Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

Hamish, I've been meaning to avoid weighing in to philosophical arguments, especially surrounding the law, but here goes. Malcolm is a legal positivist. This is the belief that the law is something "posited", created or manufactured based on social norms and conventions, rather than derived from an innate sense of morality, as in the concept of "natural law".

I don't think law can be separated from morality. They are inter-dependent. Without morality, law has no purpose, except for brute social control. Yet our legal system aspires to something more than that - justice. It is true we all have different senses of morality but this is no reason to discount the moral basis of the law. Morality is a battle-ground and so is the law. We should aspire to a legal system based around morality, even if that means arguing over whose morality should be implemented.

Some laws are amoral, like road traffic. Most are not, though they may be contentious, like abortion.

A positivist will tell you need to know what the law is, instead of what it ought to be, but I believe every case is about what the law about to be. Rules may be just rules, but there can be just and unjust rules. Also, much of the work of the law involves undoing the damage that such "rules" create.

Malcolm's assertion that there is some difference between law and legislating in regards to morality is incomprehensible.

As for international law, it should soon be all the rage, if for no other reason that the laws of the world are in such a conflicting mess at the moment that they ought to be calibrated. The issue brought up by non-believers is always: how do you enforce it? Which is a tricky question: a country like Australia may sign up to the ICJ but Indonesia does not. You can't exercise jurisdiction unless the country has given its go ahead. Complying with the judgement is also a matter of good faith, or, if the world cared enough, of applying International diplomatic pressure on the infringing country. Rather than a "system" of law, International law is a movement, something that requires the positive effort of the peoples of the world.

May I address this thought to Phil Kendall, whose style I have always admired, especially for the way in which he makes us THINK.

And Hamish Alcorn, Malcolm Duncan, Trevor Kerr, Ian MacDougall and others, have really made this subject a matter of intelligent debate.

I am enthused by the passion in which these contributors present their views - I wish that the incumbent Government's Cabinet could wrestle with problems by exhibiting such enthusiasm.

The one disappointment I have is the perception that some are feeling the desire to disengage. I think that is sad and contrary to the spirit of Margo's “free speech Australia”.

I hope you people continue to contribute so that we can all consider your arguments put on the true bases of Health and Humanity.

Cheers.

Malcolm B Duncan : "I see no point in engaging with you."

Hamish Alcorn: "You're ... off my list of people I bother engaging with."

-=*=-

To each, his own, gentlemen.

Malcolm's problem (IMHO!) is that although he admits that one sheople killing another is murder (inside Australia, for instance), one sheople (in a flight-suit @ 10k metres high, say) killing another (an A-rab towel-head, say) is not murder when another sheople - this time from some 'ruling elite', aka the murderously thieving US or it's equally murderously thieving illegitimate sprog Israel, or perhaps UK or (our shame!) Australia - orders it. (BTW, it's the 'ruling elites' that do the murderous thieving, we just lurve all the innocent sheople, everywhere.)

(Admittedly, as Malcolm has explained, we have different jurisdictions, but really daaarlings, murder is murder anywhere it happens (yes?); if the 'ruling elite' wanna give themselves 'special dispensations,' just why should be let 'em? Especially when it comes to those wicked elites mass-murdering for spoil. Let 'em hang, I say.)

Malcolm's situation is not 'just' laughable, he's made himself a laughing-stock.

Hamish's problem (IMHO!) is that he wrote (as WD Editor!) "you have a race-based theory of domination" which was neither supported by what I wrote (the facts), nor in any other way fair. In actual fact, it exposed (just one of?) Hamish's own prejudice(s). Then he has the hide to call me a 'propagandist'!

Hamish's situation is not 'just' laughable, he's made himself a laughing-stock too.

Now both 'chuck a wettie' and refuse to 'engage'. Quite OK with me, gentlemen; nothing lost. See y's 'round (like an arrrr - Ooops! A rissole).

Hamish, just what sort'a thoughts are you processing? I refer to your extraordinary 'Effective politics or identity politics?' spit.

a) On, "with us, or agin' us."

Hamish: "George Bush's line. It's bullshit". Please explain - the two are not necessarily connected, the one does not necessarily imply the other (aka the 'post hoc' fallacy, a trap for young naïfs); and in any case, one may choose to use "with us, or agin' us" for its own intrinsic worth. As I did. (Without my attributing it to Bush? Ooops! Didn't know it was exclusively his. Sorry, but not very sorry. Not sorry at all, really. Rank (faked) hypocrisy cloaked in vitriolic - if amateurish - black humour. But better than any (un-)normal "shtick" (spit, spit!))

b) Hamish: "You are not thinking like democrats." What? Prey-tell®, how should 'democrats' think, and (I said it before) what makes you think we have a democracy anyway? Just because up till now we've been allowed to say pretty-much what we want to, it doesn't mean that the wallopers aren't just waiting in the wings (sedition!) - and rubbing their hands in anticipatory glee, no doubt.

c) Hamish: "but like factional power brokers." What? What 'faction,' please? What bloody gibberish! Get this once and f'rever: I speak only for myself. Power? What power? Power corrupts, don'cha know? Avoid it like the plague, 'specially "absolute power."

d) Hamish: "If you are trying to effectually engage." What? From 'Bringing up Baby': "Nobody listens." What makes you think, Hamish, that I'm trying to 'reach out and touch' someone? What I'm doing 'in here' is outlining my thoughts on the absolute and utter immorality - as completely divorced, that is, from the (obvious!) illegality, say; but 'illegality' is only 'formally' available (i.e. by arbitrary 'definition') from MBD or his ilk - and then only 'at their leisure', the absolute and utter immorality of the murderous thefts underway by the US with 'side-kick' Israel, 2nd-poodle UK and arse-licker Aus. Heard about it/them? Gruesome mass-murder for spoil, anyone? 60+ years long?

e) Hamish: "marginalising the moderates." 'Scuse, pliz? What eff-ing moderates? I speak only of a) the criminal ruling elite and b) the powerless rest, aka we the sheople. Also, of those prepared to actively oppose war vs. all the rest - the do-nothings, the appeasers, the apologists and the outright criminals. Again, what moderates? And then, as if anyone had a votable choice? Don't make me larf®.

f) Hamish: "if the motive is to maintain your righteous identity." The mind boggles. I mean really, daaarlings. What are you on about, Hamish? (Suggestion: philosophically off with the faeries.)

I had a friend once, an American actually, but sadly now prematurely dead (liver cancer; may or may not have had anything to do with his work in tobacco-factories). He liked to say "Don't bullshit your friends," not because he thought for the smallest part of a pico-nano-sec that I was bullshitting (Oh, no!); more as an abstract indication (in a near-by beer-garden) of what a 'friend' relationship might entail. I take the liberty to extend his "Mahnung" to "Don't bullshit your WD contacts, from whatever side." BS is quickly exposed 'in here', Hamish.

Gotta hand it to Bob 'Quid Est Veritas' Carr, in Abbott imposing 'theological conceit':

FEDERAL Health Minister Tony Abbott is imposing his "tortured theological conceit" in the debate about expanding stem cell research, former NSW premier Bob Carr said.

Now, watch the Shanahans and Pearsons run away from Researchers claim 'ethical' stem cell breakthrough:

The scientists used a method already employed in fertility treatments to remove one cell from a human embryo without harming it. Then they grew stem cells from that single cell.

In other words, the remaining cells in the small clump do not miss the one that has been removed, while the single cell is pluripotential. That is, any one of the 8 or 10 cells may be capable of developing into a complete embryo. The article claims that the 8 cell stage is beyond twinning itself, but ... has the experiment been done to look at what happens to a single (removed) cell? Up to now, such a cell has been removed for one (official) purpose, to chomp it up for genetic analysis to aid those couples who have good reason to avoid a nasty genetic affliction in their progeny. Follow the dots ... to China, Korea, or ... Brazil.

Now, if Pere Abbott espouses this new finding, I expect a line of gobbledegook that's no less tortured than the arguments for transubstantiation.

G'day Malcolm, since it took you 97 days to respond (however poorly), and certainly not to properly answer for your "Might is right" phurphy®, I hope we don't have to hold our collective breath waiting for you this time:

a) If murder ain't murder unless some 'authority' (adjudicator) says so,

b) if politicians lie (and we know that they do, as does the corrupt MSM) and,

c) if we have no valid choice (you know it: Lib/Lab pug-ugly twins), and whomsoever we choose will dud us (ie. fail to represent our, ie. we the sheople's interests in any case),

then: it means that our democracy is completely f**ked, so exactly what covenant binds us to any law? Specifically:

a) means that any law may be toadally® arbitrary,

b) means politicians are completely untrustworthy and,

c) means that (following GW Bush & Co's "with us or agin' us" logic) all law based on (a) and (b) is more likely than not to be utterly disadvantageous to us, we the sheople - if not your actual ass.

-=*=-

In a word, why don't we all just 'move on' to some sort'a perfect anarchy?

F.—I.W. (‘Freedom - I won’t!’)

Well, Bai Ren, by 'separation' I mean - whatever happened to the plan of a previous Governor-General to build a private prayer shrine at Yarralumla? (see Bills Digest No. 165  2000-01Governor-General Legislation Amendment Bill 2001, footnote 16). A wiser PM would have taken him aside, and said "Listen here, old chap. On your own property, with your own money and in your own time."

In the US, the fundamentalists didn't get integrated with the ruling party by overnight coup, it took years of incremental changes. They have drifted far from the ideals of Abraham Davenport:

... “The 19th of May, 1780, was a remarkably dark day. Candles were lighted in many houses; the birds were silent and disappeared; and the fowls retired to roost. The legislature of Connecticut was then in session at Hartford. A very general opinion prevailed that the Day of Judgment was at hand. The House of Representatives, being unable to transact their business, adjourned. A proposal to adjourn the Council [Senate or Upper House] was under consideration. When the opinion of Col. Davenport was asked, he answered, ‘I am against an adjournment. The Day of Judgment is either approaching, or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause for an adjournment; if it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. I wish therefore that candles may be brought.” ...

As for Whitlam caving in to the cardinals, to divert funding away from public schools, look at the mess now.

Belligerent atheists are obnoxious, too. I wish old commies would cease giving secular humanism a bad name - it's all we've got.

I do not recall the details of the candidates’ consciences being laid out for all in our electorate to peruse at the last federal election. The convention is for politicians to align with a party and its policy platform, so voters can know what each candidate on the ballot paper stands for. Conscience is treated as personal and private. But in future I will ask by email, and suggest that readers of this do likewise.

My federal ‘representative’ is John Anderson, former Deputy Prime Minister. I have never been given any clue as to how he might vote on embryonic stem cell cloning, but I consider it to be so important that I would quite happily direct my vote according to where he stood on this issue alone.

To date on TV I have seen Ron Boswell giving vent to his mental confusion on what the science is about, and Tony Abbott telling what he thinks motivates the scientists involved. Scientists putting human genes into animal cells in the first instance, and promoting their own careers in the second. Ignorance and prejudice are words far too mild.

According to the ABS Population Clock, we have 20.6 million people in Australia, who are ‘represented’ federally by 150 MHRs and 76 senators. These 226  ‘representatives’ include a fair selection of rorters, narcissists, lurk merchants, power seekers and control freaks, as well as a number of honest and sincere men and women. Each of the 20.6 million (including the politicians and their children) has a certain probability of contracting a degenerative disease like Parkinson’s, Alzheimers, motor neurone disease, muscular dystrophy, multiple sclerosis… the list goes on. Embryonic stem cell research could potentially alleviate or cure a wide array of conditions, and in my view is our best hope. As it is about culturing new cells to replace lost ones, the potential is vast. It is hard to think of any disease which might not be within its scope and reach in some way.

If any should be in doubt that representative government has glaring deficiencies and limitations, this issue should settle it forever. I cannot think of a single decision that has greater potential impact on so many, and yet it is going to be made by the likes of Abbott, whose flimsy and delicate grasp of the science involved is in marked contrast to the grip Catholic theology in turn has on his brain. And ignoramuses like Boswell.

God help us.

Rather than let these clowns make such an important decision, the whole matter should be put to the people in a non-compulsory referendum. Murray Bookchin was right on that.

It is a pity that separation of church and state is not taken more seriously.

We already have separation of Church and State in Australia. The state does not exercise state power in relation to religion.

There is no Established Church: there are no religious tests.

Think of  England in the 17th century when only communicating members of the Church of England could be members of parliament, or go to university, or have a commission in the armed forces.

In Ireland, at that time, only members of the [protestant] Church of Ireland as by law Established had any civil rights at all.

Then there is modern Lebanon. The President must be a Maronite Christian, the Prime Minister must be a Sunni Muslim, and the Speaker must be a Shi'a Muslim.

Or, do you mean by "separation" that politicians must be atheists?

Malcolm B Duncan:

Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull are Roman Catholics, therefore ...

Yair, but, some of the breed are self-assuredly "devout" for the cameras, kiss the ring and pose outside the confessional.

Then there are those who decline to advertise their allegiance, on the grounds that it is their own business.

It is a pity that separation of church and state is not taken more seriously. Legislators may consult their own freckles, for all I care, but when they make up their minds according to rules that do not apply to us all, they can't blame citizens, like Jack Thomas or David Hicks, for doing likewise.

It's all terribly simple really. Roman Catholics bear allegience to a foreign power. The Holy See is a political entity with which we have diplomatic relations and an ambassador (unlike the Court of St James where we merely have an High Commissioner).

 Ergo, Roman Catholics are traitors.

Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull are Roman Catholics, therefore ...