Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

So, Bill Avent when someone surpasses you at pedantry, it's really "microscopic nit-pickery". That's most amusing.

Care for a spade down there, or would a ladder be handier?

"You have my number. "

 Malcolm, I sincerely hope you are not wishing me ill to your own advantage but yes, I'll bare you in mind.

Richard: Scott, I've decided to press on and publish in spite of the possibly Freudian aspects of your wordchoice.  The concept of a naked Mr Duncan is too much for moi to consider.  Also, I can't contemplate this bear of considerable brain wishing anything but the best for anyone.

Paying a dickhead employee compensation is not the same thing as being responsible for his crimes, is it?  If he went out and committed a crime whilst working for you, you cannot be held responsible for his crime. That is the crux of the matter.

I have already said that a church official who moves a pedophile priest to another place where he commits further offences is guilty of something. Aiding and abetting, misprision of a felony, whatever.  Let the lawyers sort that one out.  But said official is guilty of his own offence; not vicariously guilty of the offence perpetrated by the pedophile.

As for mantras, and beside the point, do you subscribe to the atheist mantra that everything came from nothing?  I find that one pretty hard to swallow. Such a thing would only make sense if seen as an act of some God or other.

Malcolm B. Duncan, is there anything you don't imagine you know more about than anyone else?  Literature, history, psychology, and now medicine. You come across as a legend in your own mind.  You can fool some of the people, laddie…

What does the difference between common law states and statute law states have to do with anything? If you can support what you have been saying, why do you need to resort so much to obfuscation?  I wonder, do judges before whom you argue have to continuously order you to get back to the point?  I repeat, yet again, when and under what circumstances was any transport company prosecuted in a criminal court for a crime carried out by one of its employees?

Scott: "Planet Sane? What galaxy is that in?"

A galaxy far, far away...

Malcolm B Duncan: "Try the Crimes Act."

Where in the Crimes Act is there demonstrated some instance of "Vicarious liability for criminal acts..."?

It's incredible that anyone could imagine such a thing.

Michael Park: "It is all about responsibility. A bishop, Education dept official or other who moves a paedophile priest or teacher on to greener pastures - knowing that he has molested and sexually abused victims - is as guilty as the individual so moved."

Malcolm B Duncan: "Vicarious liability for criminal acts is a concept that has long been known to the law."

Criminal liability? Really?

I'm familiar with the concept that a 'Tort of the servant is a tort of the master', but Torts law creates, and provides remedies for, civil wrongs that do not arise out of contractual duties but arise from 'negligence'.

But that's nothing to do with the criminal code.

Could someone here, perhaps Mr Duncan, appraise us of any reference in law principle that one can be  vicariously liabile for criminal acts"?

You know? Like, you join the Taliban? Go to Afghanistan with them? And then they give assistance to Osama bin Laden? And then later you end up in Gitmo?

Would you be personally subject to this radical new concept "Vicarious liability for criminal acts" as outlined by my learned  colleague Mr Duncan?

Can you show us where that principle is enshrined in precedent or statute? I'm amazed.

Angela Ryan: "And why the Roman Catholic Church has not been held criminally responsible for exactly that action with their paedophile priests is what I what to know!"

You see? In Angela's mind, the Catholic Church is "criminally responsible" for the conduct of its members.

Criminally responsible!

An absurd claim the likes of which would never be made against any other organisation.

In effect, she alleges a global conspiracy by the hierarchy and membership of the Catholic Church to further organised pederasty, or conceal it.

As far as I am aware, no legal authority or investigative body of any repute has ever made such a wild allegation.

Yet Angela makes such a claim as if it were a commonplace.

And a little vignette from the recent past, about 2003, is this interview about Bayer Rat of the Week, for – hard to believe – allegedly, after the US government forced it to withdraw HIV contaminated Factor V111 (a treatment for haemophiliacs, usually children), then selling the known contaminated therapy to France, Spain and Japan, perhaps even with the full knowledge of US departments involved in its export. Apparently the French officials involved have been prosecuted and gaoled but the Bayer executives? In the US??

Ah, "they hate us because of who we are ", not because of what we do.

Manipulating anti HIV programs in Africa, selling serum known to be HIV contaminated, testing drugs in Africa not allowed to be used in USA (Constant Gardner), changing regimes to suit their big business mates' needs( Perkins’ Confessions of an Economic Hitman,)......and how easy the Churches allow themselves to jog along.

Where is the overturning of the money tables and flogging of the bastards eh?

No, not if the banking bonanza brings such profits as Ambrosia did, and if infecting larger numbers means that African nations are held to ransom for the HIV drugs that keep their working age people on their feet. Greater profits for all, and always the chance to pull the plug on those nations refusing the pillaging of their minerals, like Zimbabwe. There are always so many dimensions to international actions, and how frequently we only get the simplified five minute commercial break version.

Cheers

Richard: "Can't see why, though, you don't consider it appropriate for the Pope to have apologised for the mistreatment of members of his (and his predecessors') congregation by his ministers."

Because he didn't do it, and rape and sexual molestation are neither intrinsically nor necessarily Catholic predispositions.

Take the couple whose daughters suffered so dreadfully at the hands of the Melbourne priest. Who could possibly think such a thing wasn't terrible, and the Pope himself has said as much over and over and over.

And the fact remains, the priest was charged under the law, and dealt with in the courts.

I know that will never compensate the family for what happened to the two girls, but nothing ever will.

Either way, it's a matter for legal authorities here in Australia. Not the Pope in Rome (it sounds so bizarre, almost ludicrous when you say it that way).

If the local postman break into a house and raped two girls, that would be a dreadful thing. But should future Postmasters General be compelled to personally apologise for it?

It's a bizarre standard to apply to Catholics and one which seems to be imposed on them exclusively.

Should the Minister for Education - and future Ministers for Education - apologise if a teacher molests a student? Maybe someone in Parliament now 'apologising' for the conduct of a teacher in another state, under another Minister, but in the same political party? Just as logical - or illogical.

Or should the courts deal with it?

These are separate considerations from notions of duty of care, and the Church should exercise all due care for those going through its processes. Just like any other large organisation. The Australian Netball Association, for example, which is the largest women's organisation in Australia.

But if a girl gets hit on by her netball coach, should the head of the world netball association or whatever, be held accountable and be made to apologise?

Or should we just call the police?

If you could show that Pell or whatever thwarted a police inquiry, was negligent or whatever, then that's a matter for the civil authorities, and it could be also a basis for people forming a personal judgment about Pell, the Sydney archdiocese, or even the Church as a whole.

But compel the Pope to apologise for things that didn't even happen on his watch? Ten thousand miles away? By someone he never met? And who went to gaol for it anyway?

It's another aspect of the pedophile hysteria sweeping this nation. And now bordering on collective slander. Again.

Bill Avent said:

"The man found dead in gaol was not a pilgrim, but a tourist who had an altercation with a pilgrim."

Very good point, Bill. In that case, the Pope should apologise for it.

Richard:  Ok Eliot, you've made your point.  Can't see why, though, you don't consider it appropriate for the Pope to have apologised for the mistreatment of members of his (and his predecessors') congregation by his ministers.