[A Bill of Rights would transfer] decision-making authority to unelected judges accountable to nobody in the barest theoretical sense.
…
I’ve always held the classical view that the public elects members of parliament, who pass laws hopefully in the public interest and those laws are in turn interpreted and enforced by courts.
That sentiment is at the very heart of my unconditional objection to a bill of rights.
…
It would deprive Australians of their current right to decide issues of great importance.
That all our public freedoms and democratic rights depend on a secret and autocratic institution is an irony, if you’re stupid enough to think so. Life is full of ironies for the stupid. And you’d have to be fairly stupid to believe democracy could be preserved by democratic means: “In the final D-day invasion results, Normandy was a decisive winner, with 54% of the votes, while 43% of American soldiers thought we should re-invade North Africa and only 4% favored a massive land, sea and air attack on the folks back home.” There wouldn’t even be any democracy to defend if our every national whim were put into law. We’d sacrifice the whole Constitution for those lost kids on milk cartons one week, and the next week we’d toss the Rights of Man out the window to help victims of date rape. That’s why we-and the solicitor general and William Kunstler-have to take this guff from the Supreme Court.
So we’re quoting P J O’Rourke as a voice of sanity and reason now?
Er, not entirely sure what the point of this one is, and there are as yet no comments from those more familiar with irony as interpreted by Australian leftist blogs to guide me, so forgive me if I have it wrong. My assumption is that it is a standard Howard put down (why? He’s been gone for nearly 2 years. Surely you must be over him by now?) on the grounds that even PJ O’Rourke disagrees with him, and this proves he is wrong, since they are both members of the non-left and must think identically in all things.
In which case there are some other quotes from PJ which you have no doubt considered:
“At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child — miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless. Liberalism is a philosophy of sniveling brats.”
“The college idealists who fill the ranks of the environmental movement seem willing to do absolutely anything to save the biosphere, except take science courses and learn something about it.”
“The principal feature of American liberalism is sanctimoniousness. By loudly denouncing all bad things — war and hunger and date rape — liberals testify to their own terrific goodness. More important, they promote themselves to membership in a self-selecting elite of those who care deeply about such things…. It’s a kind of natural aristocracy, and the wonderful thing about this aristocracy is that you don’t have to be brave, smart, strong or even lucky to join it, you just have to be liberal.”
You will naturally, since he is such an authority on democracy and politics and all that stuff, also support him in those sentiments?
Of course, because I am a moron who chooses who to believe then agrees with them wholeheartedly on every single issue.
That, or I am pointing out that a Bill of Rights isn’t a left-right issue, and that the sentiments expressed by Howard, Albrechtsen et al are stupid.
Wozza @ 2 ,
He might have been gone 2 years, but this latest little piece of justifying his constant overeach of power while PM sure proves we were right to get rid of him.
(Personally, I think the point of the post is, that Howard hasn’t a clue what he’s talking about; and that after losing his seat, thereby no longer being able to scare the shit out of people needlessly, he thought he’d try again just to prove to himself how powerful he should be/isn’t.
They may or may not be wrong, but it’s silly to call them ‘stupid’ — it only lowers the level of the debate instead of raising it. It is far from stupid to consider carefully the effect that a Bill of Rights would have on our democratic institutions.
Judges? Making decisions?
That’s what lawyers are for, surely!
“That, or I am pointing out that a Bill of Rights isn’t a left-right issue, and that the sentiments expressed by Howard, Albrechtsen et al are stupid.”
I get it. Howard and Albrechtson aren’t stupid because they’re on the right – they’re stupid because their views on this matter don’t coincide with yours…..
It’s a compelling case..
They’re stupid for the reasons PJ O’Rourke put forward, with whom I agree on this occasion.
Hopefully an Australian bill of rights wouldn’t turn into a list of things taxpayers have to do, rather than the American list of things that governments are not allowed to do.
In practice all a bill of rights will do is take power out of the hands of our elected representatives and give it to judges.
Ratty is being his usual lying self.
Like the US, Australia has a written constitution. It is the duty under that constitution of judges to decide whether or not elected politician have passed bills and the monarch has signed into law unconstitutional legislation.
Australian judges have overruled Australian legislation on several occasions.
Disingenuously, Howard elides that central constitutional fact.
Under the US Bill of Rights, the limitations of the powers of elected politicians and the executive are enumerated.
There is no difference in kind between the duties of Australian judges and the duties of US judges, only a difference in degree.
Ratty simply cannot tear the dog whistle from his lips.
“I’ve always held the classical view that the public elects members of parliament, who pass laws hopefully in the public interest and those laws are in turn interpreted and enforced by courts.”
And anyway, what’s the point of good legislation when your sentencing is so out of whack?
I’m not too sure how many people would be happy if the bill of rights had something along the lines of “australians have the right to life, liberty etc etc” and a judge interpreted that to mean that even unborn fetus’ had the right to live, and then no matter how many people supported it, abortion would be banned in australia
The other major reason that the argument is stupid is that it complains that a Bill of Rights would deprive the democratically elected legislature of the power to make law, and courts should only interpret and enforce. And yet that Bill of Rights would at the least be a law that was passed by a democratically elected legislature handed to the judiciary to interpret and enforce.
Followed through, the argument amounts to a suggestion that no law should be able to compromise in any way the operation of future laws, which is a rather novel idea in jurisprudence (and would be more of a goldmine for lawyers than a Bill of Rights could ever be).
AIUI … the Bill of Rights discussion is not meant to set up anything with the overarching power in the US Bill of Rights.
It’s more something that courts and the legislature can and should take into account when dealing with matters.
The Hanif case recently might be an example. With a Bill of Rights that specified things like due process the minister might have been required to give reasons why he was deporting Hanif, which might then have triggered other legal remedies. Ultimately though the Bill itself would not make it impossible to deport someone or under certain circumstances, detain them at length without charge.
It would however give the notion of general human rights a firmer basis in the written law than now.
Yes it is, they just know they can’t get it through the first time so are trying to work up to it bit by bit.
OK, I think I get it now, you will quote PJ O’Rourke as a convincing authority when he says something you agree with, and reserve the right to denounce him as an idiot when he says something you don’t agree with.
My reaction to that is the same as Geoff Honour’s; it hardly makes for a compelling case when you are as ambivalent as that about the author of the only contrary evidence to the Howard line that you adduce. However, since you do at least approve of O’Rourke in regard to the quote in question, I have to assume that you agree with his description of the courts as a “secret and autocratic institution” and have no qualms about the transfer of power to such.
It’s also internally inconsistent to say on the one hand that judges shouldn’t make law, and then turn around and say that common law is a good source of protection.
The High Court threw out the Military Courts, lock stock and barrel.
Whose Govt introduced them? Which Govt was warned they were probably unconstitutional?
It’s worth pointing out that there are various models for a Bill of Rights ranging from a Constitutionally entrenched (and thus referendum-approved) one that would give the High Court new sections of the Consitution on which to invalidate legislation through to a statutory Bill of Rights that is justiciable against the Executive only but cannot invalidate legislation.
Criticisms of a BoR really depend on which model is being discussed.
Ambigulous: That would be the Govt that the people of Australia voted out at the last election.
Um, Wozza, with all due respect, you seem to be being deliberately stupid. It’s just an apposite quote from PJ O’Rourke on this particular topic. It doesn’t imply aggreement with him on anything else. Why should it?
Or is it just that you think PJ O’Rourke is so evil that one can’t agree with him on any point at all, even points on which one agrees with him?
Oh wait, looking at some other Wozza posts, he probably loves PJ and therefore thinks that “leftists” should disagree with everything he says?
I guess that does explain the curious form of “reasoning” being employed.
The Rodent is deliberately conflating the idea of a US-style constitutionally entrenched Bill of Rights and the proposal for a legislated Bill of Rights in an effort to confuse the punters (could he do otherwise?).
O/T, I really wish people wouldn’t call him “Ratty”. It’s destroying my once fond memories of The Wind in the Willows.
Well, don’t place too much credence on PJ O’Rourke, as he may not be familiar with one democracy preserving feature we have – a Govenor-General.
Actually, Anna, PJ and Ratty all agree that a Bill of Rights takes power from elected representatives and gives it to unelected judges. They just disagree as to whether this is a good thing or not.
Jack at 10 and 13
For the extent of democratic collapse and new anti-abortion laws that you assert will surface with a bill of rights may I suggest you google Victorian Bill of Rights and do some reading. Especially before you post again and look really silly
This is slightly off-topic but…
I’m no expert when it comes to the traditional, often right wing, argument against so called activist judges however i would have thought it enough to just have these two quotes from John Howard:
[my emphasis]
I had always thought the argument for so called ‘black letter’ judges (or whatever they’re called) was that they never interpret laws, that their judgments are directly derived from the letter of the law, that no interpretation is necessary.
Thank you Peter @ 23.
PJ O’Rourke isn’t Jesus whereby one must agree with all of his proclamations or none of them. He’s made an argument, which I agree with and so have quoted.
And I’m not saying that anyone who opposes a Bill of Rights is stupid, only that the idea that it is elitist and undemocratic to have an extra check on the government’s powers in addition to elections is stupid.
Britain used to have extra checks on the government’s powers in addition to elections. This check involved potential legislation being discussed and possibly rejected by a court comprising of hereditary nobles and Bishops and then a further check involving legislation being considered and possibly rejected by a monarch. These checks have thankfully been reduced to powerless formalities.
It is quite possible for extra checks on the government’s powers to be elitist and undemocractic.
Besides which, elections shouldn’t just be considered negatively – they aren’t just checks on government power but the source of goverment authority.
But thats just it wet male — the concept of a black letter — what law student might call an Austinian positivist judge is problematic.
All but the most banal of laws require some interpretation, because community standards, meaning and human variety don’t lend themselves well to linguistic fundamentalism.
Indeed, why would one need a judge at all if matters were capable of being determined in this way? Surely a piece of software programmed for fuzzy logic and a machine would suffice? Far cheaper, far more positivist.
So we’re quoting P J O’Rourke as a voice of sanity and reason now?
Oh fer fuck’s sake!
.
Just because someone sees things slightly diferently from you doesn’t make them always wrong. And here’s some news. You ain’t always right! Also one of the most effective techniques in debate is to use the words of a prominent voice on the side of one’s opponents to back up your own argument. D’uh!
.
For the record I don’t think we need a Bill of Rights. We need rights enshrined in the constitution when we become a republic.
Anna, why is it elitist and undemocratic to have an extra check on government power? Is the argument that democracy is naturally a check on government by virtue of elections and that some unelected collection of mystery people might over-rule a democratically elected government? If that’s the argument how do you feel about this government’s tardiness in repealing or seriously reviewing Howard’s anti-terrorism laws, despite their explicit policy to do so. Furthermore they are making sounds about expanding certain aspects of these laws. Is that democracy in action?
In practice all a bill of rights will do is take power out of the hands of our elected representatives and give it to judges.
What’s so good about our elected representatives? At the very least judges have to obey the law in an objective rational sense, elected representatives get to make it up as they go along, trade off some of our rights against others to suit their own agendas, overide their personal conscience according to party politics, make decisions based on short time periods according to looming elections ete. Would our democracy be any worse because if the basis of our society was enshrined in a bill or rights and upheld by judges, unable to ignored, traded-off or otherwise violated by politicians? I doubt it.
only that the idea that it is elitist and undemocratic to have an extra check on the government’s powers in addition to elections is stupid.
One of the best comments I’ve read on this site.
David H
That’s not Anna’s argument. That’s the argument that she is calling stupid.
I’ve got an idea for a check on govt power. Politicans should be more like buskers. They don’t get paid unless you like what they’re doing. And having to go door to door in their electorates with a tin cup kinda reinforces the facts viz who they work for.
I’m confused now. I’m with David H. I would have thought you lot would have supported a check and balance on the legislature.
Fran @ 31
Yes, i agree that a computer can’t do the work of a judge. I’m just saying that i think John Howard has agreed with that, seeming to undermine the argument put forward by the ‘black letter’ types that judges shouldn’t interpret laws.
The caveat i add is that i might be misrepresenting the arguments of Howard and Planet Janet. If they have never had such an absolutist point of view, i.e. that they’ve always said some interpretation is necessary, then there isn’t hypocrisy in what i have highlighted. That would surprise me.
Erm, David H, I think you may have missed the bit where Anna said that the contention regarding elitism is ‘stupid’.
Well I’m amused by those two quotes anyway.
No one’s suggested that this is clearly stage 1 in Howard’s bid for pre-selection in Bradfield.
Until now. Or, if they did, I’ve conveniently ignored them.
How many years was it between the UAP and Liberal governments?
tigtog, Ok I get it – some confusion on my part for which I blame PJ’s clumsy language. Ta
What’s so good about our elected representatives? Well, we can sack them like we sacked Ratty. That’s one good thing more about them than there is about judges.
Serious, if the Chartists were still around to read this they would weep.
NOIP, Well perhaps, but some people might hold that the ONLY good thing about our elected representatives is that we can sack them. Besides democracy is flawed…
Well, we can sack them like we sacked Ratty. That’s one good thing more about them than there is about judges.
Sure, we can sack them every four years with one vote based on every decision they made during that term. A judge can challenged on every single decision they make, every time. And if it goes all the way it can ultimately be challenged against a universally understood list of values that form the pillars our society is built upon – if we have that list in the form of a bill of rights.
However, why don’t we also give the people a say in who the judges are as well?
nice blog Rewi
No. But law is ripe for the application of expert systems, if you ask me.
Michael Sutcliffe, your faith in Philosopher Princes is a wonder to behold. Rational, accountable judges without fear, favour or class interest acting in accordance with a single set of agreed values that all right thinking men have accepted as the unassailable and inalienable pillars of the temple to Athena that is our society. Politics is so messy dontchaknow.
But all I can hear is weaping Chartists.
Well, I’m saying they’re no worse than politicians, in contrast to John Howard and a number of the other comments on this thread. And when utilised with a bill of rights, we can remove some of that messiness and have a little more justice instead. I’m also saying there’s other improvements we could make to the system beyond a bill of rights, such as some citizen input into judge selection.
However, why don’t we also give the people a say in who the judges are as well?
.
Populism and its prejudices?
Any worse than having politicians appoint them without checks and balances?
I’ve got an idea for a check on govt power. Politicans should be more like buskers. They don’t get paid unless you like what they’re doing. And having to go door to door in their electorates with a tin cup kinda reinforces the facts viz who they work for.
Adrien, sounds like an excellent plan to introduce corruption into government.
Personally, I would suggest we should make sure politicians are fat and happy. They shouldn’t want for anything, and should have plenty of income if they choose to retire so they don’t avoid offending big money with plans that help Australia/ns. Election campaigns should be able to draw on as much public funds as necessary, as long as it can be shown to be related to the effort of getting elected and you reach a particular hurdle in popularity. If they want for anything, some private group will give it to them and then they’ll represent that interest group instead of their electorate.
We also need a lot more of the bastards. Parliaments across the nation should be doubled in size. The more politicians there are, the less power they have, and the less power private money has because it needs to buy a lot more to get anywhere. I would also suggest that the tendency towards “efficient government” (perhaps the most dangerous term I have heard!) and greater centralised control in Canberra does nothing but hurt us, as individuals, as communities and as a nation. When the states are once more seen as the Commonwealth’s equal, then we will have a well-governed nation.
(Well, all of that, or instal me as ruler of the world. Occasionally, less is better.)
#11 Katz Aug 27th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
No, Howard’s institutional deeds were consistent with his ideological words.
Howard had to suspend the Racial Discrimination Act, a Bill of Rights prototype if ever there was one, in order to get the Intervention through.
This was a populist policy, done with wide spread democratic support. But definitely not a individual rights one, at least as that philosophy is construed by legalistic (post-)modern liberals.
Call me old-fashioned but I am going to go with the politician whose priority arrests child abusers over the politician whose priority it is to enrich lawyers and empower political racketeers.
.
In what universe, Wozza @ 2, does acclamation for a single statement by an individual form an imperative for agreement with their every other utterance?
Wozza suggests it is ironic that one might agree with PJ O’Rourke on one point, but not on others. Thank you for demonstrating the truth of O’Rourke’s statement…that “[l]ife is full of ironies for the stupid”.
All that aside, O’Rourke’s statement is a sly paean to authoritarianism…
I think it’s amazing that the former PM, a lawyer by trade, thinks judges unaccountable. The doctrine of Stare decisis binds lower courts and the hierarchy of courts means the plaintiffs have a number of opportunities to have decisions reviewed. It’s a simple idea that appears to have escaped the notice of the like of Wozza et al.
However I think that a bill of rights enacted through legislation is always going to be difficult to get up as it is subject to the fashions of politicians. Bills of Rights enacted as part of the constitution are much harder to change and thus more out of reach of populist sentiment as exploited by the likes of Howard. There is a downside of course, see 2nd Amendment to the US constitution.
Funny thing – The proposed charter is not going to be in the constitution. In the end politicians can do something that they really think is necessary despite the bill of rights. All a judge will be able to do is point out that something is in breach.
My preferred compromise is to have a system where anything that is in breach of the charter can only be approved by a senate vote that specifically allows the exception. A 2/3 Senate majority would be desirable. This would ensure that the exception has bipartisan support.
The need for an exception could be decided by parliment itself or by the normal legal system.
“such as some citizen input into judge selection.”
If that gets up I’m outta here.
No, Pseudonymous Coward –
We need to change the way that people get to become politicians, so that party machines can’t rig the pool and so that nobody goes into it thinking they will get a second term and so that the people who get selected are selected by apparent merit from a pool of highly informed motivated people and by a pool on increasingly well informed people who feel involved in shaping and authoring the candidates and their policies.
Above all the candidates need to be more of us and more like us in all our diversity, and not be excluded simply because by being like the diverse people we are they aren’t as most people expect.
Jacques @ 45: no.
Back on topic, P.J. O’Rourke manages, in one body/mind, to conflate all the cliches about stopped clocks and broken records. The only book of his that I’ve liked is The Bachelor’s Companion. It reminds me of my youth.
“Any worse than having politicians appoint them without checks and balances?”
What’s makes you think they appointed with regard for any process? Judges are senior members of the legal fraternity, the process of becoming such is not trivial. I suggest you give it a go and see how far you get. Also realise there’s a big difference between sitting in the mining court and hearing plaints and sitting in the supreme court and hearing murders cases. I trust that appointees would have qualifications suited to these very different jurisdictions. Also consider that we don’t allow the patients at a hospital to have input in appointing the senior registrar, likewise I don’t want people with a very limited knowledge of the law deciding the fate of myself or my fellow citizens.
That’s the opposite of a good idea. It’s the US system. You’ve made the mistake of assuming that there’s no-one out there that will pay politicians to, for example, take money from you and give it to them.
Dalek-like, the Strocchibot trundles its way to embrace its favourite hobby-horse.
Translation out of machine language: “Howard had to do something stupid in order to allow him to do something even more stupid.”
Howard didn’t have to do this. He chose to do it, because as I have already noted, Howard wanted to decide whom to molest* and decide the conditions under which they would be molested*.
*In case the censors want to reprove me again for this statement, let me remind them that molestation in no way is restricted to the idea of sexual molestation. To be molested is to be damaged in some illicit way, for instance, being discriminated against on the basis of race.
And as we all should now know, this is exactly what the UN Rapporteur yesterday accused Howard of doing.
Australia has returned to the dark days of institutionalised racism.
The biggest problem with a potential bill of rights or constitutional amendment is that too many rights will be included. If we could keep the list to a bare minimum, count me in.
“However, why don’t we also give the people a say in who the judges are as well?
.
Populism and its prejudices?”
There’s all sorts of arguments as to why we shouldn’t elect judges, but you have to admit that whenever someone brings up the ‘unelected’ canard, it is the perfect riposte to ask them “what if judges WERE elected?” – their argument falls in a heap.
“Call me old-fashioned but I am going to go with the politician whose priority arrests child abusers”
Isn’t one of the problems with the intervention that arrests haven’t increased?
The American BOR went down the toilet when the Patriot Act was passed only the Americans have not woken up to that yet. “patriotism the last refuge of the scoundrel” famous words and oh so true ps who penned that first??
Bilko @ 67,
Samuel Johnson, I think. He was, I believe, talking about the Americans in the American Revolution.
There was some exquisite timing in the publication of John Howard’s thoughts on a bill of rights Only hours before he spoke, the judges of the High Court ruled that legislation his Government enacted so ineptly to cover military law was unconstitutional.
In doing so they demolished his argument about the supremacy of parliament. Sometimes Governments get it wrong.
Our system provides the necessary checks and balances and from time to time as in the High Court this week, the courts have a role to play,. Since Federation the High Court has been interpreting the constitution and has steadily ceded powers to the central Government over the States. This has been an effective way of handling the evolution of our country from six independent colonies into a Federation. It can be controversial as in Mabo and Wik decision opposed by Mr Howard. But he was happy when it ruled he could use the corporations power to enforce his Work Choices Bill. In retrospect, maybe the court would have done him a favour if it had said he couldn’t.
Our constitution is a mercantile document designed to set out the regulation of commerce between the colonies. As the constitutional conventions reveal attempts by any participants to have rights enshrined in it were sternly rebuffed. Let’s not forget that Queensland was a hold out on Federation over its claim to retain the right to bring in kanakas (slave labor) from the Pacific Islands. In South Australia Aboriginal people could vote but lost that right under the Commonwealth constitution. Women could vote in South Australia too but didn’t get that right under the Commonwealth Constitution until 1902. So it is silent on all rights except freedom of religion. The point being that rights were not at the forefront of framing out constitution.
It is amusing at times to see Australians quoting their constitutional rights, from free speech to the right to bear arms not knowing they are quoting the US bill of rights. Let’s not forget that the current High Cort was happy to give a big tick to the previous government’s laws (and not repealed) that it could hold asylum seekers in detention indefinitely.
The bill of rights under consideration at the moment is not a constitutional one such as in the US. It would merely be similar to those operating in Victoria and the ACT. They give courts the power to look at proposed legislation and point out where it breaches the bill of rights. But its power ends there. If the parliament wishes to go ahead it can. Rather than being an elitist matter the bills of rights in other parts of the world have proven to be a godsend for the voiceless in our society; the impoverished and the disabled for example who are often victims of mindless bureaucracy. Victoria and the ACT have not ground to a halt because they have a bill of rights.
In the UK, the Conservative Opposition has pledged to strengthen the bill of rights should it come to power and the Canadians are very happy with their bill of rights. We remain one of the few developed countries without any charter of rights.
The argument put forward by John Howard about faceless judges was a nonsense.
PB many thanks for that, I bet he and a few of the other founding fathers are spinning in the graves over USA as it is at present. Bring back the Gene Roddenberry version perhaps. And why anyone listens to anything the lying rodent says beggar’s belief
Actually, Wozza, O’Rourke’s remarks about liberals are perfectly true. It’s just that, like most Americans, he can’t tell the difference between a liberal and a leftist.
Yes. Most of the criticisms of a Bill of Rights are made against the idea of a constitutionally entrenched maximal BoR. However the political realities of constiotutional amendments in Australia mean that it is vastly more likely that we would have a statutory BoR, which means of course that future Parliaments could amend it, if it was politically feasible to do so.
And in the off chance that a BoR did become constitutionally entrenched it would mean a) it was almost certainly of a minimal form and b) will have been passed by parliament and directly approved by the people of Australia, so you could hardly get more democratic than that.
There are a number of arguments against a BoR that have some substance, but the “erodes democratic accountability” one is just plain dumb.
So when it comes to the waterfront, education and where and how we work it is reform. When it comes to providing protection and dignity to a minority it is activism at it’s worst. Katz is right the dog whistle is always close at hand.
Mercurius at 52: “In what universe, Wozza @ 2, does acclamation for a single statement by an individual form an imperative for agreement with their every other utterance?”
Point taken, Mercurius, but it is actually the same point that I was making. After all, what is the premise of the original post if not that, because PJ O’Rourke is a hero of the right (a somewhat dubious assumption in itself, but let it pass), my and others’ agreement with a number of his other utterances should as you put it be an “imperative for agreement” with the particular O’Rourke-ism being put forward in the post, thereby thoroughly discombobulating us in regard to its contradiction with the quote from our other hero (equally dubious, but let that go too? There are a hundred other people with more credibility on this blog to quote anti-Howard on this subject; the selection of O’Rourke can hardly have been coincidental.
To illustrate the idiocy of this premise, I used the same logic by quoting some of his other utterances – I was not, believe it or not, suggesting that I had any hope that any regular denizen of LP would actually agree with them, merely drawing attention to the flaw in the logic.
So you are telling me that the technique is AOK when Anna Winter uses it, but ceases to be if it is thrown back? It is indeed a strange universe over here.
As you say, though, perhaps the incident does at least show that O’Rourke is right in his “life is full of ironies for the stupid”, though we probably won’t agree on to whom in this instance “the stupid” applies.
Bilko,
I suspect you’re thinking of the American revolutionary Sam Adams.
Samuel Johnson was a fat, unwashed, shabbily dressed old Londoner with Tourette’s Syndrome who was an ill-mannered, boorish, egotistical novelist, essayist, raconteur,and poseur whose reputation is, IMHO, greatly overated. He also compiled the first English dictionary. He absolutely hated American rebels and was among the first to pont out the contradiction of the white Americans rebelling in the name of Liberty at the same time that many of them were slave-holders.
Sam Adams, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson would all be appalled to see what their successors have made of their revolution. John Adams started to get apalled by about 1800, I think.
PB thanks again now I visualise P Adams as an Eliza Doolittle father type figure another dream shattered have a good weekend
Wozza dude, I don’t know if you’re being deliberately ridiculous, or if you really do believe what you’re saying, but as I already wrote up-thread, I linked to the quote because I agreed with the words contained within.
As Adrien noted, it can often be more effective to quote someone who’s on the same side as the person you’re disagreeing with, but you’re reading far too much into it if you think it’s anything more than that.
You need to get over the PJ O’Rourke thing now.
#60 Katz Aug 28th, 2009 at 7:04 am
If so, then so much the better for “institutionalised” racism. The Intervention is being maintained by the Rudd government, a swag of new guard Aboriginal leaders (eg Mundine, Pearson) and, most importantly, Aboriginal women on the ground at the front line. Small “l” liberals who want to play the civil rights violin need to hear the words of truth spoken from the heart spoken by Bess Nungarray about the crying need to keep Howard’s legacy in this area:
Its revealing that Katz identifies as “racists” the very people who are trying to stop the anomic social disintegration of remote indigenous communities. As if realism about racial nature and social structure is a crime. No amount of blather about civil rights or parchment politics over Treaties, Apologies etc will go one itoa towards closing the Gap.
Katz says:
Another international indigenous human rights activist parachuted into a remote location telling people how to run things is exactly what we dont need. I love the term “rapporteur”, says it all really. Three cheers for Mal Brough for telling this guy where to get off:
So whats it to be, accept the Intervention and move forward to protect indigenous women and children. Or reject the Intervention and move backward to the rights-agenda era, when the local Big Men ruled the roost?
Or move forward to a place where everyone has rights, including women and children.
“So whats it to be, accept the Intervention and move forward to protect indigenous women and children.”
Yep Anna, sorry Jack, but this one of those hundreds of *other* times where your predictive powers have dismally failed, and will continue to fail you.
That you haven’t worked out Mal Brough is a born or bred liar (of course, always with the best intentions – otherwise, at best, some kind of policy towing imbecile), speaks absolute volumes about your selective naivety.
If Mal Brough’s concern was truly for the “children sitting out there in abject squalor with diseases they don’t have to have, inadequate education, poor nutrition and poor access to health”, as if (as if, fuckin’ if!) his government, or the current government (since we’re looking square at you now), couldn’t have pledged to implement every last one of those services required without the *fundamentally discriminatory racist policies* they felt so bloody necessary to implement alongside.
Johnny also sez:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25985594-5013871,00.html
Yes Mr Howard, international obligations like the ICCPR: so humiliating when you can’t railroad some poor innocent bugger like Haneef into jail and can’t win an election on flawed anti-terorist legislation. The natural instinct of grubby politicians like you to stay in power forever should never be thwarted by some barrister leaking a transcript to counteract your misinforming leakers. Guys like that barrister should be struck off the bar roll said your pal Mr Ruddock.
Cases like Al-Kateb, where the High Court got it so wrong and failed, as Kirby urged, to see a human rights dimension interpretatively through international human rights. That’s why we need a BR.
We also need it to act as an antidote, a brake on people like, you guessed it, John Howard, whose version of “democracy” was to stampede people with fear giving him cover to take away human rights.
John Howard has to be one of the most despicable politicians ever in Australian political history.
The Strocchibot doesn’t seem to understand the difference between regulating behaviour and discriminating on the basis of racial identity.
The behaviours targeted by the Intervention are by no means the unique preserve of persons who identify themselves as Aborigines.
To draft laws as if these behaviours were unique to persons who identify themselves as Aborigines is a crass form of prejudice.
To enforce those laws is institutional racism.
I think Howard has a point. We should allow our natural instinct for freedom to flourish by giving our elected representatives freedom to govern without limitations being put on them. And the humiliation we feel when quashing our natural instinct for freedom and democracy by signing up to international conventions and treaties is debilitating. I would like to nominate John Winston Howard to lead Australias charge to withdraw from the World Trade Organisation, bi-lateral trade treaties, ANZUS etc etc. Please John, take up the challenge and save us from these undemocratic, freedom killing, humiliating, elitist, leftist, authoritarian, self-hating, ABC loving institutions of hate.
Wozza – To illustrate the idiocy of this premise, I used the same logic by quoting some of his other utterances – I was not, believe it or not, suggesting that I had any hope that any regular denizen of LP would actually agree with them, merely drawing attention to the flaw in the logic.
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Politics is not religion. Especially in liberal democracies.
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We are not required to line up our minds along a battlefront and divide the world into friends and enemies. What Mr O’Rourke says about the character of what Americans call liberalism and what he says about the relationship between political architecture and rights are distinct matters. There is no flaw in logic to disagree with one thing whilst agreeing with other.
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I am a strong advocate of Aristotelean Ethics but that does not mean I endorse his Physics. Understand?
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Please play the ball and not the man. Is he wrong? I think he falls to short. We need rights in the constitution.
#77 Katz Aug 29th, 2009 at 9:30 am
Oh but I do “understand the difference between regulating behaviour and discriminating on the basis of racial identity”. Read what I said: if “discrimination” protects women and children from predatory abuse then “so much the better for institutional racism”.
Its true that the Intervention’s institutional discrimination is somewhat arbitrary and across the board and unfair to those Aboriginal households who are managing their affairs competently. But this is not a deal breaker.
Its simpler and more practical to put in place a one-size-fits-all model in the NT for the time being to act as a circuit breaker for the cycle of abuse and neglect. Particularly as its highly probable that a more individualist case-by-case implementation of income management would encourage predators to “humbug” those remaining on welfare who had discretionary spending. These types get around, you know, and they are quite adept at local intimidation.
More generally, a reform of indigenous affairs requires a change of polity, not just policy. Howard’s suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act, changes to Aboriginal property rights and threats to councils were all crucial parts of the Intervention. He did well to strike at the institutionalised systems of patronage and power that characterise indigenous political affairs. If he had left them in place they would have sabotaged the policy.
Its quite true that “the behaviours targeted by the Intervention are by no means the unique preserve of persons who identify themselves as Aborigines”. But this invites the extension of this policy to whites, not its extinction for blacks.
Dont tempt me! I would be happy to see income management applied to dysfunctional areas populated by those of a non-Aboriginal race, such as drug-infested public housing estates. I dont think we need bother the pensioned off retirees living in California bungalows in Camberwell.
The fact that Katz seems to ignorant of this practice tells me just how clueless and naive he is about the facts on the ground in the NT. Constantly playing the civil rights violin does no good to anyone, except lawyers and the politically mobbed-up.
Also, a word or two on debating form: this business with “Strocchibot” is not a good look for Katz. Does he really think feeble schoolboyish taunts are going to strengthen his case, let alone convince me? And playing the “racist” card is certainly a political technique which is well past its use-by date. Once upon a time racists were the ones who were molesting colored women. Now the “racists” are the ones protecting those women from molestation.
Liberals are obviously opposed to racism in both cases. But that just shows you how liberalism has degenerated into a knee-jerk ideology.
John Howard and the European Australian’s natural instinct for freedom.
Far be it from me to be on the black armband side of history
But- we wuz convicts, Mr. Howard. This did not me we wuz natural rebels loudly agitating for our natural democratic rights. It meant if the overseer of soldier of copper said – do this, we asked how high do we jump and tugged our forelocks and said yessir, no sir, three bagful, sir.
And, if we weren’t convicts we were soldiers or squatters – preferably having out convicts work for nothing as slave labour.And we whipped the convicts or hung them if they didn’t do what they were told.
(We also massecred Aboriginal families and raped Aboriginal women as our expression of our natural instinct for freedom, but that’s anothere story.)
Australia’s natural instinct for freedom! What absolute piffle!
I totally agree with PJ O’Rourke when he says we are too stupid and undeserving to have a Bill Of Rights. We don’t deserve a Bill Of Rights, and we won’t have a Bill Of Rights. Goody.
Today, in the birthplace of of The Bill Of Rights – the United States – workers on corporate property enjoy no Bill of Rights powers such as freedom of speech and assembly due to the court’s corrupt interpretations in favour of the corporations. These are Mr O’Rourke’s clever Judges that we stupid rabble are supposed to pull our forelocks to.
Governing powers should be given to elected legislators who meet in public processes, not by appointed judges. We should promote democracy, not the special privileges for the few, or a commercial empire based on wealth accumulation.
The O’Rourke quote is worth using, whatever the source. However, it also indicates another thing: The extent to which the Australian right is off on a frolic of their own in their total opposition to a Bill of Rights.
The American right may want to scrap some sections of their Bill of Rights, and work around others, but I doubt many of them would advocate for wholesale abolition. Most other developed nations have Bills of Rights, or something similar, as well. I’m not aware of the right in those countries pushing for abolition either.
This really is a point where the Australian right stands alone. That doesn’t make them wrong, but it should at least give pause for thought.
Howard used to go after historians. He only succeeded in making historians better. Now he’s doing the same to a prospective bill of rights, so let’s take up the challenge.
Let’s work out whar rights are absolutely essential and can’t be “suspended” at whim. Let’s work out what rights fell overboard the Lucinda in 1900, or neer made it on board. Most of all, let’s not have a set of rights that contradicts itself, e.g. that the freedom of the gunslinger prevails over all other freedoms.
I am starting to wonder whether such a task is not beyond the current federal goverment.
In America the army can go into a university and shoot up the students. One single man (the Prez) is in command of a standing army and can in practice declare war on another country. The Congress has always been a lousy chamber. Corporations are the most powerful “individuals” in the country, and they excercise their “individual rights” through the courts like real people never could.
An example of that is happening right now with wealthy private insurance companies spending millions on a very successful campaign to frighten the wits out of the people on healthcare reform. Its exercises its corporate freedom of speech with claims of death panels, Stephen Hawking being left to die in the streets of London, Americans bombarded with misleading emails..etc. A corporation is an individual by law and is allowed freedom of speech. Funny how money gets its way in the court system.
A Bill Of Rights is a sop for those that want a true democracy for the people but recognize the laws of the land prevent that. And because its all tied up in legal interpretations it doesn’t work anyway. Exhibit A: America.
If a state is run well, with laws that allow democratic freedom for the people to decide their future, a Bill Of Rights would be superfluous. And if the state is run to favour a minority of wealthy powerful interests, a Bill Of Rights amendment won’t save the people.
If you really knew the history of the American Constitution, the Federalists, and the wealthy interests that fought tooth and nail to make sure they stayed on top, you would run away from the idea of a Bill Of Rights as fast as you good.
It invites nothing of the sort.
It merely invites equal treatment under the law.
(Although I do note that the Strochhibot appears to hanker after some sort of association with those hypothetical denizens of Camberwell. But fear not Jack. Behind those white picket fences of Camberwell exists some dysfunction that’d make your teeth curl.)
The beaten wives and molested children of Camberwell deserve as much protection under the law as Aborigines in the remotest encampment in the Northern Territory.
But neither group deserve to have their property rights annulled as a cost for that protection. Camberwellites deserve to enjoy the consolations of their white picket fences whether or not they have suffered the illicit lust of pater familias.
#86 Katz Aug 30th, 2009 at 12:00 am says:
Be careful what you wish for, it might come true. Unequal treatment under the law for indigines is currently allowed by the S 51 of the Constitution (the “race power“). The 1967 Referendum, far from ending contitutionally valid racial discrimination, actually extended such powers to the Federal govt.
This power has, quite properly, been interpreted by the High Court to only authorise govts seeking to use their powers for the benefit of a nominated race. The Intervention clearly falls under that head which is why no one in the Aboriginal rights industry has dared mount a High Court challenge to the policy.
Were such a challenge to be mounted it could easily work the other way. A formally equalitarian government could change ideological signs, so to speak, and authorise the dismantling of all special laws, agencies and funds dedicated to the advancement of indigenes on the grounds that these measures represented “unequal treatment under the law”.
Which they most certainly are, although getting Katz to admit that would be like pulling teeth.
Katz says:
This statement at least serves the “JS Mill function” of clearly stating the reductio ad absurdum of the hard-core liberal position. Of course rights should be forefeit if duties are not discharged.
There are, and should not be, no such things as unconditional civil rights. Society is a contract which requires mutual obligation, where all civil rights are correspective to civic duties.
If a citizen fails to properly excercise their civil rights (commits a crime, for instance) then the citizen forfeits some rights. If a class of people are judged to be sufficiently at risk of improper excercise of rights (eg young people with drink driving) then they are constrained in that excercise.
The Constitution authorises the CW to employ some such rights-constraining powers with respect to a race that requires special legal regulation. In the case of the Intervention the CW is properly applying that “discriminatory” power to protect women and children at risk.
Universal declarations of human rights are all very well as a polemical device when dealing with the grotesqueries of Second World totalitarianism or Third World fundamentalism or maybe employed in catch-up parts of the First World, such as the Deep South a while back. Not very helpful in these here parts.
Katz says:
This incomparably stupid comparison reminds me of Anatole Frances’s memorable put-down of the naive liberalism of his day:
One more piece of evidence, if any more evidence were needed, of Strocchi’s alienation from reality.
Print this out Jack, and use a magnet to stick it on your fridge:
Rich people never have to sleep under bridges. The wealth of a patriarch is no predictor of his propensity to beat his wife or to r*pe his children.
Anatole France’s put-down is a beauty. The pity is that Strocchi cannot perceive that it is irrelevant to the case at issue.
Strocchi@87: “In the case of the Intervention the CW is properly applying that “discriminatory” power to protect women and children at risk.”
The question is: which particular women and children are at risk? Not all of them? Just some of them? Who?