The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > Betraying the values we champion > Comments

Betraying the values we champion : Comments

By Gary Sheumack and Tiziana Torresi, published 20/9/2006

We share a commitment to a liberal set of political values which bind us to respecting all human beings equally.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. All
Needing to be questioned is the idea that ‘all human beings are deserving of equal respect and consideration’. This is clearly questionable, as there are many human beings who don’t go along with the theory and treat their fellows very badly – criminals, despots, terrorists etc. Are they really entitled to the same respect as decent human beings? To ‘deserve’ something, you have to earn it. The silly dishing out or human ‘rights’ to all and sundry is one of the biggest contributors to people getting away with things they should not be getting away with, in Australia and internationally.

Australia having a ‘deep political commitment to respecting all human beings equally’, as the authors would have it, would be a total nonsense in the current terror crisis.

One wonders how much their ever-so nice theories would stand up if they were victims of any of the anti-social characters they want to award ‘rights’ to
Posted by Leigh, Wednesday, 20 September 2006 11:51:50 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
From the Article

1/ freedom of speech, conscience, religion.
2/ acceptance of diversity within society.

Now.. again, sounds good in a coffee shop with those of like mind, in the absense of the acrid smoke fading from the last explosion caused by those who take a different view.

PROBLEMS.

a) Freedom of CONSCIENCE, causes me to SPEAK, about RELIGION.

Just like it moved 2 pastors, one of whom had experienced persecution from those who did not share his faith, to speak out about what would happen if we simply let those of 'certain' diverse opinions flourish in our society.
They were sued and harrassed by those of that 'certain' ideology here in Australia who claimed they were 'vilifiying' them.
Now, with the benefit of some arrests of 22 people and hindsight, we change the word 'would' to...'did'.

We need to have freedom to register concern over a sudden unbalance in the federal court judge appointments where 6 out of 12 of the Victorian ones are all Aboriginal. Specially when land rights cases come before them.

b) Acceptance of Diversity ?

What kinds of diversity ? to what extent ? Do we accept a diversity which would remove the very freedom to criticize them. Or those who seek to promote sexual deviance as 'normal' to our infants and children through the education system ?

Do we accept the Paedophile political party in the Netherlands ?

Do we accept hard line Communists who's manifesto is 'The dictatorship of the Proletariat by violent revolution against entrenched Borgoise' ?

Of course not. To do so would be suicidal and plain stupid.

So..WORD to the Authors... get your act together and re-think the shallowness of your suppositions.
We, your readers are neither naive, or stupid and in case you were wondering, we don't have a social or cultural death wish.

We don't want 'slogans' (tolerance, acceptance, respect for difference' etc) we want well thought out argument based on truly enduring principles.
Posted by BOAZ_David, Wednesday, 20 September 2006 12:52:18 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Typical silly article. Multiculture is 'betraying the values we champion' by allowing in an influx of migrants whose values are exactly opposite those of ours and our pioneers.
Magistrates and judges by their soft sentences are 'betraying our values' by letting those who rob and murder us to go on doing just that.
There are many who betray our values and quite a lot of them are in our parliament, our universities and our schools. Not to mention the media.
We have an uphill job trying to protect our values.
Posted by mickijo, Wednesday, 20 September 2006 2:15:15 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Australian values have been smothered by multiculturalism. Those eleutheromaniacs who set sail for our shores are confronted by the cherished prize of freedom and they find the experience frightening and unwholesome. After all, how on earth can a 19-year-old female wear a bikini on a hot Sunday afternoon at a Sydney beach. Surely she must be a slut or whore. Someone find her a black tent and quick.

We did have equal respect for all people and how was that rewarded? They arrive here and quickly develop an unwonted ability to offend. They complain about our alcohol or gambling. Those things never troubled them when they were accepting our foreign aid. That foreign aid was generated through taxes. Even the alcohol industry and the gambling industry pay taxes. Do these same apathists ever stop to think that the money which props up their ‘special’ schools may have come from the taxes paid by the frivolous perfume industry? Wouldn't they go into conniptions if they knew that.

As far as I know the motto “a fair go for all” applied to Australians. Some of those entering our country will never be Australian.
Posted by Sage, Wednesday, 20 September 2006 3:18:28 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Can someone please tell me what "Australian values" are.

No, really. Please.

Mateship? What about women?

Tolerance? A fair go? As long as your skin's the right colour, or you don't visit the wrong type of temple.

I don't know what it is exactly that we're supposed to be "protecting", but it seems to me that we're going backwards by the day with all this jingoistic hogwash. White Australia Policy, here we come!
Posted by stickman67, Wednesday, 20 September 2006 5:25:59 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Boaz,

It seems to me it is obvious already from the argument made in the article that the outlandish propositions you make would not be included in the "diversity" considered, the authors clearly state that the basis of our society is in the value of equal respect and rights for all human beings so OBVIOUSLY pedophilia cannot be included amongst the rights people have because it breaches the right of children not to be abused.

Adovocation of pedophilia is a bit more tricky, some people do believe that the right to free speech is so important to our democratic political process that it is simply too dangerous to ever allow goverment to decide what can or cannot be said and who can or cannot speak. They think that talking usually does not breech rights, only acting does, and so it is acting we legislate, So advocation of phedopilia is ok, phedophilia itself is not.

Others believe that the right to free speech should be curtailed when its exercise may result in other rights being violated. So if we believe that advocation can lead to practise then we are entitled to oulaw it. As we do with "hate speech" for example.

It is for us to decide. These are the debates we need to have. But the bedrock of the debate must be the best way to protect people's rights, otherwise we slide into dictatorship and one view gets imposed on everybody else.

You speak as if you had the solution already, as if everything was plain and clear. But then you are very quick to claim for yourself the right to freedom of conscience religion and speech. So underlying the importance of these values is shallow only when they apply to people you disapprove of? and I don't mean pedophiles Boaz, don't try that line, I already said that practising that is unacceptable!
Posted by Schmuck, Wednesday, 20 September 2006 6:29:05 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Leigh,

An Israeli philosopher once said that Nazis do not have rights anymore because of what they did, but that nvertheless we owe them a certain treatment because of our own humanity, because if we did to them what they have done we would descend into barbarity, too, and then what would be the difference between us?

You say the dishing out of human rights to all and sundry, but human rights must by defintion be possessed by all human beings. You say some people behave in such a way to fellow human beings that they lose their right to our respect, that is true in a sense, but respect for humanity is not about specific good qualities of each individual, it is simply about a basic way in which no human being should ever be treated, after all it is precisely this that the people you mention have fallen foul of, they have breached human rights. If we didn't recognise a certain basic way nobody should be treated how do we recognise the "bad" people?

After all, terrorists say precisely that, they kill civilians and then say that they "deserved" it because of something they did. Don't you see that if we abandon a simple belief that nobody ever should be treated in certain ways, that is muredred, tortured, raped, etc. we all descend into barbarity?

We have prison for criminals, breeching their right to free movement is justified by what they did and by the protection that affords to everybody else. But we should not deny their humanity, if we do that we also lose our own.
Posted by Schmuck, Wednesday, 20 September 2006 6:40:25 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Australian values comes down to being lucky enough to live in this rich and relatively free country; and that's about it.
The notion of everybody being treated equally is absurd. Do some reading on the nature of power in its many forms. If human beings were as wonderful as you suggest the planet wouldn't be in such a disgusting mess. Humans are basically just tubes of meat that turn animals, birds, fish and vegetables into excrement in order to energise them into plundering the world around them in a frenzy of greed and egoism.
We have a relatively safe and comfortable country 'girt by sea' so don't let your simpering need to be nice help any more of the fanatical demons in to destroy it. Islam is the enemy of all rational people and especially the feminists and gays who seem to think the enemy of their enemy (heterosexual males)is their friend. The terrorists are forcing us all to play by their (absence of) rules so the longer you keep up the nice liberal pretense the tougher it is going to be later.
Posted by citizen, Wednesday, 20 September 2006 8:26:15 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Cripes.

How could anybody respond to most of the above comments, which began with a refutation of the basic liberal democratic value that all human beings are intrinsically deserving of respect and consideration, and went downhill from there?

Shame on you hatemongers. No wonder we're going to hell in a handbasket.
Posted by CJ Morgan, Wednesday, 20 September 2006 10:12:35 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
I have whatever Citizen is smoking.
Australia wasn't the "Lucky Country" by chance.It took a lot of dedication,sacrifice and hard work by past generations to achieve,which we are now at risk of losing.Thailand had another coup today and we can easily decend to that chaos in a few decades.John Howard is on the right path.
Posted by Arjay, Wednesday, 20 September 2006 11:09:34 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Australia is absolutely incredible and there is a whole ecology out there under threat which almost no-one is paying attention to because of the focus on synthetic lists of 'values' devised by hacks in political offices.

This is all so anthropocentric and narrow, bland and narcissistic.

I think Steve Irwin stood for Australia (Australian values) much better than the Prime Minister or the writer of this article or those who have commented and he didn't just stand up for humans.

We are turning this place into a desert full of talking apes.
Posted by Kanga, Wednesday, 20 September 2006 11:34:47 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Dear Shmuck
I had a close read of your post, and have to agree that the authors did address the issue of the 'whacko' element somewhat.

I think my main difficulty with their piece, is probably a matter of degree, and with regard to your comment on mine, I do have some serious reservations which I will now explain.

You mentioned:
"Paedophilia breaches the right of children not to be abused"

The key word there is 'abused'. We had quite a ding dong on the general discussion thread I raised about 'smacking' children. 90% of Australians do not consider this 'abuse' (I'm one of them) 10% do.

The danger in a morally relativistic society, is that such concepts as 'abuse' are under challenge and dispute 24/7. They are 'most' disputed and challenged by groups who feel they have the most to gain by such opposition and re-definition. This is what Nambla and the Paedo party in Netherlands are on about. Nambla says "Sexual experiences between older men and young boys can be a very positive thing".

I remember once when homosexual behavior was unquestionably regarded as 'deviate'. I still maintain that view, but I think its safe to say that a large proportion of the community hold a differnt view.

The question is: "What happened since the early 60s to achieve this change of mindset" ?

Well clearly, activism, shouting in the streets, outing, persuasive comment by opinion leaders etc.....

Do you think this could never happen regarding 'Paedophile behavior' ?
Of course it can. It will be 'incremental' .. u know.. evolutionary rather than revolutionary, so people are lulled into a false sense of false security. 'Small' changes don't seem threatening, LARGE ones do.
But just like you can eat an elephant 'one bite at a time' a lot of small changes over time, add up to one HUGE change.
Today's 'abuse' is tomorrows 'acceptable behavior' unless we have an anchor and in my case, I'm sure u know what I regard that to be.
Posted by BOAZ_David, Thursday, 21 September 2006 7:45:57 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Sorry Schmuck, but I’ll stick with my opinion rather than with that of an unnamed ‘Israeli philosopher’. One of the most basic and important rights is to be able to form ones own opinion as that Israeli, you and I have done.

Not ‘all human beings’ have the rights you believe they do. They have forfeited them. On the assumption that you are a decent person, I doubt that you would want me to treat you the way I would treat, say Saddam Hussein. I also doubt that many of the people who have suffered at the hands of that foul creature would want to give him ‘equal rights’, either. We innately recognise good from bad, bad people from good people. There is no philosophy to dictate what we think.

When you speak of terrorists and their ‘reasons’ for being terrorists, you are talking about severely deranged people, well outside the accepted norms, and not worthy of bringing into the argument.

You ask: ‘Don’t you see that if we abandon a simple belief that nobody ever should be treated in certain ways …… we will descend into barbarity?’

No, Schmuck. I do not see that. I already know, as you do, that people should not be treated in ‘certain ways’. Going soft on people who do not believe this will mean that more people will descend into barbarity if they are not dealt with harshly. They know very well the difference between right and wrong. Unlike you and me, they deliberately override the switch that prevents them from doing wrong. No one is born bad. They learn from example and lax punishment more concerned with their ‘rights’ than those of their victims
Posted by Leigh, Thursday, 21 September 2006 8:59:35 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Boaz,

I totally agree with you that the danger is relativism. And I also think you are right that we need to be very vigilant that certain limits to behaviour are kept. You are absolutely right that sometimes these limits are violated.

It's just that I think that the best way to keep those limits and to avoid relativism is precisely to insist on people's rights. Rights serve the purpose of defining a boundary beyond which governments cannot go, and therefore provide a limitation to democratic debate.

For example, with pedophilia, if we insist that nobody can be forced to do anyhting unless they have consented to it, and that children cannot give consent because of their age, and therefore parents are entitled to decide what activities children embrace then we can prevent the pedophiles from winning the argument.

That is also why I am afraid I don't agree with you on homosexuality, they are adults, they consent to it, it is none of our business what they do.

By the same token, you have every right to teach your children you think this is wrong behavior. As well as to voice your opinion publicly.

I just think that if we start going down the road of denying people have these rights we end up with relativism, in fact human rights are often attacked by relativists who accuse them of being Western imperialist impositions!

And without them in the end with would finish up with despotism. People disagree on these issues, and without basic rules that protect individuals we would end up with the strongest ones winning out and imposing their views on everybody else. And the strongest ones may be very bad indeed.

Of course this system of personal freedoms means we all have to live with things we consider wrong. That's difficult. But I am just afraid that without them we would be even worse off.

You know what people say, democracy is a very bad system of government but it is also the best we have!
Posted by Schmuck, Thursday, 21 September 2006 8:20:29 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Leigh,

I am sorry, you are right, I should have said. The philosopher in question is Avishai Margalit. I didn't think it mattered but maybe it was rude to omit it.

As for your post, I am not sure exactly what we disagree on, because at one point you do say that you already know people should not be treated in certain ways. Which is pretty much what I was trying to say, too, that is there are certain ways it is wrong to treat people, I presume simply because they are people. Which is the doctrine at the basis of human rights.

Maybe the disagreement then is that you think people who fail to respect rights forfait their own rights and therefore we are then allowed to treat them in ways that we otherwise wouldn't. But then I have said I agree with that, too. Of course I think you should not treat me the way you would treat Saddam Hussein, he is a criminal, I am not. He will go to prison, I won't.

So maybe the disagreement is one of degrees, that is, maybe you think we have no duty to respect any of Saddam Hussein's rights at all. So that we could torture, kill, humiliate him as well. That's where I would disagree. I think we still owe it, not to him personally, but to his and our own humanity to refrain form excess.

And this is because I think nobody should be tortured, and this is precisely the rule that Saddam has violated. It only reinforces the wrongness of his behavior to say that even though he has done it himself we will not do it to him, because we believe in the wrongness of these acts, because we can see right from wrong.

And this is less than what the Bible itself requires, turn the other cheeck?
Posted by Schmuck, Thursday, 21 September 2006 8:36:45 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Oh, I'm so sorry, but this fails at so many levels. I don't want to rain on anyone's parade here, but the value system of the many and various Australian cultures is not 'the liberal political system'--and the logic that the authors have used to derive this equation is beyond me. I wish Ausralia did value 'liberalism' over everything else, because I'd love to live in such a fairy-land utopia (I think...).

What they've described is simply not a model of how society works - from what I understand of the reasoning, they are suggesting that the only thing that the various Australian cultures have in common are the values of 'liberal politics', that therefore 'liberalism' isn't just the most important Australian value, but is the only Australian value.

'Australian' values are those which are conjured when each individual thinks of themselves as Australian -- and for some people they may well include things like 'not slanty-eyed', or 'not Islamic'. And if enough of them believe that and convince enough others, then that intolerance becomes the dominant culture. There's some evidence that infact Howard has managed to rewrite Australian culture to give permission to that intolerance, which has therefore become stronger (no longer is being racist something that people are ashamed of).

But then, I guess I can see what the authors are attempting. It is true that it is possible to influence opinions by pointing out cultural inconsistencies - like the clash between the belief in human rights (which stems from the Judeo-Christian belief system), and the belief that all migrants must accept 'our' values if they are to become citizens. But this paper doesn't quite do the trick.

Sorry. On your side, guys, really.
Posted by Moonie, Sunday, 24 September 2006 10:04:01 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Moonie,

well, of course not all Australians are liberals, if they were we wouldn't be having these discussions at all, would we? but isn't it undeniable that Australia is a liberal democracy? that is, that our poliitcal system is a liberal political system therefore we do share that don't we? so the point is, I think, if we claim that Australia is a liberal democracy then we ought to behave in a certain way, and not that everybody agrees with liberalism

and just a small point, it is true that Christianity has a universalist ehtos and therefore is in a way partly why a belief in human rights evolved, but we should not overplay this, a lot of traditions have influenced this development. And a lot of what went into human rights was secular in nature.

An let's not forget that liberalism as a philosphy partly developped as a way of dealing with warrying factions of Christians in Europe...
Posted by Schmuck, Monday, 25 September 2006 12:48:30 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
arjay your statement is the most sober of all these articles. what exactly is it that makes the do-gooders (who are 95 % academic background) fail to see what is happening. when i converse with ordinary revenue contributing people, 95% of them can see where we are heading. education in australia derailed during and after the whitlam years and has given us the situation we're finding ourselves in now. we can only hope that we will soon have some sort of national service (not military service) so that the saturation educated actually get some exposure to reality.
Posted by pragma, Wednesday, 27 September 2006 10:01:38 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Arjay and Pragma,

I agree with you that Australia is not "lucky" if not simply in the sense of being such a beautiful country from a natural perspecive. It took hard work, of course, but part of that hard work was to achieve a fair, liberal and free society, which we are in danger of losing if we give in to fear. We must continue upholding these values. Howard is betraying them in many of the things he does.

Then I have a few questions, first, didn't migrants also contribute to build Australia as it is today? why should it be different now? second, why is education a bad thing? third, what reality are you talking about? I think the "do-goodres" and "academics" as you choose to label those you disagree with you, Pragma, also see the reality, the reality of our country implementing policies which betray its core values, hurt people and violate rights as well as unltimately making the world a less safe place for everybody. Why is this any less "real" then what you see?

To argue for one's point simply by calling it "real" is simplistic, people disagree on facts and on what is "real" that is precisely the point of the debate, isnt' it?
Posted by Schmuck, Thursday, 28 September 2006 2:11:22 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy