Sports Stars Should Pay HECS

Since 1989, Australian university students are levied HECS fees, currently between $4400 and $8800 p.a., depending on the type of course. These must be repaid from taxable income, once it reaches a given threshold.

Given the quality of the facilities and very low “student / staff ratios”, it costs more per capita to train elite athletes on scholarships at the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) or its state equivalents than to train doctors, scientists, engineers or teachers at Australian universities. In fact, an AIS spokesman quoted in 2009 said it cost an average of $30,000 p.a. for each athlete. That’s about $33,000 p.a. now.

Yet there is no equivalent HECS system for these elite athletes, despite many of them going on to make multi-million dollar incomes from their chosen sport.

Here’s an old (2002) report from the Australia Institute. It contains a good summary of the Australian sports people who have been on AIS scholarships and their current annual earnings … and that was in 2002! You might recognize a few names. Now we can add to that list: Michael Clarke, Lauren Jackson, Bernard Tomic (via Tennis Australia).

Are we really saying these people shouldn’t have to repay to Australian taxpayers the cost of their (clearly successful) training?

People make the counter argument that sporting careers are usually short lived and many do not ever make a livable income from their sport, either through injury or simply because they do not reach the required level. Taxpayer funded, professional wafflers, such as the authors of the Crawford Report agree.

The argument is a non sequitur. There is no reason why any sporting HECS scheme would necessarily require payments from athletes who do not end up deriving large incomes from their sport or related activities; just the ones who do.

I’m not saying governments shouldn’t encourage sport, or fund sporting institutes. They should. As well as promoting health, sport generates employment. It raises people’s spirits. It’s valuable to society. But like the rest of us, sports stars should have to cough up the cost of their training.

The Australia Institute report suggests the Elite Sporting Education Contribution Scheme (ESECS). Its thresholds and repayment rates are a bit generous, but it has the right idea.

An ESECS system should set a progression of income brackets, with increasing repayment rates. AIS athletes should be levied $33,000 p.a., or perhaps a little more. Athletes at lower cost facilities should be levied proportionately. Any unpaid ESECS amounts should increase at the inflation rate, as with HECS.

ESECS debts should be compulsorily repaid at, say 4%, only from income above a given threshold (say $50,000 p.a.), earned through playing or coaching sport, endorsements, media roles, public appearances or any other category of employment where the income is derived through the fame related to the sporting career. For an athlete like Michael Clarke, earning $2M+ p.a., their ESECS debt would be cleared in a couple of years. For a tennis player who got injured and never made it beyond a ranking of 200, then ran a pub, they’d pay nothing.

In what way could such a scheme possibly be unfair? Yet the ALP thinks a better way to increase government revenue is to substantially raise the HECS levies for science students … because scientists tend to find themselves in such highly paying jobs compared to doctors, lawyers, businessmen and sports stars.

Right on, comrades! What we need are more sporting heroes on the public teat, not people who can invent or even just use new technology. Who wants more nerdy brainiacs? Or maybe we need more people with degrees in management and public administration, right Wayne? You fucking moron.

Give Away Your Private Information, Give Away Your Liberty

What is the connection between a philosophy of Liberalism and wherever possible, not allowing your personal information into the public domain?

A significant component of individual liberty is personal privacy. In this sense, institutions such as governments, public service agencies, law enforcement and corporations have goals which diametrically oppose your liberty: they actively try to collect your personal information. If you make it easy for them, you’re not only eroding your own liberty, but everyone else’s as well, by contributing to a culture of acceptance of unnecessary rules.

People do make it easy for “them” in three main ways: providing unnecessary information on forms, giving away personal information in direct surveys or surveys masquerading as “competitions” and the egregious stupidity of people glibly putting their personal details all over the internet.

This latter naivety is particularly prevalent amongst young people; text, photos and videos of all manner of embarrassing stupidity. It’s not just embarrassing photos either: why would anyone put any of their personal details ANYWHERE on the internet? You must be mad.

Business information is different. Placing professional profiles on the web is common practice. Certainly anyone who is even occasionally quoted in the press will find many entries if they Google themselves. Politicians, academics and business people want this: generally, the more professional media coverage one gets, the more expert one appears, the more influence one generates and the higher salary one can command.

But why let complete strangers across the globe know your personal details?

That’s a recipe for not just identity theft, but being tracked and evidence collected against you. I don’t just mean criminal evidence, because that won’t apply to most people. What I’m chiefly referring to is the ability of anyone at all to selectively collate public information on you, via the choice of particular search parameters. These choices may be due to an a priori bias, or possibly to one formed based on what information about you they initially discover. The “evidence” collected is then assembled into a skewed representation of you, with a consequently skewed judgment of / against you likely to follow; why is someone seeking information on you unless they intend to use it in making some decision concerning you?

The information collectors could be corporations: potential employers or your bank or insurer. They could be a government department or law enforcement officials. In any of these cases, such people will make a decision about you based on a subset of information you cannot see. They will almost certainly flatly refuse to provide you with the information which led to their decision. In some cases, such as compiling a short list of candidates to approach for a job, or suspects for a crime, you may not even be aware a decision has been made.

If you tightly filter information about you which reaches the public domain, you will constrain the decisions the above people can make. If you don’t, their decisions will be guided by their own biases as they cherry pick from your plethora of personal narratives.

Even if, in your opinion, the current government in your country is benign, governments and their policies can change. Do you really want to be voluntarily loading your personal information onto an unknown number of databases when that information can be permanently stored? Who is to know what future governments will decide to do with it and crucially, what decisions will be made about you as a result of the picture of you formed by some possibly unaccountable official?

I don’t agree with everything Julian Assange says, but his assertion that social networking sites are “spy machines” is pretty close to the mark. All it takes is a change to the law and police or any other authority can read your emails at will.

Widespread social acceptance of private information being essentially public and available to governments and corporations has a more subtle and insidious effect: it raises the threshold for public outrage at institutional attempts to monitor and control individual behaviour.

Additionally, it increases the likelihood that institutional policy makers will see as reasonable the imposition of rules and procedures which make their roles easier or more profitable, because they believe citizens or customers will be less likely to complain. 

I do not mean just in government, the public service and law enforcement. Corporations will also feel such actions are more likely to be accepted. This could be companies such as banks, insurance companies or telecommunications providers monitoring your behaviour and possibly restricting it via financial incentives or penalities such as increased premiums or restricted services. It could also mean the imposition of internet and email monitoring or drug testing in the workplace.

What would you say to pictures on Facebook of yourself privately indulging in "behaviour materially detrimental to the image of the organisation" being a sackable offence?

Don't think it couldn't happen: it already has.

Gradually, rules and restrictions which would previously have been unacceptable are at first grudgingly tolerated, then eventually seen as the status quo. It is such incremental, creeping erosion of civil liberties via technology's facilitation of the organisation of information which is the greatest threat to freedom in a liberal democracy.

I suggest that a society which tolerates its personal information becoming public domain is more likely to tolerate a larger set of rules governing social interaction.

How many times have you heard the dishonest representation: "If you've nothing to hide, you've nothing to fear"?

It's the use of the word "hide" which is the problem. Hide is an active word, as is dishonest, so hiding is seen by most people as dishonest.

There is a big difference between dishonesty, which is an active decision to influence one’s environment and being closed, which is a response to one's environment. Someone who is closed can tell lies, but not be a fundamentally dishonest or untrustworthy person. They may be lying to keep information away from genuinely untrustworthy authorities who would use it against them, such as in a totalitarian state like China or Iran. In personal business dealings, they may be scrupulously honest.

Dishonesty is where there is no material penalty for openness, but the person lies anyway, usually for short term, personal gain.

Thus, the statement "if you've nothing to hide, you've nothing to fear" is a misrepresentation, because it implies active dishonesty is the only reason for fear in that context. Declining to provide information is not equivalent to hiding it. The former is simply being closed, often as a rational response to genuine concerns of misuse of the information.

To rephrase the statement in its correct modality: "I'm not giving you that information, because you have no reasonable cause to know it".

It's the mindset implied by the phrase that's most important: don't tolerate arbitrary collection of your information and you'll be less likely to tolerate unnecessary and ideologically motivated rules aimed at governing your social interactions, which require a large bureaucracy and a police state to enforce them.

How do you think the fraternal idealism of socialist revolutions so quickly turned into repressive police states?

How do a government and its executive run a centrally planned economy without collecting large amounts of information and using it to govern social as well as economic interactions?

If you willingly give away your information, you’re giving away your liberty with it.

Nasty Little Brats They May Be, But You Don't Make Death Threats To Children

It’s fair enough to call for a group of teenaged boys to be punished for mercilessly picking on an old lady on the bus. Even to identify them publicly and shame them. But sending them death threats? Threatening to attack them and their families? They are 12 and 13 year old children, for Christ’s sake.

Here’s the actual video of the four boys tormenting bus monitor, Karen Klein. It goes for ten minutes and is way beyond the vast majority of bad teenage behaviour. Yes, they are utter brats who need a belting they’ll remember, but it is in no way acceptable to send death threats to children.

All the brave people making anonymous threats and espousing some perverse and grossly disproportionate version of vigilante justice would almost certainly not be so “courageous” if they couldn’t retain anonymity and the support of a mob.

Additionally, they appear to be completely oblivious to the irony of 1,000 people anonymously bullying a 12 year old boy with death threats for his bullying of an old lady. At least he did it to her face.

I suspect a lot of the highly invective responses to the video have come from people who had a hard time at school themselves. Now they believe they can find the support and approval of a large group, they feel safe to take out their angst on a bunch of kids, thereby proving that they still are the pathetic, cowardly weeds they were at school, which is why they were picked on.

If such people really had any substance, they would be trying to engage in constructive debate about how we, as a society, return some meaningful discipline to obviously out of control, teenage brats, without returning to the Victorian era.

One question which immediately struck me on watching the video of the abuse is: Why didn’t Karen Klein do anything? Isn’t she employed as the bus monitor? Doesn’t that job involve disciplining students? What does she believe taxpayers are paying her for? Riding the bus?

When Karen Klein is subsequently interviewed on television, the interviewer says: “I was amazed at your self restraint … the fact that you did not jump up and yell and talk back to them, that you sat there for this amount of time … how did you manage to do that?”

Don’t praise her for her inaction, you idiot! It’s not self restraint: it’s failure to do your job. She doesn’t deserve respect for not disciplining out of control children, which is part of her job as a bus monitor, as she would know, having formerly been a bus driver. The interviewer should be asking her why she did nothing.

It appears from the interview that this abuse has been going on for some time, possibly in revenge for her dobbing them in for something. These little turds have tried it on, seen that she won’t fight back and just kept on attacking. They won’t stop unless there is an authority figure who can scare them into submission, fear being the only language they currently understand (that doesn’t mean they’ll necessarily be that way forever).

At the first instance of unacceptable behaviour, particularly serious swearing or insults, a credible bus monitor would have immediately stood up and told the boys very clearly to sit down and shut up or they’ll be explaining their behaviour to the Principal. If they responded with rudeness, she should have walked down to the front of the bus, asked the driver to stop and then told them they are on report and any further misbehaviour will result in them being thrown off the bus.

The bus operators should be able to ban children from the bus for repeated, serious violations of the rules. Faced with being told by the Principal and a bus company representative that they will have to drive their brats to and from school each day, their parents will have no choice but to take responsibility for their children’s behaviour.

Of course, the nanny staters have probably brought in some child safety policy which prevents children from being thrown off the bus, or banned from it. Tear that up immediately. Pass legislation to prevent anyone suing if they are thrown off the bus, as long as the expulsion was legitimate and there is evidence to support this.

This situation needn’t have happened, because things should never have been allowed to escalate to this degree. The fact that there is a bus monitor in the first place indicates an ongoing discipline problem, so employ someone who will actually instill that discipline, not some frail, old woman looking to supplement her pension.

Raped Because A Cunt Of A Bus Driver Wouldn't Let Her Off 20p

I’m going to begin with two quotes from Alexis De Tocqueville¹, the first on the nature of contemporary government and the second on the conditions for tyranny to establish itself, despite, or rather under a democratic system:

“In Europe, public administration is becoming more centralised, more inquisitive and minute. It gains a firmer footing each day above, about and around all private persons, to assist, advise and coerce them.”

“An innumerable multitude of men, all equal and alike, incessantly endeavouring to procure the petty and paltry pleasures with which they glut their lives. Each of them, living apart, is a stranger to the fate of all the rest; his children and private friends constitute to him the whole of mankind.”

Europe in 1835 or now?

… and so a 19 year old girl was short 20p of a ₤5 fare on the last (3am) bus home from the centre of Nottingham. The useless jobsworth of a bus driver wouldn’t let her on: it was against regulations. No passenger got sick of sitting there during eight minutes (according to CCTV) of arguing about the fare and simply paid the 20p for her: it's not my problem. The result?

She was raped and brutally bashed while walking home.

The most useful thing that can be done to try to lessen the chances of something like this ever happening again is name the bus driver and show CCTV footage of him and the bus passengers sitting there, uncaring as to her fate.

Don’t let these cunts hide behind some pretence of a right to anonymity, as if they haven’t done anything wrong … they have.

Prime examples of the lumpen middle class … so lazy, ignorant and cowardly that they won’t even participate in their own struggle against the great rule making enterprise. Don’t get up and tell the driver to get on with it, don’t give her the 20p and report the bus driver, just sit there in ovine silence for eight minutes while two people with whom you’d rather not get involved have an argument.

Eight fucking minutes? I’d have been up after 30 seconds!

If I’d been sitting on the last bus at 3am, waiting to get going, I’d have walked down the aisle and paid the extra 20p, just to get the show on the road. Additionally, I’d have given the shit kicker of a bus driver a serve for fucking me around.

Apparently, it’s OK for the bus company, Trent Barton to publish the name of its commercial director, Alex Hornby while making a mealy mouthed statement, but not the cunt of a bus driver who in many people’s minds bears a significant amount of responsibility for a young woman being raped, all for 20p which wasn’t even his money ... you absolute piece of shit!

I’m sure people know who he is … let’s get his name up on the web.

Western society is definitely becoming more bureaucratic. A particular downside is that coupling this with universal suffrage has allowed absolute peons like this bus driver to hide behind petty rules, policies and procedures, using them to take the abject pathos of their lives out on the rest of us by making situations unnecessarily difficult and generally being as lazy and unhelpful as possible.

There was a time when they couldn't get away with it. Giving bad service led to the sack. Now they hide behind inch thick, union negotiated HR manuals and unfair dismissal laws - and the most misused device to deflect censure for not doing your job properly: anonymity.

"I don't have to give you my name, sir. It's against company / department policy for employees to provide their names to the public." I take their photo when they try this crap on.

How could not a single one of the people who had just paid a ₤5 fare not bear to part with another 20p; 1/25th of what they'd just paid? Was there not a single real man on the bus who wouldn't leave a young girl to walk home alone at 3am? Was there not a single woman who felt any sympathy for her?

The victim should sue the bus company Trent Barton and the driver personally. Hound him into bankruptcy. A suit against the bus company should be a clear win.

Predictably, the company began its defence by telling lies:

“Our own investigations reveal that at no point did our driver refuse or deny this customer travel on our service that night and we remain committed to assisting the police in their enquiries in bringing the assailant to justice.”

However, after evidence was produced refuting this dishonesty, the bus company's Commercial Director, Alex Hornby admitted their complicity by saying: "Our driver did not follow his training."

Even worse was Nottingham DCI Rob Griffin's assessment, because it perpetuates the dominance of "not my responsibility, it's the government's" over civil society and personal responsibility:

“The fact is if the victim had got on the bus the likelihood is someone else would have been attacked. The only person to blame is Joseph Moran.”

Someone else would have been attacked if it wasn't her ... and this from a senior policeman who has probably many times asked for public help in solving and preventing crime.

Well if it's going to be someone, chuck her out and let's get on home. What utter bullshit. The bus driver bears a significant amount of blame and none of the passengers are innocent. In fact, everyone who tolerates abrogating their personal freedoms and commensurate responsibilities to the state bears some blame for helping to create a social climate in which no-one had the spine to stand up and help a girl against a worthless shitkicker who would have shrugged his shoulders and put her in danger over 20p of his employer's money.

What has happened to the British? They used to be people one could respect. They appear to have chosen an illusion of safety over their former self reliance and assertiveness. What pathetically snivelling, mealy mouthed society have they become? Certainly not the nation which colonized a quarter of the globe and left a lasting legacy of culture and institutions (in fact, many of them have now been taught to be ashamed of it). It’s no co-incidence North America is the most powerful society on Earth AND speaks English.

Will the nation which gave the world modern Liberalism and fought the Nazis for six years in the name of liberty now meekly surrender it to a cabal of home grown, bureaucratic socialist ideologues?

Here’s an excellent article by Jenny McCartney on the rape and the gutlessness of the modern Brit.

Keep abrogating your liberty to the state in the name of someone else's perverse definition of equality, keep feeling ashamed of your global heritage, keep eschewing every institution and social structure that made Britain worth something, keep listening to the fifth column of identity politics hand wringers and immigrant opportunists who hate you … and you’ll be a province of the Caliphate by 2050.

¹ Alexis De Tocqueville Democracy In America (1835).

Jailed For Telling Lies: About Time

Most people think of defamation as a civil offence, or tort, which it is. However, if the defamation is done with intent to cause or with recklessness as to whether it would cause material harm to a person, then it is also a criminal offence. In New South Wales, it is Sec 529 of the Crimes Act. There is a maximum penalty of 3 years jail.

Have a read of the recent Jeevani Wickramaratna case in England and you’ll see why. Strangely, she was only charged with sexual harassment. On reading the report, I’d have thought she’d done enough to warrant a criminal defamation charge as well.

The definition of defamation is the same for both criminal and civil matters. It has recently been updated in New South Wales, in the Defamation Act 2005. The defences are identical too, apart from negligence not being a defence to a civil action.

If you knowingly publish statements intended to be read as facts, which you know are false and which you also know will significantly damage another person’s reputation, relationship or financial situation, you should go to jail if you succeed.

That’s not the same as expressing strong opinions, or satirical misrepresentations. The statements must be such that a reasonable person would read them as intended statements of fact. Reasonable people can distinguish between fact and opinion. They can also distinguish situations in which statements about or representations of a person are not intended to be believed.

Jeevani Wickramaratna in the UK case was lucky to only get 6 months. Frankly, she’s lucky she picked soft targets, or more likely calculating. Someone else might have killed her.

Many would consider that to spread malicious lies like she did is worse than beating somebody up or stealing all their money. In fact, it’s like a combination of both … and both serious assault and theft carry custodial sentences.

There is such a sanction against violence in modern society, yet far too much leniency when it comes to telling lies about other people. Why is punching some mouthy twat now a hanging offence, yet spreading malicious lies about someone is rarely prosecuted? In fact, why is it considered far worse to beat the crap out of someone who has spread malicious lies about you than to spread the lies in the first place?

Probably because the person telling the lies is usually a woman or some soft shit who hides behind “non-violence” as a device to evade the one sanction they really fear.

I’m not saying it should be open slather on beating the shit out of people who piss you off, but there needs to be a rebalancing of the law toward more active sanction and punishment of people who tell malicious lies and a more honest evaluation of the mitigating circumstances in which some weasely cunt gets smacked ie. with the law written by practical people who actually do useful, productive work, not weasely cunts who survive on bullshit.

A Lesser Sentence Because He's Not White?

It happens with outrageous regularity in the UK. Now it seems the insidious disease of guilty, hand wringing, reverse racism which has thoroughly eaten into British politics, the judiciary and public service has metastasized here.

Chamanjot Singh killed his wife Manpreet Kaur with a box cutter after stabbing or slashing her 22 times. Yet he only received a six year sentence from Justice Peter McClellan, who agreed with the defence of provocation, stating Singh was:

“An immature individual … who was caught up in a situation that he was unable to handle. The offender formed the view that his marriage was about to end and he would lose all his money and have nowhere to live. This caused him to lose self-control.''

Maybe it contributed to him losing self control, but the real cause of his actions are his personality. That’s not an excuse for stabbing your wife 22 times in a fit of slighted rage, even if she did threaten to have you deported.

Understandably, Manpreet Kaur’s family are very upset and feel let down by the judge. Even though the jury returned a verdict of manslaughter, the maximum sentence available to the judge is 25 years. Justice McClellan could have given Singh a lot more than 6 years … 20, with a minimum of 15, followed by deportation? Probably fairer. We don’t want to feed and clothe the bastard for the rest of his life.

Juries have been known to accept a defence of provocation to downgrade a murder conviction to manslaughter, but I probably wouldn’t have if I’d been on this jury. In New South Wales, the defence of provocation relies on Section 23 of the Crimes Act, but it must meet subsection 2(b):

“That conduct of the deceased was such as could have induced an ordinary person in the position of the accused to have so far lost self-control as to have formed an intent to kill, or to inflict grievous bodily harm upon the deceased.”

That should mean an ordinary person in Australian society ie. an adult who has been brought up in Australia’s mainstream, Western cultural values. What someone might or might not do in another culture should have no bearing on the verdict. We should not interpret the intent of our laws through the lenses of various foreign cultures to excuse behaviour by emotionally volatile immigrants.

I don’t believe what Chamanjot Singh’s wife allegedly said to him was sufficient to induce an ordinary Australian to so far lose self-control that they stab someone 22 times. That should have been the basis of the jury’s judgment and I would have found him guilty of murder. Given the lack of premeditation, there would be sufficient scope for the judge to hand down a sentence of 20 years, so if Justice McClellan had done his job with a harsher sentence on the manslaughter conviction, the jury’s verdict of murder or manslaughter really wouldn’t matter that much.

A judge and / or jury getting it wrong does not justify calls for abolishing the defence of provocation. Sometimes people are provoked to extreme reactions, such as catching someone molesting one of their kids. In such circumstances, S23.2(b) above is probably met.

If the defence of provocation is removed, people in circumstances like the Texas case above will claim self defence. It may or may not be bogus, but juries will accept it, because the alternative is a murder conviction. Thus, we will have at least some rage or revenge based killings ending in no conviction at all, when juries think the deceased at least partly brought it on themselves.

Even though the jury in the Singh case accepted a defence of provocation when it probably shouldn’t have, the judge should have noted the verdict was contentious and used the sentencing range to impose a penalty not too far from what he would have given for an unpremeditated murder in a fit of rage. So why didn’t Justice McClellan do this?

I haven’t read the judge’s summation to the jury or his full sentencing remarks, but I get the sense from the circumstances that had Chamanjot Singh been Charlie Smith, he would have got significantly more than 6 years. This is why I suggested there may be elements of reverse racism at work here.

I don’t know exactly what was in Justice McClellan’s head, but my gut feel is that Singh’s cultural background was to some degree accepted as an excuse, in that his cultural and ethnic background and experiences were believed to have given him less self control and this was a mitigating factor in sentencing.

Should we accept the proposition that lesser standards of behaviour should be expected of brown and black people who come from cultures where women are treated as property and honour killings are accepted? Do we then extend this to (even partially) forgiving corruption by immigrants because they have come from cultures where graft is the norm?

If we do, shouldn’t we then discriminate against these groups by setting the bar higher for any of their members to be allowed to live here in the first place? If their culture, ethnicity, religion or even race really is a mitigating factor when they transgress our rules, then statistically, we should expect more unacceptable behaviour from such groups. Ceteris paribus, these groups must be less likely to add value to our society. Consequently, we should only accept people from these societies who demonstrate high value skills in other areas, in order to offset the increase in expected problems.

If you don’t agree with the above claim, then we should NOT allow culture, ethnicity, religion or race as a mitigating factor in punishing unacceptable behaviour. The claim that this does not occur here is absurd: ask police Sergeant Adam Wolsey.

Of course, people from peasant or tribal cultures, with alien religions, values and social customs really WILL have far more difficulty fitting into Australian society and providing the value add that most of us want from immigrants who largely assimilate. That doesn’t mean we should excuse them when they misbehave.

Hand wringers interpret the “should” in “we should expect lesser (or rather, “different”) standards of behaviour from people of certain cultural backgrounds” as having a moral meaning ie. we should feel sympathy for their lack of ability to navigate our society and provide more help, not punishment, as if the fault is really our own.

People who want their social policy constructed from evidence, rather than wet left ideology will interpret the “should” as having an operational meaning ie. if we let large numbers of these people in, we should expect a higher frequency of unacceptable behaviour from them. Thus, we should apply stricter immigration criteria to people from these groups, cutting numbers and requiring evidence of some degree of prior exposure to and embrace of Western cultural values. Additionally, we should far more strongly use deportation and revocation of citizenship as deterrents to such culturally conditioned behaviour.

An alternative view is that instead of accepting cultural background as a mitigating factor, it should be an aggravating factor. Immigrants who come here, see that the rules are different and reject them should be punished more harshly, both as a lesson to others and for the sheer affront of asking (in many cases begging) to come here, then turning around and rejecting our rules and standards of behaviour.

If we are strict about deporting foreign criminals (or even just troublemakers) and revoking their citizenship, then a legal system in which culture, ethnicity, religion or race is explicitly disallowed as a mitigating factor and sentencing is based purely on the nature and direct circumstances of the offence is probably most in keeping with the principles of Liberalism. This does punish immigrants more harshly, since they are deported at the end of their sentence.

Idiot Of The Month #1: Sack Judy Beckworth

One might well ask how a primary school principal could even form the belief that a blanket no physical contact policy between all students is reasonable, let alone go ahead and actually institute it. Yes, that’s right: Mt. Martha Primary School principal Judy Beckworth has imposed a policy that no physical contact at all is allowed between students.

No footy, no tag, hugging, holding hands or even high fives. One pupil was reprimanded on Wednesday after putting his arm around a mate who had been winded.

Students caught breaking the no-contact policy were taken from the playground and given a lecture about safety and the risks of rough play.

"They are given time to reflect - it's like a counselling session," said Principal Judy Beckworth.

Reflect on what? That all physical contact is wrong? What psychological damage is being done to these children when they are punished for normal behaviour, particularly as they are being “counselled” by people who are clearly not fit to tell anyone how to live their life, much less influence children during a vulnerable period of their social development?

This is utter lunacy. Left wing, PC nanny statism taken to a degree of absurdity one would only think possible in a satire.

Humans are apes. Have you ever seen apes play? Physical contact is normal and healthy, unless it is excessively aggressive or sexual in nature; these having always been against human social rules. But socialists believe that our “base”, biological behaviour is responsible for aggression, greed, racism, sexism and everything else on their bewilderingly long list of social evils. Consequently, societies need an even longer list of rules to alter our culture and direct human behaviour.

Can you imagine the weak, neurotic, emotionally stilted society which would be produced if this policy and others of the same intent were widely implemented for a generation of schoolchildren?

How was this policy allowed to be implemented? Why didn’t the Victorian Education Minister, Martin Dixon immediately telephone the principal with the message: “Draft your resignation letter”?

This is the kind of left wing lunacy which is now prevalent in the UK after 13 years of “modern Labor” and its nanny state socialism. It is precisely what people voting for a Liberal - National government expect it to prevent.

Yet Martin Dixon has so far refused to intervene, citing independence of school decision making or some other mealy mouthed excuse for his inaction. He’s not a disinterested party: his electorate of Nepean is right next door. Perhaps a healthy dose of the views of the citizenry is needed to get him off his taxpayer funded arse. An artificial spine to help him stand up might also be required.

Disturbingly, Judy Beckwoth said that “The community had overreacted" and “I don't see what we have done as unreasonable".

“Don’t see what we have done as unreasonable” … To me, evidence of a mind so out of touch with reality that she cannot remain teaching young children.

Judy Beckworth must be sacked. To even think of forcing such rules on children is so unnatural and so far from a normal world view that it suggests a deeply disturbed psyche. In my opinion, such people are a danger to children. They should not be allowed to influence their development in any way, much less be employed as a principal of a primary school.

When public servants or politicians impose policies such as this, which reflect their extremist, highly skewed and often emotionally disturbed world views, citizens must respond aggressively if we do not want our freedoms further eroded. I don’t mean with violence, but well organized and with the clearly transmitted intent of removing such people from any decision making capacity before they can do any more damage.

It is not enough to merely be outraged. Lefties who want to control economic and social interactions with a vast system of policies and rules are insidious. They are a cancer which inexorably destroys every aspect of human freedom and must be weeded out from the positions of power and influence they seek to occupy. People like Judy Beckworth are not harmless cranks: they do real and lasting damage, in this case to people whose well being society should place at the top of its priorities.

Parents should firstly instruct their children to ignore the rule and write to the principal and Victorian Dept of Education, threatening legal action if their child is punished or in any way harassed for engaging in normal physical contact. There ought to be sufficiently many wealthy, well educated parents in Mount Martha to make this a credible threat.

Contact MP Martin Dixon and make sure he is acutely aware of the level of community anger and the necessity that he act decisively, if he wants any votes at the next election. Next, organize a demonstration at the school, calling for Judy Beckworth’s immediate dismissal. Make her position untenable. If necessary, apply to have your children transfer to a neighbouring school. If enough parents do this, the education minister will be forced to act and only one person need leave the school.

Is it so surprising governments are having so much trouble implementing more flexible policies in state school systems when the Teachers’ Federations are inhabited by insane clowns like Judy Beckworth? How could you ever have a rational discussion with such people?

Better to identify them, sack them all in one go, put up with the industrial action and start afresh. The future consequences of allowing such people to influence the intellectual and social development of our children are too great to merely be outraged in private.

Uniformed Police Should Have Video Cameras To Protect Both Us And Them

It’s always amusing to observe dumb people trying to concoct some bullshit in an attempt to justify a lazy or dishonest position.

Police Association assistant secretary Bruce McKenzie’s excuses for urging Victorian police to reject the trial of uniform cameras were:

“The police association is worried footage could be used against police in court and build mistrust with the community”

and secondly,

“The public could also be reluctant to provide information to police if they were being recorded.”

On the first claim:

Why would police be worried footage could be used against them in court, unless they know they regularly exceed their powers and in some cases, are blatantly dishonest?

The AV cameras are not intended to record police talking as they walk around. They are there to film contact situations with the public. This is for four reasons:

1.      To gather evidence which can be used in court.

2.      To protect police from dishonest complaints about excessive force or false arrest.

3.      To protect the public against dishonest, malicious or thuggish behaviour by police.

4.      To assist research and training. It will prove very useful to have a new set of objective data on how the police and public interact.

The relationship between police and the public is not symmetric. In an open society, police powers are prescriptive and public laws are proscriptive. That is, what police are entitled to do beyond what other citizens can do is clearly laid out and they cannot do more than this. What citizens cannot do must be clearly laid out and anything not proscribed by law is allowed.

The final part of the first statement: “and build mistrust with the community” is dishonest and telling. The police mistrust the community. That is what is being implied.

There are certain “communities” the police are right to distrust. However, the comment implies police mistrust the community at large. Given that the majority of the general public are law abiding, it is reasonable to suggest this mistrust is a reflection of a perceived public mistrust in the police. If the police cleaned up their well documented corruption and aggressive interactions with the public, they might encounter less mistrust and consequently feel less themselves.

If police are to have extra powers to other citizens (which they must), it is not unreasonable that they are monitored in their use. If they abuse their powers, the AV footage should be used against them. The quid pro quo is that the public must not overreact if

·         The police make an honest mistake that a reasonable person might make.

·         A member of the public starts arguing with and abusing the police, but not enough to warrant arrest and the police lose their temper and swear at the person.

·         Some scumbag spits on police or attacks them and those police use slightly more force than is absolutely necessary in the arrest.

The police are not robots. If someone spat on me, I’d want to teach them a lesson. I said slightly more force than is necessary. I don’t mean breaking someone’s jaw. But if the above scrote had their arm twisted, was pushed onto the ground and copped a knee in the back, let’s not pillory the officer responsible. There has to be some give and take here and an understanding of how difficult the job can be.

On the second claim, that “the public could also be reluctant to provide information to police”:

This is just a furphy. Is he really implying police derive most of their intelligence from members of the public talking to uniformed police, but not wanting any record of it? Most people talking to uniformed police are seeking their help. They are making a complaint about a crime or giving witness information.

Police could be given the discretion to turn the video camera off, although there are some people who (not wholly unreasonably) wouldn’t accept assurances the equipment really was off. I suggest the decrease in “intelligence” gathered from this last category would be far outweighed by the benefits in both police accountability and protection against wrongful accusations on both sides.

Additionally, said benefits also outweigh the infringement to civil liberties of innocent members of the public being filmed by police: that is miniscule compared to the amount of CCTV we’re all on each day (not that that’s entirely a good thing).

Indeed Not, Lara

“I’m not Einstein”, Lara Bingle responded tearfully after being mocked in a radio interview about her new reality TV show.

I think we all figured that out some time ago, love.

Actually, the interview asked her some pertinent questions, such as whether she deserved to be the subject of her own reality show. Why shouldn’t someone who has a TV show all about themselves be asked why they believe anyone should be interested in them?

The presenters then described her as "Australia's answer to a question we never asked in the first place". A fair observation, I suggest, possibly better phrased as "Some soulless commercial TV executive’s answer to a question we never asked in the first place" or "Lara Bingle’s publicist’s answer to a question we never asked in the first place".

More pertinent to some meaningful analysis of modern society is Lara Bingle’s call for the presenters to be “taken off air” because they “showed her no respect”.

Boo hoo hoo! They were mean and didn’t go along with my bullshit attempt at self promotion and earning money for doing nothing of value. I’m a celebrity trying to promote myself, so everyone should be nice to me.

No they shouldn’t. If you are a vacuous person and make yourself the subject of a therefore vacuous show, you will attract mockery. That is in part how pretty much all societies deal with self promoters whose intended public footprint vastly exceeds the value of their public contribution.

Lara Bingle's reaction to the mockery implies a genuine belief that as long as there is no intended harm, she can essentially say and do anything she likes and any negative reaction is mean, nasty, unfair and shouldn't be allowed. This really is a Gen Y attitude. So utterly coddled by a style of parenting and an education system which continually validates and affirms even the most mediocre achievements, they genuinely struggle with the concept that other people might think and even say: "That is just fucking pathetic ... you're shit". Anyone who has watched the parade of delusional people on the Australian or American Idol audition shows will know what I mean.

It's the belief that it is morally wrong to tell someone their work or effort is so far below an acceptable standard as to be complete crap that is the real generational phenomenon. I've struck it with university students genuinely believing it is unfair they have failed a course where not just the final exams, but all assessments were deliberately set at a level below the true standard of the course requirements. When you point out this reality to them, they don't believe it. Not having been genuinely exposed to the concept of failure at school, as they will in real life, they really cannot fathom the magnitude of the gulf between others' abilities and their own.

Do people really wonder why Asian societies are still increasing their standard of living so much faster than Western ones, even though many are no longer coming off a very low base?

There is no reason why people deserve respect per se. Respect is earned. It is easily lost. People don’t have to be nice to each other. People don’t have to tolerate idiots and their bullshit. Not intending any harm does not per se absolve one from satire, mockery, exclusion or any other proportionate form of censure.

What, exactly, has Lara Bingle done to earn respect? A tourism ad, followed by trying to cash in on it and making an annoying idiot of herself in the process. I’m not sure that adds up to a net positive.

The only correct statement Lara Bingle made was that the B105 crew are "try hards".

True. The evidence is that B105 later issued an apology:

"Hey guys - We didn't mean to offend Lara on the show this morning, she's welcome back anytime. Good luck with the show."

Who the fuck wrote that? Some worthless, corporate lackey. You absolute tools! If you genuinely believe in what you're doing, why the need to apologize? Just tell Lara Bingle to get fucked.

As for her call for the B105 presenters to be “taken off air”, who do you imagine would do this, you dumb bitch? The radio station’s management? The government? The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission? Are you saying mocking people should a sacking offence? Will we all live in a totalitarian state of flowers and rainbows where everyone has to “be nice” and go along with everyone else’s bullshit, so long as no-one intends to be mean, with punishment and exclusion for anyone who “isn’t being nice”?

But I wasn’t nasty to them. I was just trying to promote my TV show.

So what? Do you think that means everyone should go along with your agenda? If we’re irritated by seeing your stupid face on our TV screens, we shouldn’t ask you why you think you deserve to be there?

If you want to make a worthwhile contribution to public culture Lara, make a porno.

Here’s the question to which you are an answer:

“If your mouth is open, why isn’t there a cock in it?”

A Slight Excess Of Moral Panic?

A "disturbing, confusing nightmare" for an 11 year old boy “exposed to porn” by two other 11 year old boys?

He must have been a pretty sheltered kid … right there under mummy’s wing.

I know the standard of porn these days is a lot harder core than the Playboys, Penthouses and (if we were lucky) Hustlers we occasionally got to look at when I was his age. However, his mother’s quotes betray a hysterical moral panic and a smothering overprotectiveness:

The experience left Ben shaken and confused. He wasn't titillated by it, he was quite disgusted, he was upset, he was embarrassed and he was ashamed.

He was such an innocent, naive little boy and it all changed in one night.

Get over yourself, woman! If those quotes are not exaggerations, he certainly is a most delicate little flower. I’d suggest some realistic sex education immediately.

Where’s his father? Why isn’t he dealing with this? Given the above quotes, he was probably off to less arid pastures long ago.

Someone in the circle of friends obviously has an older brother who has shown them where to find this material. That’s how it happens and will continue to happen. The type of porn kids see these days is a lot stronger and more varied than prior to the advent of the internet. Children are being placed in more sexualised situations significantly earlier in life. Some of them are acting out what they have seen.

However, the way to deal with this social problem is not to ban porn, which is impossible. Nor is it to show kids strong porn in a controlled environment and discuss it as part of sex education: they will not understand it.

Even if most porn sites agree to put certain key words in the meta tags, so that child-proofing toolbar add-ons can filter them out, not all of them will bother. Also, there will always be a few computer savvy older siblings who show their younger brothers (or sisters) how to circumvent the filters. The younger brothers will then show their group of friends and you’re back to dealing with the problem in a more open way.

In an open society, honest discussion is what we should be aiming for, absent the hysterical moral panic. Sex education appropriate to the level of physical and emotional development, with more specific discussions if we find out little Johnny (or Braden) has seen something they shouldn’t.

Parents need to be actively involved; it cannot be left to the state education system. And yes, there might be the odd conversation along the lines of “do mum and dad really do that?” “No, most people don’t … and you shouldn’t do anything you don’t want to do”, while Dad’s probably thinking: “It wouldn’t kill Mummy to try it”.

Ignore Craig Thomson And Vote According To Your Policies

The actions of Tony Abbott and Christopher Pyne running for the door in order to rebalance the numbers and “not accept” Craig Thomson’s vote have heaped farce on this already tragic parliament. As if the standards of debate in the house were not low enough already.

It is not a question of “not accepting” an intended pariah’s vote. Each party should vote in parliament according to whether or not proposed legislation or a proposed motion does or does not agree with their policies. That is what each member was elected to do: represent the position of their electorate.

The Coalition wanted to suspend standing orders to prevent the government shutting down debate on public debt. So, vote in favour of the suspension. Let Craig Thomson do what he wants. It’s not a tainted win. It’s parliament doing what it’s supposed to do: debating an important issue.

Abbott might take the line that to have done other than have one Coalition member abstain from the vote would be hypocrisy after he said the government should not accept Thomson’s vote after expelling him from the ALP. Yes, it would be hypocrisy. That’s why he should never have made the call in the first place.

The ALP members should vote according to party policy. That is what their supporters elected them to do. The Coalition can vote the opposite if they believe the policy is wrong. Let the independents support one or the other position based on the matters raised in debate. That is how parliament is supposed to work. It is how the public expects it to work.

The majority of people in this country want to go to an early election. The Liberals and Nationals should be moving no confidence motions whenever they believe it is warranted. That’s 72 votes out of a required 75. If Tony Windsor, Rob Oakeshott and Bob Katter had any shred of integrity left, they’d do what the majority in their electorates want and be the other 3, rather than perfidiously hanging on to their jobs until next year.