Israeli general touches raw nerve with Holocaust comments
Military official warns against repeating horrors of the past
By Josef Federman ASSOCIATED PRESS
JERUSALEM — In a reflection of the deep divisions plaguing Israel, a top general set off a controversy Thursday after appearing to liken the atmosphere in Israel to that of Nazi-era Germany during a speech marking the country’s Holocaust memorial day.
The comments, coming on one of the country’s most sensitive and sacred days, enraged Israeli nationalists. The episode also underscored an increasingly evident rift between hard-liners in the government and the country’s security chiefs, who tend to be more pragmatic than many politicians on its troubled relations with the Palestinians.
In a speech Wednesday night, Major General Yair Golan, the military’s deputy chief of staff, said the Holocaust should prompt Israelis to ‘‘think deeply’’ about their society.
‘‘If there is anything that frightens me in the remembrance of the Holocaust, it is discerning nauseating processes that took place in Europe in general, and in Germany specifically, back then, 70, 80, and 90 years ago, and seeing evidence of them here among us in the year 2016,’’ he said.
Education Minister Naftali Bennett, leader of the nationalist Jewish Home party, called on Golan to correct his comments or be seen as comparing Israeli soldiers to Nazis.
The Haaretz daily said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called his defense minister, Moshe Yaalon, late Wednesday to express displeasure.
But Isaac Herzog, leader of the center-left opposition, called Golan brave.
‘‘This is what ethics and responsibility sound like,’’ he said.
Israeli General Touches Raw Nerve With Holocaust Comments
By JOSEF FEDERMAN, ASSOCIATED PRESS
JERUSALEM — May 5, 2016, 2:50 PM ET
The Associated Press
Israelis stand still next to their cars as a siren sounds in memory of victims of the Holocaust in Tel Aviv, Israel, Thursday, May 5, 2016. Israel is marking its annual Holocaust remembrance day in memory of the 6 million Jews killed by Nazi Germany and its collaborators. (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner)more +
In a reflection of the deep divisions plaguing Israel, a top general set off a controversy Thursday after appearing to liken the atmosphere in Israel to that of Nazi-era Germany during a speech marking the country's Holocaust memorial day.
The comments, coming on one of the country's most sensitive and sacred days, enraged Israeli nationalists. The episode also underscored an increasingly evident rift between hard-liners in the government and the country's security chiefs — who tend to be more pragmatic than many politicians on its troubled relations with the Palestinians.
In a speech Wednesday night, Maj. Gen. Yair Golan, the military's deputy chief of staff, said the Holocaust — in which the Nazis murdered 6 million Jews — should prompt Israelis to "think deeply" about their society.
"If there is anything that frightens me in the remembrance of the Holocaust, it is discerning nauseating processes that took place in Europe in general, and in Germany specifically back then, 70, 80 and 90 years ago, and seeing evidence of them here among us in the year 2016," he said.
Education Minister Naftali Bennett, leader of the nationalist Jewish Home party, called on Golan to correct his comments or be seen as comparing Israeli soldiers to Nazis. Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, a member of the same party, said Golan was "a little confused" and that his statement reflected "a lack of understanding, if not a disrespect of the Holocaust."
Although military figures are supposed to steer clear of politics, Golan's comments reflected the concerns of Israeli liberals about the deterioration of Jewish-Arab relations and the increasing antipathy between the groups as a result of a wave of Palestinian violence.
Since September, 28 Israelis and two Americans have been killed in Palestinian stabbings, shootings and car rammings. Nearly 200 Palestinians have also been killed, most of them said by Israel to be attackers. In several cases, armed Israeli civilians have killed the attackers, winning praise from politicians but drawing accusations from Palestinians and some Israelis of vigilante killings.
In one recent incident, a soldier was caught on video fatally shooting an already wounded Palestinian attacker in the head in the West Bank town of Hebron. Hard-liners accused the military of abandoning the soldier by indicting him for manslaughter, and polls showed most Jewish Israelis shared the sentiment. Many Israeli Jews also now openly oppose the equal rights of the one-fifth of the country's 8 million citizens who are Arabs — who in turn are growing increasingly alienated from the Jewish state.
"There is nothing simpler and easier than hating the foreigner," Golan said in his comments. "There is nothing easier and simpler than arousing fears and intimidating."
He called on Israelis to "discuss our ability to uproot from among us buds of intolerance, buds of violence, buds of self-destruction on the path to ethical deterioration."
The Haaretz daily said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called his defense minister, Moshe Yaalon, late Wednesday to express displeasure.
That report could not immediately be confirmed. But early Wednesday, the military issued a clarification, saying Golan did not intend to compare Israel and its army to "the horrors" of Nazi Germany.
"This is an absurd and baseless comparison that he never would have made and it was never his intention to criticize the Israeli government," the military said. It said it "holds the value of human life as a guiding value."
Isaac Herzog, leader of the center-left opposition, called Golan brave. "This is what ethics and responsibility sound like," he said.
And Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute, an independent, nonpartisan think tank, said Golan had delivered an important message about the need to confront "isolated events" of extremism in Israeli society and to set a moral example.
But he said that given the "extremely high sensitivity" of the Holocaust, Golan's comments struck a raw nerve. "One has to be overly cautious and accurate with the words one chooses in order to not be wrongly understood," he said. "That's why he made his clarification."
With his comments, Golan touched upon two of the most central aspects of Israeli society: the Holocaust and the military.
The Holocaust remains an open wound in Israeli society and is at the heart of Israel's national identity. The country was founded in 1948 in the wake of the Holocaust and became a refuge for tens of thousands of survivors. Thousands of Israeli high school students make annual trips to Nazi death camp sites in Europe, and foreign leaders routinely visit Israel's Holocaust memorial.
In an annual ritual Thursday, sirens wailed for two minutes as the nation came to a standstill to mark the day. Cars and pedestrians stopped, while ceremonies were held nationwide.
Israeli officials also frequently draw parallels between the Holocaust and contemporary events, at times stirring controversy.
Netanyahu has been criticized for invoking the Holocaust when talking about Iran and its nuclear program. And last year, he drew criticism for suggesting that a World War II-era Palestinian leader persuaded the Nazis to carry out the genocide. Holocaust experts and survivors slammed Netanyahu's comments as historically inaccurate.
The military, meanwhile, is widely seen as Israel's most trusted institution, with favorability ratings around 90 percent among the Jewish population.
But divisions have emerged between hard-line politicians calling for a tough crackdown against the current wave of attacks, and security chiefs who at times have urged restraint. The Palestinians have repeatedly accused Israeli police and troops of using excessive force to subdue attackers.
Earlier this year, the military chief, Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, came under fire from parliamentary hard-liners for calling on soldiers to use only "necessary force" against attackers.
Yaalon, the defense minister and a former army chief, said Thursday that he had "full faith" in Golan and decried "the worrying and bothersome campaign to politically damage the army and its officers."
A young descendant of Holocaust victims pays her respects at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem.
In a reflection of the deep divisions plaguing Israel, a general has set off a controversy after appearing to liken the atmosphere in Israel to that of Nazi-era Germany during a speech marking the country’s Holocaust memorial day.
The comments, coming on one of the country’s most sensitive and sacred days, enraged nationalists. The episode also underscored the rift between hardliners in the government and the security chiefs — who tend to be more pragmatic on relations with the Palestinians.
In a speech to mark Thursday’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, deputy chief of staff Major General Yair Golan said the Holocaust should prompt Israelis to “think deeply” about their society.
“If there is anything that frightens me in the remembrance of the Holocaust, it is discerning nauseating processes that took place in Europe in general, and in Germany specifically, back then, 70, 80 and 90 years ago, and seeing evidence of them here among us in the year 2016,” he said.
Although military figures are supposed to steer clear of politics, General Golan’s comments reflected the concerns of Israeli liberals about the deterioration of Jewish-Arab relations and the increasing mutual antipathy as a result of a wave of Palestinian violence. Since September, 28 Israelis have been killed in Palestinian stabbings, shootings and car rammings. Nearly 200 Palestinians have also been killed, most of them attackers.
“There is nothing simpler and easier than hating the foreigner. There is nothing easier and simpler than arousing fears and intimidating,” General Golan said.
He called on Israelis to “discuss our ability to uproot from among us buds of intolerance, buds of violence, buds of self-destruction on the path to ethical deterioration”.
Education Minister Naftali Bennett, leader of the Jewish Home Party, called on General Golan to correct his comments or be seen as comparing Israeli soldiers to Nazis. Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked said General Golan was “a little confused” and that his statement reflected “a lack of understanding, if not a disrespect, of the Holocaust”.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon to express displeasure. Mr Yaalon, a former army chief, said he had “full faith” in General Golan and decried “the worrying and bothersome campaign to politically damage the army and its officers”.
The military issued a clarification, saying General Golan did not intend to compare Israel and its army to “the horrors” of Nazi Germany. “This is an absurd and baseless comparison that he never would have made and it was never his intention to criticise the Israeli government,” the military said. It said it “holds the value of human life as a guiding value”.
Labour leader Isaac Herzog called General Golan brave. “This is what ethics and responsibility sound like,” he said.
Israel Democracy Institute president Yohanan Plesner said General Golan had delivered an important message about the need to confront “isolated events” of extremism in Israeli society and to set a moral example. But he said that given the “extremely high sensitivity” of the Holocaust, his comments struck a raw nerve.
Mr Netanyahu himself has been criticised for invoking the Holocaust when talking about Iran and its nuclear program.
And last year, he drew criticism for suggesting that a Palestinian leader had persuaded the Nazis to carry out the genocide.
Earlier this year, chief of staff Lieutenant General Gadi Eisenkot came under fire from hardliners for calling on soldiers to use only “necessary force” against attackers.
The military is widely seen as Israel’s most trusted institution, with favourability ratings of about 90 per cent among the Jewish population.
'It's scary to see horrifying developments that took place in Europe begin to unfold here,' Maj.-Gen. Yair Golan said during a Holocaust Remembrance speech.
IDF Deputy Chief of Staff Maj.-Gen. Yair Golan delivers remarks at Kibbutz Tel Yitzhak. (photo credit:ASSAF SHILO / ISRAEL SUN)
The Israeli army's deputy chief of staff ignited controversy late Wednesday evening with his remarks which seemed to suggest a parallel between present-day Israel and 1930s Germany.
Maj. Gen. Yair Golan made the comments during a Holocaust Remembrance Day address at Tel Yitzhak.
"It's scary to see horrifying developments that took place in Europe begin to unfold here," the officer said.
x
The comments unleashed a torrent of criticism against Golan on social media, with Twitter users accusing the deputy chief of staff of "forgetting the lessons of the Holocaust."
"The Holocaust should bring us to ponder our public lives and, furthermore, it must lead anyone who is capable of taking public responsibility to do so," Golan said. "Because if there is one thing that is scary in remembering the Holocaust, it is noticing horrific processes which developed in Europe – particularly in Germany – 70, 80, and 90 years ago, and finding remnants of that here among us in the year 2016."
Education Minister Naftali Bennett was in the audience during the remarks, according to Hebrew-language media.
"The Holocaust, in my view, must lead us to deep soul-searching about the nature of man," Golan said. "It must bring us to conduct some soul-searching as to the responsibility of leadership and the quality of our society. It must lead us to fundamentally rethink how we, here and now, behave towards the other."
"There is nothing easier and simpler than in changing the other," the officer said. "There is nothing easier and simpler than fear-mongering and threatening. There is nothing easier and simpler than in behaving like beasts, becoming morally corrupt, and sanctimoniousness."
"On Holocaust Remembrance Day, it is worthwhile to ponder our capacity to uproot the first signs of intolerance, violence, and self-destruction that arise on the path to moral degradation," Golan said.
"For all intents and purposes, Holocaust Remembrance Day is an opportunity for soul-searching," he said. "If Yom Kippur is the day of individual soul-searching, then it is imperative that Holocaust Remembrance Day be a day of national soul-searching, and this national soul-searching should include phenomena that are disruptive."
Golan made reference to the Hebron incident in which an IDF infantryman was filmed shooting dead a Palestinian assailant who was on the ground and subdued.
The soldier, Sgt. Elor Azaria, is being tried by a military tribunal on charges of manslaughter. The arrest and court martial have been met with fierce criticism from nationalist Jews who say that the soldier acted properly.
"Improper use of weapons and violating the sanctity of arms have taken place since the IDF's founding," Golan said. "The IDF should be proud that throughout its history it has had the ability to investigate severe incidents without hesitation. It should be proud that it has probed problematic behavior with courage and that it has taken responsibility not just for the good, but also for the bad and the inappropriate."
"We didn't try to justify ourselves, we didn't cover anything up, we didn't whitewash, we didn't make excuses, and we didn't equivocate," the officer said. "Our path was – and will be – one of truth and shouldering responsibility, even if the truth is difficult and the burden of responsibility is a heavy one."
"We very much believe in the justice of our cause, but not everything we do is just," Golan said. "We are certain of the high level of morality in the IDF as an organization, and we do not ignore exceptions by individuals. We demand from our soldiers the same that we demand of ourselves, and we insist that upstanding behavior and setting an example for everyone become second nature for every commander."
"On Holocaust Remembrance Day, as we remember the six million of our people who were slaughtered in Europe, it is incumbent upon us to remember the 6.5 million, those living now, and to ask ourselves what is the purpose of our return to our land, what is appropriate to sanctify and what is not, what is proper to praise and what is not," the officer said.
"Most of all, we should ask how it is that we are to realize our purpose as a light unto the nations and a model society," he said. "Only this kind of remembrance can serve as a living and breathing monument for our people – a worthy monument, a monument of truth."
I join THE CHIEF JUSTICE’s opinion in full. I write separately to call attention to this Court’s threat to American democracy.
The substance of today’s decree is not of immense personal importance to me. The law can recognize as marriage whatever sexual attachments and living arrangements it wishes, and can accord them favorable civil consequences, from tax treatment to rights of inheritance.
Those civil consequences—and the public approval that conferring the name of marriage evidences—can perhaps have adverse social effects, but no more adverse than the effects of many other controversial laws. So it is not of special importance to me what the law says about marriage. It is of overwhelming importance, however, who it is that rules me. Today’s decree says that my Ruler, and the Ruler of 320 million Americans coast-to-coast, is a majority of the nine lawyers on the Supreme Court. The opinion in these cases is the furthest extension in fact— and the furthest extension one can even imagine—of the Court’s claimed power to create “liberties” that the Constitution and its Amendments neglect to mention. This practice of constitutional revision by an unelected committee of nine, always accompanied (as it is today) by extravagant praise of liberty, robs the People of the most important liberty they asserted in the Declaration of Independence and won in the Revolution of 1776: the freedom to govern themselves.
Until the courts put a stop to it, public debate over same-sex marriage displayed American democracy at its best. Individuals on both sides of the issue passionately, but respectfully, attempted to persuade their fellow citizens to accept their views. Americans considered the arguments and put the question to a vote. The electorates of 11 States, either directly or through their representatives, chose to expand the traditional definition of marriage. Many more decided not to.1 Win or lose, advocates for both sides continued pressing their cases, secure in the knowledge that an electoral loss can be negated by a later electoral win. That is exactly how our system of government is supposed to work.
The Constitution places some constraints on self-rule— constraints adopted by the People themselves when they ratified the Constitution and its Amendments. Forbidden are laws “impairing the Obligation of Contracts,” denying “Full Faith and Credit” to the “public Acts” of other States, prohibiting the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing the right to keep and bear arms, authorizing unreasonable searches and seizures, and so forth. Aside from these limitations, those powers “reserved to the States respectively, or to the people” can be exercised as the States or the People desire. These cases ask us to decide whether the Fourteenth Amendment contains a limitation that requires the States to license and recognize marriages between two people of the same sex. Does it remove that issue from the political process?
Of course not. It would be surprising to find a prescription regarding marriage in the Federal Constitution since, as the author of today’s opinion reminded us only two years ago (in an opinion joined by the same Justices who join him today):
“[R]egulation of domestic relations is an area that has long been regarded as a virtually exclusive province of the States.”
“[T]he Federal Government, through our history, has deferred to state-law policy decisions with respect to domestic relations.”
But we need not speculate. When the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868, every State limited marriage to one man and one woman, and no one doubted the constitutionality of doing so. That resolves these cases. When it comes to determining the meaning of a vague constitutional provision—such as “due process of law” or “equal protection of the laws”—it is unquestionable that the People who ratified that provision did not understand it to prohibit a practice that remained both universal and uncontroversial in the years after ratification. We have no basis for striking down a practice that is not expressly prohibited by the Fourteenth Amendment’s text, and that bears the endorsement of a long tradition of open, widespread, and unchallenged use dating back to the Amendment’s ratification. Since there is no doubt whatever that the People never decided to prohibit the limitation of marriage to opposite-sex couples, the public debate over same-sex marriage must be allowed to continue.
But the Court ends this debate, in an opinion lacking even a thin veneer of law. Buried beneath the mummeries and straining-to-be-memorable passages of the opinion is a candid and startling assertion: No matter what it was the People ratified, the Fourteenth Amendment protects those rights that the Judiciary, in its “reasoned judgment,” thinks the Fourteenth Amendment ought to protect. That is so because “[t]he generations that wrote and ratified the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment did not presume to know the extent of freedom in all of its dimensions . . . . ” One would think that sentence would continue: “. . . and therefore they provided for a means by which the People could amend the Constitution,” or perhaps “. . . and therefore they left the creation of additional liberties, such as the freedom to marry someone of the same sex, to the People, through the never-ending process of legislation.” But no. What logically follows, in the majority’s judge-empowering estimation, is: “and so they entrusted to future generations a charter protecting the right of all persons to enjoy liberty as we learn its meaning.” The “we,” needless to say, is the nine of us. “History and tradition guide and discipline [our] inquiry but do not set its outer boundaries.” Thus, rather than focusing on the People’s understanding of “liberty”—at the time of ratification or even today—the majority focuses on four “principles and traditions” that, in the majority’s view, prohibit States from defining marriage as an institution consisting of one man and one woman.
This is a naked judicial claim to legislative—indeed, super-legislative—power; a claim fundamentally at odds with our system of government. Except as limited by a constitutional prohibition agreed to by the People, the States are free to adopt whatever laws they like, even those that offend the esteemed Justices’ “reasoned judgment.” A system of government that makes the People subordinate to a committee of nine unelected lawyers does not deserve to be called a democracy.
Judges are selected precisely for their skill as lawyers; whether they reflect the policy views of a particular constituency is not (or should not be) relevant. Not surprisingly then, the Federal Judiciary is hardly a cross-section of America. Take, for example, this Court, which consists of only nine men and women, all of them successful lawyers who studied at Harvard or Yale Law School. Four of the nine are natives of New York City. Eight of them grew up in east- and west-coast States. Only one hails from the vast expanse in-between. Not a single Southwesterner or even, to tell the truth, a genuine Westerner (California does not count). Not a single evangelical Christian (a group that comprises about one quarter of Americans), or even a Protestant of any denomination. The strikingly unrepresentative character of the body voting on today’s social upheaval would be irrelevant if they were functioning as judges, answering the legal question whether the American people had ever ratified a constitutional provision that was understood to proscribe the traditional definition of marriage. But of course the Justices in today’s majority are not voting on that basis; they say they are not. And to allow the policy question of same-sex marriage to be considered and resolved by a select, patrician, highly unrepresentative panel of nine is to violate a principle even more fundamental than no taxation without representation: no social transformation without representation.
II
But what really astounds is the hubris reflected in today’s judicial Putsch. The five Justices who compose today’s majority are entirely comfortable concluding that every State violated the Constitution for all of the 135 years between the Fourteenth Amendment’s ratification and Massachusetts’ permitting of same-sex marriages in 2003. They have discovered in the Fourteenth Amendment a “fundamental right” overlooked by every person alive at the time of ratification, and almost everyone else in the time since. They see what lesser legal minds— minds like Thomas Cooley, John Marshall Harlan, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Learned Hand, Louis Brandeis, William Howard Taft, Benjamin Cardozo, Hugo Black, Felix Frankfurter, Robert Jackson, and Henry Friendly— could not. They are certain that the People ratified the Fourteenth Amendment to bestow on them the power to remove questions from the democratic process when that is called for by their “reasoned judgment.” These Justices know that limiting marriage to one man and one woman is contrary to reason; they know that an institution as old as government itself, and accepted by every nation in history until 15 years ago, cannot possibly be supported by anything other than ignorance or bigotry. And they are willing to say that any citizen who does not agree with that, who adheres to what was, until 15 years ago, the unanimous judgment of all generations and all societies, stands against the Constitution.
The opinion is couched in a style that is as pretentious as its content is egotistic. It is one thing for separate concurring or dissenting opinions to contain extravagances, even silly extravagances, of thought and expression; it is something else for the official opinion of the Court to do so. Of course the opinion’s showy profundities are often profoundly incoherent. “The nature of marriage is that, through its enduring bond, two persons together can find other freedoms, such as expression, intimacy, and spirituality.” (Really? Who ever thought that intimacy and spirituality [whatever that means] were freedoms? And if intimacy is, one would think Freedom of Intimacy is abridged rather than expanded by marriage. Ask the nearest hippie. Expression, sure enough, is a freedom, but anyone in a long-lasting marriage will attest that that happy state constricts, rather than expands, what one can prudently say.) Rights, we are told, can “rise . . . from a better informed understanding of how constitutional imperatives define a liberty that remains urgent in our own era.” (Huh? How can a better informed understanding of how constitutional imperatives [whatever that means] define [whatever that means] an urgent liberty [never mind], give birth to a right?) And we are told that, “[i]n any particular case,” either the Equal Protection or Due Process Clause “may be thought to capture the essence of [a] right in a more accurate and comprehensive way,” than the other, “even as the two Clauses may converge in the identification and definition of the right.” (What say? What possible “essence” does substantive due process “capture” in an “accurate and comprehensive way”? It stands for nothing whatever, except those freedoms and entitlements that this Court really likes. And the Equal Protection Clause, as employed today, identifies nothing except a difference in treatment that this Court really dislikes. Hardly a distillation of essence. If the opinion is correct that the two clauses “converge in the identification and definition of [a] right,” that is only because the majority’s likes and dislikes are predictably compatible.) I could go on. The world does not expect logic and precision in poetry or inspirational pop philosophy; it demands them in the law. The stuff contained in today’s opinion has to diminish this Court’s reputation for clear thinking and sober analysis.
* * *
Hubris is sometimes defined as o’erweening pride; and pride, we know, goeth before a fall. The Judiciary is the “least dangerous” of the federal branches because it has “neither Force nor Will, but merely judgment; and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm” and the States, “even for the efficacy of its judgments.” With each decision of ours that takes from the People a question properly left to them—with each decision that is unabashedly based not on law, but on the “reasoned judgment” of a bare majority of this Court—we move one step closer to being reminded of our impotence.
Hey and by the f**king way, you can have your ObamaScare, you can have your gay-agendized gay weddings and d**k-cakes, you can have little to zero effort in destroying America's and the world's sadistic enemies who lock human beings in cages and drown/set fire to them, etc, etc, etc......but you WILL answer for it, one day or the next.
I think of it this way friend. The muslim in OUR WH wanted to push this issue. Why? Think of what is created and how the muslims may make use of this public information. Self-created registries!
I am, I just..............if I ever, happen to run across people who have the capability of putting people in cages and slowly drowning them, or burning them alive, I am going to rip them apart with my bare hands.
Look up how many people been killed south of Texas in the last 15 years by Gangs such as MS13. ISIS has nothing on them, What is being done about that, ANSWER NOTHING: Barry & Company was shipping them weapons, and was going to blame it on the White People but got caught.
If you are interested in getting extra cash on the side in the range of $50-$300 each day for doing work from your house for several h daily then read more here...< www.Buzz-Review.com >
As a matter of humanity, I am as f**king pissed as a man can possibly be. And I swear to all that's Holy, if I get my hands on an ISIS member, OR an ISIS sympathizer, although I am consistently armed, I will instead choose to rip his jugular from his neck with my bare hands, and THIS again, is a promise. No mercy, only revenge. Again, Muslims, beware. You've f**ked around with the wrong people as far as I'm concerned.
You come into my business with your Islamic Queer'on in hand looking to behead me or my peeps, it is YOU who will leave headless on a stretcher, betta balee dat, beyatch!
"However, why not instead offer them hope for repentance of their ways and their thoughts, and do what you can to convince them of their sins instead of condemning them?"
K. Tell me how, and maybe we'll both see if it works.
I just wanted to thank most of the commentators on truthrevolt. It gives me great happiness to come here and see that our voice has not been crushed yet. Everywhere I turn elsewhere, the complete insanity and lack of facts, reasoning, and with utter complete ignorance depresses me. Is half of America really this effing blind? I mean it's not so much they celebrate the scotus ruling but the gloating and smugness while they have no clue what's coming soon.
You have the communists and their moronic dupes and then a vast pool of people not paying close enough attention. They don't even understand the implications at all. They don't understand how common law works nor do they understand our Constitution. They don't understand basic economics, like giving something to someone obviously entails taking it away from another. A judge (or panel) can't ever create anything. All judicial decisions are innately zero-sum or destructive. Some times destruction is a necessary part of justice. But a lot of people seem to think that judges can magically create "rights" and suddenly we all have more freedom. Often the opposite is true. It's never been more true than in this case.
Your worldview does not have room for liberty. In fact, it is anathema to liberty.
A frog is going to jump out of the heating water and convince millions of other frogs to also save themselves. And when you and the rest of the Leftist minions try to throw them back in, you'll get the war you were trying to prevent by using low heat.
The lawsuits that have been filed on behalf of incestuous coupled and polygamists. The lawsuit that was pushed to the front of the pastor who refused to marry two men. The lawsuit filed just now to remove tax exempt status on the churches based on the scotus decision. I got a whole list that goes on. You ask " spell it out" I don't know. What happens when you poke the bear one too many times? States will seceed civil war will happen. And since you liberals hate guns and have no experience with such I don't like your chances. And before you smugly say the backwards rednecks lost that civil war. Remember it was the Republicans who freed the slaves. When the pendulum swings in culture like it always does I feel so sorry for what will happen to you nazis.
Churches should pay taxes. Show me the incest case? Polygamy. ..let em fight for it. I don't really care. Churches won't have to marry gays because it's not a business. All sounds good to me
It is already a business as it must pay its employees according to applicable wage and hour laws, deduct employment taxes, comply with workers'compensation and worker safety laws. Should these requirements be dispensed with because it's a church?
If you really believe that churches won't be forced to marry gays than I feel sorry for you. Let's revisit that in about 2 months where you will apologize. What do you think happens when churches lose tax exempt status? Clearly you didn't think that through. It shows a lot when you "don't really care". But for the rest of who do care about the greatest country let us make the laws.
If churches lose tax exempt status, there is nothing holding them back from being completely political. Of course, some donations to some churches will decrease. When this happens, the churches, who are now allowed to speak politically, will say "look at all these charitable programs we had to shut down thanks to gay marriage".
If it were me, and I had the database skills to set it up (and I do), I would set up a weighted system so those who voted for the people who reduced their own aid (the Democrats) got second or lower priority in receiving the aid.
Oh, and even when he's proven wrong, Brad won't apologize. Some people just like to watch the world burn. But we don't have to feed him while it does.
Captain Ron disagrees with you. I have apologized several times when I was wrong. It simply doesnt happen that often. Ask Liberal Please...I apologized to him on an issue which he didnt take graciously
Pakistan deserves condemnation for its appalling failure to resolve the case of the young Christian mother of five who has been on death row for six years awaiting hanging, because she sipped water from a cup intended for Muslims. An appeal by Asia Bibi against her conviction under the blasphemy laws, targeted at Pakistan’s three million Christians, was supposed to be heard by three Supreme Court judges last week. But one judge excused himself and there is no certainty when another bench may be constituted.
Ms Bibi is back in her prison cell, in solitary confinement, supposedly because of threats against her life by Muslim fellow prisoners. She has been in jail since 2010 when Muslim co-workers in Punjab accused her of insulting the Prophet Mohammed by drinking from the cup of water they asked her to fetch. Because she was a Christian, they claimed, she had polluted it and they denounced her to the local mullah.
Previous appeals against her sentence failed. But lawyers and human rights workers were optimistic that the Supreme Court hearing — Ms Bibi’s final avenue of appeal before becoming the first person to be hanged under the blasphemy laws — would overturn the conviction. The latest delay will be welcomed by the feeble government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, which all but ignores violence against Christians. Controversy over the case led to the assassination of Punjab’s former governor Salman Taseer in 2011, after he argued in favour of Ms Bibi. Acquitting her could spark renewed violence and judges are reportedly fearful about making such a decision.
Their fears, however, do not excuse Mr Sharif and Pakistan’s powerful military leaders from ensuring justice is done and Pakistan’s minority Christian community is protected against the savage intolerance of Islamic zealots. Pakistan, a member of the Commonwealth, is one of the world’s great begging bowl nations, relying on vast infusions of foreign aid, especially from the US. Australia provided it with $47 million in 2016-17. Its donors should leave Mr Sharif in no doubt about the need to ensure Ms Bibi gets justice.
“O hear us when we cry to thee, For those in peril on the sea.” I was reminded of the words of the naval hymn while reading last week about the heroic work of Cristina Cattaneo, an Italian pathologist who has been conducting post-mortems on the 900 or so migrants who drowned last year in the Mediterranean after colliding with a rescue boat.
It is her job to identify their remains as best she can using DNA testing or, where possible, by superimposing their skulls on smiling Facebook pictures showing the deceased full of hope. She and her colleagues still have 160 body bags to open, most of them of young men. It is a horrifying task.
This tragedy, the worst migrant shipwreck in history, took place early in the last year when the boats crossing the Med were heaving with men. Rescue workers found bodies packed five to a metre with a dozen more stuffed below in the bilge, much as human cargo was packed on to ships during the 18th-century transatlantic slave trade.
Today we’re seeing thousands of women joining the migrant trail. While the boats are still crammed with men, more and more young women are on board, huddled and segregated to one side. At first I didn’t know what to make of these images. Now I do. What we’re witnessing is the rise of a vast new slave trade in women.
In most cases the sole purpose of the women’s journey is to work as prostitutes in Europe. These women, mostly from Nigeria, are not only servicing local customers in Europe, but more particularly the vast numbers of lone men who have been arriving by the boatload ahead of them. As ever, poverty is the push factor; the pull factor is the sex trade, which is growing exponentially to cater for the demands of so many men.
The risks these women are taking are immense. Earlier this month a Medicins Sans Frontieres boat called Dignity 1, acting in concert with the Irish navy, rescued 70 young women, many of them Nigerian, from a sea blazing with burning fuel. Others, with names such as Fate and Joy, didn’t make it.
It wasn’t the “angry tumult” of the sea, as the hymn puts it, which was responsible for their deaths. The rubber dinghy carrying them had been deliberately slashed by the people traffickers.
Those on board had been told the rescue ships were all part and parcel of the “smuggling service” — and that’s true. We are absolutely integral to a vast trade in misery that extends from the heart of Africa into Europe.
The sea voyage is only one part of the women’s ordeal, which often begins with rapes and beatings to soften them up for the life ahead.
The journey to the coast can itself take up to two years as they are terrorised in transit camps across the Sahara. This more than anything explains why there are so many pregnant women and babies on the boats — and why those who are rescued often bear scars on their arms and legs.
As soon as the women land in Europe they disappear from the refugee camps and begin plying their trade. Because their customers are so poor, their earnings are pitiful, even by the standards of the sex industry. Yet they are expected to pay back not only the $1100 or so for the dangerous boat ride but also the “cost” of the entire journey from home, often put at $50,000 or more. They can never escape the traffickers.
Blessing Ighodaro, revealed how she was told by her handlers on arrival in Italy that “I should put on some sexy clothes. I go out there, look for money. You know you have to ... The first day, I have €120 ($174). Is that how I am going to pay €35,000?”
It is all an unrelenting, non-stop horror show. Yet with every sea rescue we are colluding in this evil trade. The International Organisation for Migration estimates that 80 per cent of Nigerian women crossing the Med are being coerced into prostitution.
They’re not coming from their war-torn northeast, where Boko Haram inspires terror, but from the southern state of Edo and its capital, Benin City, where sex trafficking is a way of life.
Last week Kevin Hyland, the anti-slavery commissioner appointed by British Prime Minister Theresa May, released his first annual report. In it he cites a Nigerian study that reveals 98 per cent of victims rescued from sex trafficking are from this benighted corner of the country. Last year, according to his report, 5633 Nigerian women and girls arrived by sea — a fourfold increase on the previous year. The numbers have risen further this year.
Some women think they will be working in Europe as hairdressers, nannies or cleaners, but most of them know what the job involves — they just hope they will be able to break free eventually and earn a little money for their families.
The really difficult question is whether we, together with other European navies, should prevent the boats from leaving northern Africa. Reluctantly, I’m coming around to this view. We mustn’t stop rescuing those in danger of drowning but we are not obliged to be the servants of pimps and sex traders.
If the boats are prevented from arriving, there is no incentive to set off on the terrible journey. It’s tough love — but let’s not fool ourselves that we are “saving” women by lifting them out of the water.
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I didn't bother reading your entire post because you lost it in the second paragraph. Our government's policies successfully show that strong border protection can cease illegal immigration.
@R. Ambrose Raven Observe that the warring factions/countries who should and do know better but which generate this massive diaspora "show(s) utter utter disinterest in the future of the people themselves". The Western civilised world - and not excluding countries like Jordan which has certainly done its bit - can simply not continue to absorb these huge numbers of alleged refugees. Your acceptance that such wars simply must be and presumption that it is OK for the latter to deliberately manufacture this unmanageable situation is racist and extremely patronising. They know exactly what they are doing and it is part of a grander plan.
Many true points, Obama has been a disaster as your article wonderfully outlines! J think trump will have the endless Middle eastern war pretty much soughted if he gets in power.
On top of not colluding with the people smugglers by returning these unfortunates to their port of departure or as near as possible, here's an idea: how about our 'betters', politicians and do-gooders alike, give some consideration to improving the conditions in the ....-holes these people are fleeing from? That would be cheaper than trying to absorb these millions into an alien (to them) culture. Too hard I suppose. That would mean letting go of cultural relativism for a start, and some judgement would be needed on the relative benefits, or not, of the part played by religion in some cultures and societies. Can't have that, can we? No feel-good sensation to be had there.
Unfortunately, Rhonda, corruption in these countries makes it very difficult to ensure your help/aid reaches where it is intended. Look at Zimbabwe and South Africa for instance.
@Trudy Thus has it always been, from the enslaved Irish sent to America, (their story largely swept under the carpet as it doesn't fit today's narrative) to the African slave trade that followed. It would seem that nothing is new under the sun...and humans are animals after all.
The UN should be setting up refugee camps in Africa where these people can go to a safe environment.. Australia's model of stopping the boats should be implemented immediately and also supported by the UN. Otherwise the World is headed for Chaos. Britain was wise to leave the EU and other countries will surely follow soon.
Yes, social degradation is all a mass influx of the third world can lead to. Europeans in their haze of global citizenry dementia have still to work out that if you keep 'rescuing' people who in most cases are just towed into international waters followed by an SOS, then you have foolishly been duped into being partners in a determined illegal immigration industry. The anti-west cultural relativists don't want you to notice that Africa has always been the home of slavery and still is. Europeans were the first societies to abolish slavery and now slavery is back, but this time driven entirely by Africans themselves, and without white racists to blame the Left won't really care. Even the notorious slave trade to the Americas would not have happened if it weren't already a normal part of African life. The content of culture matters.
Oh the terrible "unexpected" consequences of overt supposed compassion. The world is being governed by emotion and hysteria driven leaders who cannot or won't foresee the terrible results of their trumpeted good deeds.
It has always been so that the best and most efficient way to help make people's lives better is in their home countries, not evacuate them to who knows what fate, if not drowned at sea, abused or taken advantage of by those out to make a fortune out of human misery, whose business models are encouraged by western governments.
It won't work to open the door to refugees in order to help them. If Europe is a Titanic, it was a luxury boat which has most people's envy, it will eventually sink when more and more people climb on board. It's just not sustainable.
Thankfully, Australia has stopped this evil and criminal people trafficking trade......One has to wonder why the Greens and refugee advocacy groups wants it opened up again
When will moralising politicians stop kidding themselves on world migration trends and the pull-factor that is an open border policy?
The UNHCR's latest report on displaced persons puts the number of people looking for safe haven at 63.9m (2015), but extrapolate the trend if what we've seen in places like Syria were the tip of an iceberg. It might just be. There can't be many among 800 million Sub-Saharan Africans who wouldn't swap their lot for a chance to live the life of a middle-class European, yet dreaming of the swap is one thing. Pulling it off is entirely another.
How many failed attempts are needed to demonstrate the risk? How many languish in the streets of European capitals, or asylum camps, or tent cities going nowhere? And who should begrudge the lot if we're willing to accept an exceptionally fortunate few? The risks and costs of Merkel's dreams are simply massive, and lie at the start, the end, and the middle of the open-borders road.
Wouldn't it be better to provide an expansion of living standards, life opportunities, and freedoms through free trade, sensibly targeted aid, and encouragement for development of Western freedoms, economic and otherwise? Open slather border madness is a dead-end.
Arrogant and patronising. Fortress Europe once again. Observe that this writer shows utter disinterest in doing anything for the people where they are; her aim is to keep those who do not enjoy her living standard out of sight and out of mind.
Refugees who drown near EU shores are likely to have jumped into the sea further away from the coast not to escape the traffickers' whip but to avoid being detained by the police. After all, authorities put arrest of "illegal maritime arrivals" over ensuring their safely, notwithstanding the flowery phrases in the few rare press releases. As here, calls for help may be ignored by non-Customs vessels - a point haters take care to avoid mentioning. As here, as with the Tampa, those who help refugees at sea may be accused of facilitating illegal immigration.
On cost alone, it is hard to see Australia's approach to asylum seekers working or being affordable in Europe. "Stopping the Boats" has attracted little criticism as regards its cost, but for Australia what is likely to be a short-term solution is proving extraordinarily expensive.
A 2014 report by The Guardian estimated that the Australian government may have spent as much as A$10 billion on its detention policies since mid-2007, with each person in offshore detention costing the government as much as $440,000. A similar model to block the 170,000 refugees and migrants who arrived in 2014 in Italy would cost $75 billion - while doing absolutely nothing to address the problem.
President Napolitano's then call for the EU to intensify military patrols near the coast of North Africa will, as now, simply force refugees to adopt even more dangerous routes to reach Europe. It won't work too well against the rubber boats - Zodiacs - that asylum-seekers are increasingly using.
But there, as here, the real priority of politicians is to keep asylum-seekers out of sight and out of mind. As here, those coming by air there (here, now a record) are much more fairly treated.
What is going on in Europe that traffickers can exercise their power across Europe's borders? Europe's failures in that regard is an internal issue with nothing to do with their means of arrival.
Refugee issues have exposed two other crises. One is NATO/European ruling clique non-management non-leadership, with no coherence, no competence, no predictability, no unity, and no urgency. Secondly, that a parasitic bankster/Imperialist NATO/EU ruling clique is through its looting of European society causing a general decline in wages and living standards that is not only causing extensive internal movements but also increasing Europe's social tensions. Mere presence of refugees - extra mouths - inevitably increases those tensions.
No solution to any one of these crises is possible without resolving the other two.
But the boats haven't stopped coming. They are merely being turned back, the people in them (there are people in them) extraordinarily rendered, with your eage rsupport, back to the jails of Sri Lanka or the prisons of Vietnam.
@R. Ambrose Raven Even if there are boats being turned back, they would be a fraction of the 500 or more which came during the RGR fiasco. Or perhaps you would rather they were allowed to reach our shores again? Then your $10 billion would quickly become $20 billion, then $50 billion ... and this country would no longer be worth living in, and you and your moral posturing brigade would be swamped in the seething tide of misery which would inevitably follow. Why don't you just sit back and keep your mouth shut for a bit and take some lessons from what is happening in in Europe?
@R. Ambrose Raven@James They will only receive a 2 week sentence if they fail to pay the AUD$42 fine for departing the country without notice......Hardly grounds for asylum
And what is the lifetime cost when they arrive and stay on welfare for decades? What is the social cost of despicable acts like Cologne NYE?
To have any relevance you need to show the full costs of the two options next to each other. I know which one I am willing to pay. That's right I pay and therefore I have a choice.
Lucky there was a Brexit! The Europeans are waking up to what's really happening, and are regaining their sovereignty and nationalism. You make some great points! Keep them coming.
@R. Ambrose Raven@James If they were in jail in sri Lanka, or prison in Vietnam, how did they get on a boat?
Reminds me of the Afghan refugee I employed on a subsidy scheme. He used to go back every 6 months to visit his family to maintain contact with his inheritance. (what he told me) They had a glazing business in Kabul.
At a protest in Sydney’s Hyde Park in 2012, a 14-year-old boy carried a sign that said “Behead all those who insult the Prophet”.
That same boy is alleged by police to have been on the verge of a ghastly act of terrorism last Wednesday. Together with a 16-year-old boy, he was arrested last week outside an Islamic prayer centre in Bankstown, in Sydney’s southwest.
Last week, too, we learned that a cartoon by The Australian’s Bill Leak is being investigated by the Human Rights Commission for breaching section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. These two seemingly unrelated events tell a story of how free speech has gone awry in Australia.
Under section 20D of the NSW Anti-Discrimination Act, it is a crime to incite violence against others on the basis of race. Enacted in 1989, there has not been a single prosecution. Not when the spiritual leader of Hizb ut-Tahrir in Australia, Ismail al-Wahwah, called for “jihad against the Jews” and called Jews a “cancerous tumour” that had to be “uprooted” and destroyed. Or when his violent words were uploaded to YouTube, accessible to young boys such as those arrested last week.
It has been obvious for years that section 20D needs to be reformed to ensure prosecutions of those who use words to incite violence. The arrest of the two boys last week was the 11th imminent attack that has been prevented in Australia. Four of them have been in NSW. While the Turnbull government is intent on passing the fifth tranche of federal anti-terrorism laws, the NSW Baird government has done nothing to address an entirely ineffective law that is meant to prohibit words that spur young boys to buy bayonets, pledge allegiance to Islamic State and kill infidels on the streets of Sydney.
There should be no right to free expression of murder; giving a young boy a sign to behead infidels ought to be a crime.
Reforming section 20D won’t stop the radicalisation of young boys but it is a start in getting the right balance on free speech and it goes to the most central role of government to keep its citizens safe. It is incomprehensible then that promises to reform section 20D by NSW Attorney-General Gabrielle Upton stand empty.
The freedom scales will remain out of kilter so long as a NSW anti-discrimination law stands impotent against those who use words to incite violence, yet a federal anti-discrimination law swings into fast and furious action when someone decides to be insulted by a cartoon.
After Leak published a cartoon that satirised family dysfunction in indigenous communities, Race Discrimination Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane touted for business, requested complaints and prejudiced his ability to consider complaints impartially.
Meanwhile the boss of the Australian Human Rights Commission Gillian Triggs, who could dismiss silly complaints, runs amok with a law premised on someone, somewhere, deciding that their feelings have been hurt by a picture or some words.
There is something dreadfully wrong with the application of free speech laws in this nation when young students at Queensland University of Technology are dragged into a three-year legal quagmire arising from a few words on Facebook.
After the students were evicted from an indigenous computer lab by indigenous woman Cindy Prior for not having the right skin colour, one wrote this on Facebook: “Just got kicked out of unsigned indigenous computer room. QUT stopping segregation with segregation.”
Prior chose to be offended by words aimed not at her but directed at QUT, claims the trauma has rendered her unable to work for three years, and the legal system condones this anti-free speech farce.
While words that incite violence go unchallenged, an edifice of opposition has built up in Western culture around words that merely offend. For thousands of years, Ovid’s narrative poem Metamorphoses has been studied as an epic tale of the creation of the world, drawing on tales from Greek mythology, exploring lust and love, violence and power. The poem inspired Chaucer, Shakespeare and more.
Now, in the 21st century, university students demand trigger warnings when Ovid is taught to protect them from “offensive material that marginalises student identities in the classroom”. No-platforming campaigns at another university stop Germaine Greer speaking.
Safe spaces are set aside for women who are offended when feminist Christina Hoff Sommers speaks on campus.
Christians are stopped from meeting in a Sydney hotel by a group of same-sex marriage activists who have no understanding of free speech. And let’s not even get started on the lunacy of cultural appropriation claims.
In Pakistan, a Christian woman and farm labourer from rural Punjab, Asia Bibi, has been on death row since 2010 awaiting an appeal against charges of blasphemy for insulting the Prophet Mohammed. Blasphemy laws and section 18C differ in two respects: the penalty is harsher and the subject of the insult is dead. But the aim, to censor speech that dares to insult or offend, is the same.
The cowering silence of our political and community leaders as the freedom scales move more and more out of kilter is an affront to our most basic freedoms.
Former prime minister Tony Abbott told The Australian this week that, compared with two years ago, it is now more obvious that section 18C is a weapon to stifle free speech.
In fact, the freedom-killing character of section 18C was clear enough two years ago to those concerned about free speech. That’s why Abbott promised to reform it, only to renege at the first whiff of political grapeshot from Muslim and Jewish community leaders. Abbott’s broken promise about free speech was not befitting of a Liberal leader and neither is Malcolm Turnbull’s determination to hide behind his predecessor’s broken promise.
Jewish community leaders need to rethink and revise their position, too. On August 10, the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies joined with more than 20 other community groups, including the Australian National Imams Council, to demand reform of the feeble incitement to violence laws in NSW. But the NSW Board of Deputies also has joined the Jewish Community Council of Victoria and the Australia/Israel Jewish Affairs Council in opposing any change to an oppressive law that protects hurt feelings. If they want to be taken seriously about the former, they need to find a more sensible position on the latter.
Muslim leaders should reconsider their equally irrational position. Muslim migrants, like every other group of migrants, surely settle in Australia to live safe and secure lives and to enjoy Western freedoms.
That ought to mean supporting change to an inadequate law that fails to keep us safe from violent incitement and equally supporting reform of a law that wrongly protects someone from being insulted.
How many more 12-year-old boys will be radicalised by adults using words aimed to incite violence before NSW Premier Mike Baird shows some leadership and reforms 20D?
And when will the Prime Minister prevent more young students and cartoonists being hauled over the legal coals under section 18C because someone, somewhere, has claimed their feelings have been hurt?
Reader comments on this site are moderated before publication to promote lively and civil debate. We encourage your comments but submitting one does not guarantee publication. We publish hundreds of comments daily, and if a comment is rejected it is likely because it does not meet with our comment guidelines, which you can read here. No correspondence will be entered into if a comment is declined.
The general tenor of Ms Albrechtsen's article can be supported. However, for reasons best known to her she seems to not know (or deliberately misstates) the limited powers that vest in the Race Discrimination Commissioner and, indeed, in the Australian Human Rights Commissioner. That said Ms Triggs seems to be afflicted by the same lack of managerial and decision making acumen that seems prevalent in many faux semi-judicial but in reality merely clerical bodies in Canberra and the States: the ability to say NO or otherwise restrict their Commission’s workload to meaningful complaints that have some vestige of validity and of solution. I understand nothing in current legislation prevents this being done save administrative courage (or executive cowardice if you prefer). #
@William Well they make a lot of noise regardless but it is good to be reminded of their limited powers. Thank God! However, all the more reason why they should be gotten rid of. I am sure that what they allegedly 'do' or their purpose is a duplication in the context of Australia. I imagine they have to keep generating cases to justify their existence.
Townsville residents are being assured a crackdown on youth crime is far from over after an initial blitz yielded 538 arrests.
Thirty additional police were deployed to the north Queensland city for the month-long blitz, which wrapped up on Tuesday.
Ten additional police officers will remain in Townsville to target youth crime.
Police laid 983 charges, mostly relating to drug, property and traffic offences, during the operation aimed at cracking down on anti-social behaviour among the city's youth.
The second phase of Operation Oscar Merchant begins on Wednesday, with 10 of the additional officers to remain in the city to help local police tackle youth crime.
"The focus of the operation remains the same - we will continue to target and take enforcement action against those who continue to offend against the community," Northern Region Assistant Commissioner Paul Taylor said.
Minister Assisting the Premier on North Queensland Coralee O'Rourke said there would also be long-term strategies to examine contributing factors to youth crime.
Those factors include issues such as community safety, service delivery, housing, education, training and health.
"We are looking at real solutions for young people already in the cycle of offending and re-offending, and those who are at-risk of going down a similar path," Ms O'Rourke said.”
The incitement to offence-taking and complaint-lodging by Race Discrimination Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane was clearly an exercise in condescension and paternalism with regard to Aboriginal Australians. He clearly regards them as incapable of coping with criticism or personal responsibility. Has anyone of Aboriginal descent taken offence at his attitude? Has anyone lodged a complaint against him, under section 18C, with the Human Rights Commission? Why not?
18c should be able to used against the odious comments of some of those on the left. Give them a bit of their own medicine and see if they still support it.
Janet, another great article but one thing I haven't been able to understand is why 18C seems to have become a political left v. right issue. The comments by the QUT students sound fairly typical of what I would have expected from my own children and their friends. Regardless of our political leanings this travesty could befall any family and therefore should transcend politics.
Why can't those on the left who let's face it are pretty good when it comes to insulting people who disagree with them see how easily they themselves could fall victim to 18C?
I'm looking at this intolerance and moral posturing through very old eyes. It's scarcely believable we've allowed ourselves to be hamstrung by the offence industry policed by its pinched mouth law keepers. That said, while Tony Abbott has made his mea culpa, I doubt he would have been able to overcome that wall of resistance, as much on his own side of politics, to make those changes to 18C. Did George Brandis, the accomplished QC, really have a slip of the tongue? That was the time when the cacophony reached the highest pitch and it was pretty obvious that monumentally stupid comment killed off any suggestion the amendments would ever pass the Senate.
I might add, that the result of much of the public discourse around domestic violence is that practically speaking, males suffer a significantly increased risk of violence (and even lethal violence), from state actors, like police. Not only is that norm assumed to be OK, but males have simply accepted it willingly.
Like the inappropriate "free" discussion of beheadings of "infidels", that kind of assumption - that any one in the community should be subject to arbitrary imprisonment, or having their property arbitrarily or summarily taken away, is contrary to rule of law. That people who hold public discussions about responses to DV don't actually check themselves before suggesting/discussing/assuming that is OK (ie arbitrary violence toward males), is both disgusting, and another way free speech is used to incite violence against groups who are assumed to be OK to target...
This highlights the massive problem we have in Australia with insane laws designed to muffle freedom of speech, freedom to be concerned for your country. These laws have been thought up by people who themselves are closet racists, seeking to silence to concerns of the masses.
Triggs is a joke and if she had any sense of her worth she would resign immediately and spend a nice quiet life as a gentle caring grandmother on some remote Island out of the limelight. I wish that Senator Pauline Hanson and her Party would highlight this issue and then something might happen. She appears to be the only one listening to the average Aussie.
The reservation I have about this - Janet wants to toughen up NSW laws against free speech while softening others in the Federal sphere. Waving a placard advocating murder is a very different matter from attempting or carrying out that murder. Apart from that, what we see here is an abandonment of responsibility by politicians who are too busy playing party games.
I don't normally comment on the subjects of 18c & climate change in these blogs because there is usually a lot of "hot air" expended for little purpose and peoples positions are so entrenched that "debate" is useless. However on this occasion I am reminded of the old saying "sticks & stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me".
Maybe if we were content to live by that rule we would all be better off.
The entire Islam thing is way out of hand. Hanson is demonized heavily when she says these clowns are dangerous, yet no one acts when a kid, stupid kid, with stupid and irresponsible parents prompts murder openly by way of a large sign! The kid and his parents should have been immediately deported, no past go no collect the pension, gone out. Is it open to Australians to walk in Hyde Park with a sign saying: "behead anyone who insults Christianity?" Just imagine, we would be arrested bail refused. the islams have us on the run, they have won, the Hanson factor may well save us all from beheading!
@Greg The central tenet of the Aboriginal Industry is that all aboriginals are victims.
Discrimination is seen in every word (including the Constitution), and every action (don't mention Howard's Intervention). Offence taken at every turn; better still if it means dollars.
Whether it be Cindy Prior's claims bordering on the hysterical or Adam Goodes' going weak-kneed over the odd boo from brainless bogans.
Those on the Aboriginal gravy train have committed a genocide against the Aboriginal people far worse than any European settler could contemplate.
In a truly free society, such as Australia is supposed to be, why is it necessary to have any organisation akin to the AHRC? Unless, of course, Australia isn't free!
@Jefferson In a truly free society? Who told you that? Apart from all else, we now have sham political, aka "specialist" courts where juries are conspicuous by their absence, the presumption of innocence is inverted, forced confessions to non-existent crimes are the norm, and arbitrary jailings the result. Not sure how long we, the great unwashed, will be prepared to put up with it.
Janet - it is one thing to take aim at the PM, but let's face it, the key problem is none of the Labor, Greens, Xenophon or even some of the other cross-bench Senators will support it. Therefore it is a lost cause before you waste the political capital on it. Just ask Cory Bernadi - he can get a petition up - but not one supported by the majority of recalcitrant Senators that are being allowed to get away with supporting the current dud legislation. How about we take aim at the opposers in the Senate - they are the ones stopping change, and put the pressure where it truly belongs......
@Alan The opposers in the Senate that we elected. It is called a democracy. I suppose you support some form of fascism in Australia? C'mon be honest. Cory for dictator perhaps?
Spot on article Janet, the Leek article was raising the point of the terrible state of aboriginal families and the destructive affect of alcohol. The nanny state is out to shut down any criticism unless it is aimed at white conservative Australians. Highlighting social failures is a sign of a healthy society and challenges the big brother thought police of the PC left who feel that upsetting people is not to be allowed which is part of living in a democracy. Keep up the good work Janet.
Section 18C is just the tip of a federal, state and territory legislative iceberg but it helps us to focus on the free speech principles that are at stake. Section 18C therefore makes a good starting point.
But let's just think for a moment about what is happening:
Our Prime Minister .. our elected leader is arguing along with Bill Shorten, Senator Di Natale, and a few unrepresentative minority groups that it somehow makes sense ...that it is reasonable...to make the free speech rights of the majority submit to a higher priority (that's how Malcolm Turnbull described it) - to argue that the cornerstone of all democracies should take second place to thepossibility that a small number of people, somewhere might feel insulted, offended, humiliated or intimidated.
The lack of logic and common sense beggars belief - unless someone whose agenda won't stand up to voter scrutiny is, in reality, calling the shots.
As the July 2 election result showed, the wider electorate will not support a political party or a leader that willingly submits to forces that subvert democratic freedoms.
The trouble is that so many words are being re-defined by the leftist extremist regressive. Words like (and starting with!) 'misogny', 'racist', 'gender', 'sex', 'marriage', 'freedoms', 'democracy', 'rights', 'offense', 'education', etc etc etc. It is as if we are all trapped in a dangerous wonderland where all words mean whatever you want.
18c is unsound as an authentic and enduring protection of minorities, because it is wholly dependent on political interpretation and deployment.
In other words, something that is even exercising the minds of prominent 'progressives' against 18c (e.g.: Julian Burnside) is the probability that people the left does not approve of, will assume control of the Act via the judiciary, or in Gillain Triggs' supra governmental position(s). All well and good when Soros-approved people control 18c. What if that wasn't the case?
When speech becomes arbitrarily controlled by law, the implications extend beyond the eyeline of prevailing contemporary politicking.
Problems with 18c are apolitical at their core. They do not occupy a position on our simplistic binary political spectrum. It is a genuine calculation between liberal freedom and despotism.
...Why is a beheading threat okay.....asks Janet. On what planet is this ok? It is not. It is criminal. You doubtlessly agree that it is criminal. You are getting people confused Janet.
@The watchman There there, Watchman. Read the article carefully.
You don't have to be too bright, surely, to see that if one (insignificant) action in Qld claimed to give offence, is responded to with the full weight of Triggs' dreadful organisation, yet someone openly advocating decapitating goes unchallenged and unpunished by the law, it is logical to conclude that the latter surely must be "OK".
It would be just the same if the nonsense you just wrote went unchallenged. You would understandably conclude that it was "ok". Fortunately, you now know that it isn't.
@The watchman (She has obviously confused at least one person.) Janet is not saying that it is okay, but that our legal system appears to treat it as "okay" (in contrast to its heavy-handed approach to an innocuous cartoon): Four years ago a 12-year-old child was at a rally, holding a sign threatening to behead people (any who "insult the Prophet"). To the best of our knowledge, neither he nor his parents or guardians, or whoever gave him the sign, was prosecuted for that threat. Why so, if it is not okay, or is "criminal" as you say? That child, now 16, was arrested a few days ago, on strong evidence that he was on the brink of doing something very much along the lines of actually beheading someone. If our politicians and authorities applied as much vigilance to threats of beheading as they do to cartoons, such developments might be more avoidable.
Hate to say it Janet, but you are wasting your breath. The Left are too deeply entrenched in positions that oversee issue such as free speech. Our 'conservative' politicians are too weak and unwilling to fight for anything for fear of upsetting the leftist media. And there are too many people out there with a victimhood mentality that are too willing to profit from the system.
It's all rather depressing when you realize nothing will ever change.
Since critical comments are deleted, I will present a puzzle. Law 1. If a woman has so hated her husband, she has said,"You shall not have me"..... she can take her property and return to her original home. Law 2. A wife shall make herself available to her husband three times per week. One of these laws is almost 4000 years old and the other is a contemporary law. Guess
Law 1 is a heavily edited version of the 4000 year old code of Hamurabi, leaving out the parts that don't support your point, like the bit that the woman should be drowned if she is at fault in the marriage.
"Law 2" seems a mish mash of Jewish tradition, Corinthians and the medical advice you receive if you want to conceive. It is not the law anywhere.
Tragedy has hit Haiti — again. Local officials put the death toll from Hurricane Matthew above 1000, and a cholera epidemic is likely to drive that number higher. At the centre of the devastation, in the rural western part of the country, homes have been shredded by fierce winds and crops have been wiped out. Residents, who are among the poorest people in the poorest country in the western hemisphere, have lost the little they had.
It’s an all-too-familiar scene. So too are the plane and shiploads of humanitarian aid now arriving in the country. The desperate plight of so many helpless souls — whose only mistake was being born in Haiti — has spurred a new surge of charitable giving. It is sorely needed.
Yet this is also an opportune time for introspection on the part of the aid community. If people are living in tin-roof shacks when a hurricane hits, ruin is predictable. But why are so many Haitians still living in such dire poverty in the 21st century?
Paradoxically, the answer may be tied to the way in which humanitarian aid, necessary and welcome in an emergency, easily morphs into permanent charity, which undermines local markets and spawns dependency.
That’s the lesson in the documentary Poverty, Inc, produced last year by the Grand Rapids, Michigan-based Acton Institute. As the title suggests, administering to the poor is now a big business that works to sustain itself. Less obvious are the destructive unintended consequences of its intervention. The 91-minute film should be required viewing for every church’s social justice committee.
Poverty, Inc, which won the prestigious Templeton Freedom Award last year, criticises aid brigades but not for bad motives. The trouble is their assumption, too often, that poverty is caused by a lack of money or resources. This produces the wrong solution, one that prescribes getting as much free stuff to the target economy as possible.
Developing-world poverty is partly a problem of market access, as Herman Chinery-Hesse, a Ghanaian software entrepreneur, explains in the film. “The people here are not stupid,” he says. “They’re just disconnected from global trade.” On top of that they also suffer from the curse of charity.
Haitians joke that they live in the land of 10,000 non-governmental organisations. The country has also been the recipient of billions of dollars in foreign government bilateral and multilateral aid over the past quarter century. This enormous giving has created harmful distortions in the local economy because when what would otherwise be traded or produced by Haitians is given away, it drives entrepreneurs out of business.
Haiti was a charity case long before the 2010 earthquake, but it wasn’t always so tragically helpless. The country was once self-sufficient in rice thanks to the work of rural peasants. That changed, according to the testimony of one development expert in the film, in the early 1980s. That’s when Haiti opened its rice market and the US began dumping subsidised grain in the country with the goal of ending hunger — and helping Arkansas rice growers with US taxpayer money. Most Haitian farmers could not compete with Uncle Sam’s generosity, and they lost their customers.
While it is true that a nation is made richer if a neighbour gives it free food, the Haitian economy was too rigid for farmers to adapt. The glut of local rice was not easily exported because Haitian farmers weren’t efficient enough to overcome their competitive disadvantages caused by tariffs and subsidised markets abroad. They also had to confront government corruption and red tape, especially at ports in their own country. More US rice donations after US president Bill Clinton restored Jean Bertrand Aristide to power in 1994 and after the 2010 earthquake compounded the problem.
Donations of bottled water, clothing, shoes and even solar panels destroy local businesses in the same way. Just ask Jean-Ronel Noel, who co-founded the solar panel company Enersa in his garage in the mid-2000s and expanded it to more than 60 employees. He is proud of his workforce, which, he explains in Poverty, Inc, comes mainly from Port-au-Prince’s notorious slums. One employee speaks of the sense of belonging that the work has given him.
The company was doing a robust business until the 2010 earthquake. “After the earthquake we were competing mostly against NGOs ... coming with their solar panels ... and giving them away for free. So what about local businessmen?”
As Alex Georges, Noel’s partner puts it: “The demand stopped because it’s hard to compete with free.”
Noel zeros in on another related problem: “Those NGOs are changing the mentality of the people. Now you have a generation with a dependency mentality.”
When the clean-up from Matthew finishes, aid groups should start packing their bags. The best way of showing we care is to provide emergency relief and then leave Haiti to Haitians.
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Why does this article not mention that much of the so-called aid from the Clinton Foundation to Haiti went to their mates and was mis-spent, or not spent at all, as explained by the Haitian Government?
Long after the West has defeated Islamic State, the jihadist threat will remain.
For the past 40 years, Western immigration policy has been based on multicultural ideology.
Its consequence is clear: Islamism has become a Western condition. Successive governments have diluted Western values to the point where they are no longer taught in schools. The result is a population unschooled in the genius of our civilisation whose youth cannot understand why it is worth defending.
Multicultural ideology must give way to a renaissance of Western civilisation in which Australian exceptionalism is celebrated and Islamism is sent packing.
Multiculturalism is not merely the acceptance of diverse cultures, or open society. It is the a priori belief that cultural diversity has a net positive effect on the West, coupled with a double standard that excuses lslamic and communist states from embracing it.
Thus, Western nations must open their borders while Islamic and communist states remain closed. The West must accept the myth that all cultures are equal while Islamic and communist states celebrate their unique contribution to world history. Under multicultural ideology, the greatest civilisation of the world, Western civilisation, is held in contempt while theocratic throwbacks and communist barbarism are extolled.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad al- Hussein, regularly frames the West as xenophobic and racist. In a recent speech, he decried xenophobia and religious hatred. But he did not address the Chinese government’s persecution of Christians, or the governing Islamist regime in Gaza, Hamas, for hatred of Jews. Rather, he took aim at the West, saying: “My recent missions to Western Europe and North America have included discussions of increasingly worrying levels of incitement to racial or religious hatred and violence, whether against migrants or racial and religious groups. Discrimination, and the potential for mob violence, is being stoked by political leaders for their personal benefit.”
Western governments should explain why they continue to send taxpayers’ money to the UN when it has become an organisation expressly devoted to defending the interests of Islamist and communist regimes against the free world.
The growing hatred of Western culture goes unremarked by politicians whose populism is firmly rooted in political correctness. No major political party has calculated the cost of multicultural ideology to Western society. Instead, they extol it as a net benefit without tendering empirical evidence. When politicians claim truth without substantive supporting evidence, ideology is at play. It may be that multiculturalism is a net benefit to the West. If so, why has the evidence been withheld? Without it, minor parties can contend that multiculturalism is a net negative for the West and appear credible.
In the absence of empirical proof that multicultural ideology is beneficial, politicians such as Pauline Hanson, Donald Trump, Geert Wilders and Marine Le Pen seek to curb Muslim immigration and deport those who disrespect Western values. Hanson plans to push for a burka ban in the new year. The policy has international precedent as Dutch politicians voted recently to ban the burka in some public places. German Chancellor Angela Merkel also has proposed a burka ban, but it is reasonable to question her motives ahead of the 2017 election. In a state election held in September, Merkel’s party polled below nationalist and anti-Islam party Alternative for Germany. She has driven porous border policy and repeatedly castigated European heads of state who defend their sovereign borders, such as Hungary’s Viktor Orban. Her call for a burka ban is thus viewed by some as blatant political opportunism.
Malcolm Turnbull addressed the issue indirectly by citing poor border controls in Europe as the cause of the problem. However, as with so many issues concerning political Islam in Australia, the question of a burka ban is indivisible from the defence of Western values.
One such value is the universal application of law that requires the equal treatment of all citizens. If Australians are expected to not wear a balaclava in banks, courts or Parliament House, why are some citizens permitted to cover their faces in a burka or niqab? Double standards and preferential treatment of state-anointed minorities is fuelling widespread, and rational, resentment in the West.
Consider retelling the events of the past week to an Anzac just returned from war. We would tell him that a Muslim married to a terrorist recruiter refused to stand in court because she wanted to be judged by Allah. Muslims in Sydney and Melbourne were charged with preparing a terrorist act against Australians. In France, several people were arrested for plotting jihadist attacks. News broke that 1750 foot soldiers of a genocidal Islamic army had entered Europe without resistance from Western armies. As in Australia, many jihadists entered as refugees and lived on taxpayer-funded welfare under a program called multiculturalism.
In the same week, a German politician called Angela Merkel, who ushered Islamists into the West by enforcing open borders, was lauded by a respected magazine called The Economist as “the last leader of stature to defend the West’s values”. Yet men from Islamic countries who allegedly entered Germany under Merkel’s open-border policy were arrested for sexual assault, including the rape and murder of a teenage girl. Asylum-seekers and refugees had assaulted women and children across Europe. Less than a year before, on New Year’s Eve, Merkel’s asylum-seekers had attacked women and girls en masse.
We would tell the Anzac that Britain attempted to acknowledge the negative impact of its undiscriminating approach to immigration. A review recommended a core school curriculum to promote “British laws, history and values” and a proposal that immigrants sign an oath of allegiance to British values. But secularism, private property and Christianity were absent from the principle list and as such, it wasn’t very British at all.
There were few Anzacs left to see what the West has become. I suppose that’s a kind of mercy. We have dishonoured the millions of soldiers who laid down their lives in the 20th century fighting for our freedom and the future of Western civilisation. We should hang our heads in shame for letting the Anzac legacy come to this. We are the descendants of the world’s most enlightened civilisation. It is our turn to fight for its future.
So well written, so true. Have all those deaths really been in vain? I've lost faith in our current politicians to do anything to maintain our hard-fought-for values. It's all about votes and their power. They are allowing this nation to go down the tube so they can say to the other side "I told you so!"
Brilliant article Jennifer. Hands down the best writer on The Australian. You'd think it was a no-brainer to protect our borders and our values from the pernicious tentacles of Marxist doctrines intent to strangle free speech and erode confidence in ourselves and our values. Thank heavens there are still courageous people willing to stop the rot from spreading,
Due to it be hypocritical to stand up for what you believe in we are condemned to losing our country. With the idiot left in charge of the ALP/Greens and the unions rampant and Gillian Triggs hating Australians where does the real ordinary thinking Australian stand. ? He is long gone in this foolish political environment. People have to speak up to try to save Australia and the first place to start is on the ALP/Greens/Unions who are destroying us.
"Multiculturalism is not merely the acceptance of diverse cultures, or open society. It is the a priori belief that cultural diversity has a net positive effect on the West, coupled with a double standard that excuses lslamic and communist states from embracing it."
We treat gender diversity in exactly the same way. We have an a priori belief that diversity has a net positive effect. Feminists use this as a Trojan horse to obtain statistical equality in areas of interest while ignoring it in areas where it suits them
It is the standard playbook of the "oppressed" - infiltrate the host and then eat away at it from the inside
Can you feel it? The earth is starting to shake a little! Hopefully the beginning of a Tsunami to sweep away our useless, weak politicians and a strong leader to rise! Go Cory!
Ms Oriel, it is refreshing to see how the attitude of this newspaper has changed from about a year or so ago, for back then you would have probably not been able to have this excellent piece printed, and I know for a fact that anyone trying to comment as many of us did from time to time, would not have their comments printed in the attempt to keep adverse comments about moslems and islam below the radar. Times are gradually changing and the general public is being made aware of the fact that islam is not as perfect as they would have us believe and many of its adherents are ripping us off one way or the other. As the grandson of Light Horsemen who has tried to live his life by the example they set, who has brought up his children and now grand children to believe in the Australia and the democracy they fought for, I am sometimes bloody well ashamed of my country on their behalf.
Hopefully Rhe lukes of Shorten and Turnbull will read this brillant article and especially the comments to find out what real Aussies are thinking on the failed multicultural experiment.
It's not just Islamic and communist countries that are exempt from the disaster of multiculturalism that is being forced on every Western country. There's Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, South American countries like Uruguay, and Argentina, and others, which don't have the pressure from their left wing political parties, UN and various groups like Oxfam and Greenpeace constantly lobbying for more Islam to be imported. Leftist political parties have been largely to blame because of sheer political expediency - they know that Muslims tend to vote Left 80% and more, and they want those votes. They use the language of the Civil Rights Movement, which through the many eloquent and passionate films and books and songs in the culture, has a very powerful resonance. Thus anyone who murmurs dissent over the importation of a culture that despises ours and in many cases seeks its destruction, is branded 'racist', 'bigoted', 'white supremacist' and others, which these days are very potent.
They promote a false equivalency, where if you don't want your suburb to become virtually a colony of another country, you're a hater, a vile racist. It's possible to very much like other cultures but still want to retain the nature of one's own. I've visited many Middle Eastern countries, and loved their vibrant culture and their hospitality, there. I didn't demand to know why they weren't multicultural with a big Australian element, and I don't think Australia needs to have a big Egyptian or Moroccan element either. The Left also promotes, in their quest for more multiculti votes, a narrative of historical white conquest and exploitative colonialism, implying that we owe a debt to these peoples. It's false, as living conditions were in many cases, like Zimbabwe, better under colonial rule, and descendants aren't responsible in any case. It's time our immigration policies were designed for the benefit of Australians, for our freedom, safety, prosperity and cohesion.
Well said Jennifer. The Multiculturalism myth needs to be challenged. Australia's success with massive immigration was not based on multiculturalism but integration. This has added to a very rich Australian culture. Multiculturalism was never agreed to by Australians, it was slipped in under the radar by the political class and unfortunately now supported by both sides of politics.
1) "Western nations must open their borders while Islamic and communist states remain closed."
Only the Anglophone countries (USA, UK, Australia, Canada, NZ) and Europe are pressured to accept multicultural ideology and all it entails. All those societies are Western, and Christian-based.
Thus, for example, Japan is not expected to become multicultural or criticised for lack of diversity.
2) Central to multicultural ideology is billions of dollars in funding for a sector of largely unaccountable bureaucrats, not-for-profits and service providers of questionable quality, whose golden gravy train depends on migrants being kept separate from the broader society.
If they integrate and people get on well, the multicultural industry loses its power over the migrants and its ability to use them as commodities for funding, and to drive wedges in the society to enhance its own power.
If the media would only look closely, the real problems are coming from this source, not from the migrants per se. The migrants are being told how racist the society is so they need protectors by way of the multicultural lobby. They're told to assert their culture as a defence against that racism etc etc.
Many migrants have come for a new life, to escape the old tyrannies only to find they are pigeon-holed by the multicultural sector here and told they are not Australian.
Thanks Jennifer, we need such inspiration to fight this good fight. We also need to coin a sumarising phrase that says Make The West Great Again - suggestions please.
You are being too kind to Turnbull by saying "Malcolm Turnbull addressed the issue indirectly by citing poor border controls in Europe as the cause of the problem".
Malcolm Turnbull stood beside Ms Merkel when the Muslim flood happened in Europe and stated that Australia would take more 'refugees'. The headline in The Australian was "Turnbull slaps down Abbott". This was the same Turnbull when after the Lidnt Cafe terrorist event, stood before the media saying that we needed to be 'more inclusive'.
Such is the official acceptance now of cultures that are not just different, but contrary to ours, that last year the LNP accepted a head-scarf wearing Muslim as a candidate for the State election. Fortunately the candidate was not successful. Bob of Brisbane.
I doubt the Australian people have the stomach to do what is required to take our country back from both the Marxist ideologues and the cultural invaders.
Politicians are starting to worry about gun control as people realize they must take steps to be self reliant - and there is no will from State and Federal governments to act to protect our own citizens (Lindt Cafe) for fear of inflaming the "cultural sensitivities" of an increasingly more powerful voting block. It is only a matter of time before the anger is turned towards those who have betrayed us in order to stay in power. Those who have abandoned their principles to remain in power. Promising what they can not deliver and lying to conceal their guilt.
It was less than 6 years after Sarajevo hosted the '84 winter Olympics that the Bosnian Civil war began in 1991. From being considered a civil and an advanced country capable of hosting a huge multinational event to descending into the depths of hell and depravity did not take long. The veneer of civility can be stripped away remarkably quickly.
Great nations were forged by people willing to fight for their principles and beliefs. The US fought a war to gain its independence and both the US and France endured bloody civil wars. The wisdom of US founding fathers rings more true each day.
Read Dame Louise Curtis's report released last week to Westminster to get a straight answer to all this. Twenty years overdue and to the point! Stop the political correctness, integrate, speak English, live and swear by UK standards and only then....,No more Islamic ghettos and multiple marriages. She found that almost all Bangladesh and Pakistani men married foreign brides. We wonder why.
The beliefs of Islam will never be compatible with a western democracy. Firstly, they believe that the Koran is the direct voice of god. Not an interpretation by mohammed, but god's actual words. Secondly, there are clear instructions about lawmaking, government, etc in the Koran.
The only Muslims who will be happy in this country are those that realise that Islamic beliefs (and all in fact all religious beliefs) are either BS, or worth ignoring in order to live in a safe and prosperous country.
Our leaders have unnecessarily introduced Multiculturalism to deliberately destroy our Australian ethos. And they did it for the same reason that George Soros supported and financed the mass migration of mostly Muslims into European countries - to break down their borders and cultures as a step towards a One World Government. Bob of Brisbane.
Islam has five pillars, Our society has four core values, The Rule of Law, Equality under the Law, Freedom of the Individual and Mateship. Individuals seeking naturalization are asked to sign a declaration that they understand and respect these values, in a slightly different form, and that they will obey the laws of Australia, pledging loyalty to Australia and its people. Surely our education system should present these values to our and their children ensuring that all schools include them in their curricula.
Excellent piece.. its time to stop the rot. Multiculturalism and political correctness is the weapon of choice by those who hate the West and Australia in particular. Its time we silent majority " worms must turn".
This article blithely uses the terms "The West", "Western culture" and "Western Civilisation" (seen as 'the world's most enlightened') without any attempt at definition or provision of detail. If we're using a term that might embrace the Enlightenment, modern democracy, tolerance and scientific advance, but may also cover colonialism, militarism, nationalism and environmental vandalism, perhaps a slightly more nuanced approach is required.
“Western governments should explain why they continue to send taxpayers’ money to the UN when it has become an organisation expressly devoted to defending the interests of Islamist and communist regimes against the free world.”
At least that is indirect funding of those who would and do harm us. But what can be said about politicians who refuse to act on public funding of terrorists in our midst.
Islamic Polygamy, Hamdi Alqudsi, invalid pension. Spousal payments, his 2 wives (and presumably money for children and stepchildren) Carnita Matthews and Moutia Elzahed.
And what does Hamdi do with Australian taxpayer's money.
“Much of the trial focused on a series of intercepted calls and text messages seized by police which detailed conversations between Alqudsi and fighters in Syria, including organising accommodation for the men, money exchanges and the price of AK47s, handguns, swords, knives and grenades.”
And our government, our upstanding politicians. Senator Cormann, and no doubt instructed by our genius of a PM. It's cheaper than welfare paid to the mothers themselves.
So what is Centrelink doing about this horrible mob. Business as usual.
I was horrified that a government department chose to take it upon itself to decide on welfare policy for this nation and pay spousal payments for polygamous or whatever Islamic, (not Australian), marriages the likes of this man have adopted. And when caught out and the PM came after them, they clearly want haha he has been sacked we can go on trashing our values.
And then there is Malcolm. How long before you are under the bus Mathias. Funding terrorism because it is too hard to confront this invasive destructive culture. Shame Shame Shame.
Well said! It's about time our politicians stood up for our values, our culture and our heritage! For too long the 'mad leftie PC brigade' have done nothing but denigrate and vilify western values and culture, it has to stop!
And believe me the fight is coming. I would not want to be a left-lending politician in Europe, the US or Australia. The quite majority have had enough. Just watch seat after seat fall to the 'deplorables'.
Thanks for telling it as it is without political correctness. Britain has shown it can elect a leader capable of starting the reverse of the decline of the West and the US has now followed with their President-elect. However, as of now, Australia has yet to produce such a leader although Abbott, unhindered by the bed-wetters in his Party, would probably be the one.
Wonderful article! Thank you. The multiculti brigade will abhor this piece for its logical common sense. If the cultural cringers of the West can't defend their own magnificent legacy, let's turn the heat on them to justify why Islamist culture is evidently superior to them. Where are their symphonies, their dance and art, medical science breakthroughs, mathematical and chemical formulas, space exploration, industrial and technology inventions that have dragged billions out of poverty, their information superhighway?
No, all they can claim fame to is warfare and copying. The myth about algebra coming from the Middle East is just that. Why are they still living substandard violent lives when their civilisation is thousands of years old? Why are their women treated as mere chatels? And it goes on. It's time we started to ask these questions. And it's time, post truth, that we received credible answers.
To be fair, prolific mathematical, medical and scientific knowledge did emerge from the ancient Middle East, especially Egypt and Persia. When parts of that knowledge passed to Europe, it triggered the Renaissance. Until the mid 1900s, certain eye surgery remained almost unchanged from that devised in ancient Egypt. I studied the history and philosophy of science at university and these are the facts.
The collapse of that great civilisation occurred and it did not continue to flourish as it had done, but there's no doubt its intellectual developments are the basis for today's science, technology, maths and much of medicine.
Islamic art is extraordinarily beautiful. Check it out, along with poetry etc.
Credit is due to a civilisation that did reach extraordinary heights at its peak.
Once again Jennifer you have hit the nail on the head. Regretfully, our PC driven politicians will ignore such advice and instead talk about "the forgotten people" in economic terms.
In Aust we have Centrelink paying spouse support payments for multiple "wives" in some Muslim families and here was me thinking polygamy was illegal in this country. Silly me! It doesn't take much to change the regulations to require Centrelink to assess all payments in terms of a family setting instead of individual payments.
In Aust we are told to have such tolerance that it undermines our Western values and allows non Western cultures to demand more and more, calling any opposition racist and discriminatory. Worse, we have a large cohort of influential people in positions of power making sure that particular state exists via supporting the intolerance demonstrated by new comers with a different value set.
In the end, we can blame our education system and curriculum developers for this. Because they have succumbed to the drive for multiculturalism and PC behaviour. Worse, the concept of tolerance is shrouded with the idea that it is quite OK for the West be tolerant even to its detriment. And at the same time must accept the intolerance of others!
Take a look at your child's high school curricula in context with communism, for example.
It is described variously as a political and social system calibrated to place the control of otherwise corrupted open markets and exploited/misused resources into the hands of 'the people'.
I'm paraphrasing, but the summary is accurate.
Communism's downfall is attributed to the imperial aggression and military expenditure/expansionism of the USA.
Not its own systemic and structural failures. Not its depravations, brutality and depravities. Nothing. Yet another noble cause, destroyed by western society's inherent evilness.
What our kids are being taught about communism is little short of propaganda. In fact...it is propaganda because it is simply untruthful. Western Self Loathing forms the foundation of almost every subject with the exception of mathematics.
It's all publicly available if you're curious enough to take a look. As a counter-cultural partisan force, the undergraduate groupthink of the ABC pales in comparison to the blatant indoctrination our kids are receiving through the education system.
Great article Jennifer this should be compulsory reading for all students ( who can read) . Why does this thinking not get more space in news and papers .
Net immigration would be less worrisome if there were not an incessant PC-driven encouragement for multiculturalism and some sensible policies that encouraged integration. Perhaps immigration would be less of a banner issue for the press and we could all get on with getting along as Australians first - immigrants a very distant second.
White people lived in temperate and colder climates where you can't survive by picking dates or coconuts. They had all winter to invent ingenious methods to maximise the summer for the next winter. This northern European inventiveness continues and people now say things like "work ethic", but esentially they had superior methods of contolling the natural world and self organising. Our forefathers understood the value of it, and the value of their culture, but now we have a generation, or even two, of complacency with this wealth of heritage, coupled with third world culture that has seen the internet and "wants what you've got", but does not understand that it takes all our law and society to be this way. Acceptance of Islam into the west could well stop us going to space. This is not a culture that I want contributing.
Jennifer, Thank you, thank you Thank you for stating truth, without paying the normal media constraints, that we all know so well. Politically correct clap trap. For some years now via my Granddaughters senior education, where there was amazement when Dorothea MacKellar's "My country" wasn't given star status and was offered as part of multiple choice Every time part of the choices in just about anything was to do with Global warming or politically correct ways to be dealing, ending with bullying. as a precursor to opinions. To the point where one of my Girls said," We can't have strong opinions about anything,or we offend other cultures' ..
I am surprised the CFMEU isn't more vocal about this issue. Although, I guess if they live on the dole then the union can't really accuse them of being foreign workers stealing Australian jobs
And telling the truth is then held up by the Left as evidence that white Australians are racist haters who are alienating Muslims and increasing the chances of them going 'Allahu Akbar' and slaughtering innocent people. A Leftist reading this will want to console Muslims and offer protection. The Left believe white wickedness must be eradicated through open borders to strengthen global citizenry utopia. Left ideology includes ignoring evidence about cultural patterns because apparently not 'stereotyping' is more important than truth or the public interest or protecting real values. The Left side with the 'other' in every dispute, as if ritual surrender to the darkest forces in the world is a virtue.
Jennifer's main point here is we now encourage minorities to stay separate from the mainstream. How can they respect us when we are so eager to tell them to stay separate? The real enemy is the soft totalitarian left who control schools and universities. Combined with the vicious hard totalitarians from Islam who sense weakness, an unholy alliance has formed that will wreak our country if this goes on unchecked.
There has never been a better time for a conservative leader to break with political correctness and state the obvious. He or she would take the country by storm and thrash the ALP/Greens out of sight at any future election.
@Howard And then, take firm control of the school curriculum and teachers' and lecturers' activism. Oh, and get rid of the ABC and SBS, which push the divisiveness of multiculturalism with everything they do.
Multicultural advocates can't explain the benefits of a diversity of cultures in a cohesive society because there is no acceptable and reasonable explanation, and the evidence belies it.
We might just as well throw away all of the advances of civilisation and all that makes us what we are, and that is something which many around the world aspire to share, before we tell them they can have it all without changing one jot.
The totally illogical aspect of this is that the predominate western style culture cannot be relied on as a driver of future policy when it is not respected, and to deny the majority of us our cultural view of things as being not progressive and stuck in the past, albeit only the 1950s, when tolerating and recommending the continuation of culture and lifestyles from 14 centuries ago, really doesn't make one bit of sense, as is pointed out wonderfully by the Anzac analogy.
@Linda The only benefit of multiculturalism is greater variety in take away food. Except, people still flock to McDonald's for standard Western take away food packaged, marketed and produced with the panache only our US friends can provide.
Jennifer, you are wonderful. Things you say here openly, have been whispered all around the nation for years, but few had guts to say it as loudly as you did today.
Resources Minister Matt Canavan has accused the ABC of running “fake news” as part of a campaign against the Adani coalmine, in a blistering attack on the national broadcaster for abandoning regional Australia.
Following reports on the ABC that Adani companies use tax havens and are under investigation in India over fraud allegations, Senator Canavan said the reports lacked “credibility” and suggested activists were directing the broadcaster’s coverage.
Arguing that the ABC was acting like the “UBC — the Ultimo Broadcasting Corporation”, Senator Canavan said the most “egregious” report was one that suggested an Indian government power plant had forecast it would not need new coal-fired energy capacity in the next decade and therefore the Adani mine may not be needed.
Senator Canavan said this ignored the fact India still needed another 300 million tonnes of coal a year, which was seven times the size of the Carmichael mine, and questioned whether “third parties” opposed to the development were behind the story.
“It was a completely misleading report, it was fake news. It was not a news story, because what was there was distorted to provide a misleading impression (when) the facts are in the report and are completely accessible,” he said.
Senator Canavan said the issues raised in the ABC’s reports about Adani’s tax affairs would be considered by the expert board of the federal government’s Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility when it was assessing the $1 billion loan for the company, but stressed Australia had a “very strong and robust regulatory system”.
“There has been no advice provided to me that would raise concerns in that regard. They are a large company with lots of projects around the world and we will take our advice from our authorities,” he said.
He added he did not “put a lot of weight” on ABC reports on Adani or the coal sector as there appeared to be “a certain set against the project”.
“There are numerous examples of, in my view, one-sided reporting on this project,” he said.
In this week’s series of reports, the ABC has quoted lawyer Ariane Wilkinson, who is linked with Environmental Justice Australia, and Tim Buckley, who was introduced as a director at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analytics, but is also a climate change activist.
Senator Canavan said he would contact ABC chief Michelle Guthrie.
“I do think when you are in Sydney and you can grow a hipster beard and ride your bike to work after you have had a smashed avo for breakfast, you get a very different world view than when you are worried about your job, you are worried about whether your kids are going to get a job,” he said.
I am often asked how a country the size of New Jersey, with fewer residents than New York City, became a global hi-tech force. In a dynamic world, where innovation and adaptation are crucial, everyone wants to know Israel’s secret educational ingredient.
Despite its small size, Israel lists 93 companies on the Nasdaq — more than India, Japan and South Korea combined. In 2016 investors sank $US6 billion ($7.7bn) into Israel’s more than 6000 start-ups. Google, IBM, Apple and Intel all have research-and-development centres located there.
Many people look to the Israeli education system to explain this success. During my two years as Minister of Education I have come to understand that although Israel’s schools are good, our secret weapon is a parallel education system that operates alongside the formal one. This is where our children learn to become entrepreneurs.
Israel’s shadow education system has three components. The first is our heritage of debate — it’s in the Jewish DNA. For generations Jews have studied the Talmud, our legal codex, in a way vastly different from what goes on in a standard classroom. Instead of listening to a lecture, the meaning of complex texts is debated by students in hevruta — pairs — with a teacher offering occasional guidance.
Unlike quiet Western libraries, the Jewish beit midrash — house of study — is a buzzing beehive of learning. Since the Talmud is one of the most complex legal codes ever gathered, the idea of a verdict is almost irrelevant to those studying. Students engage in debate for the sake of debate. They analyse issues from all directions, finding different solutions. Multiple answers to a single question are common. Like the Talmud itself — which isn’t the written law but a gathering of protocols — the learning process, not the result, is valued.
The second component of our shadow education system is the peer-teaches-peer model of Jewish youth organisations, membership-based groups that we call “movements”. Teenagers work closely with younger children; they lead groups on excursions and hikes, develop informal curricula, and are responsible for those in their care. As an 11th-grade student, I took fifth-graders on an overnight hike in the mountains. Being given responsibilities at a young age helped shape me into who I am today.
The third component is the army. Because we are constantly defending ourselves from Islamic terror, 18-year-old boys and girls are drafted into the military for stints of two or three years. Young Israeli adults must literally make life-or-death decisions every day.
As a 23-year-old officer in 1995, I led 70 soldiers behind enemy lines. The covert mission required me to prepare my troops, mobilise people and equipment, build contingency plans, and function under immense physical and mental pressure. These situations teach a person how to execute plans — or adapt and improvise.
Consider a hypothetical 19-year-old soldier in the intelligence corps, analysing aerial photographs or intercepted communications. She must decide if the material in front of her indicates an impending attack or not. This isn’t a rare occurrence. Thousands of Israeli soldiers experience it daily.
Good teachers in vibrant classrooms are necessary for children — and nations — to succeed. Schools provide a base of literacy, mathematics and social interaction. But Israel’s extra-curricular system goes further. Peer-led debate and intellectual dialogue enhances learning. Actual responsibilities, like caring for younger children, nurture growth and maturity. Real-life tasks show young adults how much they are capable of achieving. These are the principles that anyone wishing to replicate Israel’s success should emulate.
Two qualities are needed to change the world: innovation, to think of new ideas, and entrepreneurship, to turn those ideas into reality. That is the essence of today’s economy. The way to create citizens steeped in the ethos of both is to give children, at a young age, the room to try.
Naftali Bennett, a former hi-tech CEO, is Israel’s Minister of Education and a member of the Inner security cabinet.
The UN, which is hugely reliant on billions of dollars from Washington to keep running, would be unwise to overlook the significance of the Trump administration’s boycott of the current session of its Human Rights Council. The boycott, as the US’s UN ambassador Nikki Haley has explained, is to protest against the UNHRC’s incessant “Israel bashing”. It follows a letter from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in which he warned that unless the 47-member body reforms itself the US will no longer be part of it.
It also comes amid indications the Trump administration will slash 50 per cent from the $US5.4 billion it gives the UN each year. That is almost a quarter of the body’s budget. The US is also planning massive cuts to the $US8.25bn it provides to cover UN peacekeeping operations — almost 30 per cent of the peacekeeping budget. Alarmed UN officials and attendant hangers-on, who never take a step back when it comes to criticising Washington, say the cuts will cripple UN humanitarian operations.
Such concern is understandable. But what they need to understand is that the UN’s anti-Israel bias has now reached grotesque levels and that the Trump administration is unlikely to change its mind about funding until the UNHRC — which includes pillars of democracy such as Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, China and Cuba — comes to its senses and stops hammering away at the only nation in the Middle East that has democracy and the rule of law.
The latest farce occurred when the UN’s Economic and Social Commission for West Asia moved to formally declare Israel an “apartheid state” — a country that, like South Africa under white rule, “commits inhumane acts, systematic oppression and is dominated by one racial group over another”. It is to the credit of the US that it immediately reacted to this ploy, forcing new UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to intervene. He compelled the UNHRC to abandon its move and the top UN bureaucrat, under-secretary-general Rima Khalaf, angrily quit in protest.
To be frank, we are left wondering why Australia is bothering to campaign for a place on the discredited UNHRC.
I have spent a good proportion of my professional time in Third World and developing countries, most on the way up, some on the way down, and some bobbling up and down. You get to see a lot of things that distinguish a successful country from an unsuccessful one, and particularly one on the way up from one on the way down.
Australia is a rich and successful society. But we are starting to go wrong. Perhaps nowhere more fully fits Adam Smith’s observation that there is a lot of ruin in a nation. Now, with the latest being the likely defeat of the Turnbull government’s amendments to the truly wicked section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, there are too many signs of things going badly wrong.
Here are telling signs of a country going backwards.
I have had a bit to do with human rights commissions in Southeast Asia. Without exception, a key priority for the genuine ones is freedom of the press and free speech. In our country, the Human Rights Commission is the enemy of free speech and the enemy of a free media.
That’s a bad sign, for it shows a nation that has lost sight of what human rights actually are and has substituted the narrow, toxic aims of ideological conformity instead. It is no small thing that a former prime minister, Tony Abbott, and a former Labor Party leader, Mark Latham, have both called for the Human Rights Commission to be abolished.
The likely preservation by parliament of the worst elements of 18C is similarly a sign of the increasing dominance of identity politics and the always related desire to move the control of political discussion, wherever possible, into the hands of the judiciary or government tribunals that ape the judiciary. The legislation, though always foolishly drafted and bad in principle, did not cause too much damage in the past because most people were unaware of it and identity politics had not become the toxic threat to universal citizenship and a proper understanding of our universal and intractable humanity that it has recently become.
The scandal of the persecution of Bill Leak and of the wholly innocent Queensland students has led to a partial, temporary retreat. These cases were so insanely excessive and managed to achieve such unusual public notice that they became indefensible.
But if this wicked legislation survives intact it will inevitably be used to prosecute the destructive agenda of modern, ideological identity politics.
I have spent a lot of time in nations whose chief civic identity is communal rather than citizenship-based. It’s never very pretty. It is a sign of the derangement of our times that we now push in that direction. In some senses, fighting identity politics is as important, or more important, than the arguments about free speech.
And, of course, identity politics, or communal politics, is always accompanied by a hysterical, populist fear campaign. That’s how you get people to identify primarily on the basis of communal identity rather than common citizenship. The Labor-Greens activist alliance will now presumably run just this kind of dishonest, dangerous fear campaign among ethnic communities.
This is one reason why the Liberals cannot declare their position and then keep quiet.
They must campaign and persuade actively, endlessly and energetically among ethnic communities themselves.
This is not a burden. Their failure to do so generally is one reason they are so far behind.
Beyond these sorts of issues there are numerous other signs of distress among Australia’s national political culture.
The majority of young Australians, according to a Lowy poll, no longer believes democracy is the best form of government. I have seen up close a number of longstanding political systems topple. A loss of belief in your system is a typical precursor.
Similarly, the relentless ideological denigration of Western civilisation in the humanities departments of our universities betrays a loss of self-confidence. Even Australia Day is attacked.
There are more mechanical signs of policy distress.
One of the most common features of a Third World country not making it is an inability to provide reliable electricity supplies. A leader determined to fight that often has to build, hastily and uneconomically, new small power plants to plug the gaps, as Fidel Ramos did in Manila in the early 1990s. Our naval ship builders will need independent back-up generators in South Australia, which Premier Jay Weatherill has reduced almost to Third World status as an investment destination.
Policy analysts often lament the impoverishment of nations that make big foreign investment projects ever more difficult. The grotesque saga of the delays, the veritable crippling by delay, of the Adani investment in Queensland is a textbook case. All levels of government want this project to succeed, the foreign investor has spent an enormous amount of money and wants to spend much more, thousands of Australian jobs would be created, but the ideological power of an essentially nihilist Green activist vision of development manages to make such an investment all but impossible.
This is also a sign of what we might call the “deep state” of bureaucracy and tribunals becoming ever more ideological and impervious to the normal democratic decisions.
Countries going backwards often find their budget out of control. Our Senate has now made it impossible to control government expenditure. Left-wing populism will never countenance any meaningful spending cut, beyond gutting national defence. Right-wing populism typically concedes, slowly, on expenditure and makes its stand instead on identity issues.
Perhaps the most ubiquitous sign of a country that cannot function in a modern, decent way is that certain powerful interests decide that obeying the law is entirely discretionary. I have had former finance ministers in some countries tell me they simply did not have the power to compel certain entities to pay tax.
Sally McManus, the new ACTU secretary, says she and the union movement are entitled to break a law “when it’s unjust”. That means they are only obliged to obey the laws they think are just. There is a lot in common with the historical attitude, if not the methodology, of street-fighting fascists here. They too said they would only break laws that were unjust. And McManus was speaking in relation to what could be described as the militia force of the ACTU, namely the CFMEU.
A nation failing the development test often finds the state’s monopoly on the legitimate use of force is contested by powerful groups with economic and ideological objections to obeying the law.
This has nothing to do with traditional civil disobedience, or the considered refusal to comply with an instruction that is not merely unjust but wholly unconscionable. The distinction between unjust and unconscionable is an old one in ethics, but ethics don’t matter if your main consideration is power. The union movement has never represented fewer workers but is richer and more powerful than ever before. Sections of it now have the smell of an institution in love with power and increasingly untroubled by the rules of law.
I have seen all this before. Put it all together. Poor fellow my country.
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With respect to your last point Mr Sheridan, it is reinforced by the fact as detailed by Grace Collier over the years that the state police forces will not enforce already existing laws on the books if the CFMEU breaks them such as illegally blocking entrances to building sites.
Leave it to an Opinion writer for The Australian to work an argument referencing 18C into a piece like this. Unbelievable. Presumably we will get further opinion pieces linking the British Parliament terror attack to 18C.
A sound diagnosis of the problem, but a mea culpa would help. The political and media class in the 1980s/ 1990s were obsessed with neo-liberal economics and the end of the Cold War and didn't even notice the Left's takeover of university humanities departments, or the decimation of civil society. Greg Sheridan still hasn't noticed these changes, which threaten the break-up of the social fabric that once provided a bulwark against the absurd logic of identity politics. Sadly, the political and media class share responsibility for the trends they now lament.
A very good overview of where we now and where we could end up.
It goes without saying that the ABC is very much a part of the nihilist Greens activist vision that has stymied the Adani coal development. The ABC's "news" stories on Adani are dreadful journalism, usually just a mouthpiece for "research" from another activist organisation.
This is a bit too apocalyptic for my taste. I agree there are bad signs in Australia - the worst one being the energy crisis (because it's the result of failing political leadership - but nothing to think we're heading in a 3rd world direction which this article seems to imply.
The difference is that we have strong institutions . Yes, there may be a loopy union leader who is happy to break the law but is one nutcase enough to undermine our institution of rule of law? Yes the HRC has gone rogue, but the reaction against it shows the strength of our democracy. And the big difference in solving problems here, like our energy crisis, is that the government can commission a project (such as an upgrade to the Snowy Hydro) and we can be confident that it will be built properly. In a 3rd world country, most of the money will line the pockets of corrupt officials and who knows how the project will end up. That doesn't happen here (at least not regularly).
There have always been extreme arguments, organisations and figures in our politics - identity politics, extreme green movement, militant unions are today's. We are right to criticise them but let's not fall into believing it spells doom for this country.
We are a democracy and we have the ability to stop the rot but we dont do that, we vote for more of the same every time there is the opportunity to say no more, we say OK I'll give you one more chance. Times up but I fear it's much to late.
@bob Please don't use the royal "we". Many of us want to stop the rot and DONT vote for more of it. Consider the role of the MSM and the Parasite Class who live off our taxes. Follow the money.
Great First world countries can and do collapse. .Greece seems to be sliding and Italy isn't far behind. It happened to Argentina. But no-one will cry for us because we simply self-destructed.
So Mr Abbott and Mr Latham wish to abolish the Human Rights Commission do they, I would trust either bloke to tell me when to put out my rubbish bin. As for you spending a lot of time in third world counties, less time in the present Israel might have you on a learning curve.
@Robin so nothing to learn from this very relevant and topical piece? For many of us reading the Australian these points are exactly what concerns us about our future and is the typical fairfax/ ABC reader listener who stereotypically is behind exactly these problems. The ABC and Fairfax have been shoving renewables down our throat for years demanding govt action and now they agree market failure has occurred but blame everything but themselves for what is happening?
It is clear now that radical elements now controlling Australian Labor, Green's, Union movement, LGBTI and Get Up are driving this nation into a Marxist State with all that entails as a totalitarian state and for our freedom of speech and expression.
Now captive to these elements, Bill Shorten's diabolical "identity politics" play of appealing to the every nuance, fear or objective of every possible minority sector - now even the disabled - must been seen, even by those claiming socialist identity, as taking us to ruin.
This is precisely what my wife and I have been saying for a long time. I have voted since 1972. She has voted since 1977. Our views are regarded by Labor and those whose opinions seem to dominate the discourse as, "far right". It's the latest ploy to silence what I suspect is a significant portion of society.We are by no means far right. We haven't changed our views one iota. Middle of the road basically.
Every day we are witnessing an inexorable retreat from reason and from values. A Christian belief grounds our attitudes and hopefully guides us to being better people. But to the secular evangelists campaigning to shut the country down, we are a threat and must be silenced by any means foul or fouler.
One good thing about maintaining a Christian faith is that the decay in Australia is no accident and part of God's plan. As the negro spiritual says, "He's got the whole world in His hands" despite an enemy that is doing its level best to persuade the world that "He" doesn't exist.
Very well said Greg, sensible Australians should be very worried about our Country. The many decades it has taken and the Wars fought to protect a free, prospering and democratic country are under immense threat. In our two leaders, Turnbull and Shorten, we don't have the leaders to lead us as we need to be led. One dithers and waffles while the other, Shorten, is an extreme populist jumping on any cause whose aim is not to inspire voters but to scare them, purely to gain himself the top job with no thought as to the damage being done to the Country. We need to discuss and debate what is happening with our friends and our families. How quickly gains can be lost. This is why I support Australian Conservatives because I see Bernardi as an intelligent, articulate man who grasps the issues and advocates a sensible view consistently and does not waver. Hopefuly Bernardi's Party will flourish. There is so much at stake.
The fall of one of the greatest empires the world has known - the Roman Empire - is a chilling example it can happen to any country/countries. The sad situation now is that even if a government is elected to straighten out the mess, too many institutions have been impregnated with the socialist identity virus and the numbers are now sufficient to vote against democracy.
@Robin@Ann So what? The size of the 'empire' is not relevant and neither is the nature of the government. You typically seize on irrelevancies to avoid the point. There are none so blind as those who will not see!
It's probably a bad analogy, but I feel like we parallel the heir to the estate that has been built up and improved over the generations. And within a generation, the inheritance is blown.
What strikes me most is the break down of the family unit. Living in a predominantly Muslim area, as much as I distrust their ideology, I have to credit the famiies I see, that remind of how we once were. I believe it shows that tomorrow is theirs, as we career towards Marxism and the crazy gender based engineering that seems to have erupted in the last 5 minutes.
Greg, thank you for a very insightful article. Always good to put things in perspective for a better grasp of the various trends as well as the broader picture.
Good stuff Greg. It is very easy to miss the overall effect of many individual problems. What you express concern about is of course, a structured plan by the left who, mad as they are, are good at playing the long game in order to bring about the awful state of affairs that you predict that little by little we are on the path to experiencing.
"The union movement has never represented fewer workers but is richer and more powerful than ever before. Sections of it now have the smell of an institution in love with power and increasingly untroubled by the rules of law."
Wow Greg not even bothering to try to hide even a little bit your extreme anti Labor bias. Starting the election campaign already on behalf of the Libs
@Ken More a case of bringing insight to the realities of the situation. Interesting that you don't fault anything he says.......its the inconvenience of it for your left friends that seems to drive your criticisms.
Are you trying to say that cheap reliable power, infrastructure planning, freedom of speech and law abidance are not important?
Maybe you agree with silly Sally, that laws are only for those without the power to be able to ignore them, such as those who hold the powers of industrial war lords - union bosses?
Australia is not now and never will be "beyond repair". It is entirely within the power of the current parliament and the citizens of every electorate to make their sentiments known.
Do so.
Repeal HRC Act and Racial Discrimination Act as the federal Government is exercising illegitimate power not expressly included under Section 51 of our Constitution. The States can and do have legislation and regulations that more than adequately cover issues of human rights and discrimination.
@Fiona Still got to get changes through the Senate - things are not as easy at we would like it to be.
In fact, utterances from the Labor Party's "leadership" suggest they want to extend the areas 18C can be used for.
The regressive Left use legislation like 18C, tribunals, even the law, to reduce Freedom Of Speech for all but their own. They even encourage civil disobedience and excuse it. Add the influence of the Left in education and the media and you can see the "threat" to our preferred way of life.
Fiona, knowing what is needed and doing it are now nearly impossible with our current political system. You cannot get rid of the system as it requires the compliance of those who benefit from the status quo.
Australia is beyond repair now. The problem is our system of government makes it impossible to fix our broken system of government. We need a military coup to oust the rot of obstructionist minority groups and then we need a new constitution. Yes it would be painful and things would get worse before it gets better. The alternative is a slide into oblivion, a disintegration of the Commonwealth.
@John True conservatives and libertarians would fight to the death against a military coup. So yes, it would be very, very bloody and would ultimately fail - if such a thing could ever happen at all in Australia, that is.
It just sounds like a silly fantasy to me. Time to grow up and look for real solutions, I think.
@John On the assumption you are not being facetious, the chance of a military coup in Australia is something less than zero. Our military culture is wholly opposed to undemocratic processes and the military lacks the power to conduct and sustain a coup. Moreover, the various police forces throughout the country would be strong enough to resist. And, last, could you see the troops mowing down the tens of thousands of demonstrators that would take to the streets.
Mem Fox said that PC was just another name for politeness. What on earth has politeness to do with the stifling of free speech and the constant efforts to engineer and sanitise our behavour. The truly dishonest attempts to rewrite the history of this country, humankind, climate and the world in general is the worst of the lot.
@Caroline Mem Fox should be a little more circumspect after the revelations in relation to her husband's politeness Mem Fox was certainly not perceptive when it came to his behaviour but she expects us to believe she is so very perceptive on political topics.
Free speech starts to become lost, and governmental institutions are used to moderate (control) free expression for various reasons (execuses, such as to moderate hate speech);
Electricty supplies become unreliable;
Infrastructure decision-making becomes erratic and reactive to emergencies as longer term planning becomes dysfunctional;
Budgets go out of control, and expenses cannot be controlled;
Bureacrats become ascendent through delegated institutional power to governmental agencies which then consolidate their power and autonomy from democratic influence
Special interests gather up their power and compliance with democratic laws become optional for them;
A great summary of a nation in decline, Greg.
And, like you, many of us are very sad to observe it.
Mem Fox said that PC was just another name for politeness. What on earth has politeness to do with the stifling of free speech and the constant efforts to engineer and sanitise our behavour. The truly dishonest attempts to rewrite the history of this country, humankind, climate and the world in general is the worst of the lot.
@Caroline Mem Fox should be a little more circumspect after the revelations in relation to her husband's politeness Mem Fox was certainly not perceptive when it came to his behaviour but she expects us to believe she is so very perceptive on political topics.
Free speech starts to become lost, and governmental institutions are used to moderate (control) free expression for various reasons (execuses, such as to moderate hate speech);
Electricty supplies become unreliable;
Infrastructure decision-making becomes erratic and reactive to emergencies as longer term planning becomes dysfunctional;
Budgets go out of control, and expenses cannot be controlled;
Bureacrats become ascendent through delegated institutional power to governmental agencies which then consolidate their power and autonomy from democratic influence
Special interests gather up their power and compliance with democratic laws become optional for them;
A great summary of a nation in decline, Greg.
And, like you, many of us are very sad to observe it.
@Brian Australia now has a world record for time passed since last recession, all due to the resources mega-boom, our world class low cost deposits and our proximity to China. Unbelievably instead of banking this one off benefit for investment in future generations like Norway and others we have pissed it away in middleclass welfare. It will take an economic crisis to knock some sense into the electorate broadly. Too much of the electorate spend their time worrying about identity politics by sheer virtue of the fact they can afford to. We have become weak and boy do overseas interests buying our ports, infrastructure and farmland know it. Question is when it happens and how far we progress down this mad path before we our short sightedness comes back to bite us.
Too true James. As much as people love to laud John Howard, the huge boost to middle class welfare began (unnecessarily) in his final term. Howard should have (as promised) handed over to Costello who was a far better manager of finances and wanted to set up a fund such as Norway has. With refreshed leadership the LNP may have even won the 2007 election and saved us from the RGR fiasco and the major mismanagement of our economy (particularly during the GFC) & borders that followed.
Government in Australia has been dysfunctional for the past decade. It is impossible to clean up the mess with an obstructionist Senate and the Opposition constantly trying to cause chaos so that the focus is always on minor matters & nothing substantial or necessary gets done.
Turnbull is partly to blame because of his half hearted leadership. The Media is adding greatly to this toxic affair.
And...amazingly, far too many average citizens are completely unaware of just how precarious the national situation is & just how quickly it could spiral out of control. They are disinterested in politics (who could blame them in many ways) and immersed in their consumerism and everyday trivia.
I cannot see this ending in any other way but badly. Donald Horne commented wisely 'Australia is a lucky country, run by second-rate people who share its luck.' What happens when these second-rate people are still running the country but the luck runs out?
"the Human Rights Commission is the enemy of free speech and the enemy of a free media". And complicit with this is the national broadcasters, ABC and SBS.
A timely warning Greg . I lean to the right of politics and my son to the left . We had a similar conversation to this on the weekend . Both of us have great fears for the future freedom of his primary school age children and their ability to find work in the Australia we appear to be creating .
There are signs middle Australia share these concerns but I fear the left have now gained so much control of our decision making processes by quiet infiltration that the horse may now be out of the stable and is happily grazing down the back paddock while the stable door remains swinging in the breeze.
@Anthony ..yes, but borders which unfortunately (due to Labor's irresponsible ideological behaviours) now enclose many dangerous people and many others who left a life they hated only to come here to try to convert our way of lives to that which they left.
A Political Crime is being perpetrated against Australia and its people by a Cabal of Left forces; including the ALP/Green/ABC/Media/Academia/Lawfare guerrillas and the Public Service Bureaucracy; who are shoving down our throats their Identity and Global Warming politics and hysteria.
When these extreme politics and Cargo Cult hysterics become policies; the results are; toxic community interactions; a de-energising of our economy; and a creeping empoverishment of our Country; where our Children will struggle finding jobs and purpose within a decaying Society (see SA).
Argentina; the Phillipines...here we come.
We will pay a high and bitter price for this indulgence in Vanity Politics.
@Alex Sadly, I have finally come to the conclusion that Australia will ultimately drop to a level akin to Argentina, a country where the infrastructure is crumbling and the wealth has disappeared. I never thought it could happen here. We're well on the way and the coming generations will feel the pain.
@Alex True but we need good, strong leaders on the Right side of politics who, day after day, convey a clear, concise message to everyday Australians. We get dithering, waffling, fence-sitting and populist grandstanding.
South Australian disease is infecting the whole country....rampant ideology, featherbedding inefficient defence industries and most of all self confected minor party politicians like Xenophon that can control balance of power senate votes. As a result little gets done except that which benefits South Aust and meets his narrow view of the world. Elections are useless now and people despair about democracy. It used to be the case that you take policies to the election and a majority of seats provides a mandate for action and we get on with it. Now parliament and govt is relentless conflict, road blocks, stunts, name calling and havoc. Yep got to be a better model than our current parliamentary democracy.
Greg doesn't say but he knows where we're heading. So do I. We are in that unique situation where our political system has not got the flexibility to move forward by democratic means in any foreseeable future. God help us save our precious democracy before the unthinkable becomes the only option.
It is ignorance of the alternatives which makes people dismissive of the system they live under and how that evolved, because it didn't just happen!
It is almost as if, too comfortable, they yearn for hardship and struggle, of the kind which includes starvation and the murder or imprisonment of dissenters, obviously, given the still active enthusiasm for communism or the romanticisation of oppressive and dictatorial governments. I am sure that there are enough people with personal experience who sought the freedom of this country, who could help them out with some cold hard facts!
Until we start teaching history with some seriousness, as it pertains to where we are and how really lucky we are, this will just continue.
We, the increasingly discontented and alarmed masses need a Leader. Dutton, Bernardi, Hanson, Roberts, Abbott all come across as blithering, gibbering idiots. Where is the articulate, passionate person who can galvanise us and lead us to a saner Australia ? Once they appear then the Australian "deplorables" will rise up and destroy this nonsense.
@Bill Most of the above make sense. With identity politics, no-one in the centre or the right is electable, as the Left will use it's MSM connections to destroy them.
When the opinions of the only science educated members of parliament are ignored because they do not agree with ideology, we have a proble.
When the opinions of the only PM ever to sleep in Aboriginal camps has his opinions on poverty and equity ignored and is booted in favour of an out of touch silver tail, we have a problem.
When most tax payers recieve Government assistance, the few effective tax payers left have a problem.
When the biggest employer in the nation is the Public Service, and it continues to grow exponentially, we have a problem. Who pays for it?
@Bill Not fair to describe Dutton as 'blithering'. In Parliament yesterday he was devastating at Question Time. But that said, we do need a leader who can articulate a coherent vision and build acceptance of that. John Howard could and, to be fair, Turnbull is now trying to with some success but is still short of what we actually need and of course, as evident in these columns, he has his irrational haters who repeatedly use Shorten tactics of making baseless allegations.
@Tony You are right. It is stunning how fast things have gone backwards in the last 6 years, since RGR got into power, and with BS in charge of the Senate.
Like you, I still dream of the Howard years, and how good they were.
Howard's first 2 terms were good. Unfortunately in his 3rd term he lost the plot and didn't control his ego for the good of his party and consequently lost his seat and government. Opening the door for "John Howard lite" Rudd was a huge mistake.
We need to call out the cynical way in which Labor and the Greens are seeking to use the section 18C issue to inflame divisive, race-based debate for political purposes.
They are deliberately misrepresenting the aims of the proposed changes to the Racial Discrimination Act as somehow giving a green light to racism. This is dishonest and irresponsible.
“As someone who has been subjected to racism time and time again — as I was growing up, and even in my life now — please give me an answer: what exactly does the Prime Minister want people to be able to say that they cannot say now?” asked Labor’s Anne Aly.
“PM, what changed between then and now, what insults do you want people to be allowed to say?” asked Bill Shorten.
Shorten and Aly know the proposed changes will keep section 18C on the statute books so racial vilification will still be outlawed in this nation under federal law. They know the reforms proposed by the government aim only to prevent the repetition of clear cases of overreach against free speech.
The reforms proposed by Malcolm Turnbull aim to eradicate authoritarian overreach against individuals in a free society. They aim to limit instances of unfair and unwarranted institutional intrusions into people’s lives. Yet Labor and the Greens seek to portray this as unleashing some racist dystopia in our country. They must have an extremely low opinion of mainstream Australians. They must think people in the suburbs and regions are champing at the bit to throw off the shackles of a few words in a piece of legislation so that they can launch racist abuse at their neighbours. What rot.
The greatest weapon and most consistently effective measure in combating racism is the daily imposition of reasonable standards by the overwhelming majority of tolerant, fair-minded people in their daily lives. No change to the law will change this reality. A more sensible limit on the intrusions of the Australian Human Rights Commission can only be seen as a vote of faith in the good sense of the public.
Perversely, many members of the media have joined Labor and the Greens in their opposition to these reforms. This is astounding behaviour from journalists who would be expected to show a bias in favour of free speech. But then we shouldn’t be surprised. So partisan have many of them become they supported Labor and the Greens five years ago when they proposed de facto regulation of print media content.
If Turnbull’s amendments are passed, racial vilification will still be against the law. Shorten and Aly know this — why do they pretend otherwise? And in the here and now, racial vilification laws do not prevent the racist mutterings of a tiny minority of individuals; they never will.
If the changes are passed by parliament, no one should notice anything. The only ramifications should be to decrease the likelihood of overreach by the AHRC.
When politicians and analysts say the Coalition could lose marginal seats because of this proposal, what they are really saying is Labor will run disingenuous campaigns pretending the government is giving a nod to racism. If Labor runs such deliberately divisive campaigns it will be a lie that puts the Mediscare stunt to shame.
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The problem with the cartoon in question is in order to shine light on what is admittedly an important social issue, Mr Leak engaged in rather lazy commentary. Drawing upon the poisonous racial stereotype of the "drunken Aboriginal", a depiction that has been used for over a hundred years to malign and put down Aboriginal people, is little different than drawing men with large crooked noses counting money to portray Jews. Mr Leak was a brilliant cartoonist and satirist, capable of so much more to make his point than the sad use of stereotype. The use of stereotype inevitably broadened the attack onto all Aboriginal people as a group, including the many who are models of parental responsibility, rather than focussing the attack on the individuals who deserve to be condemned. I have no doubt that, from all I've read that Mr Leak was not a racist and, indeed, was a very kind and generous man. But when you appropriate racist stereotypes to make your point, you perhaps should not be surprised at how that could be interpreted and how hurtful it can be. And when actions cause understandable hurt, there is indeed an important question about what society does about that. It is one not answered simply by exclaiming "free speech" and berating people not to allow themselves to be victims. Having in the last year having myself to respond to a complaint that had been lodged against my employer, I learned that what lies behind the Human Rights Commission's approach (to any complaint) is to allow those hurt and those causing the hurt to meet and understand each other's perspective. That's why the HRC does not lightly terminate complaints: it wants parties to come to an understanding themselves. What would be a step forward is to eliminate monetary compensation as an outcome and allow focus to remain on actions and consequences, rather than "right" and "wrong". If that could be achieved, then s 18C in its current wording would have a useful purpose.
I'm reluctant to go into this as I don't want to be perceived as disrespecting the recently deceased, but here goes. The problem with the cartoon in question is in order to shine light on what is admittedly an important social issue, Mr Leak engaged in rather lazy commentary. Drawing upon the poisonous racial stereotype of the "drunken Aboriginal", a depiction that has been used for over a hundred years to malign and put down Aboriginal people, is little different than drawing men with large crooked noses counting money to portray Jews. Mr Leak was a brilliant cartoonist and satirist, capable of so much more to make his point than the sad use of stereotype. The use of stereotype inevitably broadened the attack onto all Aboriginal people as a group, including the many who are models of parental responsibility, rather than focussing the attack on the individuals who deserve to be condemned. I have no doubt that, from all I've read that Mr Leak was not a racist and, indeed, was a very kind and generous man. But when you appropriate racist stereotypes to make your point, you perhaps should not be surprised at how that could be interpreted and how hurtful it can be. And when actions cause understandable hurt, there is indeed an important question about what society does about that. It is one not answered simply by exclaiming "free speech" and berating people not to allow themselves to be victims. Having in the last year having myself to respond to a complaint that had been lodged against my employer, I learned that what lies behind the Human Rights Commission's approach (to any complaint) is to allow those hurt and those causing the hurt to meet and understand each other's perspective. That's why the HRC does not lightly terminate complaints: it wants parties to come to an understanding themselves. What would be a step forward is to eliminate monetary compensation as an outcome and allow focus to remain on actions and consequences, rather than "right" and "wrong". If that could be achieved, then s 18C in its current wording would have a useful purpose.
I'm reluctant to go into this as I don't want to be perceived as disrespecting the recently deceased, but here goes. The problem with the cartoon in question is in order to shine light on what is admittedly an important social issue, Mr Leak engaged in rather lazy commentary. Drawing upon the poisonous racial stereotype of the "drunken Aboriginal", a depiction that has been used for over a hundred years to malign and put down Aboriginal people, is little different than drawing men with large crooked noses counting money to portray Jews. Mr Leak was a brilliant cartoonist and satirist, capable of so much more to make his point than the sad use of stereotype. The use of stereotype inevitably broadened the attack onto all Aboriginal people as a group, including the many who are models of parental responsibility, rather than focussing the attack on the individuals who deserve to be condemned. I have no doubt that, from all I've read that Mr Leak was not a racist and, indeed, was a very kind and generous man. But when you appropriate racist stereotypes to make your point, you perhaps should not be surprised at how that could be interpreted and how hurtful it can be. And when actions cause understandable hurt, there is indeed an important question about what society does about that. It is one not answered simply by exclaiming "free speech" and berating people not to allow themselves to be victims. Having in the last year having myself to respond to a complaint that had been lodged against my employer, I learned that what lies behind the Human Rights Commission's approach (to any complaint) is to allow those hurt and those causing the hurt to meet and understand each other's perspective. That's why the HRC does not lightly terminate complaints: it wants parties to come to an understanding themselves. What would be a step forward is to eliminate monetary compensation as an outcome and allow focus to remain on actions and consequences, rather than "right" and "wrong". If that could be achieved, then s 18C in its current wording would have a useful purpose.
Labor and the Green's need to suggest a way that stops innocent people being dragged through the Kangaroo court that is the AHRC. What about the rights of the unfairly targeted UNI students, Bill Leak, and the millions living under the threat of possibly one day being put through the same?
If they can't come up with a solution, the AHRC should be shut down as a waste of tax payers money, and section 18C removed.
We have proper court systems where claimants can fund their own cases (and plenty of no win no fee lawyers) to address any real concerns in our community.
The Labor Party serves the singular purpose of making others look smart. Labor voters need to look in the mirror to see what's wrong with the way Australia is going...
There are some profoundly concerning dynamics playing out in public discourse over recent months.
The illiberal dynamics are straight forward.
If you are Christian or even if you have donated to something as self-evidently worthy (and benign) as the Bible Society, you may be targeted by the SSM Lobby for commercial and career ruin.
This has the benign, incurious support support of the MSM. Imagine the firestorm of righteous indignation should this malevolent campaign have been deployed against any other faith?
The left have massively stepped up their determination to remove, neutralise and otherwise quash opposed opinion from existence. There is no engagement of contrary viewpoints other than efforts to stop them, rather than to defeat them through the auspices of open debate and the traditions of free discourse.
There is a serious movement which contends that it is morally justified for the organs of state to dictate what people can and cannot say and think. These prescriptions are to be overseen, judged and transgressions punished by supra-governmental functionaries, which operate beyond the democratic process. Again, this is under the incurious passivity of the MSM...with a complete absence of collective memory for events of the 20th century.
And the likes of Bernard Keene and his fellow travellers at the ABC expound on what a 'fringe' or 'extreme' reaction it is, to express concerns about these developments.
Labor's deceit on these very modest amendments is fairly self evident. After 'mediscare' the ALP will be seen to be protesting too much if they accuse the government of racism over these changes and, in turn, will be seen more as a vexatious protest party than an alternative government.
It is also concerning that those advocating for free speech are seen to be from the right of politics and that the left have assumed the mantel of being the protectors of the emotionally sensitive. This has not always been the case. Former Greens Senator Christobel Chamarette was opposed to 18C altogether. While I didn't agree with her left of centre thinking on economic and environmental issues, she deserves respect as someone from the left who advocated for free speech.
Following on from the Coopers debacle* and todays The Australian article about the ALP seeking to amend s18c so it would prevent (amongst other things) the ability of people to defend the traditional definition of marriage on the grounds it may hurt someones' feelings. My query is a simple one. With the main stream media seemingly ok with being muzzled and the State (both Federal and States) having massive administrative organs that are crushing our freedoms, how exactly can we the people mobilise to push back? We can't rely upon our votes to necessarily achieve this as too many MP's (including in the Liberal party) are weak in this area (Laundy, Zimmerman et al). I fear that a backlash is coming and that it will be brutal and it will not be restrained which will in the short term allow the ALP to crush our freedoms even more. Thoughts and suggestions are most welcome
*they should have stood up for free speech and allowed us to support their stand . Their capitulation hasn't won them any friends in the LGBTIQ community and angered conservatives who would have stood by them
Chris Kenny should & probably does understand that it is the unintended consequences which are at the hub of these proposed changes. Even if it is accepted that the existing wording is not perfect the publicity around a change enacted by our national parliament can encourage people at the margin of behaviour to believe that something of a free for all becomes OK. Our lives are full of examples of people & communities over reacting to change. Bill Shorten & his gang will admittedly make things worse.
Sometimes it is better to leaves things the way they are albeit that an imperfect situation prevails.
@DON Of course better leave things as they are . Reckon 99% Australians never ever been charged under 18c. Clear over reaction by The Australian and assorted friends.
@DON Placing fetters on free speech is act of power by the state over the individual. What scares me far more than "unintended consequences" of free speech are the consequences of the state regulating speech.
@DON Don, if any nasty racist idiot does think there is a "free for all" they will quickly find themselves on the wrong end of a legitimate claim of racial harassment or intimidation. These are the actions that need to remain unlawful; I agree with Chris Kenny - the word "offend" is overreach.
The current wording has led to misuse of the time and resources of the HRC, devalued the term "racism", and created the more pertinent risk that people will not take legitimate complaints seriously. It is better for minority groups for the legislation to be properly targeted.
@Janis@Martin@DON so you think its quite OK to have thousands of your fellow Australians dragged through a kangaroo court for expressing an opinion on a sensitive political/ social topic ?
I agree that 18c should be amended. We have to think of solutions, not just complaining. There is an equally important factor to be addressed, and that is the AHRC itself. It is partisan, diminished, compromised and now completely lacking credibility. It is not a "proper" court - it is a kangaroo court, and that is being kind.. These matters must now be dealt with by the traditional courts that have judges and magistrates who by education and experience understand the concept of fairness, relevance, impartiality and evidential rigor. By people who are not going to try to push citizens into unfair settlements, who can set aside prejudices, and have not been tarnished with political alliegiances. Please support this.
Comrade Bernard Keene of that bastion of centrism and even handed-ness, Crikey, on Steve Austin's 612 ABC this morning:
"Free speech nonsense is really a construct of the extreme right outer edges. It's confounding that Turnbull would pay any attention to it all".
He went on to say that all the money spent on anti-terrorism measures at Parliament House were actually to prevent journalists from getting access to politicians, as the threat of terror is conflated, exaggerated invention which creates targets of our police for the mentally ill (paraphrased for economy).
All sagely agreed to by Comrade Austin.
I think it's well that such partisan campaigning should have a media platform, in an open, pluralistic society
It is manifestly wrong that such an overtly politicised loud hailer, should be publicly funded, from taxes.
@David@Peter How can the ABC adhere to its Charter and offer the loud-speaker to the extreme left anarchist Keane, he who encourages law-breaking to stop coal mining.? Any ABC types out there got an answer?
Those people who claim they are defending free speech need to appreciate that there are limits. Try placing yourself in other's shoes.
Let's see cartoons depicting all men as peodophiles salivating over children in playgrounds. That would be an equivalent shining of the hard light of truth on an ongoing problem. It would not be appreciated and it would not be fair. Nor would it be courageous. The commentators on this site would ebthe first to be outraged.
Rather than being offended, I was profoundly grateful that more light was shone upon an important issue, which precipitated more discourse both within Indigenous communities and more broadly.
Unlike you, I will not take it upon myself, to speak on behalf of all Indigenous people. But I will tell you the truth that I am far, far from alone in holding this opinion among my friends and relatives.
Racism come in may forms, Clarke.
Unsolicited condescension, paternalism and the assumption of helplessness, used to underpin a political narrative without any experiential context, is one of them. Perhaps that is even more irritating and insulting than a cartoon drawing, actually, given that cartoons are in point of fact, caricatures.
@ClarkeLet's see cartoons depicting all men as peodophiles salivating over children in playgrounds. That would be an equivalent shining of the hard light of truth on an ongoing problem.
Really? I guess you didn't see a few weeks ago that Daily Life article 'Why I Won't Let Any Male Babysit My Children'. I'm sure you don't have to think too hard about what the author was implying. As a male, I think it was disgusting what the author was saying, but I recognise her right to free speech. Now, what were you saying about being "fair"?
The biggest issue with current legislation is the fact that an offence does not depend on what is said by the accused, but what is "felt" by the complainant. With the progressive push to encourage victimhood and identity politics, just about anything can be construed as being "offensive". The situation is exacerbated by the system, led by the AHRC, which seems in an unholy rush to legitimise every complaint on that basis.
Who the hell knows what is likely to offend the snowflake brigade next.
@Sean Bit like assault really. The victim complains of a hurt to his eye - not that the assaulter might have hit him with a cricket bat rather than his open palm. The victim didn't have to be a snowflake to object to being lambasted.
No, it's not like assault at all. The words "fighting segregation with segregation" can only be offensive if you are determined to choose to be offended
This comes as no surprise to most of us who have been incredulous at how many Australians still can't see through the ALP and Greens, who are really doing their best to ruin this country. All we can do is hope that more Aussies wake up to what is going on. I would also hope that the Libs grow some backbone in standing up against this onslaught from the socialists, not to mention tidy up their own policy cupboard as well.
Having seen what just happened in WA I dispair for this nation. With the example of disastrous ALP government s in Qld, Vic and SA there were still enough Dills here to be taken in by blatant lies and vote in the ALP.
@Tallulah The recent growth of identity politics and victimhood , has focused our attention on a bad law. it didn't seem to be an issue in the Howard years. Abbott wanted to do something about it but caved into the Jewish lobby.
@Peter@Tallulah 18C was not a problem until a rabid Human Rights believer one Gillian Griggs without one iota of balance in the application of the law was appointed to the AHRC.
Chris Kenny, master of the single entendre. The government makes a decision to water down a law that protects citizens from being racially abused, and it's LABOR that is playing politics? Please. This mealy mouthed defence of everything this terribly malfunctioning and underwhelming government does becomes very tiresome.
Because Chris doesn't actually discuss any elements of the Act on the assumption that there's 'nothing to see', and detail tends not to play to his audience, here is a copy of 18c:
(1) It is unlawful for a person to do an act, otherwise than in private, if:
(a) the act is reasonably likely, in all the circumstances, to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or a group of people; and
(b) the act is done because of the race, colour or national or ethnic origin of the other person or of some or all of the people in the group.
Seems pretty reasonable to me, so why do a group of white, rich, primarily male politicians want it removed?
@Walter Absolutely agree - this is about the privilege of white people who don't experience race vilification telling those who do to accept it. No thanks.
IE: The government is arbitrarily mandating what someone can say and think. Inclusive of judgements and punishments controlled by supra-governmental organs beyond the democratic process.
Healthy eh, Walter?
Right now, you are supportive of the mechanisms which define what can and can't be said and expressed.
That is because they are defined and policed by people whose politics and 'elevated' morality, you find agreeable.
Let's say Cory Bernardi became Commissioner. Or Hanson. Or a wholly conservative high court held the aces.
Would the current structures please you then?
There are good reasons why 18C/AHRC/RVA causes profound concern to the likes of Jullian Burnside.
It is because of the inherent illiberalism and acute likelihood of gross mis-use that it is a fundamentally apolitical matter. Also that Burnside has the intellectual capacity to recall events of the 20th century.
By the way...there's those evil white males...at it again with their in-built satanic, demon-ness. They really need to be removed from all public discourse, don't they? Christians too. Honestly...how kitch. And tired.
@Walter Lots of women and want it amended (not removed) too. The reason? Because the law is not working as intended when originally introduced. Evidence for this? The treatment of the QUT university students, not to mention Bill Leak, and the escalation of claims to the HRC
'Freedom of speech' if a pre-requisite and the foundation stone of all successful democracies through history. This is why It receives so much attention and it is precisely because IT IS DIFFICULT that it is also so contentious. It was once the clarion call of the political left, fighting for freedoms against monarchies and aristocracies. Now the left are fighting to shut it down. How ironical. The more you stipulate and create laws about what is acceptable speech, the more you shut it down; the more divisive society will become.
Read John Stuart Mill's 'On liberty' and you might start to understand what is at stake.
@Walter Did you think that the Act would be couched in language that seemed unreasonable? This is not how these things are accomplished. In retrospect (at the very least), a large number of Australians judge 18c to have had, on balance, a negative effect on the life of the nation and on individual freedom.
@Walter Kindly do not stereotype and vilify white males.
A lot of people of diverse backgrounds,, represented by their MPs, want it removed because the legislation and its intent are not being respected. There has been a suppression of free speech, which is a tenet of our great nation. It is not complicated.
@Walter You do understand that what you have just posted is potentially in breach of the act because you are making an offensive implication of sinister motives to ammend the act based on the assumed race of the proponents?
@Michael@Walter Your "get up stooge" comment doesn't constitute an argument, Michael. It is just trolling. And by the way, I do think the word "offend" is overreach if what we're aiming to reduce, or better still eliminate, is racial vilification. That is a worthy aim.
@Walter Whats wrong with it ! well let me see . a couple of University students are ejected from
a publicly funded University facility on the basis of their race , and when they complained ever so mildly about segregation, it was they who were accused of racism and dragged through the courts for about 3 years . no nothing wrong with that !?
Labor is considering a secret plan to extend the reach of litigation based on section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act to include people claiming they have been offended or insulted because of their sexual orientation, disabilities or age.
A video, obtained by The Australian, shows Labor legal affairs spokesman Mark Dreyfus last week explaining the proposal, which would lead to the Australian Human Rights Commission and the courts facing a new wave of complaints.
Because Bill Shorten has rejected changes to 18C, there is a risk that Labor’s plan to consolidate all federal anti-discrimination laws will lead to litigation by the disabled and the LGBTI community that would be determined using the same procedures that apply under section 18C.
The Australian can reveal that the amount of compensation paid as a result of race discrimination complaints to the Human Rights Commission has soared, with companies and governments handing over almost $1 million since 2010 to avoid going to court.
Mr Dreyfus has confirmed that if Labor is elected to government he will be considering imposing a general standard for speech that infringes anti-discrimination law.
Under Labor’s proposal, advocates of same-sex marriage would be empowered, for example, to take legal action under 18C-style laws if they felt offended or insulted by those who publicly defended the traditional definition of marriage. Those at risk would include priests, rabbis, imams and other religious leaders who publicly oppose same-sex marriage.
Labor’s proposal also opens the prospect that debate over the cost of the National Disability Insurance Scheme could be truncated because of the risk of litigation by those who might feel offended or insulted.
Mr Dreyfus outlined Labor’s thinking during a panel discussion on Wednesday last week with Liberal backbencher Tim Wilson, hosted by the Jewish Community Council of Victoria.
In the video of the event, Mr Dreyfus said a Labor government hoped to consolidate all federal anti-discrimination legislation and would consider whether there should be a general standard for the type of speech that would attract liability under that law. At the moment, separate federal laws make it unlawful to discriminate against people because of their race, age, sex and sexual orientation, disability and indigeneity.
When Mr Dreyfus was asked by an audience member if section 18C should be extended to cover gender and disability, he said Mr Wilson had reminded him of the “failed project which I hope to return to of consolidating the five anti-discrimination statutes when we are next in government”.
“One of the things we’ll be looking at is this very point of whether or not we should set a standard about speech generally,” Mr Dreyfus said.
“I want to have standards set in a community which respect the dignity of every Australian. I think it’s very important and something to be fought for.”
When asked yesterday about his remarks, Mr Dreyfus said Labor would never support changes to section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.
“The consolidation of discrimination law was a policy of the Gillard Labor government,” he said. “My discussion of this issue last week was clearly hypothetical, and is not relevant to the current proposed changes to section 18C which will do nothing but weaken protections against racial hate speech in this country.”
Labor’s proposal has come to light at a time when the Australian Human Rights Commission is dealing with a surge in complaints by those claiming to have been offended and insulted under section 18C. Section 18C makes it unlawful to do anything that causes people to feel offended, insulted, humiliated or intimidated because of their race, colour or national or ethnic background.
Under a plan unveiled by Malcolm Turnbull and Attorney-General George Brandis this would be changed to eliminate what they have described as an unnecessary restriction on freedom of speech.
The proposed changes would impose liability only on those who intimidated or harassed others because of their race, colour or national or ethnic background. The government’s plan would also abandon the test for liability and require all disputes to be decided based on the standards of reasonable members of the community.
This would overturn the current arrangement in which judges are required to adopt the perspective of reasonable representatives of those who complain.
Reader comments on this site are moderated before publication to promote lively and civil debate. We encourage your comments but submitting one does not guarantee publication. We publish hundreds of comments daily, and if a comment is rejected it is likely because it does not meet with our comment guidelines, which you can read here. No correspondence will be entered into if a comment is declined.
Let us not forget that the last Labor government sought to introduce press censorship. Mr Dreyfus and Mr Shorten have reminded us that this is still their objective.
I don’t seem to have Lambie’s phone number anymore. But if anyone does, could they please call her and bring this matter to her attention. She could perhaps be invited to have a look at the comments being posted here to get an idea of peoples’ feelings and views of issues such as freedom of speech.
This, of course, is classical fascism. Not satisfied with directing what citizens do, fascism seeks to direct and control what they say and think. It is not surprising that the ALP is seeking to introduce such controls. It has been moving in this direction since Whitlam. This latest move is just part of that continuing eradication of Australian cultural and political heritage.
Fortunately, we can all follow the policy of ACTU Secretary Sally McManus, and disregard laws that we don't agree with.
When any vote is taken in the Federal Parliament that relates to freedom of speech, I ask that the "Australian" publish a list of those MPs and Senators that vote against our right to free speech. In that way, the electorate can get a clear understanding as to which politicians are trying to gag us.
Surely that would make a case for those who support leaving marriage as it is to bringing an action under 18C to stop being offended, insulted, humiliated, harassed and intimidated by SSM activists.
Age and disability are red herrings here.Labor desperately wants to go down in history as the father of SSM.The LNP’s promised plebiscite would pre-empt Labor, whichever way the vote went.Making open public debate about SSM illegal would sink the plebiscite, thereby promoting Labor’s demand for a parliamentary vote as the only option.
Being run like a Union because that's what pays best for those in power, be they government or opposition. Regretfully I believe we need Shorten as PM before those "in the Pub and round the Barbie" say enough is enough and take to the streets, recent events show that is the only way to get what "you want" in this country.
Do we have to wait for Sen. Jackie Lambie to tell us whether anyone in Tasmania has complained to her about Mark Dreyfus' proposal to end free speech? It seems the future of western civilisation in Australia is dependent on the constituents of a single cross bench senator. High risk, no chance of reward.
Basically, Labor want to close down ALL debate on SSM and ALL debate on the cost of the National Disability Scheme however, Labor does not seem to have made it any easier for a white-middle-aged-man to have his complaint accepted by the HRC.
@Michael Hamilton over qualified. They want to shut down all debate. Wait for Conroy's internet filter with the secret blacklist and his and Gillard's Media censorship laws to come back.
Ultimately they will make it impossible to discuss or hold and opinion they do not agree with.
More adventurism? More speech control by enemies of the Open Society? Give us a break- and let's get right the central issue of the moment... the anti- race vilification law. First, let's say unambiguously that to vilify fellow-citizens for no good reason is, well, base, wicked and ... vile. It should not be countenanced. At an individual level, there are good anti-defamation laws which deal with exactly this in Australia.
The real problem with the anti-race vilification law [at a societal level] is that it is too subjective and does not cope with what to 'vilify' means. The Macquarie dictionary defines it as to slander, calumniate and malign, to speak evil or falsely of. The application of the law is not so much whether some objective red lines have been crossed, but whether putative 'recipients' feel insulted, humiliated and offended.This is where the cancer lies.
It is not inconceivable that even someone like Ivan Milat may, subjectively, feel offended or humiliated by this or that description of him. The bar is set too low. The temptation to play the victim card is even more alluring if pecuniary, power or political advantage are at play, as seems to have been, in the Leak and QUT cases.
Apart from the concept of objective red lines being crossed, the ones regarding whether remarks are simply malicious or not, intellectually defensible or not, gratuitous or well-grounded are crucial- and these are seemingly wilfully neglected concepts in the present debate. These criteria must be central to the debate but are mysteriously absent.
No, a free society is not content to have its bigots, but seeks to educate its bigots out of their entrenched positions. For this, it needs the free flow of information, not what information various commissars deem to be safe or appropriate. It needs to be compassionate and embracing, but it must be able to speak freely against its enemies, whether corporatised, unionised, radicalised or of any illiberal hue. In this day and age of radical claims from disparate groups, often pushed through force and violence, our society cannot simply drift into being muzzled and stunned into submission, disempowered and ultimately enslaved. It must see a more enlightened and brave attitude from its parliamentary representatives- and one more in tune with World War sacrifices and the battle against communism in the ongoing war for freedom. Let us also remember that the enemies of the Open Society are many and cunning and often more dedicated than its defenders.
Politicians no longer have credibility. It's time for a new voter participation system. Signing over your rights at election time under the duress of a fine or imprisonment is archaic.
@Deborah Fully agree Deborah. We will have to educate our fellow citizens on the imminent dangers to any form of free speech and conscience if Labor is voted in.
Why not include facial expressions, just in case someone gets "offended" by a dirty look. Looks can be so upsetting and a clear violation of human rights!
And this is the biggest issue for dear old Labor and their watermelon mates?! More on how to disempower the people by restricting what they can say. This thought control at its worst. Let's just call it for what it is. This is a step (another) towards communism.
Once again labours shows it bigotry against main stream Australia. WE are not bigots, not raciest, and generally give everyone a fair go. The only way to fix this is not to vote labour , Greens Lambie, nxn etc
If the APL/Greens get their way, saying most common swearwords will get you hauled before the HRC! ( even "old fart" and "moron" will be banned!)
I cannot think of a building site, mine, sawmill or powerhouse where all these derogatory words are not used in casual conversation? I wonder what the CFMEU will think of their new thought and speech masters?
( and Kevin Bloody Wilson will need to find a new career!)
To be fair, we need to see the details of Dreyfus’ proposed amendments to 18c. I don’t believe that all freedom of expression will be removed. Instead, I think that Dreyfus will legislate for a compulsory Orwellian “Two minutes of Hate” where, each day we can express our outrage loathing, revulsion, loathing, etc at the likes of middle-aged heterosexual married white men and Christians of any kind. By then, these groups will not exist. However, they will be depicted as an ever-present enemy of the peoples’ paradise that Dreyfus and his fellow travellers are laying the groundwork for today. There is no need go to North Korea when we can create it right here under a Labor / Greens government with the very valuable assistance of Xenephon and Lambie.
So this would mean you could bring a 18C case against eg Donald Trump for mocking Serge Kovaleski the reporter with arthrogryposis - a conjenital joint condition that limits his arm movements (if he did that in Australia):
You know that time when Trump stated thousands of people celebrated 9/11 in New Jersey and referred to a story written by Kovaleski in the Washington Post as proof of his claims. On 9/11 Kovaleski wrote that some "people were arrested" for appearing to celebrate the attack, but also stated in 2016 that he "not recall anyone saying there were thousands, or even hundreds, of people celebrating [9/11 in New Jersey]". No one saw thousands of people celebrating 9/11 in New Jersey. It turns out to be just another Trump lie.
So the day after Kovaleski denied stating he said thousands of people celebrated 9/11 in New Jersey, Trump goes on stage stating: "Now, the poor guy — you ought to see the guy: 'Uh, I don't know what I said. I don't remember,'" As Trump was speaking those words he was waving his arms about in a way similar to the movements Kovaleski's disability produces. The video of this is still online.
If Trump did that in Australia under the proposed changes then he rightfully should be done for 18C.
Why stop there? Why not go all the way and ban any discussion which disagrees with the Labor Party, Dreyfus and their mates in the unions. And while we are at it, why not rid ourselves of this inconvenient notion of democracy and then Labor can adopt their new name, the Australian Fascist Party.
@David@john It's the old Frog in a frying pan analogy. It's been coming for a long while in small increments. Now that people are waking up to what's been going on - it's too late.
@David@john It's called Fabianism. The gradual approach, always moving by small steps in the same direction. Like putting a frog in cold water on a warm stove.
Australia's on the stove now and the water has been getting warmer for the last fifty years.
I feel we are just going to go around in circles until someone takes 18C to the High Court. I live in hope that this will happen at some point and put my faith in the legal and constitutional law experts who question the Constitutional validity of 18C.
Labor aiming to put further restrictions on 18C might just be the trigger to take this farce of a law to the High Court.
Love or loathe Turnbull or Abbott, you cannot deny they are fundamentally good men and want to do good for the country. The other side couldn't give a damn what their position does to society at large.
This PC extremist, who would be a minister in a Labor government, wants to legislate for 'niceness' and punish anyone who by his standards is not nice. Labor is beyond parody.
Australians have always been exceedingly kind and helpful to minority groups, migrants, people with disabilities, etc. You only need to look at the amount of volunteer work and giving to charities which occurs in our society. Many people from minority groups are given great assistance and encouragement in fitting into the community. They are invited to events and to participate in sports and other activities. Members of minority groups are not discriminated against and occupy some of the highest positions in our land.
I find it offensive the way people in politics and high profile positions, slur the common people as being offensive, rascist, mysogenistic, etc, in order to selfishly advance themselves and their interests.
The Anti-Defamation Commission has urged Michael Kirby to withdraw contentious comments after the former High Court chief justice linked Jewish people who co-operated with the Nazi regime to gay Australians who want to boycott the same-sex marriage postal vote.
Mr Kirby, a prominent same-sex marriage advocate whose preference is for a free vote in parliament, initially declared he would have no part in the postal ballot but told The Weekend Australian he had always intended on voting Yes if it survived various legal challenges.
He drew fierce criticism from the Anti-Defamation Commission, a Jewish community group, after referring to the Holocaust while expressing his empathy for LGBTI Australians, such as his long-term partner, Johan van Vloten, who will not participate in the postal vote.
Mr Kirby said it made them feel like “second-class citizens”.
“During the run-up to the Second World War some Jewish people, though the situation was much more desperate and fraught, took part with the Nazis in the regulation of the Jewish community. Looking back on it, we can now see that that is something when you are being denigrated and treated unfairly and as a second-class citizen, you shouldn’t necessarily go along with,” Mr Kirby told ABC radio on Thursday.
“This postal vote isn’t in that order but it’s the same principle, so I can sort of understand my partner who gave away his perfectly good Netherlands citizenship, under which he could marry, for Australian citizenship, and feels he’s being humiliated and treated in a hostile way by members of parliament who shouldn’t be acting in this way.”
Commission chairman Dvir Abramovich seized on the remarks, declaring there was no comparison between contemporary political circumstances and the “incomprehensible conditions” endured by Jews under Adolf Hitler’s regime.
Dr Abramovich said he recognised how “irresistible” the Holocaust reference had become in generating headlines, but it could not be justified, “no matter how strong one’s objection may be to the postal vote”.
“The Turnbull government is certainly not the Third Reich and no one is being herded onto trains and sent to the death camps,” he said. “Invoking such inappropriate and offensive analogies to advance any agenda undermines the historical truth and the meaning of the Holocaust, and only serves to trivialise the extermination of six million Jews and millions of others, which, as we know, included gay people.”
Mr Kirby said he had meant no offence but stood by his comments, explaining his partner lived through World War II in The Netherlands as a small boy and strongly believed “no minority should ever co-operate with those who seek to oppress its members”.
“In our most respectful view, the Holocaust should not be consigned to books of history; nor restricted to the lessons it teaches for anti-Semitism,’’ Mr Kirby said.
“It should be available so all of us can learn from the wrongs that are done to minorities by reason of indelible features of their nature. This includes race and ethnicity. But, in our view, it also includes sexual orientation. Many of the leaders of LGBTIQ liberation have been Jewish.’’
Mr Kirby said the foundation of the gay marriage survey was unscientific. and its “hairbrained” predecessor, a mandatory plebiscite, would have been better.
WHAT THEY SAID
Michael Kirby on ABC radio, August 10:
I do understand the view of those who say ‘I am not going to participate in something that is my own humiliation. I am not going to participate is something that reinforces that I’m a second class citizen and damages especially young people in the community by making them see very clearly that they are second class citizens subjected to an impediment to the matter being determined in parliament in the normal way in a case of this kind on a conscience vote’. I do understand that.
During the run up to the Second World War some Jewish people, though the situation was much more desperate and fraught, took part with the Nazis in the regulation of the Jewish community. Looking back on it, we can now see that that is something when you are being denigrated and treated unfairly and as a second class citizen, you shouldn’t necessarily go along with.
This postal vote isn’t in that order but it’s the same principle, so I can sort of understand my partner who gave away his perfectly good Netherlands citizenship under which he could marry, for Australian citizenship, and feels he’s being humiliated and treated in a hostile way by members of parliament who shouldn’t be acting in this way.
Dvir Abramovich, chairman of the Anti-Defamation Commission, August 11:
I recognise how irresistible the Holocaust reference has become in today’s society in generating headlines. However, no matter how strong one’s objection may be to the postal vote on same-sex marriage, there is no comparison between contemporary political circumstances and the incomprehensible conditions that the Jewish community faced under Hitler’s evil regime.
The Turnbull government is certainly not the Third Reich and no one is being herded onto trains and sent to the death camps.
Invoking such inappropriate and offensive analogies to advance any agenda undermines the historical truth and the meaning of the Holocaust, and only serves to trivialize the extermination of six million Jews and millions of others, which, as we know, included gay people. The Holocaust was a singular event in human history and we urge all public leaders in this debate to refrain from using any Holocaust comparisons that are deeply hurtful to the survivors and which coarsen civil discourse. We hope that Justice Kirby reconsiders his words and retracts his remarks.”
Michael Kirby’s letter to the Anti-Defamation Commission, via The Australian, August 11:
The last thing I would wish to do would be to cause offence to members of the Jewish community, in Australia or anywhere else.
My nephew and niece, being born of a Jewish mother, are Jewish by ethnicity and upbringing. In our family, we are proud of our connection with the Jewish community and with our family’s Jewish members. On 27 August 2017, I will be speaking at the dinner for Hadassah Australia in support of that good cause of the Australian Jewish community. Every year, I am invited to, and do, address the Australian Jewish students Association to emphasise the importance of remembering and respecting the lessons of the Holocaust. And the need to combat anti-Semitism. And learn contemporary lessons about it. On 25 August 2017, I will be interviewed by the Australian Jewish News on the subjects of my forthcoming talk.
My partner Johan and I regularly visit the Joodsemuseum and Anne Frank Huis in Amsterdam. We have studied the terrible sufferings of the Jewish people in the Netherlands during the war. My partner lived through that time in the Netherlands and although then a small boy he was profoundly affected by the experience. We have talked about it often. I am sure you know that there are books written on the topic of cooperation with the occupying and local powers which was, and is a source of great pain in the Netherlands. It affected my partner’s strong belief (which I can entirely understand) that no minority should ever cooperate with those who seek to oppress its members. In our most respectful view, the Holocaust should not be consigned to books of history; nor restricted to the lessons it teaches for anti-Semitism. It should be available so all of us can learn from the wrongs that are done to minorities by reason of indelible features of their nature. This includes race and ethnicity. But, in our view, it also includes sexual orientation. Many of the leaders of LGBTIQ liberation have been Jewish.
I do assure you that no offence was meant and I was simply trying, in ex tempore unscripted answers to questions, to explain why my partner’s experience, which I have come to share over 48 years, brings about a strong feeling of non-cooperation with the imposition on minorities (in this case LGBTIQ people in Australia) of completely unprecedented, discriminatory, unfavourable and objectionable governmental actions that single them out for disadvantage and hostility. It would be my hope that the Anti-Defamation Commission would see similarities or analogies and insist that no such discriminatory laws or procedures should be adopted by our parliament and our government. I invite you to inform me of any statements by the Anti Defamation Commission making this point and rendering relevant to contemporary Australian society one of the main lessons to be learned from the oppression of the Jewish people.
In the end, I did not feel that LGBTIQ people in Australia should boycott the participation in the discriminatory postal sampling proposed by the government. But nothing will convince my partner Johan to participate. In this, he is a product of the history of his childhood. No one is more respectful of the Jewish people and their sufferings than Johan and me. If my language was considered infelicitous, I regret it. But my motives were truthful and based upon a profound appreciation of the terrible wrongs of the Holocaust. We honour the Jewish people and especially those of the Netherlands.
I hope that you will reconsider your decision to write a critical opinion. We should not allow others to divide those who resist serious discrimination.
Great article. I like the "Evolutionary theory and science offer marvellous explanations of how, they offer no explanations of why." Might I insert "who" before "why", both are valid points.
@Catherine What an interesting point! How would an atheist go about reaffirming a belief which is actually a disbelief or a non-belief. How does one re-affirm a negative? Sorry Catherine, but as Pauline would say, please explain!
@CatherineIn big print this time Catherine in the vain hope it might get through. ATHEISM IS THE LACK OF BELIEF IN THEISM. IT IS NOT A BELIEF IN ITSELF, although it may include supporting reasons that do in fact include respect for the rules of argument, reason and the nature of evidence. It therefore does not need ‘reaffirmation’ as a 'belief'.
the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods.
Then atheism is NOT a religion. Atheism does not involve belief or faith. It is the intellectual rejection of man made propositions that lack evidence or rationality.
@Catherine Not the case Catherine. FYI, there atheists 500 years before Christianity. Lack of belief in something is not the inverse of a postive belief in something.
Admittedly [although it really depends on how terms are defined] agnostics are a bit of a wimpy cop-out and like to have a bob or two each way without actually laying a bet. That involves some mental gymwere nastics I can do without.
@CatherineOnce more Catherine, a lack of belief is not a positive belief. I do not believe in Spaghetti Monsters. That does not make me a positive believer in the religious practice of non-belief in Spaghetti Monsters.
@Graeme@Richard- I only make the observation that saying “I don’t know” is different to saying “I know- KNOW- beyond any and all doubt”.
“Leaving the gate open” is the difference between doubt and faith. Faith-or belief- is manifest at opposite of the spectrum of religiosity and anti-theism.
@Catherine Atheism leaves the gate open to evidence. Inference to the best explanation is always inference it is not deduction; it is not the deceptive attraction of deductive certainty and it is not a priori religious faith that already has all possible answers and by definition nothing rational will shake.
A-theism is just not anti-theism, You simply don't understand the various concepts Catherine,
@Richard- really? Hitchens asserted that he was an anti-theist (... encompassing atheism).
As you note, inference is not the same as evidence. If absolute evidence is required to prove the existence of God, it is also required to disprove the existence of God. I’m waiting for atheists to prove the basis of their beliefs. That is all.
@Catherine. You appear to have respect for the "agnostic" position. I would like it explained to me, but from the tenor of you previous posts you don' t seem capable of putting forward any reasoned statement.
You seem to imply though, that an Agnostic admits they do not know. Well that is precicely what an atheist says.
I put it to the forum that any difference between the two words is purely semantic and even then so fine a distiction as to be effectively meaningless. Both words start with 'a' implying "not" as in "asexual" or "apolitical" . The suffixes are "theist" meening believing in god in the same was as say "communist" to mean believing in communism ; and "gnostic" meaning "religeous" in the same way as Toxic means "poisonous" (no connection implied of course!)
So one word means "not believing in god" and the other means "not religeous". I cant sopt much diffence but can anonyone enlighten me?
@Richard IV Agnostics are essentially a sub-set of Atheists. They are atheists who say they don't accept the proposition that there is a god AND that they don't know, one way or another, whether there is a god.
In fact "gnosis" means "to know". The Gnostics were people who made claims to special secret "knowledge" about the nature of the world and god.
So Agnostics - those who claim no special knowledge - are in fact also Atheist; rejecting the position that there is a specific god.
Sorry Greg. Your rather convoluted attempts to establish the existence of a god by using pseudo logical argument falls well short of the mark. On the contrary it is far more logical, common sense and scientific to believe in evolution rather than creation. To suggest that the default position of the brain is blind, unchallenged believe rather than to use our brains to figure out the truth is total nonsense. In fact that is what all religions and all of their respective gods rely on, dumb belief in a particular religion and god usually resulting from indoctrination (radicalisation) from an early age. You describe atheism as a faith. This is a misnomer. Call it a lack of faith if you like but it is merely the result of the thought process arriving at a conclusion.
@Donald Yes, Donald, Greg's delusional description of atheism as a faith, though not unusual from believers, says much about their own insecurity and need to attack and insult the objectivity of atheists.
@Rolfe@Donald Do people publish books on why not collecting stamps is more rational than stamp collecting? Do you have non-stamp collectors arguing that stamp collectors are too irrational to be permitted to enter university? Seems like Atheism requires a high degree of evangelism rather than a nil degree of faith.
@Donald Really, Donald? You mentioned "is far more logical, common sense and scientific to believe in evolution rather than creation". If that is the case, show me example of transitional fossils of the evolutionary chain? Which are the fossils which are half monkey and half human? What about those which are half reptile and half bird?
So out of nothing, came everything without intelligent and powerful intervention? You've got to be kidding me!
Look into it and you will find out that evolution is a theory desperately lacking of scientific validation.
Back around 100-200 years BCE, the orbits of the earth, moon and known planets were known with an extraordinary degree of accuracy, even to the period of the earth being 365 1/4 days, AND that knowledge had been translated into a machine that could predict eclipses and the locations of these bodies - Google the antikythera mechanism for the details.
How then did the "fundamental preconditions for modern science" come about that this knowledge was lost for 1700 years until Copernicus, Galileo, Da Vinci etc challenged the Pope at risk to their lives?
Did not the church so value the elimination of knowledge amongst non clerics that it even forbade the publication of the Bible other than in Latin?
Please tell us how the Inquisition led to modern scientific knowledge?
@Russ@Nico Not quite fair, Russ, the studious habits and institutions established by Christians (after being given a push from Islam, which hurriedly backed away from science once the fantasy parts of their beliefs came under threat) were consequential in establishing many of the basics which led to the scientific revolution.
That is not to say Christianity, as a whole, supported the outcomes of the studies for much of the time, however. Much of the church (both clergy and lay) opposed such investigations. Many still do (with far less excuse).
The Catholic Church resisted scientific analysis including the persecution Galileo, one of the world's greatest physicists for heresy for suggesting that the Earth is not the centre of the universe and that the Earth revolved around the Sun. This was because scientific analysis was contrary to Scripture, and to be contrary to Scripture meant heresy and burning at the stake.
In 1600 Bruno Giordano was burnt at the stake in Rome for heresy for advocating a similar proposition. The Inquisition drove a stake through his face pinning his tongue so he couldn't speak before he was burnt alive. In 1415 the Inquisition burned similar heretics including Han Hus and Jerome of Prague in a similar fashion.
Contrary to your proposition, the preconditions for modern science to flourish can be traced back to the Epicureans and Lucretius 2000 years earlier, and the church did everything in its power to suppress such knowledge. Any advance in science has been to drag a church kicking and screaming in denial including the fierce opposition to Darwin. Science has succeeded despite the best efforts of the Christianity as represented by the Church.
@Argus The scientific establishment sought the persecution of Galileo, the Catholic Church merely meekly acquiesced.
Giordano was punished for his theological heresy - arguing for pantheism for instance, not for his defence of the Copernican system of astronomy. The likes of Jan Hus and Jerome of Prague were likewise punished for their rejection of Catholicism.
As for opposition to Darwin, there was actually a lot of support amongst churchmen who rejected the Bible. Nothing has really changed there.
@Richard@Nico Richard just because you though a remark with abandon it does not make you erudite or intelligent.
It only make you ignorant of history and that I admit provides the self assurance you require.
Here is a short syllogism to make you ponder but you also have to read more than the God Delusion.
Greek Philosophy culminates in the work of Plato, which then his student Aristotle creates into different fields(we use his classification today on Uni Departments).
Neo Platonist and the Greek church Fathers steeped in Greek learning integrate much of Greek thought into the Christian Faith (they make it essentially what it is). Augustine does the same in the West later on.
The Arabs take from the Greeks and have a brief interlude of wonderful science but it is back to the Christian lands that its flourishes.
You know why because like Plato Christianity has an unfaltering belief that the Universe is intelligible and without that belief studying philosophy or science would have being a fools errand. Now if you read Plato you will see in his dialogues that his world system was identical with the Christian one. Read the Timeaus but even in the Republic it stand there starring you in the face.
Now I am shortening the history quite a bit as it passed through people like Aquinas Berkeley Newton Galileo (all Christians) and heaps more.
The atheist proclaims that there s no God because he/she has examined all known data and cannot find God. All possible knowledge includes what the atheist knows and what is not yet known. Therefore to state that God does not exist implies that the atheist knows what he/ she does not know yet. Hence the dogmatic statement that God does not exist is most illogical. At best the doubter could take an agnostic viewpoint.
@Aubrey A fail on logic Aubrey. All known knowledge [odd term] does not by definition include all possible knowledge past present or future.The atheist simply states a lack of belief based on present knowledge; the claim does not entail future knowledge. Your argument is unsound and invalid.
At what point do religious people accept that we have looked far enough. We have looked to the heavens, through the time of distance to the beginning of the universe without finding God. We have looked into the fabric of matter, the building blocks of the subatomic and not found God. We have three milenia of history and no corobable historical evidence for gods existance.
The logical concussion is god is a construct of humanity. It is no more than an idea. But humans being as we are religion has evolved to supprt and protect the corporal wealth of the priesthood and the states that suport them.
@Aubrey "No god until the existence of such a being is proved". That seems logical and sound as a position. That means not believing now, and not believing until the evidence appears.It is not the non-believer's task to prove a negative - that there is no god. An atheist can say, "I see no evidence of such a being, so I do not believe." End of story - until the evidence is found, or god gives one a clip over the ear, whichever comes first.
@Aubrey I think the problem that theists have is that they don't have the capacity to contemplate that there is no God. Therefore they tend to assume that an atheist is necessarily arguing against the existence of God. This is the reason I don't call myself an atheist, because it's too easily to be labelled.
What I can say for my own part is that based on the knowledge I have, I see no reason to posit the existence a God
@Richard@Aubrey My claim is far from illogical because the atheist proclaims there is no God revealed in history or in the future. Current facts include those we know about as well as those we do not know. Clearly then for the atheist to declare there is no God implies knowledge of what is yet unknown.
@Aubrey Show me proof of your God that doesn't involve the words "faith" or "belief" or "feeling" and you'll have a convert but until then, I'll remain a heathen.
" Make a joyful noise unto the Lord all ye lands, serve the Lord with gladness, come before his presence with singing..." Mr Sheridan cites the "strange phenomenon of joy, the even stranger delight of humour..." and so on in support of the existence of some sort of god. Why is it then that new or re-born religions seem to be so co-existent with a complete lack of joy and a rigid humourlessness. I don't mean just the obvious puritans of the English revolution or early America, but it seems to happen also with other religions, both theistic and non-theistic. Compare, for example, the reborn mullahs of present day Iran, with Omar Khayyam of the Rubiayyat - full of a love of life, wine, women and good times. I now I'd rather spend time with the mediaeval Persian than the contemporary Iranians.
Then there's the modern progressives, with their identity politics - seen so well just this week with some Mother Grundy (as my mother would have called her) going ape at another mother for letting her daughter dress up for Halloween as a Disney Polynesian character. Not much joy there.
Then there are the Marxists - all lacking much in the humour field, which is strange, seeing that old Karl was known as a great comedian in his day. I remember reading a history book back in my high school days which ranked him as the funniest of the Marx brothers, though I don't know why they didn't give him a part in A Day at the Races. At least the kulaks in communist Russia thought he was a great joke.
Greg, I agree with you totally. There has to be a God. I've read the first few books of the old testament and the representation of God as a cruel, sadistic, unforgiving blood spilling monster to all but "his chosen" proves it. All the pain and suffering that is in the world today especially against children has to be intentional and directed from above, below or wherever he hides. It cannot be happening by chance. Remember the words of The Lord's Prayer "....thy will be done on earth..." well, it's being done every second of every day and children are suffering and dying.
There seems to be in the article, and many of the comments, that "God" is religion, or at least Christianity. God is a word we use to describe the indescribable. Religions, over the thousands of years of researched history and anthropology, have existed in their multitudes with all believers believing theirs is the truth, or real, and superior to others. God is a concept which we have tried to explain via many different modes, from sacrificing virgins to killing pigs, from believing in afterlife in heaven to being recycled in a different form. Gods have been created from objects, animal worship, places, and mysterious nothingness. Greg has tried to be objective, but his christianity shines through. I see God as the enormity of the universe, the wonders of the world, the thoughts that enable me to think in a rational manner. I do not see organised religion in the hands of emirs, priests, shamans, monks and their followers as god or it's representative. They profess their multitude of truths as being the only truth and have used these truths in the course of known history to fight opposing truths to the death. They are using the word god to narrow the discussion to a finite view whereas god is infinite and can never be understood. God is a concept that people try to rationalise via beliefs to the exclusion of other beliefs, usually incorporating power over others to conform and reject opposing dogma. To believe in god, not someone else's idea of god, is not atheism, but merely accepting that no one can explain the unexplainable, especially priests, journalists and those who declare comments like mine to be heretical and agnostic. In my simple world view, god is in my children and grandchildren's eyes, in the life choices I have taken, in the world around me. It is not the Torah, Koran, Bible or Budda's many missives on how we understand the universe.They have many fine messages, like many other books. They also have terrible messages of anger, hate and inhumanity. They were written and have been interpreted by men of different times and views to me.They were blind to my time and beliefs. To grasp their "truths" blindly, is to allow the blind to lead.
What a mixup - this rambling, irrational, intellectually vapid exegesis was surely meant for The Catholic Weekly. Sad, even so, that the writer evidently has never shared in - or chooses to ignore - the Enlightenment, aka The Age of Reason.
The enlightenment culminated in Wi and WII. It was clear delusion where European countries far outpaced their knowledge of man ('anthropos') with their ability to control nature and became efficient killing machines.
Greg's article shows that he has much more erudite and full understanding of history than you exhibit in your opinion.
@Nico No, Nico, the article says infinitely more about the effectiveness of Greg's (probably childhood) indoctrination - and perhaps your own? - than any erudition or understanding of history.
@Anne NWhat? Anne N, are you serious? Or is this a satire?
First, atheists do not try to prove God/gods/goddesses exist. The simple position is that they have no belief in the claim. The usual position is lack of evidence for the existence of God/gods/goddesses or Spaghetti Monsters.
Second, are you actually claiming that a calendar naming convention explicable historically proves the existence of God? In which case, does the replacement of BC/AD by BCE and CE disprove the existence of God?
(Review of “Miracles“): CS Lewis challenges the rationalists, agnostics, and deists on their own grounds and makes out an impressive case for the irrationality of their assumptions by positing:
"Those who assume that miracles cannot happen are merely wasting their time by looking into the texts: we know in advance what results they will find for they have begun by begging the question."
@Catherine Those who assume the miracles cannot happen, are not wasting their time in testing the underlying assumptions, because inevitably they are subjective and delusional. I for one would be happy to see a miracle or a glass of water was change into a Shiraz or or a Cabernet, and on that basis I would convert to Christianity tomorrow.
Needless to say nobody is even tried to do this on Penn and Teller so you will be unlikely to see any example of it other than the febrile ramblings of early Christians written well after the event by people who are not there.
Having read the statement attributed to CS Lewis 3 times, I see no logical inference other than the self-justification of a position already established in advance.
@Argus@Catherine Since when were the disciples not present with Jesus and documented what they heard and experienced. Miracles are events which the human mind cannot comprehend in its natural world. Believers acknowledge miracles through faith, unbelievers mock.
@Barrie@Argus@Catherine Miracles are events which violate the laws of science. Science allows us to distinguish things that are miracles, it cannot comment on whether miracles can occur.
My one responsibly as a Christian is to live a fruitful life in the simplicity that is in Christ which is summed up so clearly and so simply by the prophet Micah: 'To act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.' [6 v 8]. So simple, yet so sublime.
@JohnNot Pascal's wager again. The probability is not 0.5 John. The more alternative gods and goddesses, and the list is very very long, the less likely you are to win your bet. And the greater the chance of picking the wrong god, and therefore the more chance you have of losing very badly and finding yourself punished for gambling on the wrong horse/golden calf or whatever.
Go with the evidence instead and there is no evidence, plausible argument or even good odds for your choice of Pascal's god.
Being of somewhat advanced years I Iearnt many decades ago not to waste time and breath discussing religion. By the same token I do not pay $32 per four weeks to read the rambling proselytising of Sheridan or any other advocate for the supernatural.
@David@jayess He did read the article David; which is why he summarised it so well. Personally I thought 'rambling proselyting' was letting the arguments off lightly.
@Sean And if He/She/It really wanted it he would have told everyone much earlier; and maybe chosen messengers from a more admirable, civilized and literate culture rather than warring desert tribes whose favourite pastime was practicing genocide on their neighbors. And then boasting about it.
@Richard@Sean I would suggest that God uses the Internet, Facebook page would be ideal although for the febrile Twitter is probably a better choice (along with Trump)
"That the physical universe we know is apparently 14 billion years old tells us nothing about who created it or why."
The usual implicit (and logically flawed) assumptions about a pre-existing creator and a purpose - one might as well believe that little green men dwelling on a Jupiter moon did it - because they were bored.
PS latest theories indicate there may be even a multitude of 'universes' popping in and out of existence - forever. 'God' within such a scenario is a rather helpless term, since we can't think outside of a 'cause and effect' framework and therefore desperately need a 'creator'...
Sheridam writes " I have faith that I am the son of my parents. I have no real empirical evidence for it." but that evidence can be obtained. Like how a modern car works although there is the possibility of proof.
Perhaps Sheridan is ignorant if the process where a car is created as a digital model, a complete computer simulation down to the numbers on the heads of the bolts, which is used for everything from predicting cabin noise to crash tests. It represents if you will the science, the complete knowledge , of the car. There is no majic in cars just technology that although not understood by Sheridan it is understood by many.
We don't understand where the universe came from and certainly don't know if there is a reason. But this is not proof that there is a god. Not knowing how or why is not a justification for an unfounded majical answer. That large parts of humanity seek comfort in adhering to a belief that we are the product of gods work without any supporting evidence does not make God true. However many people engage in the delusion it's still delusion.
The voice in your head is yours, I'm sure pshycologists have a term for it. The surprising hubris here is that Sheridan seems to suggest that the voice in his head is God, that his inner self is connected to some omnipotent being responsible for planning all creation. Strangely I'm reminded of a decade of church schooling with the voice of my conscience coughing "bull ....".
@Tim Greg Sheridan could determine that he is a son of his parents by the simple expedient of a DNA test. He doesn't need faith as there is a logical scientific test process available to him to determine his genetic relationship with his parents. This is just another example of tautology practised by the adherents of so-called faith-based propositions.
By the end of the 19th century the "search for the historical Jesus" was leading many people into skeptical territory. How reliable are the Biblical accounts? Did the man even exist? Was the exemplary ethical teacher an invention of Kant and the enlightenment?
If people were skeptical then, today the situation is many times more challenging. What does Jesus mean to us today, when we can put him in an anthropological and historical context, alongside stories of thousands of other shamans and miracle workers, revered by their fellow tribesmen?
Is it simply an accident of history that this particular Jewish shaman ended up at the heart of the European civilization that conquered the globe? Or did the particularities of Christ's legacy contribute to this rise of the West from its tribal origins?
One thing is clear: Christ's origins as a Jewish teacher did not define what he became. His Jewish disciples gained from him a sense that they had a message that belonged to all people. He was, in today's jargon, the bearer of a 'disruptive' message.
The deeper question, and answer, that he embodied for many of his followers, concerns the question of life and death. We do not escape those questions. We remain mortal. Nor can we evade the answer. It was, from the beginning, focused on "Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles".
This was always viewed by the worldly wise as foolishness. The skeptics were there from the start. Those who arrogantly assume that they have discovered "hard headed realism" after two thousand years of "mushy brained superstition", are ignoring the fact that Christianity was, from the beginning, an appeal to a truth that transcends our easy logical and empirical forms of validation.
Christianity is a faith in the eternal presence of a loving God, despite all the evidence that would persuade us not to believe.
I get that. You have tossed reason out the window and let belief in through the door.
The gods are beyond reason and beyond rationality. The notion that one of the gods took some time out to father some kind of humanoid son is precisely where throwing reason out the window gets you.
@Patricia@Andrew Reason that does not know its limitations is not reason, it is pure hubris. Socrates was led by reason to a place of humility: he knew that there was much that he did not know. He would not betray the truth, and faced with death he had a place for faith in things unseen.
Another man of a similar persuasion also affirmed the limitations of reason. He argued that of the many gifts that we humans are born with, there are three that we should prize above all others: faith, hope and love. "But the greatest of these is love."
@Carole Greg doesnt mention Christianity, this is about the existence of God the creator and controller of everything, from the big bang to who wins the Melbourne cup.
I practice (Aquarian) spirituality . . Not religion. Spirituality is a discipline ( a practice or method ) which cultivates love. There is no reqirement for belief. If there are gods, then living a love filled life, would please them. Im simply content to help create heaven around me by being loving.
Next week is Halloween, or All Hallow's eve. Few realise at the day coincides with the sun entering the constellation of Libra. Libra is represented by the scales of justice. The year's departed were once thought to begin their journey to heaven on this day. Of course, they first faced judgement during the time the sun was in Libra.
The dead who sinned ( everyone ! ) then followed the sun into the constellation of Scorpio, whose sting, provided the punishment for the seven days that the sun passed through Scorpio.Here is the origin of purgatory.
Finally, ritully judged and cleansed, the sun then led the dead to the final destination : the 13th constellation - Orphiucus, which is located 'on' the Milky Way. Here is the Golden Gate of Heaven. The planet Saturn is usually found at this point, from which we get Satan - prince of the afterlife.
In celebration of the dead's annual pilgrimage to heaven , the ancient's celebrated Saturnalia in December, grateful to Satan for letting the dead entre heaven ( ( the Roman church replace Satan's role here, with St Peter and kis keys to heaven ).
Few appreciate the role of the heavenly bodies in forming our traditions and beliefs.Some th ing to share as hou hand out treats on All Hallow's eve !
@Michael Wow. Thank you Michael there is a lot there I was not aware of.
But you should have reminded folk that Satan and God hold regular discussions too.
In one of these, Satan said to God that things in Hell were improving dramatically since they had acquired a resident engineer who had installed flush toilets and air conditioning! God replied that there was no place for an engineer in Hell and he was to be sent up to heaven immediately. Old Nick told God no way, he was enjoying having a resident engineer.
God thundered "Send him up here or I will sue." and Satan replied:
@Michael . They say you have wasted a day if you haven't leaned something. So Michael, I have to thank you for saving my day, because despite wading though all the nonsense and all the reasoned argument in this thread, I have now learned someting - I did not know that Halloween marked the sun entering the constellation of Libra. I used to think it just vaguely marked the start of Winter.
There is a great English folk song, famously recorded by Fairport Convention, called "Tam Lin" and I think it' s thesis is that on the night of Halloween those who have spells cast on them have an opportunity to shake them off by passing various endurance tests. I have never been able to confirm this - do you know anything about this?
"...The dead who sinned (everyone!) then followed the sun into the constellation of Scorpio, whose sting, provided the punishment for the seven days that the sun passed through Scorpio..."
Just out of interest: is there a way to avoid this constellation?
I am quite surprised at this series of articles Paul Kelly and Greg Sheridan expressing their longing for a return to a more Christianity-focused version of Western society. Maybe it's an attempt by The Australian to provide some basis for a range of political positions against the cultural left and non-Christian religions. I am not sure. One thing I credit Sheridan for in this attempt is the certain knowledge that you cannot long for a return merely to the cultural and value elements of Christianity without the prospect that people would accept the details of its Catechism. To have a go at at persuading people of the credibility of the core beliefs of Christianity in this post-Christian world must have taken some courage. As for the specifics, I am afraid that the argument from majority opinion, the argument from first causes and the argument from the notion that people want to believe in God are all pretty weak. The idea that an omnipotent God would take responsibility only for the good and beautiful things in the universe is wishful. Perhaps the weakest element of the argument is the idea that God is needed to explain the 'why' of things, while science just deals with the how. This strikes me as a childlike demand that things always have to have a reason and that everything is for the good. It is just as likely that there is no reason at all in the natural universe, just a vast working out of chance and causes and effects. It works for me.
If god and religion wasn't taught until people were 20, it would cease it exist. Ultimately, everyone is an atheist of other people's religion and god, the smart ones have just taken it one god further. Giving up having imaginary friends means you've finally grown up, but hey whatever floats your boat. Believe what you want, just don't ask me to believe it too, something that religion has been forcing on children since time began. Forcing religion on children is akin to child abuse.
@Jim perhaps you should work on the suicide phone counselling lines, as i have , you will find that all atheists look to god for comfort in there last moments .
if you have been with children when they die they gain great comfort from God.
please try to open your heart to this need that all of us and you will have in your darkest hour . .
Although I generally think lying to children is wrong, if it would bring comfort for a child to pass on I would be happy to make an exception in that case...
Seriously? Why does he get a platform to spout this material? He has every right to his beliefs, but to avoid embarrassment he should stick to his foreign affairs analysis.
Agree. He's obviously smart and capable of critical thinking in foreign affairs. I find it hard to reconcile that with this extensive list of logical fallacies, misrepresentions, and lazy thinking comes from the same source.
If there was a universe creator, or a committee of them, and they wanted us to know they existed and provide us with rules for living they'd do better than the mess of contradictory supernatural claims we have that look completely man made.
My inner voice is telling me the earth is flat. I'm not sure how the sun works. Must be guided by a god.
@Clayton Private publishers have every right (and responsibility) to publish all varieties of opinion on THEIR platforms - not having that right amounts to censorship.
Well said Mr. Sheridan. To believe that this earth and all plant and animal life in it is a cosmic freak accident of an unguided, accidental process takes more faith to believe than that there is a designer and executer of that design...it is too perfectly balanced and complex to be accidental, it is intelligently designed by our Creator. Believing that it is accidental and random is not only improbable, it is impossible.
Keep it coming Mr. Sheridan...thank you for your bravery in speaking the truth.
@Fred I would have thought that anyone watching the Coalition's antics this week would have cured any reasonable person of an addiction to 'intelligent design'.
@Fred So many faults here Fred. But if humans were intelligently designed how come we have appendices? And what sort of apprentice designer would put the optic nerve where it is in the human eye? A human designer with those skills would not pass first year engineering or industrial design. Or do you think human engineers are smarter than their intelligent designer?
PS: If Man is made in God's image does God have an appendix, and a belly button? If not why not?
@Fred To believe in a bearded man in the sky floating around the clouds and a red skinned individual with a pitchfork and horns is, well, so ridiculous as to be comical.
Life is best defined as information that can organize its own copying. Shakespeares plays are alive but they require a complex substrate - intelligent people who speak English. You dear reader, are alive, but you also require a complex substrate, not just the solar system, perhaps not even the whole galaxy, but quite probably the entire universe, which is why the Creator has provided it for the person that is uniquely you.
God the Fathers first job was to copy Himself as God the Son; the force between Father and Son became the Holy Spirit. There is a faint reflection of this process in the hydrogen atom, which requires the presence of all three particles - proton, electron and photon to be hydrogen.
@Karl The belief that one individual has the right to display contempt to those who share an opposing view is hubristic bigotry of the highest order. Why do close-minded, incredulous atheists have conniptions whenever they hear a view that differs to their own. Atheists are really just a bunch of babies.
Patrick athiesim is not for the week. Think about it. A view of existance that argues there is no afterlife, no great plan, no purpose. A view of existance that says this, our life, our consciousness, all happens by chance. And then from the existential void look up and say wow. Not to run in aguish to the comfort of some god who loves you but to stand alone and accountable before the universe.
In the womb one builds ones body for the world. One does not remember what one has done in the womb, but if one gets it wrong, one either becomes a miscarriage or comes out deformed.
In the world one builds ones soul for eternity. One may not know what one is doing, but if one gets it wrong, then one may pay the penalty after biologic death.
@THOMAS A miscarriage or deformity is as a consequence of either a genetic defect in the foetus, or some biological fault or failure in the placenta and its interface with the uterus. This mindless mantra belongs somewhere in pre-Renaissance superstition and nonsense still peddled unfortunately by the Catholic Church. You are either delusional or seriously misinformed.
@Argus@THOMAS I know a little more about biologic life than most. By the Grace of God, I found the first gene in the human genome in my own laboratory.
First, accept the underlying principles expounded by Jesus and helpers but remove entirely any mention of a God. Does it all hold up fairly well? Some modernisation might he useful here and there, of course. The logical answer is a resounding yes.
Second, ban completely any religious instruction or learning for children below, say, 18 years. Then evaluate critical thinking amongst the group in a generation's time. This one may be more difficult to handle given the bombardments generated in everyday life. Even so, have a think. My own view is that there would be both good and bad outcomes,
Perhaps I might add a third question. Why is there so much reluctance to update bibles, korans, etc, to meet the demands of today? At best, it amounts to sheer bloodimindedness. At worst, it deadens critical thinking, creates donkey paths, and builds dissention, even murder.
All of which should put Greg's words into context, given his upbringing in in the Catholic church (which should have been stated, but was not)..
Incidentally, the answer to the BIg Bang point (and some others) about earth and the human race is straightforward. It was a fluke.
BruceT - an atheist who quite likes a lot of Christian values. Yes, I am happy to have my cake and eat it, too. Mainly because I have the choice.
@Bruce Bruce, my goodness, don't you understand that religious texts such as the Bible and the Koran are the "word of God", and are therefore inviolate. However never mind the manifest contradictions in these texts, it is merely the imperfect human incorrectly interpreting the will of God. That is why we have legions of religious scholars trying to reconcile the differences.
The ruminations of Bronze Age goatherds and their latter day Islamic followers with a similar narrow predisposition have a firm grip on the psyche of followers due to the brainwashing of children. For a similar example look at the followers of the "Dear Leader" in North Korea is an extreme example of collective brainwashing.
I find it amazing how unbelievers get so tied up in knots when faced by someone with the opposite view. Why does it upset you so much and why the derision? Surely someone else's faith shouldn't be so challenging to atheists....that it is, says more about your own spiritual life choices than it does about those made by the believers.
I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm not tied up in knots by the article.
Greg has listed the usual bunch of fallacious claims and bad arguments for a god.
Just pointing some of them out. Are we supposed to sit silently when we hold a different position.
Should we not contest ideas?
At most I'm surprised this is the best a smart commentator has to offer.
Some have faith in Allah. Others in shiva or astrology. That doesn't challange me. However we are free to point out the poor logic and unreasonable position of believing in unsubstantiated and often mutually contradictory faith based dogmas.
@Christine Because to sprout what quite obviously is not true is in direct conflict with science. Whether it be government funding for science or jailing scientists for working out the earth revolves around the sun and not the other way round. Remember the meaning of faith to the rational mind to it believe something there is no evidence for.
A very confused article, but it is a good insight into the irrationality of the conservative mind and its love of ideology. I believe therefore I'm right.
It would be so nice if you could at least try to explain such a bizarre proposition, but even better if you could do so without being illogical. Try it.
Refugees who drown near EU shores are likely to have jumped into the sea further away from the coast not to escape the traffickers' whip but to avoid being detained by the police. After all, authorities put arrest of "illegal maritime arrivals" over ensuring their safely, notwithstanding the flowery phrases in the few rare press releases. As here, calls for help may be ignored by non-Customs vessels - a point haters take care to avoid mentioning. As here, as with the Tampa, those who help refugees at sea may be accused of facilitating illegal immigration.
On cost alone, it is hard to see Australia's approach to asylum seekers working or being affordable in Europe. "Stopping the Boats" has attracted little criticism as regards its cost, but for Australia what is likely to be a short-term solution is proving extraordinarily expensive.
A 2014 report by The Guardian estimated that the Australian government may have spent as much as A$10 billion on its detention policies since mid-2007, with each person in offshore detention costing the government as much as $440,000. A similar model to block the 170,000 refugees and migrants who arrived in 2014 in Italy would cost $75 billion - while doing absolutely nothing to address the problem.
President Napolitano's then call for the EU to intensify military patrols near the coast of North Africa will, as now, simply force refugees to adopt even more dangerous routes to reach Europe. It won't work too well against the rubber boats - Zodiacs - that asylum-seekers are increasingly using.
But there, as here, the real priority of politicians is to keep asylum-seekers out of sight and out of mind. As here, those coming by air there (here, now a record) are much more fairly treated.
Refugee issues have exposed two other crises. One is NATO/European ruling clique non-management non-leadership, with no coherence, no competence, no predictability, no unity, and no urgency. Secondly, that a parasitic bankster/Imperialist NATO/EU ruling clique is through its looting of European society causing a general decline in wages and living standards that is not only causing extensive internal movements but also increasing Europe's social tensions. Mere presence of refugees - extra mouths - inevitably increases those tensions.
No solution to any one of these crises is possible without resolving the other two.