Jeremy Fernandez Should Have The Legal Power To Have Thrown His Tormentor Off The Bus Himself

Harking back to “the good old days”, when “things were better” is a common caricature of older right wingers. However, there are some aspects of our society and its rules (written and unwritten) which have definitely degenerated.

It used to be that if a troublemaker began behaving in an aggressive and confrontational manner, at least one bloke present would take it upon themselves to summarily sort the problem out. Moreover, said bloke would have been inculcated with the ethic that the “sorting out” must be proportionate to the trouble.

The specific incident which prompted this post is the racial abuse of ABC newsreader, Jeremy Fernandez on a bus to Marrickville.

What should have happened in a sane, liberal society is this:

The bus driver should have stopped the bus, walked down and asked what was going on. After briefly listening to both sides, anyone with even half a brain could have worked out that Jeremy Fernandez had done nothing wrong and had, in fact shown a level of restraint which many would not.

The driver should have then ordered the woman off the bus. Had she refused to go, he should have physically thrown her off, followed by her two brats. If he didn’t feel comfortable doing that, Jeremy Fernandez or another physically capable passenger should have felt sufficiently confident in the righteousness of their actions to have done it instead.

There were ways to remove the woman from the bus without actually physically throwing her off. For example, pick up her handbag and throw it out the door when the bus stopped. The driver could have said: “I’m driving off now. Whether you want your bag back is up to you.”

Any subsequent complaint by the woman to either the police or Sydney Buses should have resulted in brief interviews with Fernandez and the driver, then the matter deemed closed.

Had the woman refused to get off the bus and no-one felt sufficiently confident to throw her off, at the very least, the driver should have told the woman that he was radioing police to come and meet the bus, then told Fernandez to come and sit near him until then.

What actually happened was this:

The bus driver told Jeremy Fernandez to either move or get off the bus, then told him the situation was his own fault. He did nothing to stop the woman’s harassment of another passenger; he didn’t even report the incident by radio and ask for advice.

The real problem here is that our society has become so infected with a culture of lies, complaint, false victimhood and grifting that law abiding citizens resile from taking appropriate physical action to protect their wellbeing and amenity, for fear of the unpredictable outcome in a bankrupt justice system.

I feel a lot of sympathy for Jeremy Fernandez, being a public figure in that situation. Suppose he had manhandled the scummy bitch off the bus and she subsequently made an assault complaint, plus repeated the allegations about touching her daughter. The police may well have pursued at least the assault. The matter would probably have made the press, where the woman may well have publicly reiterated her dishonest allegations re touching her daughter.

On top of the financial cost of defending himself and the emotional stress to his family, Fernandez’ reputation would have been traduced. Faced with this possibility, he obviously felt sitting there and taking this shit from an absolute dreg of society was preferable. Additionally, no-one else ever wants to get involved, lest they face accusations themselves.

That is not right. Anyone faced with such behaviour should have the legal right to use appropriate physical force to remove or otherwise silence the troublemaker. If they are incapable of defending themselves, any citizen should have the right to step in and do it for them. Citizens should not have their time wasted or their amenity unreasonably curtailed by being required to wait for the police to arrive to deal with minor matters. Nor should they be required to “turn the other cheek”.

That is how society used to see things … and should again. As for physical force against a woman: you lose your right to be “treated like a lady” when you stop behaving like one.

Section 418 2(a) of the NSW Crimes Act deals with self defence. Unfortunately, all it says is that a person may use reasonable force to defend themselves or others. Against what is not clear.

That is not necessarily a bad thing, as taking an evolutionary approach to the construction of law via common law generally gives better outcomes than a constructivist approach via statute, where every minutia of what is and is not legal must be spelt out.

However, in this case, I suggest s418(2)(a) should state that it is lawful for a person to use reasonable physical force to defend themselves against any crime. That includes s529 - Criminal Defamation (or its equivalent in other states), which all citizens should read and know.

By calling him a paedophile (and a black one, no less!), this woman has criminally defamed Jeremy Fernandez. She should be prosecuted as an example to all others who seek to deal with conflict by telling malicious lies.

There is actually provision in the current law for Fernandez or the bus driver to have dealt with the situation physically: either could have made a citizen’s arrest. However, citizens cannot detain others, then let them go. If you make a citizen’s arrest, you must defer to the police as soon as practically possible … and they will determine the validity of your arrest, with charges of assault and deprivation of liberty ensuing if you are in the wrong.

That’s not what society needs: citizens arresting each other for offensive language / conduct or criminal defamation.

Why should the bus have to be stopped and everyone on it inconvenienced to wait for the police to arrive to deal with such a matter? This woman deserves no more respect than something I’d find under my shoe.

A liberal society should expand the notion of self defence to ensure the right to stand one’s ground and to use appropriate force to protect oneself and others from any criminal act, including threats, harassment and defamation. S419 of the Crimes Act already makes it clear that in claims of self defence, the onus of proof is on the prosecution to prove otherwise.

It essentially comes down to the right and level of legal power of citizens to remove a fuckwit from their presence, with minimal interruption to their planned activities. To force citizens to call the police, then waste time waiting for them to arrive and sort the matter out is itself unjust. To that, add the additional risk of the perpetrator making a false counter complaint and the police doing nothing, or worse, arresting the victim.

That is precisely the type of injustice which flourishes in a nanny state, ruled by lawyers and bureaucrats, where fear of the random consequences of action causes docile citizens to allow “the appropriate authorities” to (not) sort out conflicts.

Extending the scope of the right to self defence as above and retaining the s419 onus of proof on the prosecution is what a liberal society should do. Citizens do not have to demand these civil rights: it is us who determine the rules by which we agree to be governed. That we are over-governed is only due to our consistent failure to organize and prevent it.

If bouncers, many of whom are moronic thugs, have the legal right to use physical force in order to remove troublemakers from pubs, how can law abiding citizens not have the same rights to remove troublemakers from trains, buses, shops etc?

Middle Class Guilt Now Extends To Quinoa

Middle class, university educated lefties tacitly tell us that people who are not white and educated cannot be held to the same standards of responsibility as the rest of us, either on a personal or collective level.

If a white man is a drunk who beats his wife and kids, he is an ogre. If a black man does it, it’s because he’s been oppressed by the racism inherent in our social structure and it is white people who really bear the ultimate blame.

White Westerners who mine coal are environmental vandals. The Asians who buy and burn it somehow escape censure. They wouldn’t if they were white Westerners.

Conversely, the Arabs who mine the oil are not environmental vandals. White Westerners are because of their rampant consumption.

Western societies who gear certain industries toward earning export revenue at the expense of higher prices for their own population have been hijacked by greedy, capitalist buccaneers. Non-Western societies who do the same have been hijacked by greedy, (Western) capitalist buccaneers, who co-opt local elites and oppress the remainder of the indigenous population. If Western societies do it, the corruption is internal. If non-Western societies do it, the corruption is external.

Anyone with even a modicum of non-white ancestry thoroughly deserves all their gains in life. In fact, any achievements are that much greater, having been made in the face of a constant struggle against racism … and if it’s a woman, sexism as well.

Everyone who is white and educated should feel guilty for any gains in their life, particularly material ones. Consumption of any good or service should be accompanied initially by self loathing, then neurotic dithering over which is the most “socially responsible”, followed by an overtly smug air of superiority for making the “correct” choice.

Westerners’ consumption of quinoa is the latest scourge of the noble, oppressed masses, as brown people in Peru and Bolivia suffer malnutrition due to rising local prices for their staple grain.

The original perpetrator of this hand wringing political piety appears to be (surprise) from the Guardian’s stable of secular, lefty preachers. Joanna Blythman churns out textbook cant:

“The quinoa trade is yet another troubling example of a damaging north-south exchange.”

She then goes on to tell us that

“NGOs report that asparagus labourers toil in sub-standard conditions and cannot afford to feed their children while fat cat exporters and foreign supermarkets cream off the profits. That's the pedigree of all those bunches of pricy spears on supermarket shelves.”

Right on, Joanna!

Asparagus is a source of even greater Western guilt than quinoa, because Western consumption is destroying Peru’s water security by effectively importing their scarce water.

So you don’t cook with asparagus any more, Joanna? Or do you only buy it from a “local market”?

Like most university educated, Western, middle class, dilettante lefties, Joanna Blythman is an inveterate snob, only wishing to drink her coffee at “indie, artisan” coffee shops like “Tazza D'Oro in Rome or Caffè Pirona in Trieste”. (I’m so cultured, I even know the best cafes in Italy. Not bad for a Glasgow girl, especially one who’s had a touch of the tar brush).

Of course, if you make lots of money writing books on the evils of supermarket chains and GM foods, you can afford “ethically grown” coffee at boutique cafes.

If you really cared about the environment and the poor people in the third world who will suffer the most from climate change Joanna, you’d have written ebooks. But they don’t sell as well, do they? Fuck the trees and the CO₂ when it comes to paying for my nice house, clothes and furniture, gourmet food and trips to Europe to drink artisan coffee, not to mention my cleaner, gardener, masseuse …

It is of course impossible to expect the Peruvians and Bolivians to be responsible for their own economic management, because they are poor little brown people.

If quinoa farmers respond to undersupply by demanding higher prices and other farmers convert to quinoa, it’s all our fault as consumers that their governments do not use the tax system to purchase a quota of quinoa for local distribution at subsidized prices, or establish national corporations to guarantee minimum prices for quinoa growers and manage the exports. Isn’t the latter the type of economic model lefties advocate?

Why are Peruvians and Bolivians not responsible for their own economies? Why are their farmers not responsible for their own choices? In fact, for many quinoa farmers, it’s the first time in their lives they have made decent incomes, as even the Guardian tells us.

Why are their governments not responsible for stabilizing local prices?

“Oh, but those countries are ruled by oppressive elites, co-opted and kept in place by American corporate imperialism.” Actually, it’s Spanish imperialism which installed the elites in Peru and Bolivia. The Inca weren’t exactly a free, egalitarian society either.

There probably are already comparatively wealthy Peruvians and Bolivians making good money from quinoa exports. However, the Guardian article quotes a Peruvian farmer, who tells us that she now sells her quinoa for $2 / kg, up from 25c / kg a few years ago. So it does appear that poor farmers are also benefiting from increased demand and making a conscious choice to cultivate for export.

If people in towns and cities want subsidised quinoa, they need to advocate for that economic policy. However, that’s the Peruvians’ and Bolivians’ business.

The development of stable, liberal democracy has almost always required the growth of a large middle class, many of whom ultimately come from the agrarian sector. As these sections of society gain more economic power, they are able to successfully demand more political power.

Is Joanna Blythman suggesting we halt the economic growth and hence true enfranchisement of Peruvian and Bolivian farmers? Because that will be the outcome if Westerners decrease their quinoa consumption to the point where it has a material effect on prices. Does she believe it is our role to decide on the appropriate distribution of income and wealth in Peruvian and Bolivian society?

Here’s what will really happen:

Western countries with high plains like Canada, the USA and Australia will start growing quinoa for both domestic and export markets. The price of quinoa will fall and eventually fluctuate (in real terms) in a semi stable interval, sporadically jumping if harvests fail. Local quinoa prices in Peru and Bolivia will fall and domestic consumption will again increase.

The lead time on this will probably be five to ten years, unless quinoa is actually just a fad and returns to a niche food, in which case prices will fall rapidly as people like Joanna Blythman encourage their dopey followers to eat the next, latest “super food”.

Does Joanna Blythman really want to deny Peruvian and Bolivian farmers this probably once off opportunity to permanently increase their wealth? To buy better goods? To have better houses?

No, we want them to stay poor and disenfranchised. Otherwise, there will be no victims of American, corporate imperialist oppression for us to champion.

I wonder who Joanna Blythman would blame if her heroic Palestinian farmers succeed in creating an export industry and drive up local prices.

The Jews, of course!

Nanny State Nerd Thinks He Can Ban Smoking On Public Streets

Government has a right to tell citizens they can’t smoke in a public park, or walking down the street? City of Melbourne Councillor Richard Foster thinks it does. He wants to ban smoking in all public spaces ie. anywhere which isn’t private land within City of Melbourne Council boundaries. He then admitted he will try to have the ban extended across all of Victoria.

Here are the consequences of what this little turd is proposing. It would be illegal to:

• Have a quiet puff while waiting on the street for a friend.
• Step outside the pub with a couple of mates for a quick ciggy.
• Eat your lunch in the park, then light up afterward.

This is what Richard Foster believes he has the right to tell other people they cannot do. He’d probably counter that non-smokers have a right not to be assaulted by other people’s cigarette smoke.

Yeah, in a crowded place, such as a food court or sports stadium, where people are close by necessity and can’t avoid a significant dose of someone else’s smoke.

But to posit that someone’s amenity or indeed health is materially affected by the smell of a burning cigarette or a waft of smoke in a public street or park is absurd. You’ll suffer greater health risks from air pollution due to traffic, or stress.

I’m not a smoker, but I don’t believe I have a right to prevent people smoking outdoors if all I’m going to get is the occasional waft of their smoke.

Smoking in open spaces like public parks does not need to be regulated by a nanny state; common courtesy should suffice.

If someone is sitting on a park bench next to you, ask them if they mind if you smoke. If they do, then either don’t, or get up and smoke somewhere else. If you want to sit down on a park bench and someone is already sitting there smoking, don’t ask them to put it out: either put up with it or go somewhere else.

You’ll be surprised to discover that someone so puffed up with self righteousness as Richard Foster is an inner city, lefty lawyer. In fact, he’s president of the Carlton branch of the ALP.

Just look at the weasely, little shit. He’s such a stereotype: weedy, stupid glasses, stupid look on his face, a jerk’s body language. People like this just ask to be punched.

On hearing it, many people who don’t smoke might have thought Foster’s proposal was not a bad thing .. but it is, because agreeing with it, or even acquiescing to it allows people like Richard Foster to succeed in their pet project of foisting an interminable number of rules upon all of us and implementing a smothering nanny state, in which almost all social interactions are regulated.

Do you really believe that if Richard Foster gets his way with this smoking ban, he will stop there? People like him can’t help themselves: they spend their days dreaming up regulations to stamp out their pet hates and to stop anyone doing anything which may offend their sensibilities.

No deep philosophical principle need be espoused in response to this nanny state proposal. “Who the fuck are you to tell me what to do, you little cunt?” should suffice.

How will the ban be enforced anyway?

Can you imagine a council ranger coming up to a group of tradies having a durry on their break or a group of blokes outside a pub and trying to issue them a fine? Good luck with that.

If this stupid, draconian regulation succeeds in being implemented, smokers should simply ignore it. If a ranger asks for your name, it’s Richard Foster.

Actually, smokers should organise a mass protest. All go to Federation Square or one of the parks in Carlton and light up. How are they going to arrest or fine thousands of people?

If you want to tell Richard Foster what you think of his proposal, he can be contacted on 0418 148 698 or rfoster06@gmail.com

There'd Be Outrage Aplenty Had Abbott Said It

Considering it was made at a public event, Tim Mathieson’s joke about getting an Asian woman doctor to do your prostate exam was in poor taste and certainly ill-considered. Its only real humour was in the number and types of people who would have been upset by it.

A simple apology should and apparently will suffice. He can let the tut-tutting, eye rolling and moans of “what a goose” go through to the keeper and it will all blow over, as it should.

Now imagine the reaction from the ALP and Greens had Tony Abbott or Shadow Minister for Health, Peter Dutton said it.

Would Julia Gillard have accepted the apology? Not bloody likely.

There would have been shrill screeches of confected outrage and more dishonest accusations of misogyny. Penny Wong and Tanya Plibersek would have added racism to the list of charges.

As with all moral policing, of which political correctness is a part, it’s the hypocritical double standards which reveal its bankruptcy.

That the ALP feel the need to use such tactics against their political opponents reveals their own.

Equal Pay For Women In Sport Is About Spectator Interest, Not Civil Rights

Periodically, the gender equality debate extends itself into sports prizemoney. Equal prizemoney for men’s and women’s competitions has been perhaps most strongly advocated and debated in tennis.

The US Open made prizemoney in the men’s and women’s events equal in 1973. The other three Grand Slams followed suit from 2000. Prizemoney is usually equal in other major events which host both men’s and women’s tournaments. There are however, more men’s tournaments during the season, particularly on the satellite circuit, so more overall earning potential for men outside, say the top 20 or 30.

Proponents of equal prizemoney tend to argue almost exclusively on political “justice” grounds. Opponents tend to fall into the trap of arguing that men play at a higher standard or play longer matches (thus receiving less pay per hour “worked”). The Daily Mail’s recent, cursory statistical analysis of the 2013 Australian Open is a case in point.

Both arguments are wrong. Obviously their conclusions can’t BOTH be wrong, however both their premises are.

Arguments that the top men play the sport at a higher standard than women, or play for longer eg. 5 sets instead of 3 are true as statements of fact, but irrelevant.

Salaries and prizemoney in professional sports come from people paying to watch live or on TV and from advertisers: spectators and sponsors. In sports with concurrent male and female competitions, such as tennis tournaments, if the men attract a larger audience for a longer time, then they should claim a larger share of the gate and sponsorship revenue, but only because that tournament revenue is communal. If they played in separate tournaments and the women's event attracted more spectator and sponsorship interest, it wouldn't matter if the men played ten times as long.

Professional sport is one of the areas of the economy which should most be left to the free market, or to determine its own market rules, such as salary caps.

Suppose a particular sport attracts much more spectator interest to the women’s event, say ice skating. Then it will almost certainly attract more sponsorship revenue on top of the extra gate takings. Thus, the women should demand higher pay than the men, just like women fashion models do.

Conversely, in reality most sports have much higher remuneration for men; for example cricket, athletics, golf, basketball. That is indirectly because the men’s events are of a materially higher standard. This leads to more spectator interest, more sponsorship, greater TV rights and hence higher salaries and prizemoney for the players.

This isn’t sexism: it’s people making a free choice to watch the highest standard of competition and the advertising dollars following. Men are better than women at the overwhelming majority of sports and they also play and watch more sport in general. Therefore they will earn more from it … unless the Greens win government, in which case all competitive sport will be banned because it ranks people.

As for women’s tennis, it irks me that women’s prizemoney is the same as men’s in the major tournaments, because the standard of gameplay is so much lower and the matches are shorter (in many major tournaments at least). But perhaps I’m being chauvinist in suspecting the men’s game attracts more revenue because it’s played at a higher standard. Maybe women’s tennis has a sufficient following among women to justify equal prizemoney. That could have been a major factor in the US Open giving in to women’s demands in 1973. I can’t imagine basketball authorities ever doing the same.

However, there is hard evidence that men's tennis finals attract larger TV audiences than women's. They also last longer, meaning that larger audiences are watching more sponsors' ads. The stadia are full, meaning the gate revenue is the same for both, unless tickets for the men's final cost more. This is a pretty solid argument that men tennis players draw greater revenue to the game and therefore deserve higher prizemoney.

Interestingly, there is much less prizemoney for doubles than for singles in both men’s and women’s tennis. That’s purely economic: on the whole, spectators aren’t as interested in the doubles.

Incompetent Media Complicit In Whitehaven Hoax

Notably almost absent from all the media “analysis” of Jonathon Moylan and friends’ hoax press release last Monday is self examination. I’ve found one piece.

The naïve reporting (and re-reporting) of a transparently amateurish, copycat hoax is unfortunately typical of the quality of what mostly passes for journalism these days. So is the near universal “innocent” shrug of the shoulders after the hoax was revealed.

There used to be a requirement for journalists to understand their field, so that they will know instantly when a report doesn’t smell right and have a wide network of contacts who they could call to check its veracity. The requirement to investigate reports prior to publication was understood. It appears that is often no longer the case.

In the internet age, the rush to publish seems to have caused previous standards of journalism to give way to an ethos of delivering “content” or “information” without the responsibility of verification.

The “story” was a fake press release, purporting to be from Toby Kent (a real person) Group Head of Corporate Sustainability in ANZ’s corporate affairs section, stating that ANZ had decided to pull its $1.2B in funding from Whitehaven Coal’s Maules Creek coal project.

The Age published it on their website, as did the Daily Bull. You can’t find the original articles on their sites now, of course. A Google search for “ANZ pulls Whitehaven funding” used to find the (broken) links to the articles. They are probably still there, dozens of pages down, for those who have the time to spare.

How could financial journalists have been so easily duped? There are obvious clues that the press release is a fake. Did they not think to ring Toby Kent at ANZ, or someone else senior if he was unavailable? Do any of these people have one iota of basic common sense, let alone professional competence?

Firstly, no bank would ever pre-empt a public company by announcing withdrawal of funding for a project, because that is market sensitive. The company would first request a trading halt from the ASX, then make the announcement itself. The bank may subsequently issue a clarifying statement, but in most cases would not. Any competent journalist should know this. Any financial journalist who doesn’t should be sacked.

Secondly, banks rarely make lending decisions for “social reasons”. That should have rung an alarm bell by itself. Exceptions to that rule usually involve old school morality around in particular, sex, as in Westpac’s gutless reneging on funding Sydney brothel Stiletto’s expansion.

But mining doesn’t give banks ethical problems around reputational risks. If the project is legal, has no sovereign risk and a sufficient IRR, they will usually lend.

If the financial media had been doing their jobs, or had actually known how to do their jobs, the story would have been: “Activists Attempt Whitehaven Share Hoax”.

Should The Whitehaven Coal Hoaxers Be Prosecuted?

Jonathon Moylan and some fellow activists in the protest group Front Line Action On Coal (FLAC) released a hoax press release on Monday, purporting to be from ANZ’s corporate affairs section, stating that ANZ had decided to pull its $1.2B in funding from Whitehaven Coal’s Maules Creek coal project.

The hoax was a fairly amateur, copycat version of The Yes Men’s original and more elaborately constructed hoax on Dow Chemicals, in which one of them pretended to be a spokesman for Dow. The “spokesman”, Jude Finisterra (apparently no-one saw the joke in the name) announced on the BBC World Service that Dow would liquidate Union Carbide to provide a $12B compensation fund for the victims of the Bhopal disaster. Dow stock immediately began falling rapidly, wiping about $2B off the market value of the company before the hoax was discovered.

FLAC’s hoax caused Whitehaven’s (WHC) share price to fall from $3.50 to $3.20 before trading was suspended and the share price recovered to $3.50.

One might thus think there was no material harm done, however many investors or traders were induced by the false announcement to sell at a loss as the stock fell. On the flipside, there were many traders who made a profit by buying after the hoax, but prior to the suspension.

However, people who had previously bought WHC shares, either on the day or prior, lost money as a direct result of the hoax if they sold after the “press release” and before the trading halt and subsequent correction. The hoax clearly induced them to sell and the hoaxers were at least reckless as to the effect of the false information they intentionally disseminated.

That’s a pretty clear breach of S1041E of the Corporations Act 2001, so yes, from a legal standpoint, Moylan and his fellow conspirators should be charged. In fact, ASIC has seized Moylan’s laptop and mobile phone to gather evidence, although he has freely admitted his role in the matter anyway. The hoaxers could receive a fine large enough to bankrupt them. There is a possibility of jail for Moylan.

Additionally, investors would have a civil claim against the hoaxers under S1041I. It would be hard for the defence to mitigate their liability for damages by using S1041N 3(a) to argue contributory negligence by anyone who sold shares during the time interval in question. That is because anyone who sold shares would have logically had to do so even if they saw through the hoax, because most people didn’t and thus the share price would have fallen further anyway. There was no knowing how much sellers would panic and how far the share price would fall. Therefore the only logical course of action was to sell, regardless of whether one believed the press release.

Consequently, any civil claim run by a halfway competent lawyer should be able to secure a finding of significant damages against Moylan et al, although since they almost certainly have few assets, the purpose of such an action would really only be to bankrupt them all.

Even bankruptcy might be doubtful if the hoaxers can raise sufficient funds through donations. Analysis by the SMH's Paddy Manning of WHC trades in the time interval between the hoax announcement and trading halt shows Moylan et al's legal liability in a civil suit would be at most $450,000, plus costs (which should be awarded to the plaintiff, given the evidence).

So, it is the law that Moylan et al can be prosecuted for their stunt. A prosecution should almost certainly succeed, as should a civil action for damages. That leaves only the question of whether it should be the law that people can be prosecuted for hoaxes such as this.

With characteristically dishonest sanctimony, the Greens and other lefties think Moylan should be given a medal. Some of these people seriously believe the entire concept of exchange tradable securities is evil.

However, any sane person with a knowledge of history will have grasped that financial innovations like the joint stock company, tradable bonds, public exchanges and clearing houses, insurance and futures contracts are significant contributors to the economic development of Western society. The availability of both venture capital and debt financing allow not only investment in large scale manufacturing and resource projects, but also technological development and production. These three elements have been overwhelmingly the source of the massive increase in Western society’s standard of living, including the growth of the middle class and more recently, the welfare state Moylan and all his mates want (and rely upon).

Without secure and robust financial markets, we couldn’t have the depth and breadth of investment we need to maintain both the standard of living and the standard of government we want, as well as develop new technologies. If Australia were poor, we’d be burning a higher proportion of fossil fuels and be investing much less in developing clean energy sources. This point is of course lost on twits like Jonathon Moylan and commies like Christine Milne and Lee Rhiannon.

This is why ASIC should prosecute anyone who deliberately disrupts the flow of free and correct information in financial markets. From sanctimonious, wannabe heroes like Jonathon Moylan to shonky wankers spreading false rumours for profit, to market manipulators and insider trading. Frankly, I think deliberately spreading false information to manipulate a security price (or being reckless as to the information’s effect) is significantly worse than someone who uses inside information to profit from foreknowledge of the direction of a security’s value … and the latter often get jail time. I think that’s a bit harsh, but what does it mean should happen to Moylan?

He won’t be looking so smug after a good reaming and bashing in Grafton Jail.

Addendum: I'm not really advocating Moylan be sentenced to years in a high security prison, like he would in the USA. However, deliberately or recklessly distorting or disrupting financial markets is not that different to fraud. It should be a serious criminal offence, because poorly functioning markets harm investment, which ultimately decreases innovation, government renenue and living standards in general.

If all the sanctimonious little turd gets is a fine, his equally sanctimonious left wing supporters, probably organised by Bob Brown, will simply raise the money to pay it for him. At least that's a de facto way of taxing them all in return for the taxes they'd like to impose on the rest of us.

1000 hours of community service, plus a large fine, plus a five year good behaviour bond? Maybe. That would be more constructive than a short custodial sentence in a minimum security prison.

The alternative is to impose a fine, plus a 2 or 3 year jail term, but suspend it. That would force him to keep his head down and send a message to all these lefty wankers who think that because they adhere to a "higher law", they can choose which laws they will obey, yet decry religious people who use the same argument to ignore secular laws such as anti-discrimination legislation.

Stalk The Paparazzi Back

In a liberal society, people should be subject to and protected by the same laws.

Suppose I picked a random person out of the phone book, then followed their every move, constantly photographing them and putting those photographs on websites and in magazines. Then I’d be arrested and charged with stalking, followed up with a civil suit for harassment and intentionally causing distress.

If it’s considered a criminal offence (and a tort) to do the above, why is it apparently legal to do it to Justin Bieber or Miley Cyrus? Does a certain level of fame extinguish a citizen’s rights? By what legal or democratic principle?

Do rights to privacy incrementally evaporate in proportion to a person’s public profile? Or is there a threshold of fame beyond which a host of rights to privacy are extinguished? How is that threshold measured? If a movie star wins an Oscar, can I now take a photo of her topless on a private yacht and publish it?

Who determines such things? Will celebrities constantly have to pursue test cases to establish a body of common law?

Hopefully the above is sufficient argument to persuade people of the impracticality and unfairness of having one law for “ordinary people” and another for celebrities.

But celebs like Justin Bieber calling for tougher paparazzi laws have misunderstood the nature of the problem.

Tweak laws or make special cases and paparazzi will still find a way around them. People like Chris Guerra and Jamie Fawcett are parasites. Their entire livelihood is devoted to constantly following celebrities, or in the case of Guerra, a single person. They will spend a great deal of time and effort to navigate around any legal changes.

They are also delusional, as Frank Griffin’s comment after Chris Guerra’s death indicates:

“What's the difference between our guy who got killed under those circumstances (run over taking a picture of Justin Bieber’s car) and the war photographer who steps on a landmine in Afghanistan and blows himself to pieces because he wanted the photograph on the other side of road. The only difference is the subject matter. One is a celebrity and the other is a battle.”

Yes, one is a celebrity and the other is a battle. Well spotted. No real difference … apart from our troops fighting a difficult war under controversial circumstances actually being news.

If the law against stalking and harassment applies equally to all citizens, as it should, then call for the existing law to be applied, not for a new law.

If the law for some reason does not apply equally to all citizens, campaign for it to be. Use your fan base.

A more effective approach is to try and solve the paparazzi infestation permanently. If there really is some legal loophole allowing paparazzi to stalk public figures, but not ordinary people, use it to your advantage.

Start a Follow The Paparazzi website. This will make each of them public figures, so you can apply the same loopholes to them that they do to you. Then hire people to follow each of them day and night, placing every detail of their lives on the site, including any transgressions, no matter how minute, which arise from your investigations of their personal lives.

Wealthy stars have the resources. Why not turn them against the paparazzi? If there are any legal actions to be fought, who has the deeper pockets and better lawyers?

Publish the paparazzi’s home addresses, plus photographs of them and their houses on your website. Let your fans know how much these people are upsetting you and leave it at that. Your fans will know what to do. Let them help you in digging up all manner of embarrassing dirt on your enemies.

I can’t understand why no big stars haven’t already thought of something like this. How about some of you do the world a service and put these vermin out of business by giving them a taste of their own medicine?

The Dishonesty Of Compulsory Voting

The only thing compulsory about compulsory voting in Australia is having your name crossed off at a polling place. You don’t even have to turn up and do it yourself: I’ve never been asked for ID when voting.

If an Australian citizen wishes, they can have their name marked off on the electoral roll, collect their ballot paper(s), then simply put them into the collection boxes blank, or even just walk out with them. Alternatively, they could cover their ballot paper(s) in obscenities, political protest slogans, or draw new boxes and vote for other people (which would count as informal of course).

None of the above is illegal. Even if it were, the secrecy of the ballot means there would be no way to police such conduct.

We could employ new technology to have say, touch screen voting in booths which informs the voter of any procedural errors and does not accept a vote until it is formal. It could even have software which would scan a voter ID and only record that person as having voted after a valid vote was registered, without recording the nature of the vote against the voter ID, to preserve the secrecy of the ballot. Whether people would trust that link not to be made is a distinct issue.

So, we now have the technology to make voting truly compulsory. But do we want to go to these lengths to force people to express a political preference which is clearly not sufficiently strongly held for them do so voluntarily?

A RIGHT means having an option to exercise a choice. It also means having an option to abstain from making any choice. A compulsory choice is a form of duty, a very different concept from a right.

If people actually believe that voting is a civic duty which should be enforced, then be honest and say so.

I don’t. I think it’s a moral duty of citizens to understand and participate in the political process in an open society, however I don’t believe that this particular moral duty (among others) should be enforced by law.

In a free society, people have a right to deliberate ignorance, as long as they have no commensurate right to complain about its consequences. Choosing to remain ignorant of civics in a free society is immoral because it wastes rights which were in many cases hard won over in some instances, centuries. But I don’t want to live in a society which polices non-invasive moral choices, as opposed to letting the natural consequences (if any) of those choices be their sanction.

A proposal canvassing the repeal of compulsory voting in a green paper on election reform for the Queensland government has met with the usual dishonest claims from the left of “an attack on democracy”, from our most honest PM, no less. The Courier Mail even ran an opinion piece by left wing academic Paul Williams, in which he claimed the proposal is “undemocratic”, then provided no argument to support this statement.

This is how the left typically responds to calls for voluntary voting.

Some people on both sides of politics actually believe voting to be a duty which should be compulsory and that reluctant citizens need to be “encouraged” to engage in the democratic process for their own good and the ultimate good of society. There are also many who believe that the franchise is a right which citizens may choose to exercise (or not).

However, most on the left argue against voluntary voting because they know it will decrease the left’s vote. That’s also why most people on the right argue in favour of it. If it would decrease the right’s vote, they’d be arguing against it and the left would be in favour and arguing the right not to vote as a democratic choice.

If pressed, the left will admit that of the people who only vote because it’s compulsory, the overwhelming majority vote Labor or Green. They then try to counter that it’s undemocratic if those people’s choices aren’t counted.

But their choices are being counted in a voluntary voting system as much as any votes for minor parties which exhaust in an optional preferential system. Some people who would choose not to vote at all would do so because they don’t like any of the candidates, or the political process in general. Such actions are also democratic choices.

However, most people who choose not to vote would do so because they are simply too ignorant and feckless to make the effort to understand even the basics of contemporary political issues, make up their mind as to which policies they support, then get themselves to a polling station and vote accordingly. What they are saying by not voting is that either they don’t care enough about who is in government and making decisions which affect their lives to do anything about it, or they don’t think it will make any difference anyway. If that’s their view, how is it democratic that their vote counts equally to an educated citizen who does make the effort to grasp political issues?

It's telling that such people overwhelmingly choose left wing parties when forced to vote. The left would say that's because they represent the oppressed and such people are their constituents.

Oppression is not being able to vote. They just couldn't be bothered.

"But such people have been oppressed by society's unjust disparities all their lives. That's why they have lower educational outcomes, hence less understanding of politics and thus less interest in voting."

The oppression of the "social injustice" they have suffered is so great that they cannot voluntarily walk to the nearest polling booth and write a 1 next to the ALP candidate, yet are capable of doing just that if threatened with a fine? Really? Yes, that's right ... the lumpenproletariat cannot be expected to take responsibility for exercising their own rights. Their behaviour is determined by the injustice of their environment unless the state "helps" them.

If people who will only vote if forced are a material part of the ALP's constituency, it's no wonder voters are turning away from the party. It's all very well to pretend to represent the oppressed and downtrodden, but if you also hitch your wagon to the creed of laziness, ignorance, failure and envy (to paraphrase Winston Churchill), people who can make their own way in the world and take responsibility for their own wellbeing will find other parties to vote for (and actually turn up to vote).

The above statements will almost invariably educe accusations of snobbery, discrimination against minorities and thinly veiled racism. Yes, you’re right … because I’m aware that lower percentages of Aboriginals and migrants with poor English would vote were it not compulsory, preventing them voting must be my real motive, because they tend to have such a strong effect on electoral outcomes, living in marginal seats as they do. Actually, Aboriginal women helped deliver the recent NT election to the Liberals, significantly due to their disillusionment with the failed policies and preachy identity and grievance politics of urban Aboriginal activists on the left. Additionally, a lot of Aborigines don't vote even though it is in theory compulsory. How many of them do you think would ever receive a fine notice like I would?

I have heard the discrimination argument made several times and its dishonesty is symptomatic of the left’s predilection for ideology over reason and evidence. The equation of not requiring people to vote and actually disenfranchising them is an absurd non sequitur. Nobody is being prevented from voting.

“Oh, but migrants and Aborigines tend to find the whole voting process confusing and intimidating, so many of them won’t vote unless we encourage them.” But the right are the patronizing bastards.

Then you and your political party can go and encourage them. Go and explain to them how it all works. Get off your fucking arses and stop treating what you believe are your natural constituency as a captive bloc, like you do with Aborigines in the NT and migrants in working class, city electorates.

Actually, that’s true of all political parties. Voluntary voting would in this respect enhance the democratic process by forcing politicians to explain to people why they should make the effort to actually vote for them, not simply pick them as the least worst, forced choice.

On the flipside, if citizens find themselves being saddled with representatives they believe don’t represent them, maybe they will start to think a bit more about politics, so their future votes might actually mean something.

The dishonesty of the self serving arguments of the left and right in this debate has obscured an important philosophical argument as to whether voting in a democracy is a duty or a right. It also veils the laziness and arrogance of the major parties, particularly the ALP, who believe the coercive power of the state should deliver their natural constituencies to them on a platter each election. Is it any wonder politicians frequently hold the wishes of their electorates in such contempt?

One Direction Can Only Gain Musical Credibility With A DEV-O Cover

Girl U Want is a fairly obvious, but tame choice for the young heartthrobs. The girls in DEV-O’s clip might give them an audience closer to their own ages. If it’s good enough for Soundgarden to cover, it’s good enough for One Direction.

The smooth tones of Shrivel Up lend themselves to the five lads taking it in turns to sing a couple of lines each.

Maybe they could go for something equally early but harder like Uncontrollable Urge. What young girl wouldn’t scream as Zain thrust his Islamic crotch at the audience, singing: “Got an urge, got a surge and it’s out of control now!”

… or the five of them jerking about the stage to the opening guitar riffs of Mongoloid or the more mechanical Blockhead.

Harry Styles singing:

Fraid that no-one around me comprehends my potato.

Guess I’m just a spud boy, looking for that real tomato.

would certainly give all those 10 year old girls something to ponder.

The other four could jump in:

Common stock … we work around the clock …

We shove the poles in the holes!

Duty now for the future, One Direction!