Foxy,

I just worked out why he is getting the job.

They think having Tony Abbott on the team will make the rest of them look a whole lot smarter.

Mr O,

Thanks for your commentary.

For me this discussion has now run its course.

See you on the next one.

Posted by Mr Opinion-

Canem Malum,

I like your take on what I said about our democracy just replacing one type of ruler with a group of similar people in which power and authority over the hoi polloi is all that seems to matter.

The sad part about our democratic system is that it has contradictions. It does allow citizens to engage in government just like the Athenians (males) but power is still not fully in the hands of all the citizens to make equal choices and decisions.

So we have representatives but unfortunately a lot of those tend to be of the same types as Tony Abbott and Joh Bjelke-Petersen who I think would sell their own grandmother if they could make a buck out of it.

Answer-

Thanks for your feedback Mr Opinion. I'm not an expert on these matters- but I see what I see.

Deneen opened my eyes to a different perspective that I found useful. I think you are still looking at governing and society through the lense of Locke's vision being of independent individuals- I think Locke was projecting his own and the Renaissance Intellectual self interest on the world- something that perhaps continues as a romantic notion today. Confucius OTOH had the view that society was a hierarchy- though he like the Renaissance Intellectuals was perhaps also a non-conformist.

Without Deneen I wouldn't have seen through my own previous bias- he in turn credits Alexis de Tocqueville. I've since learned of similar modern bias to other fields like Economics. Hard sciences seem less prone to this type of pedagogic indoctrination. It seems academics are vulnerable to the types of weaknesses due the common man- it reinforces conceptual allegiance to principles rather than qualifications.

I sometimes find that looking at the argument through Jungian Archetypes is a useful way of discovering other perspectives. Eg. Renaissance Intellectual Non-Conformist "Rebel" there must be other perspectives on the Jungian Wheel of 12. Jung's discredited archetypes were divided into personal vs group and order vs chaos. Renaissance Intellectual Non-Conformist perhaps is located in Jung's "personal/ chaos" quartile.

Politics and philosophy in a broad sense have similar lenses. With respect I see Tony Abbott and Joh Bjelke-Petersen differently. Tony Abbott perhaps comes from the "Conservative" Traditionalist non-"Locke Liberal" part of the "Liberal Party"- if that is true he is probably less about selling things than someone like Turnbull who is more of an Economic Liberal. Joh was probably old school Paleo-Traditionalist that lived through World War II. They say war creates thieves- peace hangs them- only someone who has served in conflict can really understand this mindset. The idea that sometimes you have to break the rules to get things done. Nurses in wars sometimes have to steal bandages to treat their patients- this could be a criminal matter- but is it right? Some may say that comparing Joh to a nurse is ridiculous- you have to make your own journey. I believe Joh loved Australia- that is something.

As to our democratic system having contradictions- there is never going to be a perfect system- humans aren't perfect- if we can reduce complexity- manage pro-actively- we can make it better- but some don't want better because they are getting what they want- even if it's at the expense of others- maybe they have a point- there are many things that contrive to subvert happiness and fairness. It's a bit like chaos theory. But modern society is very different than the three million years of humanity. Many discredit the blind learnings of nature and the traditional human societies that resulted. Even Locke lived in a very different world- maybe Liberalism needs to be adapted to the ten billion individual scale. But with scale comes complexity- the problem seems unsolvable- but reduce the scale reduce the complexity- increase the fairness.

Socrates said I'm the wisest because I know that I don't know. Traditional society was based on testing over many generations. Modern society think that they know better

Foxy,

Most of what you last posted is pure innuendo or outright lies.

1) The final recipients of Rhodes Scholarships are decided by Oxford, not the preselection panel that Heydon sat on.

2)While Abbott worked with Heydon later I cannot find anything that indicates that Abbott and Heydon knew each other prior to the selection.

3) to get into law at Sydney Uni you need better than a 99 ATAR, and to get onto the selection list you need to be academically one of the best of these. To claim that TA is anything other than one of the brightest intellects in Aus is complete crap and pure spite.

4) The viciousness of the attacks on Juliar pales into insignificance on the bile heaped on TA from the left whinge press. The thuggish personality is another of your lies for which there is no evidence whatsoever.

shadowminister,

It is easy to see that you are on the same level as Tony Abbott.

Foxy and I and others of our ilk are not.