be about.

Second, there is such a thing as hate speech. And threatening to kill a certain group in society, albeit a minority, is a prime example of hate speech. "De la Rey" or "Ek is ‘n blou bul" do not threaten anyone's life. This is not rocket science. And we don't need hate speech in this country - that's why we have legislation against it.

Third, sometimes you do the right thing because it's the right thing to do - and to hell with the majority politicians. You're not going stop them from assaulting judicial independence and free speech by appeasing them, Mr Chamberlain.

Fourth, one of the reasons that the ANC has come a little bit closer to telling Julius Malema to put a sock in it is because of the court judgment. No court action, or public protests, and Julie would still be letting fly.

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