Invariably the do-gooders do more harm than good, be it the stolen generation; or, religious organisations and their "missions"?
Offshore processing and regional cooperation resulted in the orderly mass migration of around a million Vietnamese; 100,000 approximately, of who were resettled in Australia! Before that many more still unaccounted for; may have died on the high seas at the hands of pirates, unseaworthy vessels; and or, the whim and caprice of the elements and inexperienced seamen?
However, that's where any real agreement ends.
Rather than less rights, which have been progressively eroded, particularly by the critiqued Labour, we stand almost alone in the club of liberal democracies, without a bill of irrevocable rights; none of which need to be suspended; to upgrade our internal security; or deal with ethnic issues at home!
The referred to disgraceful keystone kop; DR. Haneef saga, sad testament to that, when more reasonable rights, would have compelled much more covert intell gathering and monitoring; and indeed, compelling evidence and a judges signature, before this kind, compassionate, gentle human being, practising palliative care, could have been summarily detained incommunicado?
The end result, with a irrevocable bill of rights; if the good Dr. had actually posed any real risk, would have been much more covert surveillance and far more accurate intell gathering; far and away, the most effective weapon at our disposal, in combating terrorism without borders! Rhrosty.

Thank-you Mirko! That is all ...

Nice to be able to agree completely.

Would the author include the abolishment of slavery as an example of civil libertarians adding to human misery.

This is a thinly veiled attack using broad generalisations that civil libertarianism is a marker for Left ideology. In fact libertarianism is strongly represented in a number of 'isms' and different political stances including the Right.

Governments have always had to make decisions about the ‘greater good’. The difficulty has always been how it is best achieved with little interference as possible to individual freedoms and liberty.

Do we champion China’s approach or the other extreme, an anarchic lawless society? There has to be a balance between laws and freedoms which seek to protect the innocent.

This is why the burden of proof lies with the accuser. Otherwise we may as well go back to witch burnings when neighbours with a personal slight felt moved to make false accusations without so much as a fair trial. The only proof of innocence was the act of drowning.

Cont/...

Cont/...

As A C Grayling wrote ‘Part of the misnamed War on Terror has to involve making the world a fairer place, where everyone gets a hearing, and where injustices have a genuine chance of being remedied. Without this peace is unlikely.’

This would be a greater weapon against terrorism than laws which allow being held for periods of time without charge or where privacy is constantly infringed by a new surveillance culture promulgated in the name of terrorism.

Of course some inconvenience in extreme times such as during war is expected but in peace time one wonders at how far those in power, including the military industrial complex will go to foster fear in the name of national security interests.

Trust in governments and authorities should not be of such a nature that there is no scrutiny, oversight or admonishment when things go awry.

It is not always good enough to adopt the old ‘well if you haven’t done anything wrong what have you got to worry about’ – nothing is that simple and governments and authorities/bureaucracies cannot always be trusted. I wish it wasn't so. Andrew Wilkie’s, and others’, revelations about WMDs is just one example.

Spin is just as present in the sphere of national security arena as any other.

A modicum of distrust backed up by suitable accountability regimes serves to keep our governments honest.

First, libertarianism is not the monopoly of the Left.

Second, as I consider myself a libertarian AND not of the Left, let me answer your question:

"The insurmountable conundrum that civil libertarians need to address is if the end (measured in terms of net flourishing) does not justify the means, then what does?"

Acting for the sake of achieving results is unwise and missing on the whole point of life. In this world, no results are permanent: all that is gained will eventually be lost and all that flourishes will falter. We are here to learn and to serve God, not to get something out of it.

Now in line with the service of God, different people are called for different duties. Certain people's duties include planning for certain outcomes - and that's fine, so long as they remember that the aim of their actions is not to achieve those results, but to serve God.

Serving God justifies the means. Achieving a result does not.

Third, regarding rights: I also don't like this leftist term - it sounds as if those "rights" were graciously granted by society, which they are not, so I'd rather use "liberties". If we have rights, then they are God-given, as part of our very nature; If we haven't, then what gives the state the "right" to molest us (even in the name of maximizing net flourishing)?

Democracy is the tyranny of the majority and therefore morally bankrupt. Your statement that "The ultimate end is to maximise net flourishing, where each agent's interests counts equally" sends shivers down my spine.

thanks Mirko for a well thought out document. The left however don't like having their failed dogmas rubbed in their face.

“The key to rights is identifying the circumstances in which they can be limited and extending them to all people equally, while maintaining a distinction between the innocent and wretched. Civil libertarians ( Aboriginal Victim Industry “ AVI “ aka activists and agitators ) dish out rights to the guilty and innocent alike and suffer from moral short-sightedness. They focus only on the immediate person, as opposed to wider consequences and the likely effect of policies on other individuals”
Arthur Bell.

Mirko Bagaric,

I am sure that soon or later the Queen of England will reward your realism and you will join the list of her meritorious subjects besides our most obtuse of PM.

With him and her Majesty you share a cool, mechanical sensitivity.

You are right; if John Howard had not been deposed, the carnage of persecuted human beings in search of help had not been stopped.

But you conveniently omit to mention that among the reasons of Howard’s fall, pre-eminent was just his behavior towards those unfortunate; ordinary Australians do not like senseless cruelties.

Those who followed him, an altar boy and a career woman excited by Victory, like Howard, forgot their humanity.

Any other leader would have correctly sensed why Howard lost the leadership and would have boarded a flight to Indonesia and there worked out a deal with the Indonesian people that they could not have refused.

The Indonesians would have finished in front and so would the Australians and, above all, the ‘Asylum seekers’.

Shame on you Bagaric and Howard and Rudd and Gillard!

Excellent article Mirko.

Here, here.

I thought thinking logically rather than jumping on the leftwing groupthink bandwagen was banned at universities in Australia? I can't believe they let you get a PhD with those sort of attitudes!

The only liberties that "civil libertarians" think of protecting, is those of criminals, terrorists and illegal immigrants. The liberties of Australian taxpayers who customarily foot the bill for every expensive "right" that such people demand, is of no concern to such people.

The importation of certain ethnic and religious groups into this country has seen the erosion of liberties of ordinary Australians. The easiest way to keep terrorists out of Australia is to discriminate against those religions and cultures which spawn them.

Yet civil libertarians will unfailingly demand that these people must not be excluded from our immigration program. Thus our legal system is forced to adapt by the creation of rights degrading legislation, like the right of police with reasonable cause to enter a house with a warrent from a magistrate, once one of the cornerstones of our rights.

Police may now stop and search cars at random, rummaging around inside the contents for something to convict the drivers on. Police on anti terrorism duties may arrest and detain a suspect for up to a week without charge.

It is people with rights based mindsets who create endemic problems for our communith by the insistence that no discrimination be exhibited to any religion or culture, who then scream the loudest when our community has to curtail liberties in order to mitigate the effects of the wrong people into our country.

This is a recurring problem with civil libertarians. Create a serious problem with your insistence on moral absolutes, then criticise the actions of the people who have solve the problem that you created.

Mirko, I cannot fathom why you, who has chosen to make Australia your home rather than your homeland that has suffered terrible racial/ethnic troubles, would take such a mean-hearted stance on civil libertarians.

Civil libertarians are the ones who argued that people like yourself, and others including Serbians, should be allowed the opportunity to make Australia your home.

This article, in an ironic way, does more to justify your stance by providing an example that some immigrants are unable to value the opportunity they have received.

Civil libertarians are the first to argue your rights to express yourself - even if they disagree with what you are saying.

In short, this article is catering to populist claptrap and you must know it. However it does serve to keep your publications up so that you can progress up the academic ladder.

Come on Aka, every civil libertarian I have ever heard has been a lawyer, using their civil libertarianism to try to get some law changed or watered down.

I have never been able to detect any humanitarian motive in any of this, just an attempt to make it easier to get their criminal clients off the hook.

I do recall one O'Gorman who used his constant interviews on the ABC as free advertising, growing his law practice greatly.

Were our brilliant ABC journalists aware of how this was working, did they not care, or were they too dumb to notice? Yes we all know it was the latter, but I needed to fill some space, just like those ABC twits.

Hasbeen,
Mirko is a lawyer - your point is?

For those who think this continual erosions and exceptions to the normal rule of law within the justice system is okay, where would you draw the line?

I am all for national security - it is necessary in a growing globalised world - but it should be a responsible approach that does not result in eroding the very rights and freedoms these policies aim to preserve. We may just protect ourselves out of certain liberties impacting much more, the democratic process.

Civil liberties are not unique to the Left or Right. To deflect this debate as wither Left or Right conspiracies is to miss the point completely and when spun this way one can only doubt the agenda.

I have no problem waiting a bit longer at airports nor having to show numerous bits of identity given the increased threat of identity theft, coupled with concerns about cyber security. However laws which seek to erode the system of justice that also serves to protect, is counterproductive in the long term.

Fairer foreign policy with less emphasis on self-interest (either explicit or implied) would go much further in quelling the terrorist threat.

Dear old Mirko, the man fired from the refugee review tribunal for declaring his love of torture now claims that we won some mythical war on terror and that refugees have zero rights and all of us who claim they do should go away and die.

Why is this tripe written by Mr Torture in person allowed to be published as supposed opinion?

There is no such thing under the law as off shore push away of asylum seekers, Britain and other EU nations decided to try and push them away to other EU nations but are not allowed to if the conditions are worse.

The minute we all start simply throwing civil law and liberties in the bin we are Al Qaida and the Taliban.

I would greatly appreciate it if Mirko could explain just what he means by "the right" and especially "the left" in his articles.

To me these labels have long since lost their significance. If by "the left" he means the marxists, who gives a stuff what the devotees of a discredited religion (that's what Marxism really became) who these days meet in shoeboxes and still have lots of room, think about anything?

Is Mirko inventing a devil so he will have someone to criticise?

It seems to me that the important division today is between those who support liberal democracy and those who support authoritarian forms of government. And when supporters of the former resort to the methods of the latter to "defend democracy", they are alreadfy defeated. Beware of becoming the thing you hate.

It might, eg, be "utilitarian" for me as an atheist to support the arrest of leading church types for their covering-up of various egregious child-abuse cases. A good way of discrediting my enemies with an impeccable excuse for doing so.

But I don't support any such repression. Why not? Because the next time around it might atheists who get arrested on convenient excuses. This is why civil liberties need to be protected. It's easy to give them to those you like; much harder to accord them to those you despise.

"every civil libertarian I have ever heard has been a lawyer, using their civil libertarianism to try to get some law changed or watered down." Hasbeen

Well now you have heard of one who is not.

Mirko, the next Aeroflot plane leaves for the enlightened world this arvo. Will you be catching it?