Thanks for your generous words Leigh. You are right,Evans isn't a thoughtful person. But I didn't want to be too hard to him. Imagine a thoughtless man 'managing crises'as head of the "Crisis Group"!

Thank you for your gentle and kind 'sting' Gadfly.And especially for your suggestion that readers/contributors "wade through" my article, and 'for the benefit of Australia', if more people were to read it. But I'm afraid I cannot write it in other words. As picking words from any language is a matter of temperament and taste,and I'm too old to change either.
Warm regards Con.

Thank you for your barb Sneekeepete-in your last para.-which however missed its mark, as it's obvious that you didn't understand my argument. What words one uses from any language is a matter of style and taste. I wouldn't pick on someone who used small words in the composition of his argument as long as his argument was not 'small'.
It's the substance that counts, not the French or Italian dressing that is 'sprinkled' upon it. The latter is a matter of taste.
I notice however that you are not totally averse to "big" words, as for a 'sneaky' nickname you use rather a big word.
Co

Well all the verbosity and the pontification... where are the premises on which one can convincingly argue that the new legislation is likely to to do more good than harm? Is there one?

Try this as an equally founded argument... anti-terrorism laws are to provide an arm by which the state can scare less preferred citizens, both by birth and by certification, into departing our shores. This is regardless of whether they have a tendency of oblierating themselves or not.

Carl Schmitt, of course, used the arguments put forward by Con George-Kotzabasis to justity his support of Hitler -- for example, in the German Law Journal of 1 August, 1943 when he supported the murders of Rohm and others as "the justice of the Fuhrur".

Oops, sorry. Not 1943, but 1934!

Con should read "In the Name of the Volk" by H.W. Koch to learn some history. Koch wrote about the Nazi’s “use of legal, even constitutional, means to thwart, imperceptibly at first, the course of justice” and the way in which “an important portion of the courts became a virtual arm of the state and its instrument in terror”.

However, Hitler only came to power in 1933. The erosion of the independence of the judiciary and the march to a police state began over a decade before. Koch wrote that “the roots” of the National Socialist People’s Court (VGH) “lay in the Weimar Republic, when the judiciary had become politicized and the precedent for depriving an accused of his or her legal rights had been established”.

“In 1922, the Reichstag passed the Law for the Protection of the
Republic with a two-thirds majority. It’s justification was the wave of terrorism sweeping the country.” “The law politicized penal laws to an unprecedented degree.” “For the first time in German legal history, the judiciary was authorized to depart from the principle of nulla poena sine lege (‘no punishment without law’).”

Over a decade later, the Nazi Party “would be quick to capitalize on this precedent in passing its emergency legislation of 1933” which followed the burning of the Reichstag. The continued fear of terrorism (“Communist terrorism”, in Goering’s words), meant that “the Enabling Act (the legal basis of the Nazi police state) was passed by secret ballot by the last democratically elected Reichstag; with the exception of the Social Democrats, all Reichstag representatives voted for it.”

Koch wrote that "in Germany after 1933 law became preventive. It often struck before it had been broken."

"What words one uses from any language is a matter of style and taste"

That's true. Unfortunately - the words and language that others choose to read is also a matter of style and taste. Their style. Their taste.

You can't make money as a cook unless a wide range of people enjoy your style. Similarly... I'd suggest that you won't sell many copies of your book unless your writing is to the taste of consumers.

Now... consider the case where you are attempting to reach somebody who does not initially share your point of view. Unless you are very nice to them, they will change channel at the earliest opportunity.

For myself, I'd have spent more time on your article but I simply couldn't be bothered - and it made little sense. I wanted to give you a chance and examine all the detail behind your points, but you have to come half-way and make it an efficient and/or pleasurable read.

Jeff, you have made a mountain out of a molehill! Out of the two sentences that I wrote about Schmitt, you have extrapolated too much, which intellectually illicitly, and indeed, basely, attempted to inject into my argument. I used Schmitt as an intellectual 'treasure chest', as one writing a paper on philosophy would avail the wisdom of Heidegger, another supporter of Hitler.
Also, "Oops", your history is wrong. When Schmitt wrote his theory of "states of exception", he was trying to save the Weimar Republic, from the full-fledged Communists and the nascent National Socialists, not to support Hitler at that time. I used his "state of exception" to make a point,that in such 'states' the legal order was inadequate to protect people from fanatic terrorism. It was for the same reason that I used Loewenstein, an outstanding Liberal, not a supporter of Hitler. As a left-leaning aficionado you cannot make the distinction between the everlasting intellectual value of a thinker and his ephemeral politics.
Your argument has a cryptic, and indeed, a portentous subtext. Why your long discourse about the events in Germany? Are you seriously try to imply that the Howard anti-terror laws have some relationship with those passed in Germany and therefore could open the doors to a police state? And it's obvious this what you are trying to do. You say "Koch wrote that'in Germany... law became PREVENTIVE. It often struck before it had been BROKEN'.(My emphasis)This is impeccable farce! Jeff, would you wait until it had been "broken" by a nuclear device before you "struck"?

KOTZABASIS