Well, I stayed away for a full day to give all those scintillant conversationalists time to be brilliant about the topic and look - not a word. You poor things are all bereft when you don't have Antiseptic to whinge about, aren't you? What empty lives you must lead.

pynchme:"Do you think that is indicative that something continues to be wrong in the social structure ?"

No. I think it's indicative that people under stress behave badly and that if someone is going to be violent toward others, they'll choose those smaller or weaker than they are. Thus some men bash their wives, some women bash their kids, some big kids bash smaller kids and so on. In each case, the one who uses physical violence is vilified and yet there is never any sense at all that the "victim" may have been actively involved in escalating a situation to the point that physical force is used.

Don't try to claim I'm condoning violence, because I'm not, I'm simply being realistic about it. Let's face it, noone in the history of the world has managed to come up with any way of eliminating it even in a small area and there have been some pretty strong attempts.

The sensible thing is to educate people in ways to avert escalation to that point, not vilifiy one form while remaining entirely silent about all others. To do so is to create a hierarchy - in this case a "matriarchy", which may make your ovaries ache with joy, but will only replace one form of violence with another.

I find it fascinating that there is an acceptance of violence by the state, with very strong violence being seen as acceptable if the organs of the state are the perpetrators and they assault one of the approved classes of victim, such as men, especially young, aboriginal or Moslem ones, but never if they assault women [violence against women is never acceptable Kevin Rudd]. The mental gymnastics needed to encompass that world view must be very tiring.

Certainly we need some sort of adjudication in exercises like the above.

Makes one wonder if any of us will ever be able to admit what is right or wrong, especially when one is fighting for a cause, as most of us are?

Certainly if we try to stick to a democratic academia, it seems we either share the blame or finish up like the early Roman Empire, which learning from the Greek philosophers, even developed a Senate, though it was to contain mostly the aged, kind of tribal, where the oldies were the most experienced.

But somewhat like now, all the young were looking forwards not backwards which with Rome brought out the Caesars, abilities with the sword and lance as well as with throaty articulation.

And so interestingly, both the Aged Senators and the Caesars
as with religion brought out the Thou Shalts, while with the Sermon on the Mount, the young Jesus threw out the Thou Shalts and replaced them with the Blessed Are, as we would give both love and admiration to the Good Samaritan or the ordinary Aussie might call to a family seemingly broken down on a country road.

Are you people Okay?

Finally finishes with just a thought, that's all, but really like the Good Samaritan, it is all that decent progress is all about.

Cornflower: <" If you insist on making men collectively responsible for the sins of the few...">

Please show where that's been done.

I'm fascinated by the progress of this discussion. I'm beginning to know a little of what it may have felt like to be a Jew in Nazi Germany, when the "tyranny of the majority" reached its zenith.

Congratulations, grrls, you've done Herr (and Fraulein SJF) Goebbels proud. I believe he was quite fond of Pomeranians, too.

Antiseptic: <"pynchme:"Do you think that is indicative that something continues to be wrong in the social structure ?"

No. I think it's indicative that people under stress behave badly and that if someone is going to be violent toward others, they'll choose those smaller or weaker than they are. Thus some men bash their wives, some women bash their kids, some big kids bash smaller kids and so on.">

This (linked story) is a current example of what I mean. Two girls have expulsion on their school records and a concerned teacher was sacked for trying to protect the students. Doesn't it seem to you that there is a systemic problem when neither the assistant principal who helped facilitate those injustices, nor the school board, nor even the ombudsman and departmental others, are called to account for punishing people who did no wrong but to raise the alarm?

http://www.smh.com.au/national/brave-girls-pay-high-price-for-exposing-evil-20090418-aarx.html?page=1

What do you think is at the core of their failure to act to protect students ?

Pynchme, this was not "structural" it was a poor decision on the part of one particular individual - the deputy head who was first told. He was obviously comfortable with the Principal and decided that there was nothing to investigate. People make these sorts of decisions all the time, especially in schools, were the pupils are not averse to trying to "make trouble" for teachers they don't like, including making up stories. I doubt that atory you quoted is the whole of it, because in my experience students are not expelled for a first offence. I suspect that these girls had a history of discipline problems and the science teacher only spoke up after she was made redundant, which would lead easily to a conclusion that she was acting out of sour grapes.

If the deputy was aware of all of that (and it seems he was), what is wrong with his decision to weight the allegation accordingly? Given, also that the subject of the allegation did the expelling (apparently properly in terms of the available evidence) as part of his job role, who should have stopped it? How?

It seems that your position is similar to ninaf's: if an allegation of anything improper sexually is made, it must be assumed to be true until investigated and even then, if no evidence is found, it must be treated as though it COULD be true. If we followed that rule on every aspect of the law we'd have 2 million police and the rest of the population lawyers.

Let me ask you what you think was the essense of this principal's crime? Was it the sexual activity, or was it the breach of his position of trust? Why?