The quashing of treasonable, seditious, libellious or obscene speech seems quite sensible. Why should student papers, for the sake of being sensational and thus ensuring their readership, claim a right above that of the rest of our society?

Even in the USA, with their "absolute" right to free speech (as opposed to our common law moderated right, knowing that the authority of the state overrides freedom where necessary) this right has been undermined by laws such as hate speech and sedition-styled laws. They are coming to a realisation that our tradition did over hundreds of years of the development of common law.

Students should realise that they are less important than they think they are. Being on the cusp of higher learning (well, in most cases) they assume that their rights are greater than the man who simply works. If they do not show due piety to the authority of our society, then I hope their little papers do get shut down.

Christopher,
Your writing is stilted. It is hard to understand.
Self-sensorship does that.
Why don't you write what you really think

I wonder if I could print a paper and name it 'The Taxpayer'. What if I advised my readers that it might be a good idea to camp outside a university and ambush university types and belt the tripe out of them. Just as a suggestion not as a hard and fast rule.

Sage,
What you say is free speech. We don't have free speech in Australia.

Glenwriter, where in the world does "free" anything exist if free means to do as you please without any outside imposed constraints and regardless of the imapct on others. I'm not sure where you are going with your posts so the following is more broad comment than a specific response to your post, I'm not trying to read more into your posts than you have said.

What we have is freedom within a range of boundaries. Those boundaries are set for a couple of reasons
- someone imposing their world view on others. The prohibition of "obscene" material to consenting adults would be an example of this.
- an attempt to minimise the harm to others from a persons attempts to exercise their "freedoms" eg, the promotion of shoplifting and the promotion of bashing of university students would fall into this category.

There may be other broad reasons for the limits but right now I can't think of any which don't fall into these categories.

In the case of student newspapers and the like it may be the case that some editors seek to use the paper to further their own preferences and agenda's over the preferences and agenda's of those paying for the production of the publication. How willing are the papers which might want to post an article on shoplifting to also post an article on the benefits of living within the law. Editors fighting VSU to publish an article promoting VSU etc. Is their censorship of idea's they don't like better than somebody elses censorship?

A balancing act which should allow wide freedom to those who act with some care about the consequences of thie actions whilst limiting those who seek to abuse those freedoms.

R0bert

I think it is important to understand that civil dissent and disobedience contributes to the flourishing of a democracy. And student papers are, in my opinion, the only platform for inflammatory topics and language.

So Robert, I could ask you a similar question: how willing is the mainstream media to post an article on living within the law to also post an article on shoplifting (which by the way criticised capitalism and is therefore part of our right to political communication)?

With regards to VSU, why should student editors wish to promote VSU when the mainstream media has already tackled that job quite well. Your idea of objectivity in this context seems a bit too idealistic.

Students' associations are elected bodies. This means that students have the CHOICE to vote for left or right, some universities even carrying out elections for their student editors.

So If I didn't vote for the Liberals, why should I respect or adhere to the laws proposed and implemented by Howard and Co. Do I get the choice to reject paying taxes, because I feel the government is not allocating funds properly? No. Equally, I don’t think it is for government bodies to implement moral protocols that distinguish between right and wrong.

VSU doesn’t merely silence left-wing-tainted speech, but political speech altogether.

It is only by accepting responsibility for the consequences that any “freedom” can be truly exercised.

Anything less is simple rabble-rousing or self-indulgent hypocrisy.

If some indolent buffoon wants to promote the practice of shop-lifting, let him. Then let him be sued by shopkeepers for the outcome of his advise.

If someone wants to promote the illegal occupation of private property in the name of “student squatters squalor” – let them – and they too can face the claims of aggrieved landlords for restitution.

However, if someone promotes the growing of drugs and drug dealing, both illegal pursuits, then let them face criminal charges of incitement and face a future with a criminal record and appropriate diminution in career prospects; remembering, if I were writing the rules, for such heinous crimes, the second offence would warrant the death penalty.

So let them all write and waffle on as much as they want. Better clear and well tested rules for breaches of civil and criminal codes than censorship of any sort. For with the practice of censorship comes a lot more insidious and subversive curtailment of individual freedoms.

Markdmark “that civil dissent and disobedience contributes to the flourishing of a democracy.”

“Dissent” is common throughout all democratic processes. In a democracy the “minority” are those who are traditionally identified as holding the “dissenting” view.

However, “civil disobedience” contributes only to a state of anarchy. It has nothing to do with any form of “democracy”. It is, invariably, demanded by those who want to exercise greater influence than their democratic numbers warrant and is most often perpetrated by the “rabble” who collectively comprise the “mob”.

“Mob rule” and anarchy are the antitheses of democracy.

Combining the two words (dissent and disobedience) in the same sentence is obvious nonsense. Whilst I support your right to express complete and utter nonsense, do not expect me to allow it to go unchallenged.

Markdmark,

If you want some dissenting opinions and radical plans, go to the Menzies Research Centre's website. No students there - I promise - and yet some very interesting contrary positions.

"I don’t think it is for government bodies to implement moral protocols that distinguish between right and wrong."

So you don't think it's a governments duty to implement laws against murder, fraud, rape, tax evasion, neglect, or endangering the lives of others? Of course it's the government's job to distinguish between right and wrong!

Also, we must obey our society's laws as we owe a debt of piety to society... we have no rights independant of it, and thus owe it our very existance. These rights are not ours because they exist in a vacuum, but are given as a priveledge in exchange for our abiding by the law. The least we can do is obey some pretty simple rules. Seem we cannot claim rights by virtue of our being. By virtue of our being - if one proscribes to a Christian world view - we have duties towards others, but no right to claim a right without the correlative responsabilities and obligations.

markdmark, "So If I didn't vote for the Liberals, why should I respect or adhere to the laws proposed and implemented by Howard and Co." - for the same reason that the rest of us had to (and in most cases still do) obey laws proposed and implemented by Whitlam, Hawke, Keating, Goss, Beatty etc. Thats the way democracy works. If that was not the case you'd find me voting for a party that had no chance of forming a government so that I could pick and choose how much tax I paid, which laws I obeyed etc.

Feel as free as you like to protest against laws or government expenditures you believe to be unjust, unreasonable etc but obey the law until you can get a government to change the law. So an article pointing out the pitfalls of capitilism is fine, an article advocating the breaking of the law is a different matter. Cols suggestion of liability for harm resulting from such publication rather than censorship has merit but I suspect that regularly proving that a specific article contributed to a specific crime or a specific amount of damage would be difficult to achieve without seriously damaging concepts like burden of proof.

You do make valid points about idea's being canvassed in other media outlets, again though hard to keep the biases of the editorial staff from impacting on this.

R0bert

Col Rouge,

So the anti-Vietnam war protests (particularly conscription-card burning), the suffragette movement, or Martin Luther King’s civil rights movement are all illegitimate cases in the democratic process because of their anarchistic nature? You seem to have a very narrow view of what civil disobedience entails. Some forms of anarchy in the past have commanded the democratic future you live in today. Its radical views, which challenged the rule of law, have indeed led to democratic change, which you seem to be intolerant of.

You might as well start your own mini kristall-nacht by burning the anarchy-tainted literature of Thoreau or Ghandi. In a democracy, you have the opportunity to read or refuse these items as “antithetical to democracy”.

May I suggest you read Juergen Habermas’ “Civil disobedience: Litmus Test for the Democratic State” or “Citizenship and Obligation: Civil Disobedience and Civil Dissent” by Allan TRS (or maybe just judge his work by the title, as he apparently uses the words ‘disobedience’ and ‘dissent’ in one sentence).

I hope this sheer non-sense is challengeable enough to enlighten your kind.

Hey markdmark - there's a bit of difference between Martin Luther King's struggle for basic human rights and some unwashed student paper editor advocating drug use and stealing.

Martin Luther King was a great man motivated by an acute sense of justice and love. Your little heroes remind me of my kids - whisper the words "bum" & "willy" behind their hands and then giggle away. They're just naughty little nobody's who demand rights with no responsibilities. Your attempt to draw comparisons between King's struggle for human dignity and the right of losers to advocate criminal behaviour just demonstrates the silliness of your argument.

MarkdMark “You might as well start your own mini kristall-nacht”.

If you have read anything I have ever written, you would realise how deluded your suggestion is.

I challenge you to point out from my posts any “intolerance” toward individuals use of free expression and exchange of views.

As for suggesting a “kristall-nacht”. Nice manipulation, recruiting fascist icons and rhetoric. You would go far in that sort of corrupt state where all power is enshrined in the central committee and dispensed through malignant officialdom who eat first from the communal trough.

As for “And Its radical views, which challenged the rule of law, have indeed led to democratic change, which you seem to be intolerant of”

“Radical” is not necessarily “anarchistic” and “anarchy” is not necessarily progressive. More legislative and social changes have been achieved by the democratic and peaceful pursuit of reasoned debate than by a bunch of ratbags tearing down barriers throwing darts at police horses and destroying other peoples property.

Finally “I hope this sheer non-sense is challengeable enough to enlighten your kind.”

You do not know what “My Kind” is.

You have simply classified and catalogued me based on your own twisted and immature perceptions.
You have then grouped me together with others who, based on your malignant classification have challenged what you perceive as “your kind”.

That is how Hitler classified people. Then he put all the same kind together in ghettos prior to liquidation.

That is the sort of “civil-disobedience” which you are promoting.

That is why you cannot “tolerate” people of “My kind”.
Because “My Kind” challenge your attempts to dominate and intimidate our lives with your version of civil-disobedience.

When you start to respect people as “individuals” you will come close to understanding what “My Kind” really is but such notions would undermine your sense of “levelled” security derived through a ruthless and despotic state in which your place at the trough is assured.

Bozzie – you are spot on! – but do not expect the obtuse to understand the difference.

Much of what has been mentioned in this article seems to me to be simply students trying to shock society. Youth will always do so and it is a part of maturing into reasonable people. All children do much the same in their own ways.

They test the boundaries, push the limits and find where they will be burnt. Most learn from that, some don't.

Censoring such material can only focus more attention on it and encourage more to do the same. Let it be published and ignored as who is going to actually follow such advice(s)? After all any of what has been mentioned is freely available on the internet, in books, in movies, on TV and word of mouth.

Far better to allow publication than force people underground and think they are doing something constructive. Most would see such an item and simply skip reading it as it is simply juvenile rebellion, nothing more.

Unfortunately we seem to have a government at the moment that fears the written word if they haven't initiated it or agree fully with it. There is the real concern, not in the publishing of childish reports.

We all surely know that censorship is counter productive and also that people mature and learn resonsibility with that. Those that don't will find themselves infringing a variety of laws and suffer legally for their words and actions as they will not adapt to the needs of a community.

Many of the controversial articles are so fatuous that it's hard to expect anyone to take them seriously. Surely they were written tongue in cheek.

I find this disturbing:
'"For students at the private Notre Dame University, the university’s Catholic hierarchy managed a good showing of its religious glorification by tabooing topics from “abortion, contraception and gay unions,” says Quasimodo editor Chris Bailey. “Censorship has been extended to include most sexual references, profane language and even criticism of the university."'
Perhaps this is a typical message from some religious authorities, "Don't question, don't even think, just believe what you are told and obey". A great way to educate students, isn't it?

In regard to "obscenity", who decides. Apparently a woman in a bikini is obscene by some standards, perhaps a woman just showing her face.

When it comes to public disobedience, apparently in the opinion of some that's OK only if they personally approve of the person being "disobedient" and/or their cause. Just for example, lets assume that Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Ghandi, Emmeline Pankhurst and Jesus Christ were good guys with just causes. But that wasn't the opinion of the power brokers of their times, otherwise they wouldn't have needed to protest, would they?

I suggest that anything which can be openly discussed in the general media should, at the very least, be acceptable in any student publication.

Part of being a student is the opportunity to question, theorise and challenge. They'll never get another chance once sucked into corporate culture.

Whether student publications are right, wrong or indifferent - they should never be censored and should absolutely be encouraged.

Fitting in with the status quo will soon stifle the life and creativity out of students.

Let students breathe while they still can.

"Part of being a student is the opportunity to question, theorise and challenge."
"Fitting in with the status quo will soon stifle the life and creativity out of students."

Scout, you've got to be kidding! Left wing dogma stuffed down the throats of humanities students tends to stifle life and creativity as well. If you really want to challenge the status quo at an Australian Uni just jump up and say that you love good 'ole John McChimpybumboy Boatsinker DetentionHitler HoWARd. Go on - I dare you!

Bozzie - I loved Uni, I loved the challenge, the humour and the fact that it broadened my outlook like nothing else I had experienced. BTW I returned to Uni as a mature age student.

I don't recall having either left or right wing politics "stuffed down my throat". Landscape Architecture was about construction not politics.

I do recall the joy of being listened to as well as inspired - something that never happens in the workplace.

I'm not sure about the point of your post at all. Do you mean that students should be curtailed and censored? If so, why? How will denial of freedom of expression develop and educate young people?

Or did you think you would seize the opportunity to be merely dismissive of another's POV? Perhaps you were stifled at school. If so, I recommend returning to Uni and broadening your horizons.

Cheers

I think I was referring to the humanities subjects Scout. Architectural landscaping being an unlikely environment for revolution.

My point was to articulate the view that the very stifling of dissent that you so object to is entrenched in the humanities departments of many Australian universities. Many students with more conservative viewpoints have learned to keep their mouths well and truly shut for fear of the consequences of upsetting the correct view. I agree that every viewpoint should should be voiced, debated, and criticised. This is not happening in universities in the very departments where it is imperitive that it does! That is my point.

As a landscape architect it is a shame you can't find any inspiration in your workplace. Remind me not to use you to design my new pool and entertaining area! I'm only joking of course Scout, but if you believe that university as opposed to the real world is the place for inspiration then I think you're in a bit of trouble.

Scout, my degree is in IT, not a particularly political arena but I suspect my views hurt my results on at least one occasion.
Two facts
- I disagreed with a lecturer on a political matter once (regarding the company I worked for)
- I got 1 four during my time at Uni in a subject which I thought I was handling well.

Guess which lecturer assessed me for that four.
No proof, subjective opinion etc but suspicious.

R0bert

Bozzie - I only completed 3 years of my degree - a car accident.

I did do some humanities subjects also - they were a part of the curriculum specifically introduced for the engineering students and Landscapers & Architects were included.

I still believe that stifling freedom of expression stifles imagination and creativity and flies in the face of what education is all about.

While I do not practice as a L.A. I still have alot of benefits of such an education, however you are right about not being inspired by my workplace - I find office admin work boring and frequently irrelevant. But thats my problem and has no bearing on the need for students to learn to question and think for themselves and not forced to conform to the limiting standards of others be they left or right wing.

I hear you Bozzie. The Marxist march on the institutions is almost complete in our universities - sadly. Forget being able to express all viewpoints without fear or favour.

"I think it is important to understand that civil dissent and disobedience contributes to the flourishing of a democracy." MarkdMark, I find such a statement naive in the extreme. You can't see a case where civil disent and disobedience undermines democracy? I do see your point however I also see how pointlessly narrow it is.
It is certainly a duty to disobey unjust laws, if we have the courage.
Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela and the list is long, as you are no doubt aware. HOWEVER, Civil disobedience for the sake of disobedience does nothing more than denigrate the people that fought for real change in real situations.
Democracy flourishes, not by irrelevant acts of defiance enacted by small minds on tiny issues, but by the majority of people understanding and rejoicing in freedoms that are anathema to many countries in the world today. It is far from perfect but we are all subject to the human condition that creates the democracy in which we live.
Perhaps we should look at the places of the world from which people are fleeing and the places to which they aspire to go. That may give some credence to the society in which we live.
I know campus life and I for one, have found it to be one of the most stultifying experiences of my life as far as freedom of thought is concerned and I am a mature age student.
I also agree with VSU, but only because the student body kept bashing me over the head and telling me that voluntary is evil and true salvation lies within compulsory funding of a body that is supposed to promote freedoms. Sorry, but they lost me, and many others that cherish independant thought, at that point.

"It is certainly a duty to disobey unjust laws, if we have the courage." But who decides, Craig, whether or not a law is just? Take voluntary euthanasia for example. That's against the law, in fact it's classed as murder. But the vast majority of Australians want it legalised and have felt this way for many years. So who is preventing this? Politicians, led by the nose by a handful of religious extremists. Surely a very just reason for widespread civil disobedience if anyone felt like taking it up.

How about the traditional Australian day at the beach.

"It comes as a surprise to many, then, that ocean beach swimming was long outlawed down under.

In 1843 the government New South Wales, Australia, passed an act prohibiting bathing in the ocean between the hours of 6am and 8pm. (In those days, the British colony of NSW accounted for most of what we know as Australia today.) Seventy years later, in September, 1902, some yachtsmen landed at the ocean beach of Manly (one of the city of Sydney’s northern beaches – “Seven miles from Sydney, and a thousand miles from care” has long been its motto), hauled their craft ashore and took a dip in the sea. They were immediately arrested by the dutiful constabulary.

A Manly newspaper proprietor, William Henry Gocher, challenged what he believed to be an absurd and unjust law. He announced in his paper, the Manly and North Sydney News, that he intended to go bathing on October 2 in daylight hours, thus breaking the Victorian law. Though Gocher invited arrest by plunging into the ocean at midday, police didn’t take his bait, but finally on his third violation of the law, they did take him off to the lockup."

With acknowledgements to Wilson's Almanack, a great source of examples of civil disobedience.
http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/book/oct2.html

Maybe to some people William Gocher's "act of defiance" was concerning a "tiny issue", but if someone had not successfully taken a stand on ocean bathing, Australia could have been a lot different.

Who decides what an unjust law is, indeed, a difficult question to answer and your point is well taken. The bathing example is not a new one and do I believe it to be a "tiny" issue? Yes. The law holds many redundant statutes in its books at federal and state level that have never been repealed because they do not hold any real practical application anymore and no-one has gotten around to clean them out.
I believe the swimming issue would have gone the same way if it were not pursued to sell a newspaper.
There is an ocean of difference between blatant issues such as Australia's involvement in armed conflict or Indigenous concerns and pursuits that trivialise such issues by putting them in the same domain. Promoting theft as civil disobedience, as featured in the article, is irresponsible at best. Trivialising real struggle by pretending that promoting theft is some sort of important message tells more of the writers than the text.
Having said this, your central dilemma still exists and I do empathise with its point. When and who decides when a law is unjust is a discussion that will continue and will require a mind much greater than mine to achieve a solution.

Craig, when did I ever say that I “can’t see a case where civil dissent or disobedience undermines democracy”? There are dozens. But the plethora of ‘illegitimate’ cases should not justify absolute silence and censorship when it comes to civil disobedience. I was merely making the point that the occasional act of civil dissent and disobedience can lead to democratic change.

Then the comparison. How dare I compare the grandeur of Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela to a group of students? The gap may be great indeed, but there seems to be an underlying assumption that King and Mandela have a greater right to dissent and free speech than some unknown students. This is what I find disconcerting. Certainly, governments alongside the dominant ideology at the time, would have classed acts of defiance by King or Mandela as enacted by “small minds on tiny issues”. It is only after committing to their cause that its legitimacy has been acknowledged.

Equally, the methods of execution in medieval times are today labeled ‘barbarism’ as part of an uncivilized culture back then. But Craig, if you or I would be living in those very times, we’d be cheering and applauding the public execution of some person deemed a witch or homosexual. We’d be shouting hang ‘em.

And that’s why Rex is absolutely right, who decides what laws are worthy of disobedience? In centuries from now people will be opening their history books and labeling us barbarians. So neither you nor I are in a position to deem acts of defiance “irrelevant”. Neither you nor I are in a position to distinguish “real change in real situations” from unreal ones.

Ironically, it was civil disobedience by the High Court that has led to our implied constitutional right to political communication. Conservative circles have suggested that this spells out the “death of the rule of law” as a result of activist judges. Even the Mabo judgment, among many others, is still believed to have been fuelled by activism for human rights, despite subverting the doctrine of precedent.

Cont'd.

I am not suggesting that the right to free speech should be absolute. I am also not suggesting that inciting crime is warranted. But I think the case of students advocating theft because they truly felt disadvantaged by our alleged “evil” capitalist culture (and the article discusses the gap between the bourgeoisie and proletariat) is legally valid enough to outweigh the unrealistic prospect of people actually deciding to steal something as a result of that article. Some call it satire, others call it criminal.

I nevertheless recognize your view that the crime factor, in this instance, overrides free speech. The issue with free speech or “political communication” is that it’s a matter of balancing one interest with the other. Striking that balance makes one sweat, as you can see.

I was not advocating absolute silence. Censorship is a slippery slope and we should be vigilant about its capacity to undermine what we value. What I do advocate is the responsibility that comes with the right of free speech.
Does the likes of Martin Luther King Jr. or Nelson Mandela have a greater right to dissent than a group of students that propagate 'illegitimate' cases, such as the theft issue, regardless of your case of trying to legitimate it? Morally, of course they do, and to suggest otherwise puts us on a different page entirely, I am afraid.
King and Mandela were never seen as advocating small issues by anyone. The issues preceded them both and were manifestly and prodigiously unjust on basic human rights issues. Democratic change, if we are indeed at a point where that is necessary, does not come from disobedience validated by cherished mantles of victimhood, it is arrived at by those that stand and have the courage of their convictions: Those that refuse to be victims. That sounds a bit harsh, even to me, but it has been my observation that, in many cases though far from all, victimhood has been a refuge from responsibility.
Would the writers of the article on theft have taken responsibility for their words if it led to someone stealing? There would be differing views on that, I would imagine.
With rights come responsibilities. The former is almost always carried as a flag, the latter is almost always forgotten.
As for activism from the Bench, that was a tremor put forth by the conservatives of the day regarding the Mabo(2) decision. Precedent, by definition, must start somewhere and the Judges created precedent by rejecting the Terra Nullius doctrine. That previous judgments did not reject the doctrine tells of a failure of former judicial processes not any alleged activism or subversion by the Mabo judgment. Law, like statistics, is a quagmire of interpretation.
So, MarkdMark, we certainly see from different perspectives on some issues. That we are able to do so, freely, speaks volumes for the society in which we live.

Christopher, you're wrong to equate vsu with censorship. VSU is about letting students choose whether or not they join a student union.

Currently money is taken from students without their consent, and some of that is used to subsidise student papers. Now that this illegitimate confiscation of students' money is to end that means students will have control over that part of their property.

It also means student papers will no longer be able to gain access to illegitimately-acquired monies. If this means papers are no longer financially viable then that is a result of individual students regaining rightful control of their property. It has nothing to do with censorship.

Student papers that relied on politically controlled, illegitimately-gained subsidies have always been subject to some form of control. If student papers want to be truly free they should source their income from the market instead of relying on compulsion.