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The Forum > Article Comments > A tussle between idealism and pragmatism > Comments

A tussle between idealism and pragmatism : Comments

By Mirko Bagaric, published 14/6/2006

The commentators won't bluff us again - why they got it so wrong with the counter-terrorism laws.

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"...the best way to nullify loopy views is to dowse them with copious doses of reality."

That could be made into a banner. It could be our resolution for the remainder of the New American Century.

Then might we apply it to the War on Terror, the Petrodollar, 19 brown men with boxcutters, John Bolton, Richard Perle, the missing airliner at the Pentagon, the missing trillions from the US treasury, the collapse of World Trade Centre 7, the destruction of forensic evidence from ground zero, evidence of thermite charges both on video and in the pile, the timely insurance deals on an asbestos-laced dinosaur....

...phew! This resolution has universal application.

Anyone care to join me here?
Posted by Chris Shaw, Carisbrook 3464, Wednesday, 14 June 2006 10:20:06 AM
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It was for the "Common Good" that the Nazi's killed 6 million Jews, and it was for the "Common Good" that Stalin murdered millions of his own citizens.

Mirko has again lost the plot.
Posted by Narcissist, Wednesday, 14 June 2006 10:56:43 AM
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Well put Mirko.

The first two comments in this string pretty well confirm your argument that idealists cannot get to grips with Australia's security needs or threats.

Their arguments are based on sloganeering about different places, different times and about authoritarian dictators (note that Stalin was highly popular with idealists in the 1930s and early 40s...).

Pete
http://spyingbadthings.blogspot.com
Posted by plantagenet, Wednesday, 14 June 2006 11:16:18 AM
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I guess next the good Professor will be arguing to dispense with bail and sentencing laws. Now I am beginning to realise why legal practitioners have so little time for legal academics ...

Still, I guess we've been given a fair bit to think about. Anyway, I'd best pack my bags as ASIO could be around any minute ...
Posted by Irfan, Wednesday, 14 June 2006 11:54:19 AM
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>>Despite the claims that these measures “spell the end of our hard won civil liberties” and “corrupt democracy”, opinion polls consistently showed that the community supports the changes.<<

What the naive community is applauding is what they perceived as "good measure" from Government to stop terrorism and therefore a safer community.

What they still don't get is WHO we are dealing with - and not HOW to stop "it".

Even though the word "Islamist" was not mentioned - I presume it is implied by omission.

Islamists - the good sort that is - HAVE TO BE Jihadists or at least supporters of Jihad. The love of death and mutilation is part and parcel of their Qur'anic teaching. Allah (their god) commends Jihad and rewards it handsomely here and in the after life.

So unless the CAUSE of terrorism is addressed head on - openly and publicly, it is futile to police the acts and/or intentions of terror and ignore what causes that impulsive "divine"compulsion.

To continue to give legitimacy to a barbaric "sect" and try to legislate against its compulsive behaviour is a waste of time.

The clock is ticking - it is well past half-time. The game (war) will soon be over. And the winner is...
Posted by coach, Wednesday, 14 June 2006 12:06:04 PM
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I'm with you on this one Mirko.
Posted by jeremy29, Wednesday, 14 June 2006 12:44:29 PM
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The chattering classes are still whingeing about terror laws because they are, as always, out of touch with reality. The reality in this case is the fact that the laws they told us would mean the end of life as we know it were a 7 day wonder, which has now passed from the interest or concern of most people.

The terror laws only recently, and very briefly, popped up again following a hissy fit from a bunch of lawyers who refused to subject themsleves to security checks which would allow their clients' cases to proceed. Who does that affect? Nobody most of us know.

Like Cronulla, Bills of Rights, aboriginal shenanigans, Muslims etc., it's high time this one was taken off the public agenda.
Posted by Leigh, Wednesday, 14 June 2006 12:55:29 PM
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Idealists... really?

Who but a twisted idealist would join us to the War For Profit Gang? What twisted idealist would destroy a nation and it's people for control of their resources? Or has pragmatism and idealism joined freedom and democracy in the sewer of this polluted language?

Let's get down and dirty and pragmatic.

Terror laws are not for the comfort of yer average citizen. They are not for the protection of your grandchildren or mine. They are exclusively created for the comfort of the armchair warriors who must now spend their lives in gated estates or behind concrete barricades.

To them alone belongs the nightmare of what they have wrought. From their guilt alone do we receive the bounty of terror and sedition laws. This is the excrement of THEIR dreams.

As reality rots the string-bag of lies that holds this shabby mess together, they will be forced to retreat evermore behind hastily conceived "laws". They are as compromised as the most furtive shirt-lifter, and not even remotely fit to run a country for the benefit of it's citizens. That goes for both "sides" of the political spectrum.

Call me an idealist by all means. Detain and torture me if it makes YOU feel better. Here's where I draw the line and say, "NO MORE!"
Posted by Chris Shaw, Carisbrook 3464, Wednesday, 14 June 2006 12:58:07 PM
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Chris Shaw - You're right, applying reality to any of those conspiracy theories would do away with them. But then what would the conspiracy theorists do with their time?

Narcissist - What kind of morally bankrupt position is it to compare killing millions of people, to introducing laws (or rather extending old laws) to protect people from being killed?

Excellent article, a lot of sense.
Posted by Dean, Wednesday, 14 June 2006 1:31:46 PM
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Love it Chris

"as compromised as the most furtive shirt-lifter"

I'm still rolling around and trying to get off the floor ;-)

I disagree with your views but not with your, honesty, sincerity and sense of humour.

Other than the Jihadists what really worries me are the Christian Right reactionaries. They know who they are. Their fundamentalist anti Islamism inhabits and inhibits every OLO discussion remotely to do with Islam and/or terrorism.

It is best if they ponder the demise of one of their own http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19446899-5001561,00.html

From what I've heard (and seen in the past) our security services are fairly moderate and open-minded (especially compared to the above reactionaries).

Pete
http://spyingbadthings.blogspot.com
Posted by plantagenet, Wednesday, 14 June 2006 1:36:07 PM
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Nicely put Chris.

For your sedition, you can now expect the sound of hushed cars early in the morning, the bashing down of your doors as ASIO and Police detain you, possibly even shoot you as happened in Britian, and take you away.

Unlike the 20 people arrested before these new laws went through, you will not have the right to a lawyer. At the same time that a Protective Custody Order was issued, a Order proventing your communication with ANYBODY (including Courts) was also issued.

You are alone, in a dark cell after a trip in the back of a sealed van. You do not realise you have ended up in the basement of a building at Russell in Canberra.

Nobody knows you have gone. You simply vanish. No messages can come to or from you. The only people you can speak to are those appointed by your captors. Your request for a lawyer is denied. You cleverly demand your captors present you to the nearest Court under a Writ of habeas corpus - this is denied. You are questioned through-out the day or night - time doesn't matter there is not clocks, no routine. You don't know how long you've been there.

After what seems an eternity of endless questioning, you are told that your Protective Custody Order has been extended. This happens many times.

Years seem to pass, but it might be months. Psycological torture changes your perspective, you are eventually released and are appologised to by ASIO for their mistake. But you must not talk about this to anybody. You cannot talk to the media, your friends or family. If you talk they will put you in Long Bay for 20 years.

Gestapo or ASIO.
Posted by Narcissist, Wednesday, 14 June 2006 1:42:40 PM
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Narcissist

Thanks, Well said.

It is wrong for a government to have the power to magically make people disappear, although I can think of a few ministers who should.
Posted by Steve Madden, Wednesday, 14 June 2006 2:19:08 PM
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Somewhat off topic, but it does amuse me that Leigh speaks so disparagingly of the "Chattering Classes". Just exactly what does Leigh thinks he does on this site all day long?
Posted by Laurie, Wednesday, 14 June 2006 2:30:26 PM
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Bravo Mirko,

To be honest, I initially thought this piece was a sarcastic critique of the terror laws; surely there can't be someone that supports the archaic notion of control orders, potentially limitless detention and the suppression of one's individual rights, I thought.

I see now that it was a serious case FOR these laws. (On a tangent, I'm curious as to how often a student of the law would argue for less laws...)

It was interesting, reading this other perspective, where the rights of the many trounce and trample the rights of the individual.

However, one point I would take issue with would be the use of the UK and the USA to defend the introduction of these laws. This seems to stem from the assumption that if Uncle George and Aunty Blair think it's good enough for their dastardly, no-good dissidents, then its ok for ours.

This notion was, as you could imagine, quite relieving, and actually helps to explain the existence of capital punishment in Australia, not to mention Guantanamo II in the Solomons, the office of President in Queensland and the nobility, comfortably ensconced in Canberra.

When will people come back to the realisation that American/British culture is no longer the arbiter of our behaviour, and should perhaps be left out of any debate about Australian laws?

But that’s just this misplaced bleeding heart being facetious.

It was an informative article, and revealing in its discussion of the 'Other Side'.

Gracias.
Posted by Jordan Vaka, Wednesday, 14 June 2006 9:09:23 PM
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How can we know whether these laws have been abused or not?

If I had been arrested and eventually released without charge I would not be allowed to tell anybody (except my spouse?) where I had been or what had happened to me. I could have lost my job or my business in that time and have no recompense.

If the implementation of these laws is so secret, how will we know how effective they really are?

Suspected terrorists today but who will it be tomorrow?
Posted by rache, Thursday, 15 June 2006 2:41:47 AM
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Narcissist, that sounds just like Kafka's "the Trial". I'll have to dig it out of the bookshelf.

Terrorism isn't anything new. We didn't have these kind of laws in Europe against the IRA, ETA, Baader-Meinhof, red brigades and grey wolves.

Cars kill many more people everyday than terrorists bombs, yet we don't hear anyone calling for their removal from our roads. I think these laws are way out of proportion to the threat.
Posted by gusi, Thursday, 15 June 2006 3:57:05 AM
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Cars kill people but this is called accident. Knives kill too by the way. Some will argue that the tongue is a mighty weapon...

Terrorism is intentional and a godly duty instilled in the heart of every jihadist muslim. The pages of their holy book are full of inspiration directly from Allah (so they believe) with great rewards in the after life for dying in his name. Allahu akbar!

I am not a fan of the new laws either - I view them as a shot in the dark, a weakness of our authorities and their inability to tackle the real problem and cause of terror : islam.

Like the war in Iraq for example it could have been averted if the US had good intelligencia in place and execised better wisdom in removing Sadam and let the muslims finish the job...
Posted by coach, Thursday, 15 June 2006 9:34:28 AM
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I think this sentence says it all for me.

>>You get to bounce back pretty quickly from being placed on a control order or detained for a week or so in a five star Australian jail (even if such orders turn out be unjustified) but victims of bomb blasts almost never recover.<<

How quickly, Mr Bagaric, did Jean Charles de Menezes "bounce back" from the eight bullets pumped into him at Stockwell Tube Station by a bunch of over-excited defenders of freedom?

Once you let the genie out of the bottle, it's a bitch to put back. Once you tell your troops that their role is to stop terrorists by shooting first and asking questions later, you have to ask yourself just who, exactly, is being protected, from whom and by whom?

Once you tell your police that they are entitled to "disappear" people that they don't like the look of, and that they are not required to justify their actions to the public, you have to ask yourself the same question: who is being protected, from whom and by whom?

Unlike other restrictions on individual liberty and freedom (such as ID cards), you can't say "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about."

Basically we are being told "trust me" by our politicians.

And quite frankly, I don't trust them to do anything except ensure their own survival, paypacket and pension plan, whatever the expense to the citizenry.
Posted by Pericles, Thursday, 15 June 2006 10:25:27 AM
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I'm still not satisfied.

For those who missed it, here's the links to Tuesday's Lateline interview with Prof McCoy:

Realplayer:
http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200606/r90598_269855.ram

WinMedia:
http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200606/r90598_269857.asx

Watch this well, and tell me you're not more proud of Hicksie than any soccer or football player - more proud of him than any vain leg-spinner or dead cricket icon.

Try to suppress the urge to jump up and yell, "Go Hicksie! You'll do me for a mate!"

Then imagine the kamp kommondants describing the suicides as "assymetric warfare" or as cleverly orchestrated public relations stunts (one of the dead was only 21 years old). Then imagine what a Rocky Horror Show the whole Guantanamo thing has been from the start, daubing everyone and everything it touches with s**t.

There are still Australians who think Guantanamo is a necessary evil. In Auschwitz there were quite a few inmates who thought themselves a cut above the others, so they volunteered to shepherd the rest of the condemned in order to prolongue their own existence. How like those "special" people are our own politicians, our own pragmatic intelligenzia who feel the urge to compromise YOUR freedom, while allowing a little more for themselves.

If Hicksie makes it home with his mind intact - watch out!

There will be a certain slack-gobbed aristocrat who'll be picking the pooh from his fishnets.

"Go Hicksie - you little bewdy!
Posted by Chris Shaw, Carisbrook 3464, Thursday, 15 June 2006 11:40:58 AM
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If only Mirko could get locked up for being Mirko. Just for a week mind you. If we discover that he is not really called Mirko we would let him go.
Posted by hedgehog, Thursday, 15 June 2006 5:37:26 PM
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Good stuff Pericles. In 243 words, you demonstrated what narrow-minded, short-sighted stupidity this 1163 word article is.

“Common good”

A term mentioned 4 times in an article which is only opinion piece backed with nothing but presumptions. Presumptions that the laws couldn’t possibly lead to the further breakdown of basic freedoms; Presumptions that our democracy is “unbreakable”.

The term “common good” could be used to argue AGAINST the author as well. I could argue that not setting a precedence for destroying the freedoms of future generations; all for the short-term security of individuals (to put it in a similar context as the author), is not for the “common good” either.

Where is the author’s proof that the laws won’t be taken further? At least give us an historical example. Don’t just spew terms like “idealist”, “hyperbole” and “rights-worshipping” either. That’s weak and baseless.

“Give ‘em an inch and they’ll take a mile” – Something that the author doesn’t seem to think applies to our government…Ahhh, that’s right - our “robust” democracy!

Mr Bagaric, you’re foolish if you think our democracy is THAT strong. Ever heard of the electronic voting system? Obviously not. Try a Google search. It’s pretty much screwed America’s voting system and is well on the way to corroding their democracy.

The biggest oversight in your baseless article was pointing out the counter-productiveness of sedition laws, then failing to notice the possibility that the government may have “modernised” them to start the ball rolling on the deterioration civil rights. Remember the whole put a frog in boiling water thing?

Are you sure you’re a Professor in Law? Maybe it's the whole "Those who can't do, teach" thing?

As Pericles pointed out, politicians don’t see past their retirement. And here we have some no-brainers puffing their chests with pride with hand-on-heart at the mere thought of these laws.

We still haven’t had one post on this thread agreeing with Mr Bagaric that hasn’t contained dopey catchphrases like “bleeding-heart”, ”idealist”, “chattering classes” and “reactionary”. It just goes to show that their arguments have no merit - just like the author’s.
Posted by Mr Man, Thursday, 15 June 2006 6:52:57 PM
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Pride and Pragmatism

It's funny really. I thought that the golden thread of English justice was the presumption of innocence. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woolmington_v._DPP How naive of me to think that old-fashioned notions like habeas corpus, the rule of law and separation of the powers had any place in the scary new world order.

How nice of Mirko to inform us that idealism has no place in government. Nor apparently do "shallow notions of individual rights". But Mirko believe pride is apparently a legitimate determinant for government policy. Pride and pragmatism.

Still what can we expect anything from the man who believes that state-sanctioned torture might be appropriate http://www.theage.com.au/news/Opinion/A-case-for-torture/2005/05/16/1116095904947.html

Neocon? More like neo-Medieval.
Posted by Johnj, Thursday, 15 June 2006 10:02:21 PM
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Coach, When ever we enter the road we expose ourselves to a risk of being killed. We reduce the risk by having sensible road rules, road signs, traffic lights and safety standards in cars. Yet 1000 or so killed per year is deemed an acceptable risk and we don't see a need for radical changes in the road rules, just tweeking around the edges really.

Every time we step out of the house we also expose ourselves to a risk of being blown up by terrorists. A much smaller risk, except for those living in Indonesia. The government has proposed new laws to reduce the risk, a noble purpose but virtually everyone thinks the laws are way out of proportion to the risk they address. Kind of like forcing cars to have a gent with a red flag walking in front of it.

Pericles, spot on. There have been royal commsions into the police force of every state in the last 20 years. It would be very naive to trust the authorities with our data. These systems are not safe, witness the frequent reports of massive credit card datatheft in US. Nor is DIMMIA a shining light in handling peoples identity.

Finally who is to say the department controlling the database won't be privatised in the future.
Posted by gusi, Friday, 16 June 2006 3:47:47 AM
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Mr Man - You are shifting the burden of proof. It is in fact up to you to prove the laws will be used further.

How many times have they been used so far? Which freedoms of future generations have been destroyed?

You then rely on more conspiracy theories, frighteningly popular with your lot, followed by an ad hominem attack. What evidence do you have that our civil rights are being eroded?

I would argue the use of conspiracy theories by yourself and Chris Shaw, and the deluded, hypothetical fictions of Narcissist with no real-world examples are far worse than 'dopey catchphrases'.
Posted by Dean, Friday, 16 June 2006 4:28:26 PM
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Dean,

- ”How many times have they been used so far?”

I don’t know. That’s the whole point. That sort of information kept secret. But thanks giving me opportunity to the raise point though.

- ”Which freedoms of future generations have been destroyed?”

I didn’t say they had yet. I said that the government had set a precedence for it. Please read more carefully next time.

- ”You then rely on more conspiracy theories…”

Where did I mention the conspiracy theories?

- What evidence do you have that our civil rights are being eroded?

Gee, now where do I start?

- The increased executive discretion to target individuals and organisations because of their political views;
- The ability to hold people for 2 weeks based on even the slightest suspicion with no charge no access to a layer or a phone call to their family. Effectively, the government can make people just disappear;
- New powers for the police to stop, search and demand documents without warrant.

I have to go now but I can keep going later if you'd like? Just give me the go ahead.

As I said on another thread, we’re lucky it hasn’t gone too far in Australia yet but you only have to take a look at the US to see were we’re potentially heading. I’ll give you examples of that also if you’d like? But like I said, I have to be somewhere to be at the moment…bye.
Posted by Mr Man, Friday, 16 June 2006 6:31:41 PM
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Hi y'all
Rache and Mr Man have pretty well summed up the flaws in the Professor's argument. And, yes, he is the proponent of torture previously published in this forum and elsewhere.

The question is, what is his connection with Radovan Karodzic and Slobodan Miloscevic? And, is it true he is connected with an anti-zionist right wing group planning a bombing in muslim mufti to further entrench anti-islamic and fascist views?

The answers are "probably not". But if ASIO, the AFP, or the Victorian Police were to receive information to this effect, Professor Bagaric would not be able to inform us about his detention, his questioning, or, if he got his way, his torture (which maybe why he advocates torture).

The point is that a professor's opinions on populist topics are often just as ill-formed as the most ill-educated redneck's: in this case, a professor just practises a little poorly disguised sophistry that is beyond the average redneck.

Knowing the law and knowing what it is there to do are two different things, as the good professor so admirably demonstrates, perhaps all unawares.

odsoc
Posted by odsoc, Friday, 16 June 2006 10:19:12 PM
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Part One

Besides idealism and pragmatism, let’s take lessons from history and use our brains somewhat. We should then contemplate what any terrorist kingpin like bin Laden and his ilk would want to clap their hands about - the turning of modern unipolar America and us Anglicaholic hangers-on into fascistic societies, simply through reaction not so different from fear from native (terrorist) attacks in colonial times.

Not much different in principle, anyhow. For haven’t we been trespassing in foreign lands once again as we promised not to after WW2 declaring it was the end of colonialism. Did not we bring in the Marshall Plan after WW2, as a Christian example of forgiveness and not firing another shot, even though we could have left Germany and Japan as deservedly third rate nations for another five decades or so.

But even at the time of the Marshall Plan with a rapidly recovering Germany and Japan on our side we forgot about sobriety in the name of necessity. So while historians call the 18-19th-C period the tea and spice economy, they call the present one the oil and gas economy - because there is little doubt that without oil or gas right now we would be in a sorry state
Posted by bushbred, Sunday, 18 June 2006 6:04:35 PM
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Part Two

It was so interesting reading in last week’s Guardian about Shirin Ebadi, an intellectual Iranian woman, who became a human rights lawyer who has fought for Iran to become more democratic. Even so, Ebadi appears to have little time for America owing to the way the US horned in when her father also a lawyer rose to become deputy minister of agriculture under PM Mohammed Mossadegh (whom she describes as the Iranian Gandhi of her country’s independence movement), who lost his job after his boss was toppled in the US-backed 1953 coup when the puppet Shah Rezah was brought back to power.

Both the US and Britain were interested in the high quality Iranian oil, which Mossadegh had been organisng to nationalise. According to Ebadi, it was so humiliating to watch the US moving into her former great Persian homeland as if it was some native backwater, its leaders to be annexed or deposed at the whim of an American President and his CIA.

Also Ebadi says today that looking back she wishes that Iran had only possessed water rather than oil.

Ebadi in her wisdom, not only challenges an Islam that history shows could have been far more democratic than it is today, but also our Western undemocratic economic greed shown so much in the reasoning to depose Mossadegh and her father. Maybe us Onliners might
even take a lesson regarding Iran today.
Posted by bushbred, Sunday, 18 June 2006 6:16:08 PM
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Mirko says that “the best way to nullify loopy views is to dowse them with copious doses of reality.”

Okay Mirko please explain the difference between these real life experiences and your theoretical spin.

You say: “We’ve had control orders for years. If you hassle an ex-partner or neighbour they can swan down to the local court and control your movements by getting an intervention or restraining order which limits where you can go and who you can communicate with.”

Okay. A police officer told me to go down to the local court and get a restraining order after a neighbour punched me in the head. The neighbour had admitted the offence to the officer. My wife and children were justifiably afraid of the creep responsible for the attack.

Now off we go, fill out the forms and the lady behind the counter, to the best of my recollection, asks: “Did he threaten you.”

“What do mean –did he threaten me? He knocked me unconscious, I was carted away in an ambulance. They have been hassling us for months, a group of his friends bashed me two years ago (don’t get me started on how certain police helped cover that up). My kids have a right to walk down our street without feeling threatened. Here ring the police officer if want confirmation.”

Ignoring my request she asks: “So he didn’t threaten you?”

“What do you call a punch in the head for simply asking his son to stop shining laser light at motorists. For asking my assailant to stop yelling at his own kids and calling them ‘little f….’, the guys out of control.”

“Did he threaten you – did he say that he intended to hurt you. All you have to do is write in here (she points to the relevant section) what he said to warrant a restraining order. Like did he say “I’ll kill you, or something like that. You have to write something like that in here”.

Frustrated, I say: “What do you call punching someone when they aren’t even looking?”

continued
Posted by rancitas, Monday, 26 June 2006 1:11:55 PM
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So I wrote that the person had punched me in the head, and his behaviour was generally threatening and, as a consequence, my family and I felt threatened.

My daughter, who was one of about four people who witnessed the incident (I had my hands on her waste and was trying to escort her away when he hit me) interrupted an said that if xxxx hadn’t arrived on the scene as he was moving towards her aggressively she was sure he would have attacked her too. She was terrified of him.

Clerk says: “I can’t take this to a magistrate unless your neighbour has verbally threatened you?”

My assailant is entrenched in the local private-school network/establishment.

And, of course, the police wonder why people, like me, carry knives.

So Mirko, what you are saying is that if the government hassles me I can “swan” on down to the local court and be treated like a piece of shieeet again (don’t get me started on the tricks certain police get up to to protect themselvers and their buddies).

You live in a networked world of privilege and power. You wouldn’t know about the real world, in the real world the ideals of honesty, integrity and so on are just ideals that governments use as propaganda to keep up appearances whilst in reality god only knows what is really going on
Posted by rancitas, Monday, 26 June 2006 1:13:28 PM
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Counter terrorist laws or unjust laws.
We started with Magna Carta,then introduced the Anti Witch laws and now finish up with Anti Terror Laws.
One thousand years of English Justice has brought us back to before Magna Carta.
Report Rumor and lies,and Mirko Bagaric could spend five days in his five star accomodation.
OK better inside than outside blowing up people as Mirko suggests.
I think that the treat of prison and torture might sound OK to Mirko Bagaric,it does not seem right to me, when innocent Australians like Jack Thomas and David Hicks have to pay the price of hysterior.
Laws have been around for centuries under the Mental Health Acts to detain our mad population.
These are used whenever the treat of a terror attack on various VIP's could eventuate.
To please the likes of Mirko, the Federal Government has called it the Anti Terror Act.
Mirko,would your parents miss you if you were detained,and imprisoned for days.Without them knowing as this might be counter productive to his inquisitors
Yes, after your release you were sacked by your employer and if you were a lawyer not allowed to practice.
Sounds fair.If you were under Balkan law not under British law
Posted by BROCK, Monday, 21 August 2006 1:23:49 PM
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