On the touching faith exhibited by some on this thread in the authorities not to abuse state power granted through the Terror laws, see this online diary by someone who probably doesn’t have any in the UK authorities anymore. Via Nicholas at Troppo.
So, basically the Police have decided that wearing a rain jacket, carrying a rucksack with a laptop inside, looking down at the steps while going in a tube station and checking your phone for messages just tick too many boxes on their checklist and make you a terrorist suspect. How many other people are not only wrongly detained but wrongly arrested every week in similar circumstances as myself? And how many of them are also computer and telecoms enthusiasts that fit the Police’s terrorist behavioural profile so well? I accept and understand spot checks can be useful, but profiling… this would be a joke if it didn’t affect many ‘innocent bystanders’.
The ‘touching faith’ with authorities could also be supplemented with this mix up.
Now imagine that was you, and you weren’t confused with some hick, but a ‘terror suspect.’ You’d better hope you had access to a lawyer to clear it up damn quickly.
Sheesh! That ain’t good either!
Or, reinforcing Lefty E’s point about police and administrative abuses in the Joh era, the time two special branch detectives visited my share house in 1987, with a warrant (under the Drugs Misuse Act which among other things had reverse onus of proof provisions) in someone else’s name nevertheless searched our place, strangely appeared to know our names and spent all their time asking us questions about politics rather than dope. We asked if we could phone a lawyer, and if we were going to be charged with anything, and were told that the Drugs Misuse Act enabled them to “detain” us with no requirement to lay charges for 7 hours or something, and it didn’t matter if we weren’t named in the warrant. They determined what probable cause was and it wasn’t judicially reviewable, unless they charged us. Which they had no intention of doing - the intent was to intimidate. These sorts of arbitrary laws succeed very well in creating a climate of fear.
This article by , calling for a crackdown on “enemy propaganda” (which could include practically anything) is a serious worry, especially when you read this excerpt:
In World War II, Australia enacted emergency regulations that were far more restrictive than anything contemplated now. From arbitrary mass detention to absolute censorship of the press, the wartime strictures were incompatible with the normal principles of democracy. But as US Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson famously remarked: “The Bill of Rights is not a suicide pact. In times of exigent peril, liberty must often be defended by less than liberal means.”
Anglospheric democracy has proved remarkably resilient and resistant to the pressures and temptations of rule by executive fiat. The histories of Australia, Britain and America all demonstrate that, as danger receded, emergency decrees were consigned to the dustbin of history.“
As comforting as Lapkin’s final sentence may appear, keep in mind Vice President Dick Cheney’s statement last year that the War On Terror “will take many years to see through” and, more recently, claiming that it may even “require decades of patient effort“.
Similarly, at the beginning of the Cold War, prominent US “conservative” William F. Buckley wrote “…we have to accept Big Government for the duration — for neither an offensive nor defensive war can be waged given our present government skills, except through the instrument of a totalitarian bureaucracy within our shores“.
You’d think this was a gigantic racket, or something.
…then they came for the eight year-old boys.
Eerch….did you have to do that, C.L.?
Mark said: Shorter RWDB line: offensive speech by pastors = free speech, offensive speech by Imams = throw away the key.
A false comparison. Sedition as defined by the draft legislation is incitement to use force or violence to overthrow the government. Religious vilification is saying that Mormanism is a fake religion and its fundamental text a transparent forgery. (To enunciate this self-evident truth is arguably a criminal offence in Victoria.)
I’m certainly more comfortable with the former being a crime than the latter.
Oh dear, it seems that police are capable of making mistakes.
We must therefore abolish the Police Department and repeal all laws.
Agree with Steve
Have the ‘Neo-Cons’ merely been bribed by giant corporations who benefit from giant government.
rob,
you can be tried for merely showing the thoughts of how the 11/9 terrorists intrepreted the koran!
my comments have been arrested and detained!!
Now you’re talking like the anarchist you claim to be, Evil.
Shorter CL: brutality in another country means we should curb our liberties at home.
now I cannot even comment on Germn polity.
Gadzooks what is happening!
CL, do some research before posting stuff. It’s not clear what those pictures are about. No one has been able to translate from Farsi the original
Take a look at some of the later comments - nothing to do with Islam or Sharia.
what is happening to the comments section??????
my comments are being repressed.
I DEMAND an apology or I am taking over!!!!
why are my comments being repressed?
Is LP merely a ASIO blogging device?
I would like to comment on Germany!!!!
I am being prevented from commenting obviously by ASIO who are using a blogging device!!
why is my ‘friend’ being prevented from commenting here.
He wants to comment on Germany but can’t not any other area.
What has Homer done?
Don’t be precious, Rob. I thought I’d provide a reminder of what a truly backward culture really looks like. I think the government’s security laws may be over the top but the kind of commentary they’re provoking is comparably hysterical. Commenters on the other (long) thread seem to tilting towards preposterous denialism - almost saying there’s no such thing as ‘terrorism.’
I find this comment hilarious:
If it was a punishment they wouldn’t put the soft thing under the boy’s arm.
And they provide a last meal of your choice at Changi right before they hang you.
Jason, your ‘research’ consisted of reading the thread. Very von Rankeian but the thread didn’t exist when I posted the link. Either way, you’ve demonstrated how some people interpret a pair of panties on a prisoner’s head to be ‘torture’, while going out of their way to apologise for genuine barbarianism. Even if they’re circus performers, the father would still be arrested in a civilised country.
I also find this post’s header to be somewhat offensive. This is the problem with the modus operandi of liberals in contemporary history: even when they’ve got a solid case, they ruin it themselves with exaggeration. Howard the overly-zealous is transformed into Howard the Exterminationist. This, as always, will be followed by the collapse of the liberal argument’s crdibility.
Iran’s president last week advocated something genuinely exterminationist. Naturally, liberals everywhere yawned.
I’m reading an old book by William barclay called Ethics in a permissive Society, and a chapter titled Situaution Ethics whihc is based on his response to a book of the same title by Joseph Fletcher. In it Fletcher states that bsically men do not want freedom.
‘He quotes the legend of the Grand Inquisitor in Dostievsky’s book, the Brothers Karamazov, which is a parable of the terrible burden of freedom. Jesus returns to the earth. The Inquisitor recognises him in the crowd, watching a religious procession, and immediately has him arrested. In the dead of the night the Inquisitor secretly goes to Jesuss. He tries to explain to Jesus that people do not want freedom. They want security. If you really love people, he arguees, you want to make them happy, not free. Freedom is danger, openness. They want law, not responsibility; they want the neurotic comfort of rules, not the spiritual open places of of decision-making. Christ, he says, must not start again all that old business about freedom and grace and commitment and responsibility. Let things be; let the church with its laws handle them. Will Jesus please go away.’
I think the fewer laws we have the better, so that we are actually free free to use our conscience. sadly there re groups which like the middle ages inquisitors, want law, rules and regulationss to control the masses. This forces freer nationss like Australia into producing added laws which counter the legalism of religiouss fanatics. it will always be an ethical dilemma for free thinking nations.
Homer: ten of your comments (including some under the names “jimmy the commenter” and “Sylvia”) were flagged as spam. I’ve let them through, and hopefully there won’t be any more problems.
Breaking - Terror threat immediate: PM
The Opposition Leader:
A door prize to the first conspiracist who says this news is a legislation-related stunt.
You missed the bit about not raising the level of terror alert, C.L.
I suspect it means they want to arrest some folks, not that someone is about to blow up the Opera House. Be interesting to know why they can’t do it now. Perhaps they don’t have evidence that would stand up in a court and need to detain someone.
I see the problem has been rectified, obviously part of the warning by Howard!
CL,
I think we agree Iran is an oppressive theocracy, with laws and standard of behaviour that seem medieval. What I fail to understand is what it has to do with the anti-terror laws in Australia? Merely seems like a frantic effort at distraction.
It’s just C.L.’s usual clash of civilisations theme, as far as I can tell, Steve. I also have no idea what relevance it has to the laws of Australia.
For clash of civilisations, see proposals for Victorian police to go easy on Muslim wife-beaters. By referencing life in an exterminationist culture, I was demonstrating the inappropriateness of the Howard-as-Himmler header.
Buckley was right, Steve, by the way. It took several decades and America won - despite people like Manning Clark denying the mass murder in Christ-like Lenin’s Soviet Union.
That wasn’t the intention of the title, C.L., and that’s a long straw to demonstrate relevance. Perhaps we could have an open “clash of civilisations” thread and you could just refer people to your examples posted there and get on with talking about what the thread is actually about?
My take from the earlier thread on the Victorian police is as follows:
Interestingly, the laws are introduced into Parliament a day after ASIO settled out of court for wrongly raiding the home of a Sydney man and his family. Perhaps C.L. would think, given his Victorian police thing, that federal agents with drawn weapons refusing to allow the man’s wife to dress in modest clothing is showing appropriate cultural insensitivity.
And, of course, the media couldn’t have reported on this case if the proposed laws had been in force, according to the couple’s lawyer.
So, many more such incidents, no public scrutiny? Collateral damage in the clash of civilisations, C.L.?
I think I read somewhere Mark that the idea is to be ‘propylactic’, or at least I think that’s the term. In other words to stop it happening, whatever it is, rather than arresting suspects afterwards. I don’t think the current laws allow for it, as you said. But not sure. I did read this morning that there were some home grown terrorists that the authorities were worried about. (SMH)
Currently, Mindy, ASIO are able to detain people for 7 days without charge, if I remember rightly. Presumably that’s time enough to gather evidence if they have strong intelligence to suggest these people are about to do something. I don’t see how extending the time period and removing safeguards would materially increase our safety in this regard.
The Koran instructs men to beat their wives. If they do so, they should be jailed. Where are the feminists on this?
robert obviously Jimmy was me but Sylvia was not.
I thought ASIO were launching an attack on me because of sins committed some thirty years back
Lordy, C.L. - and it wasn’t condoned by Christian culture until recently? No doubt the feminists are strongly opposed.
I know your constant refrain is that by pointing out that the “War on Terror” is overblown and politicised, and that our civil liberties are under attack, and that communal integration is harmed by promoting alienation, Lefties all defend eveything that’s bad about Islam. Well, actually, we don’t. And I’m sure feminists oppose this - that’s if your interpretation is correct - one would want to look at the commentaries and legal tradition - and your source gives no particular confidence in its understanding of the Qu’ran and Islamic tradition. But if it’s a cultural practice, no doubt all right minded people would oppose it, just as they would oppose domestic violence from people in this country of any faith or ethnicity.
It’s a crap argument, my friend.
Well said, Mark. Cases like this show the importance of sound cultural sensitivities, policies and practices; lest we just stop them at our borders/ship them back to where they came from. CL’s ’shock and awe’ rhetoric only lends support to those who seek the latter.
Homer, I wouldn’t take it personally. My comments are/were being picked up by Akismet too.
“Interestingly, the laws are introduced into Parliament a day after ASIO settled out of court for wrongly raiding the home of a Sydney man and his family.”
Which goes to show that ASIO are not into ‘disappearing’ people or racing them off to Howard’s Gulags, and they have been agreeably compensated for the error. There is no reason to expect this policy to change in future, nor that authorities’ activities will ever be error free.
There is, observa - it’ll be impossible to report on such bungles.
Mark, from the Herald letters section today:
Nice to know, dk.au!
It’s amusing dragging liberals kicking and screaming back to their former beliefs! As your header’s famous words teach, Mark, silence is consent. You say the left doesn’t support the inherently dangerous teachings of Islam.
Then say so! Often!
I don’t support the secretive, over-the-top measures in the new legislation. I’ve said/written so for several weeks. But the attempt to trivialise the risk of terrorism - as with your comment yesterday about how we’re in the South seas, a long way from, I dunno, ‘the world’ (or something - can’t remember) - is absurd. As I always say, when the ‘left’ has an argument they destroy it themselves by hysterical exaggeration.
Another example has been afforded by the increasingly despicable Kevin Rudd who has been running around this week saying the AWB’s Oil-for-Food drama somehow means the government allowed 300 million dollars to get into the hands of terrorists. Labor, of course, believes - as a matter of logic - that Saddam Hussein is the lawful president of Iraq and should be restored to power. Illegal war, illegal arrest etc etc. And so the party that once sought funding from Saddam Hussein implies John Howard has funded terrorism - through the AWB’s O.F.F contracts. They also wanted to withdraw troops when even the UN said this would have contributed to a sense of crisis that would have cost many lives. Rudd: despicable.
This is the kind of insanity that drives people away from the sounder arguments of the ‘left’ in matters of national security.
I still believe, as I’ve argued all along, that more time should have been devoted to this legislation, that it should not repudiate Australian common law in any way, that it should not be built on premises redolent of James Bond scenarios and that impartial and widely respected figures from the judiciary and both sides of politics should have been brought in to review the preliminary legal processes and the eventual drafting. Then it should be reviewed during each parliament.
I note that the ASIO raid you mention above went badly - like a thousand conventional police operations and false arrests every year. I also note that it was dealt with in court and the complainants have been compensated. The woman concerned was dressed. It appears she wasn’t given time to cover in an Islamic fashion the body that her husband (and culture) demand she covers - contrary to Australian culture.
Conversely, C.L., I believe that the right hyperbolise and exaggerate the dangers of terrorism. My belief that the danger is low in Australia is not an ideological but a pragmatic one.
So you do think that suspects have to be dressed according to Australian culture when they’re raided? Just stop and think for a bit. I know you harp constantly on your belief that Islamic women are forced to dress as they do - but many choose to - and there are feminist justifications for it, as you must know.
I’ve also noted that you’ve introduced the demand “you must say so frequently” which is reminiscent of the sillier debating points of tim Blair’s acolytes - “why doesn’t the Left constantly post on this or that - it means that they support Saddam/the Devil/Mad Mark Latham?”…
I look forward to a series of posts on why daughters and wives of members of certain Protestant sects are “forced” to dress in headscarves and modest dresses/skirts, and how contrary to human rights this is. And denunciations of Sydney Anglicans for their headship doctrine.
Or not.
I don’t believe that Saddam Hussein is President of Iraq according to international law.
C.L., I’ll take that prize, as long as I can name it. How about the Howard/Reith/Vanstone/Ruddock “There were illegal children of mass destruction thrown in the water” trophy?
There’s another major problem with insufficiently accountable executive power - it not only leads to corruption and abuse (inexorable law in my view - I challenge anyone to find a single exception), but, perhaps of more interest to the state-o-phile Right, lack of accountability also tends to lead directly to incompetence. Errors are forgivable, yes, but only if and when they are reviewable, from which policy and practice lessons are then drawn.
Otherwise, its just a licence to stuff-up.
“Jason, your ‘research‚Äô consisted of reading the thread. Very von Rankeian but the thread didn‚Äôt exist when I posted the link. Either way, you‚Äôve demonstrated how some people interpret a pair of panties on a prisoner‚Äôs head to be ‘torture‚Äô, while going out of their way to apologise for genuine barbarianism.”
CL, this is a diversion from the main thread (your modus operandi, I know) but I must reply
1) I detest sharia law. I wouldn’t want to live under it. I wouldn’t want anyone to live under it. But there’s enough wrong with it without making up absolutely ridiculous stories about 8 year olds being amputated by having a truck driven over their arm.
2) Lots of these horrid things happen not just under Islamic societies e.g. child prostitution, acceptance of domestic abuse, etc so your original link was a diversion. Your problem is with pre-modern societies or societies which have not evolved to reap all the fruits of modernity we take so for granted. And BTW the Iranians aren’t even Arab. They’re the original Aryans.
You can’t fight totalitarianism with totalitarianism, CL. And you can’t fight it with treason, either. More specifically, the US continually, even after the US$120 billion funnelled to the tyrant Stalin under the Lend Lease Act, subsidised, credited, technology transferred and bankrolled the Soviet Union right through to the 1980s. And when they weren’t committing national suicide directly, they were doing it indirectly through the World Bank, sending sub-market loans to Communist satellites such as Romania and Ethiopia. And that’s to say nothing of the US Government’s treasonous conduct during the Vietnam War, when they wilfully left North Vietnam’s ports wide open (allowing Soviet supplies to arrive without check), and were effectively underwriting their own ruin by subsidising the Soviet Union.
In other words, they actually prolonged totalitarianism by funding it (and thereby conveniently creating the need for a gigantic military-industrial complex), when a more prudent course of action would have been to disengage from foreign entanglements, cut the Soviets loose financially and diplomatically, and purge the US Government of Communist sympathisers.
“….and purge the US Government of Communist sympathisers.”
McCarthy tried to do that. Few thanks he got!
C.L. - squaemish, not precious.
The difference is that in several Islamic societies such abuses are sanctioned by a not unreasonable reading of Muhammed’s words and deeds. For the West, the analagous figure in a discussion of Islam would be Jesus Christ. By all means give equal attention to his violent precepts against women.
Knock yourself out.
Who said the Iranians were Arabs? WTF?
I’ve contributed extensively to the topic, Jason. (This accusation is becoming a conventional and unconvincing kind of polemical escapism).
As it happens, you have not.
Steve, I direct you to my comment above:
Your brief history of America and the USSR is just silly but this contradiction seems, well, please exploin:
You can‚Äôt fight totalitarianism with totalitarianism…
Followed by:
…purge the US Government of Communist sympathisers.
What, like in a House un-American Activities Committee you mean?
A bit Rudduckian, surely.
“I‚Äôve contributed extensively to the topic, Jason. (This accusation is becoming a conventional and unconvincing kind of polemical escapism).
As it happens, you have not”
well buggery, CL.
I’ve only had the opportunity to check into LP three times today.
1) Once to click on your spurious link and find out it’s some hoax about amputation by truck, and point that out.
2) A second time to have to defend myself against charges of condoning barbarism because I happened to point that out
3) And now again to respond to this.
Is this your new strategy? Derailing and putting people on the defensive through spurious links as a means of fending off contenders?
Rudduckian? What a horrible, raspy word but perfect for its intention.
Shorter Jason: three visits, no contributions to the topic.
Steve could just as easily be referring to the AWB and Saddam Hussein!
Rob:
What are you suggesting, Rob? That a notoriously alcoholic and ethically bankrupt Senator looking for an issue to build his power and ensure his re-election - detested by Eisenhower as well as most Democrats - is setting some sort of positive example?
Mark: can we have a moratorium on these shorter xxx comments. Not having a go at you specifically CL but they are really starting to annoy me. If you don’t have a coherent argument then shut up. Don’t belittle others because you don’t like what they say. (rant finished now, thank you)
Err… that’s one for another debate and another time, Mark. Shouldn’t have raised it.
Ok, Rob.
Mindy, I think it’s up to commenters to regulate themselves. The absence of an argument sends its own message as well.
Ok.
McCarthy was actually admired by JFK, and was described by him as a “great American patriot”. And of course, McCarthy was at least partially vindicated in 1995 following the release of VENONA files, showing that over 300 hard-core committed Communists, including numerous government officials, were working for Soviet espionage, including many of those named by McCarthy.
The problem is not that McCarthyism was incorrect in spirit - just that McCarthy himself was the wrong McCarthyist. Exposing the International Communist Conspiracy requires sane and dedicated leaders, such as me!
“…notoriously alcoholic and ethically bankrupt Senator”. Leave Teddy Kennedy out of this!
Steve, I couldn’t have put it better myself. Venona also nailed the atomic spies, and there are interesting reflections of Soviet espionage in Australia as well.
I thought we weren’t going to discuss McCarthy, Rob. The support of JFK probably had more to do with the fact that brother RFK had worked for McCarthy (before breaking with him) and JFK’s heavily Catholic McCarthy supporting constituency, than the gentleman’s merits.
I was just responding to Steve, couldn’t resist, sorry.
Yes, let’s not discuss McCarthy. Except as an excuse to mention the related new George Clooney film Goodnight and Good Luck with the fab David Strathairn as Edward R Murrow and the Senator from Wisconsin as himself. Can’t wait.
Might I suggest C.L. start a blog where he can digress to his heart’s content?
What’s that …?
Well why is he wasting our time here? Is it because nobody reads his blog
How did a post about the misuse of “anti-terrorism powers” in the UK become an argument about whether or not “the Left” condones all Islamic practices?
CL not only was that link to a set of photos a total diversion from the topic of the post, but it was also an extremely successful one.
That’s a shame really, because the topic itself is a really interesting, relevant and concerning one.
How do we limit we limit the ability of the police to misuse their powers (or “make mistakes” as some put it), without “disbanding the police department”?
Are we so concerned about the threat of terrorism that we are willing to give up more civil rights, and put up with more incidences of police intimidation, brutality and harrassment?
Will giving up more civil rights actually make us any safer? Has anyone actually proven that it will?
Surely maintaining (or, perhaps, demanding) a high level of transparancy and accountaibility within the police force will not increase terrorism. Surely we have already decided as a society that we are willing to strike the balance on the side of protecting the innocence from the State (hence why we have the rule of innocent until proven guilty).
We have also seem the negative impacts on Australians in the past when parliament has introduced ‘Emergency Powers”, why would we want to replicate these experiences?
Roper: So now you’d give the Devil benefit of law!
More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
Roper: I’d cut down every law in England to do that!
More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you — where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country‚Äôs planted thick with laws from coast to coast — man‚Äôs laws, not God‚Äôs — and if you cut them down — and you‚Äôre just the man to do it — d‚Äôyou really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I‚Äôd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety‚Äôs sake.
- A Man For All Seasons, Robert Bolt.
C.L.!
Nice quote Nabakov! I’ll have to remember that one.
Mark: can we have a moratorium on these shorter xxx comments. Not having a go at you specifically CL but they are really starting to annoy me.
Agreed, Mindy. What started with Hendo has become an epidemic of literary laziness. Ban them, Mark.
(Along with all criticism of Bobby Kennedy, if you please;)).
Cristy, I’ve discussed the substantive issue and I essentially agree with the liberal critique. Furthermore, I’ve actually made suggestions about how this process could have been improved and I really feel strongly about those ideas.
An irony in all this is that if a terror attack had occurred six months ago, the government’s liberal critics (and the lunar left) would be asking why the government hadn’t done somethin’. As an example of this kind of disgraceful opportunism, see Kevin Rudd. He’s trying to fit up Alexander Downer for funding the Iraqi insurgency via the Wheat Board. And remember all those ‘what did the government know and when did it know it’ questions after Bali I? The government obviously felt it had to act decisively in the national interest.
I think their consultative process, the basis for some of their concerns and several of their proposed measures are questionable. Two final points: the trivialisation of the terror threat and of a national government’s responsibility to re-formulate security laws is far more questionable, indeed reckless. Second, Labor is free to get itself elected to office and change the laws in approximately 22 months’ time. Not exactly ‘nothing to see here’ but not exactly ‘zieg heil!’ either.
Is it because nobody reads his blog?
Close enough, Zoot. At the mo, I have to complete a project for lovely money. But amongst the many thousands of SantaSoc blogs in the world, mine was always - *sob* - up there with the best.
The point about all of this - when I bring up the treason of the US government and McCarthy’s role in exposing it - is that the treason is still continuing to this very day. The US Government is currently being shown yet again to be a nest of traitors, who are either working for a foreign power, or collaborating with foreign espionage agents to subvert American intelligence.
And don’t get me started on the role of the British and German governments in setting up and funding neo-nazi parties to ferment chaos and create the pretext for a crackdown on civil liberties!
I’m just saying that we should be aware of all these layers of subterfuge, even if the facts don’t fit into an ideological straitjacket…
Mark, can you moderate me?
It’s a great blog, zoot - the best-written weblog in Oz.
Done, Steve. Too many links!
What happened to the comments threads, though, C.L.?
And how many Santa Soc blogs are there exactly?
Steve, don’t you mean ‘the treason of US government officials….’
Rob - it was actually both. Soviet-sympathising US Government officials were handing over secrets to the Soviets, and the US Government (along with American industrialists such as Armand Hammer who “extended earlier entrepreneurial ventures with a successful business importing from and exporting pharmaceuticals to the newly-formed Soviet Union. He moved to the USSR in the 1920s to oversee these operations, especially his large business manufacturing and exporting inexpensive pencils” - so much for a “workers’ revolution”!) itself was allowing aid, technology assistance, investment and sub-market loans to the cause of international communism.
Threads still exist in HaloLand, Mark. With Blogger/Halo, however, one can’t turn off specific post threads but only all of them. (Unless I’m technically mistaken). I decided to turn them off during the current hiatus.
How many SantaSoc blogs? Um…
I don’t accept that I derail threads, by the way.
Pluto Has Three Moons, Hubble Images Show.
Say, this thread was originally about how big business got into bed with western governments to spread communism, right?
Its good to see mark b. come out for traditional civil liberties and against the new fashion for police authorities. I am definitely on the side of the Wets in this issue - this also happens to be the conservative side.
I wonder, did mark b. support Drew Fraser’s right to free academic expression and the general principle of protecting the publication of unpopular views? Or did he cheer whilst the authoritarian jack boot came down?
Those interested in his answer to this burning question can see it here and here.
Gotta love blogs.
Shorter this thread [sorry, Mindy]: kick off with the credulous CL getting snookered by dodgy photos, followed by Helicopter Steve kicking off a rant about traitors and the Red Menace, followed by the CL-ash of Civilisations, again, more Helo Steve ranting and all capped off with the Jackerstrocchi whinging, again, about the terrible injustice of racists not getting their garbage published in academic journals. Oh, and Rob led the cheers. Bring it on!
What’s MY valuable contribution, I hear you ask? This: what about the computer nerds, huh? Who’s gonna stand up for those poor buggers?
Thanks, Fyodor, for bringing the discussion back on topic.
I can just see a blogger in an anorak in summer oblivious to what’s around him heading for the train station and typing furious defences of Drew Fraser on his PDA getting pinged by the cops as a likely bomber…
Just envisagin…
And, Jack, the issues with McConvill/Fraser were academic freedom (not the same as freedom of speech) and academic standards. You seem to forget freedom of speech implies responsbility.
I love threads going on a hard drive off topic floppy around with little memory.
at least it shows the blog hasn’t been invaded by terrorists like it was yesterday
Shorter C.L: It’s okay that we get punched in the head twice a day in Australia, because in Iran they get punched in the head ten times a day.
And how dare Fyodor bring this thread back on topic! The hide of the man!
Homer,
your comments were obviously being prophylactically blocked to stop your puns causing crimes against humanity.
Unfortunately Jack doesn’t have a leg to stand on even though he could have. He spent the entire Fraser thread conceding that the existence of the Vilification Act wasn’t in itself responsible for Fraser’s failure to get published, but that the university just wanted an excuse not to publish him. Nothing to do with *government* supression of free speech, Jack, which is the sole concern of us classical liberals as long as the private market has sufficient other avenues for expression.
Fyodor says: November 3rd, 2005 at 8:31 am
No, I am not all that pertrubed by the low level injustice meted out to Fraser. There are a zillion other worse injustices to get outraged by.
I am shocked by the hypocrisy of “small ‘l’ liberal” Wets, and their fellow travellers and camp-followers, in the Drew Fraser brouha. The Wets claim to be supporters of civil liberty but went silent, or joined the ideological and commercial authoritarians, in shutting down academic debate.
This shows that the Wets purported committment to freedom is a sham put on by them to prettify themselves in the media’s moral vanity mirrors. Which is what Tom Wolfe and the present commenter have maintained from the beginning.
Hypocrisy, thy name is “Fyodor the Wet”.
Funnier Jack Strocchi: there are a zillion worse injustices to get outraged by, but I choose to get outraged - nay, monomanically fixated - by the Deakin Law Review not publishing the rantings of some racist blowhard, despite the fact that the moonbat got himself published in a newspaper and teh internets. Tom Wolfe agree