<< That's coming from someone who openly urges unlimited government power over everyone and everything.. .>>

Dear o dear Jardine, I did expect a little bit of a better response than that.

Making such utterly polarised end-of-the-spectrum assertions as this does your credibility no good at all.

Of course government shouldn’t have unlimited power. Nowhere near it. There is a point of balance between too much and not enough government control over our lives and over all of society.

It is interesting that you should assert that I hold such a polarised position. It tells me everything about the way you think. It fits perfectly with your desire for no (or absolutely minimalist?) government.

Please, if you can, start thinking in shades of grey, points of balance, equilibria, etc, rather than in hard and fast black and white terms.

<< The problem with that view is that the State power over and above that necessary to enforce the principle of liberty, is not limited by any principle other than might is right, and just degenerates into mere grabbing. >>

Yes, fine. Governments can sometimes take it too far. The point of balance is very often very difficult to achieve. Sometimes it is overcooked, sometimes way underdone. But even if it were to all be overdone quite considerably, it would still be a whole lot better than if it was vastly underdone by way of no government or extremely weak government, which again, would allow the ruthless and unscrupulous elements to dominate and greatly suppress the rest of us.

<< That's why you were unable to sustain your sustainability argument without immediately being unable to know whether it would kill more people than it would save. >>

Erm, what the ??

Maybe I'm missing something here - it certainly wouldn't be the first time - but could somebody please explain what a "moral deficit" is? How do we identify it, and once identified, how do we measure it?

Presumably, the idea is to decrease such a deficit. So we must be able to measure it, in order to determine whether we are heading in the right direction.

Then, of course, you need to stop before you move into a moral surplus. Or would that be a good thing? What would be the identifying characteristics of a moral surplus - or, come to that, a moral equilibrium?

Unfortunately, I suspect the phrase was arrived at sometime late at night by one of Abbott's scriptwriters, who was casting around for something that might make his boss look less like an automaton - a polibot, if you will - and more like someone who actually concerned himself with humanity at large.

Once it is out there, it becomes just another element of political discourse, immune from any detailed examination. Because, like so many other trite and hackneyed phrases uttered by politicians on the campaign beat, it is drained of all meaning.

A pox etc.

"The point of balance is very often very difficult to achieve."

It certainly is difficult to achieve if you don't know what it is.

What is it?

Capitalism + morals do not belong in the same sentence.
By definition you must take more than you give.

Take away the Diseased English and here is what Richard Eckersley is really saying.

"I am so superior to you. I am so superior, that I sit with the Gods on Olympus. Even God calls me God. I am not materialistic in any way, and that is why I am superior to you. You suburban low lifes who live west of the Gladesville Bridge are utterly appalling creatures because you are happy with your materialism, and I and my superior class say that you are not supposed to be happy. You should be as miserable as me and the rest of my moral posturing class who are so intellectually and morally superior to you. Materialism, and being happy with materialism, is a defining characteristic of people who I consider my social inferiors."

For those unable to recognise it, what Richard is doing is displaying is his class superiority. It is funny how a class of people who a generation ago were manning the barricades for Egalitarianism have now become social climbing socialists who never cease to inform the Great Unwashed how inferior we all are.

London to a brick, that Richard is a scion of some middle class home where his pathway to a university career was mapped out at birth. He never had a deprived childhood, and he was not only born with a silver spoon in his mouth, he got the whole silver service. No, materialism is not important to people like Richard who were born with it, and who know that they will never have to work when they turn 50 because of their inherited wealth. What is important to Richard, is always showing the less fortunate how superior you and your parvenu class are in society.

It is a wonder that Richard didn't just write that the wretched working class who he despises, and who are happy with their materialism, should not just doff their caps and pull our forelocks every time he and his finger wagging, pseudo patrician Brahmin caste walk by

<< What is it? >>

Jardine, good question.

As it concerns moral and social values, it is highly complex, constantly being debated and forever evolving.

Everyone has different views on what various aspects of our morality and social fabric should constitute. No matter what the government did to try and uphold these values, they'd incur considerable criticism.

It is a constant struggle to find the right points of balance. But if government was to sit back and not attempt to regulate these sorts of values, we’d find ourselves at the mercy of the amoralistic and unprincipled elements.

I find it most interesting that you are concerned about the facilitation of the breakdown of morals and freedoms, but rather than advocating a better level of governance and rule of law, you advocate much less if not a complete abolition of government. This seems to be enormously counterintuitive to me.