Just imagine an Australian Republic under the republican Greg Barns. It would be a Republic that would give aid and comfort to Islamic fundamentalists, like Hicks, while Australian troops are fighting them overseas, all in the name of his "libertarian" lawyer's holy grail of DUE PROCESS.

This is the closest that anyone would come to LESE MAJESTE of Australia.

http://kotzabasis4.wordpress.com

I reckon that if we don't have "DUE PROCESS", our society can't claim to be civilised. While Hicks is obviously some kind of misguided loser, he exemplifies the extent to which we've allowed our actual liberty to be eroded by the State in recent years.

That's why Barns is right. Everyone is entitled to be treated justly by governments - no matter how loathsome or pathetic they (or indeed governments) are. As an Australian citizen, Hicks was poorly treated by his country for political ends.

Good point from Rainier about the apparent dyslexia many display when it comes to the notion of an apology :)

Thermistocles and others, I might refer you back to the posting of Cazza and Marilyn Shepherd. Our friends in the Republic of the United States of America joined forces with the Taliban and other so called "terrorists" when it suited them, to drive the Russians out of Afghanistan.

David Hick's problems seem to stem from the fact that he got his timing wrong and arrived on the scene in Afghanistan after the Americans had changed sides.

David

Greg Barns is just typical of the equivocating journalist/lawyer class,who can justify all manner of debauchery from traitors like Hicks and paedophiles who must be protected no matter what the consequences.

Affuence now insulates us from our decadence,when the wealth begins to evaporate,our ethical/moral vacuum will consume us.Greg Barns just personifies the metamorphisis of the old socialist left ,to the new progressives,who embrace revolution,instead of evolution.

Kipp - Weak mate. Weak. Ignorance resides in people like yourself.

Whenever the Other is involved in an attrocity, in ANY way, even if via a proxy like Hicks, Western leftists are compelled to deny them the capacity of freedom: RESPONSIBILITY.

Even when the Other is caught red-handed murdering innocents the Western leftist will be compelled to deny them agency by shifting it into a Westerner.

Or even when the Other's racist culture is clearly the protagonist in tribal warfare, the Western leftist will blame Westerners (namely whites) for dividing them up some time in the past.

This is how one treats children!

No ... given that human rights violations only matter to Western leftists when allegedely committed by Western governments, Western leftists MUST think the Other is an animal.

The Other is a lion mutilating a dear on some wildlife documentary. One squints at the thought of it but accepts that the beasts have no freedom of choice in the matter. They're programmed to violate one another that way, so it would be absurd to tell them to stop it, indeed to colonise their wretched lands and set them free.

Oh how they'de wish they COULD blame Westerner's for ALL of nature's brutality!

It is THEY who tacitly assume that Westerner's are God!

A Western leftist only cares about attrocities and gulags when those allegedly responsible for them share the same heritage or white skin colour as them, since by some racist calculus they worry that the Other might blame them too. This is ALL that matters to them.

But to deny the Other any freedom is to deny them HUMANITY.