Morality under imperialism : Comments

By John Passant, published 14/7/2008

A new McCarthyism stalks Australia in an attempt to control dissent and free choice.

Pages:
‹
1
Page 2
3
4
›
All

Posted by one under god, Tuesday, 15 July 2008 9:46:00 AM

John Passant makes out that we are on a clear path towards ‘McCarthyism’. But even a lot of the examples he quotes are not indicative of that at all.

For example: tighter restrictions when travelling, especially by air, due to the war on terror. Isn’t this reasonable? Would it be sensible to not have attempted to improve security? Of course some freedom is lost for ordinary people. But perhaps in the absence of these restrictions a lot of people would have lost a lot more than a bit of freedom – in a major terrorist attack or two. And if such an attack did happen in Australia, we’d all lose a whole lot more freedom than we have due to efforts to prevent it.

Of course there are aspects of this effort which irritate some people and which might seem unnecessary and ineffective. But this doesn’t mean that there is a deliberate surreptitious attempt to suppress our freedoms with disingenuous motives.

Example 2: The attempt to introduce ‘annoyance’ laws for World Youth Day was clumsy. But the desire to prevent conflict is understandable. Yes it was a pretty solid attempt to suppress one avenue of free expression, temporarily …against an institution (the Catholic Church) which deserves the expression of a great deal of outrage. But the prospect of major bouts of conflict between WYD events and protesters was rightly something that the authorities and planners desired to prevent.

I don’t like Rudd’s Christianity or his condemnation of artists over child nudity in art. But let’s face it, anyone in his position would have some undesirable traits.

I’m not willing to see any of these things as part of a “gradual strangulation of democratic rights” that John fears.

I believe in stronger governance, a stronger and better-defined rule of law and a more effective policing regime. Rather than this eroding our rights, it would help protect them. This is going to be very important in the near future as some very ominous pressures build upon us all, which will push a lot of people into desperate measures and dog-eat-dog tactics.

Posted by Ludwig, Tuesday, 15 July 2008 1:17:15 PM

Creeping fascism is what we are talking about here. Our leaders are scared and think they know best for us, we voted 'em in after all.

War leads to all kinds of problems, lies and propaganda being the main diet fed us. In wars past our enemies infiltrated our government departments, attacked out communication lines and played merry hell with our food supplies.

Paranoia, is a symptom of war. Paranoia has two sides - heads fear, tails grandiosity. The grandiose tell us what to do and when we rebel they get violent believing they have the moral duty to cane us. We are being subjected to this insanity everyday now. Food and petrol are inflating like in a war... More people are drinking and drugging themselves into oblivion. The police are harvesting tons of drugs not kilos like in the past. Its like we are at war...
My internet connection frequently goes on the blink like the Internet itself is being infiltrated and attacked - could it be I wonder...

The Prime Minister who appeared nearly naked himself in the Bulletin when he was a child... didn't you know...is a very worried man - three wars going on at the same time and he hates children, well, he finds them revolting and disgusting, pity really when he has all this responsibility and doesn't know what to do about the situation. Carbon credits anyone?

Posted by Barfenzie, Tuesday, 15 July 2008 1:20:46 PM

Most informative statement since WW2 was the one by Henry Kissinger that to allow little new Israel to go militarily nuclear would not only upset the balance of power in the Middle East for years to come, but cause much more anger from Arab nations.

And surely helped to cause the Western tragedy of 9/11.

Making the situation much much worse was Israel's treatment of Mordecai, which should go down in history as the only personage with courage enough to back statements as declared by Kissinger, as well as revealing the gutlessness of the time, not only shown by the UN but also by both the Geneva and Hague Conventions.

Certainly the pride that an old soldier like myself felt following the rhetoric from the new UN during the Korean
War, is now buried in the shock and bitterness resulting from a world that has allowed America, just one nation to rule our globe and making such a mess of it by breaking laws that have also been proven from the trials and errors of both our religous and philosophical histories.

It is thus as Immanuel Kant declared:

From now on we cannot trust neither one nation nor even one man under God to rule this world, but most preferably a
Federation of Nations.

From which of course grew the League of Nations and our present United Nations, but failed mostly by a single strong nation letting single nation characters like Condoleeza Rice move in trying to preach the tone of global justice.

Posted by bushbred, Tuesday, 15 July 2008 1:38:21 PM

I always tend to agree with the thrust of what you present John, but a few points on this one.

The war-on-terror has led to questionable new legislation expanding the powers for law enforcement and counter-terrorism agencies. It begs the question - what is it we are trying to protect if the legislation works against those freedoms and democratic rights we take for granted. In a perfect world, policies that reduce global inequity are the best deterrents(the Greens).

Current economic disparity, not to mention unprovoked invasions like that of Iraq, have inevitably increase the risk of terrorism.

Recent court cases here in Australia demonstrate that the risk of terrorism has increased both in Australia and overseas. This does not mean that we become paranoid as, let's face it, the risk of being killed in a terrorist incident is less than dying in a car accident.

Governments should neither be complacent about terrorism nor should they overreact by enacting dubious legislative powers. It is a balancing act between safety and civil liberties and in this respect our new powers have gone too far.

As for the 'morality under imperialism' argument I am not sure we are any worse than the McCarthy era. We are certainly more enlightened and accepting of divorce, homosexuality and sex outside of marriage.

Morality has always been used by politicians of all flavours as a media opportunity. I don't think we have become any more judgemental. In some ways, secular and multi-cultural societies, have led to a greater understanding of other people who might be different from outselves.

Of course there will always be fear and bigotry - but I don't think it is worse than the white supremacy fanatics of the past and I don't see any increase in 'moral panic'.

As for Henson etal, perhaps the increase in our growing intolerance of the sexual exploitation of children in pursuit of profit has highlighted these issues in the media. There is a growing awareness (not panic) of some of the failures to protect children within a society conflicted by gowing 'affluenza' (gratis Clive Hamilton).

Posted by pelican, Tuesday, 15 July 2008 2:41:45 PM

Must say our OLO is changing its focus too much onto more localised problems, which newer OLO's are already handling.

Gives reminder so much of our Mandurah U3A, formerly begun by ex-journalists still in contact with Perth universities.

Now it has pretty well become a little friendly society even banning anything upsetting, especially news about today's Middle East.

Cheers, BB, Buntine, WA.

Posted by bushbred, Wednesday, 16 July 2008 11:00:54 AM

Pages:
‹
1
Page 2
3
4
›
All

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