"Cultural law is primarily concerned with personal morality. It is this category of law which, as a rule, is the subject of “law and order” agendas." - Ellen Goodman

Daniel06,

You are spot on - a Nanny State; and determined by the dullest and dreariest in our society.

In age, I am closer to seven decades than six, and I have no doubt that whenever I step out in public, I am unwittingly breaking some law or another - somehow. The last time resulted in a police car circling the carpark of a shopping centre and stopping alongside me. I was about to take a two-inch twig from a large, spindly and overgrown geranium bush. The driver enquired: "Can I help you, Madam?"... and he wasn't offering to get a better twig from the top ... the subtext was obvious. Resisting the sudden urge to be part of a police drama, lying flat on the ground with my hands behind my head, I managed to gracefully extricate myself from the situation.

However, now, I am indeed criminally disposed. I am determined to get that twig whatever it takes ... and I might even take two.

On a more serious note, we certainly don't need a Nanny state; especially when it imposes "morals" from one group on another - such as in same sex unions.

I remember the fifties/sixties with no affection whatsoever. The hysteria of "reds under the beds", the six o'clock swill, the prejudice towards anyone/thing different, when teenagers were non-persons until the 21st birthday, when women died in backyard abortions, when domestic violence was acceptable in certain quarters, the "respectability" and self-righteous judgement ... even the expected dress code for visiting the city - frock, hat and gloves (which I refused to wear)

I recall standing in a bus in the final stages of pregnancy. I was married and 24, but looked 16. Two seated matrons, directing their comments at me, loudly voiced their disapproval about girls who “got themselves into trouble”. That was the sixties.

Any law that imposes on or conflicts with the cultural and moral norms of a society is repressive. If laws in that area that the Feds have passed transgress our morality, and the ALP run with more acceptable policies, then they deserve the job of giving us all more acceptable laws. But if JH wins again will his detractors accept that his laws do represent community standards?

State Labor in NSW at least has been just as happy to play the Laura Norder card as the Libs, and better at it too.

I take Boaz' point about how the otherwise excellent article morphed into an anti Howard polemic.

bushbred,

In a previous post you wrote:

"I could suggest that you do a course in political science which will tell you that true justice in a true democracy should not be left in the hands of ordinary elected leaders"

Of course it should not; it should be left in the hands of bushbred!

I would give thanks to bushbred for being bold enough to demonstrate his disdain for democracy.

I must also say that yet again I agree completely with BOAZ_David; the sycophants of the left go on about how terrible we were to applaud the action of the Howard government over Tampa; yet Tampa is the message of our times, which is that when the population of the third world doubles over the next 25 years only a very small proportion (which we select) will be allowed to settle here, and that the third world countries must choke on the rest.

This is the ancient principle of territoriality, which antedates humans, being very obvious in the animal kingdom. Fortunately, our near neighbours in Asia understand this principle completely, and so when we are required to enforce it by using our navy to sink boats full of illegal immigrants (which I forsee within 20 years), they will not raise any objections.

The only thing that most of the world knows about John Howard (and for which he is greatly admired) is Tampa.

Why does the left think we can save humanity? If 80 million illegals settled here, destroying the environment, creating huge stinking slums such as we see in south asia, all we would have achieved would be to delay the inevitable by 12 months, for that is the current level of world population increase.

When all is said and done, the two most important facts in the next 25 years is that the third world will double its population, and that we are going to run out of cheap energy. This means the third world will never be developed, and that life is going to get very rough and tough for everyone. Very little is said about either.

"The only thing that most of the world knows about John Howard >>>>(and for which he is greatly admired)<<<< is Tampa." (Quote:plerdsus)

I think you should check your facts. Australia copped a fair bit of flack because of Howard's actions.

Perhaps you haven't quite grasped the full implications of your position, plerdsus.

>>...the message of our times... is that when the population of the third world doubles over the next 25 years only a very small proportion (which we select) will be allowed to settle here, and that the third world countries must choke on the rest<<

This may be the message that you would like to get across to "third world countries", plerdsus, but it is becoming an increasingly hazardous attitude.

Throughout history, Empires have come and gone. What is strong one day can be weak the next. No-one is immune.

Many earlier Empires were simply a matter of military conquest. You have stuff that we want; we're bigger than you; we'll simply take what we want, thank you very much.

This morphed into trade-driven empires, where there was at least a notional amount of quid pro quo, even if the exchange was usually heavily in favour of the Empire manager (Britain, Spain, Portugal - even the Belgians and the Dutch got into the act) it was still predominantly non-aggressive.

Post-war empires have tended to be heavily US-centric, which means that it is the sort of Empire you have when you don't have an Empire. It's a crude mix of the previous two: predominantly economic, but with military backing. My global business is threatened? Send in the military.

How does this affect us?

The two Empires that created and nurtured us - Britain and the US - are waning powers. There is little doubt that the rest of this century will be dominated by the economic and political impact of countries other than these two. This means that our behaviour as a country will be measured not by our traditional friends, but by countries that do not necessarily have our best interests at heart.

I'm not suggesting that we roll over and beg. Just that we use a little more diplomacy in the way we manage our affairs in the global arena, and don't simply continue our practice of spitting in the face of everyone who disagrees with us.

Pericles,

I fully recognise the import of my last post. That is why I believe we should consider arming ourselves with nuclear weapons.

That said, I don't think the position is so parlous that we should consider surrender to the third world. We are very fortunate in having a sea boundary, which means that if chaos and starvation rule much of the world, (which I fervently hope I never see come to pass), there would not be many who could afford an ocean-going vessel to come here. Remember that these vessels can only be used once to bring in illegal immigrants, and they are not cheap. As I said before our near neighbours are not interested in waves of unwanted immigrants either (remember the fate of the vietnamese in Hong Kong) so I don't think they would oppose actions by us to maintain out territorial integrity. The places most likely to be overwhelmed are Europe and the US, which only has a river between it and South America.

There have been other times when the world has faced seemingly insurmountable challenges, and has managed to survive. The action I think we should take here would be for our foreign aid to be devoted to educating third world women, since the number of children they have is inversely proportional to their education.

The main problem is that most third world countries equate population control with genocide, so the outlook is not bright.