Kellie Tranter

How can anyone say “civil and political rights” and not explain what these words symbolize?

Are rights palpable, visible objects? No. They are only presumptions; the presumption of dishonored credits.

Imagine going to a bank and asking a credit to buy a house, would the manager oblige if you said that you are a good girl and will repay the loan?

Wouldn’t the manager be so insane as to hand you the money on just such pledge?

Yet, you loaned your vote to someone who gave you no other assurance than an empty pledge.

That vote might just be money to the one who gets it but, to you, it could be a ‘make-up rearranged by a baton’.

Incredible is the numbers that the clamor “civil and political rights” blinds to the reality that the Apostles of this credo side with the baton-swingers never face them.

Nobody's right to freedom of expression or assembly is under threat. All that's under threat is their supposed 'right' to squat on public land - which isn't actually a right at all. The Occupiers didn't attract the response they did because they were protesting, but because of the way they went about it - so they really have no reason to be whingeing.

I don't think it's too much to ask that demonstrators pack up and go home at the end of the day - if they feel they've had insufficient time to get their point across, they can always come back the next day and protest some more. But you can't just go pitching a tent and setting up camp wherever you feel like it - that's not reasonable behaviour by most people's standards.

There is a question that this article has raised that nobody has caught onto: if we live in a country where the right to free speech and the right to peaceful assembly is not guaranteed by the Commonwealth then the question begs what action should we as the population take to guarantee that that such rights are guaranteed to citizens going forward into the future?

There are some rights such as these which are very basic in nature and should be insisted upon. Without these rights enshrined in law we don't have a functioning democracy. We have the institutions in which a democracy needs in order to function but without the empowerment of the individuals that make it function as such.

Instead we have an "easter egg democracy". All the appearances of a democracy with all the sweet rhetoric that that entails but when you penetrate that surface there is nothing there.

theoriginalmatty - you have these rights now, right up until someone deems you have offended them or someone else, then the law, defending their written rights .. not what's reasonable, a written act defines this now steps in to determine how you should be dealt with for offending someone - they don't have to prove offense, you have to prove you did not.

This is now guaranteed .. it has happened to people recently, some christian church folks, quoted from the koran, and promptly got put in their place, because it was deemed offensive to other people.

These are the kind of Laws that the author wants for everything so that everything ends up in court being weighed by self important pompous blow hards, much as she apparently aspires to.

Peaceful assembly is one thing,but to gather with the express purpose to disrupt public places and deny their use to others, is not peaceful assembly. It was clear that a lot of the occupiers were there to provoke attention any way they could.

like Oakland where the occupiers went ona rampage, why should we wait for it to happen, like the G20 event and others .. when we have crowds who look like they are looking for trouble .. give it to them in spades.

I would prefer the sanctity of public places be guaranteed for all, not just a bunch of spoilt brats looking for attention and trouble.

Call it any way you like, but the perception is they wanted trouble .. when they got it,t hey squealed .. unlike in Christine Nixon's day, when the police stood by and took it, now they do what we, the public want and stop these people from disrupting OUR peace!

Amicus thank you for your comment. However on the point of the Occupy Oakland protesters I have to correct you.

They were not the ones that went on the rampage. It was in fact the Oakland Police Department under the instructions of Oakland's major Jean Quan.

I watched this live on webcam from two locations; one within the Occupy protest itself and one outside looking in towards the protest. I saw the police there fire tear gas and rubber bullets at those protesters.

I also saw the body of Scott Olsen being dragged away from the scene after he was hit in the head with a rubber bullet. He is still in critical condition in hospital as I write this and may not fully recover. You may wonder why the Police fired the rubber bullets. It was because they inadvertently gassed themselves and feared that the gas was coming from the protesters.

The follow up to that incident was a general strike in Oakland; the first in the United States in over 65 years. The overwhelming majority of businesses in the city shut down for the day in support of the protesters. There is no way that a general strike could have been pulled off it were indeed the protesters responsible for the trouble in Oakland.

They shut down Oakland because of this kind of behavior .. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZqYM_fNsndA

No one needs their city trashed by thugs and idiots .. the police went in because of this sort of attack on peaceful business and people.

Have a look at all the videos posted of these violent "protestors", and looters ..

I'd DEMAND the police take them out, clearly asking nicely is not going to work is it?

Wanting to change the world does not mean you can get away with wanton senseless violence and destruction, I hope they lock them all up, like they did in London, and we should do here.