>>spending years helping "the team" build statutes<<

Col,

So who's the hypocrite then? You've said on various occasions that you prefer order over disorder. If the Law of the Sea outcome is not an example of legislating for international order on the high seas, then what is it? It's a lot more than a statue, my friend.

But, I know there's really a deeper agenda on your part - it is to promulgate the myth that public service = bad while entrepreneurship = good. What garbage on so many levels.

Firstly, there are as many good workers in the PS as there are in private enterprise. And it wouldn't suprise me if the proportions of each are roughly the same too. What this means is that a core of good workers keep PS agencies viable. They tend to carry the weight of others who don't - whether that's fair is another issue that I won't go into here. And these divisions are replicated in the private sector.

What your real agenda is, is to con people into following your particular career choice - or even better, to try to emulate it but fail - so that you have more power and effectively have more people working for your commercial interests without empowering them to the point where they knock you off your perch. It's purely a case of self interest and keeping the hacks in their place.

RobP” But, I know there's really a deeper agenda on your part - it is to promulgate the myth that public service = bad while entrepreneurship = good”

Na.. I am just messing with your head, with some success.

Re “good”versus “bad” … people are “accountable” in the private sector and “unaccountable” in the public sector….

“What this means is that a core of good workers keep PS agencies viable.”

Private sector workers are “viable” by virtue of the management “skills” they work with. When they fail, people lose their jobs and the company fails

Public sector workers are “viable” based on the amount of tax-payer funds they can extort.

When public servants fail they usually get promoted into some pointless position and then screw the tax payer for more money to employ more people to do the job of the previous failure.

“What your real agenda is, is to con people into following your particular career choice - or even better, to try to emulate it”

My agenda is to encourage people to aspire to the maximum of their potential – as for following my career choices…. Oh you silly boy, that is like encouraging competition… and not a sensible strategy for any one selling “scarce skills”

but I understand your problem, you have no vision and no aspirations or perhaps you are just too frightened to risk thinking outside the confines of your secure little box.

“so that you have more power…..”

It seems to be you are the one interested in “Power”… obsessing about how you did something to make “rules of the sea” or whatever… forcing people to conform to your regulation.. and now projecting it into your armchair psycho-analysis of my private persona and what you claim is my secret agenda

I bet you get sucked in by paranoid conspiracy theories too.

“self interest and keeping the hacks in their place.”

I see no “hacks", only individuals…

“hacks” is your term, like “power”

Along with other clues to you being someone who feels entitled to be gain personal “empowerment” by putting others (like me) down.

Col Rogue,

>>Na.. I am just messing with your head, with some success.<<

Pardon me while I choke back the tears, but you're not messing with my head at all. If anything, you're giving me licence to start to let rip. Your one-sided utterances are going to get my nth degree attention from now on. Good luck from here on in.

>>It seems to be you are the one interested in “Power”… obsessing about how you did something to make “rules of the sea” or whatever… forcing people to conform to your regulation.<<

Let me give you an idea of how the LoS legislation has been used to protect Australia's interests and then maybe you'll understand that this isn't just some power trip for it's own sake that's used to tell people how to conform or act.

A few years ago a foreign trawler was poaching our Patagonian toothfish in the Australian EEZ around Heard Island in sub-Antarctic waters. The fishermen probably thought that, as it was so far from the Australian mainland, they could plunder our fish stocks with impunity. The Oz Government found out about it and thought otherwise. A navy vessel was dispatched which intercepted the trawler and escorted it back to Fremantle harbour. The ship was impounded (don't know whether it was sold off or not), the catch sold at the Freo markets and the crew imprisoned for a time. Now that sends a message to plunderers, don't you think?

Without international law being in place, these poachers would have been untouchable.

Your problem is that you have no sense of helping anyone else, so you think that anything done in a group is automatically dragging others down. Well, there's always an element of that, but you try to protect the nation's interests via a bunch of individuals who each have their own personal agenda. It's a bunfight. I like individuals, as individuals too. I just have a different emphasis to you which follows the contours of my life experiences. One particular class of person, like libertarians, do not have a monopoly on the truth.

RobP “If anything, you're giving me licence to start to let rip. Your one-sided utterances are going to get my nth degree attention from now on. Good luck from here on in.”

Ooooooooh .. and why am I not quaking in my boots… when I hear the rattle of an empty bucket.

Doubtless you “letting-rip” has the same terrorizing consequences as a baby breaking wind.

“Your problem is that you have no sense of helping anyone else”

And your problem is you think you know my problem.

Trust me I have no problems.

What you see as unacceptable or as some sort of problem on my part is just a manifestation of your own paranoia and delusion.

However, I do not kow-tow to prickly and pompous little despots who think they have the right to command me on any matter.

I treat your brown-cardigan, home-spun psychoanalysis for what it is.. .

The ravings of the patently ineffectual, using every desperate means to add relevance to a pointless existence.

“One particular class of person, like libertarians, do not have a monopoly on the truth.”

Agree

but it is the socialistsand their fellow travelers who have a monopoly on the use of lies, propaganda and manipulation (as that paragon of political virtue, Lenin, said “If you tell a lie often enough it becomes the truth”)

so just keep on coming at me, as hard as you can and I will keep on playing you along.

Have a nice day

Col,

I restate: "Your problem is that you have no sense of helping anyone else". Absolutely true and your attempts to cover your trail do you no credit.

So, what does a private-sector bean counter achieve that is so much better than a public servant? Designed a few tax-avoidance schemes for your business associates, have you? And, as if we are supposed to value people like you highly. What bollocks!

You remind me of Robbie Williams (the singer) when he said something like he needed/wanted to change the way he was ... but just not yet. You smack of the same thing. You obviously have plenty of talent, but you are putting your lazy and indulgent self-interest before all else.

You come across as someone who would say to the ordinary person, "Thanks for what you've done for laying the foundation for this country's propsperity, but I couldn't really give a toss about you. I'm going to use my superior talents to hoist myself up and have a comfy life for myself". You smack of that Rouge - and if that's not true come out and directly and unambiguously refute it. The fact you haven't up till now is why I think you are a lazy and indulgent toff.

>>However, I do not kow-tow to prickly and pompous little despots who think they have the right to command me on any matter.<<

I'm couldn't give a rat's what you do, quite frankly. You are far too sensitive if you think I'm telling YOU what to do. It's more of a political fight for the available space on offer. At least get that right. My interest in in getting a bit of justice for ordinary people and making a bit of space for them. You completely overstate your importance in the scheme of things. Toss off somewhere else.

RobP ”I restate: "Your problem is that you have no sense of helping anyone else".”

And I restate “And your problem is you think you know my problem….

…a manifestation of your own paranoia and delusion.”

You are wasting your time pretending you have sufficient intellectual insight to analyze people like me.

We are just above and beyond your comprehension, not because we are special or superhuman

but simply because your “comprehension” is just inadequate.

“I'm couldn't give a rat's what you do, quite frankly”

Seems inconsistent with “Your one-sided utterances are going to get my nth degree attention from now on.”

Nothing new with the intellectually bewildered being inconsistent

“My interest in in getting a bit of justice for ordinary people and making a bit of space for them”

I prefer to see individuals respected as individuals

“You completely overstate your importance in the scheme of things”

What you mean as an individual?

I see no one more significant than a self-motivated individual who accepts his responsibilities and carries them without complaint.

You on the otherhand, prefer to tell us how you wrote the “laws of the sea” and how we should pay homage to your grand plan for regulation of the most mundane…

perhaps you are working on a regulation to control every individuals bowel movements …

I would like to read that..

But speculate, it will be just another bureaucratic load of “tish”.

“Toss off somewhere else”

Well I guess on that matter you have the edge on me… hands down, so to speak….