Home » Posts tagged 'Politics'
Tag Archives: Politics
Teal MP sued by leftist staffer Sally Rugg
All is not well in teal world, despite their fancy lattes, their total trendiness and their utterly pious devotion to social justice.
Left-wing activist Sally Rugg is suing fake teal independent Dr Monique Ryan in the Federal Court for an alleged breach of general protections under workplace legislation.
Rugg says that the teal MP attempted to dismiss her as chief of staff after she refused to work “additional hours that were unreasonable”.
Full story:
Leftist NZ Prime Minister quits
Thankfully, leftist NZ Prime Minister Jacinta Ardern has announced her resignation after years of woke policy failures and heavy-handed Covid lockdowns.
Hopefully this is the first of many totalitarian leftist Covid tyrants falling on their swords.
Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, Jacinta.
Bruce Lehrmann’s rape trial jury discharged
The jury of Bruce Lehrmann’s trial for the alleged rape of former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins has been discharged after a juror was found to have conducted their own research and brought a research paper on sexual assaults into the jury room.
The juror had brought in a research paper on sexual assault, which attempted to quantify the number of false complaints and interrogate the reasons for making false complaints. The use of the research paper was contrary to at least 17 directions given by the trial judge for the jurors not to conduct their own research or enquiries.
Jurors when sworn in promise to base their verdicts on the evidence in the trial, not extraneous material that may be controversial and which in any event has not been tested.
Full story:
Son of Kristina Keneally charged with fabricating evidence
It is alleged that Keneally jnr submitted a false report of a man named Luke Moore threatening to kill a police officer, which resulted in him being refused bail. Luckily for Moore, he had recorded that conversation. Sometimes it pays to be paranoid.
Police ‘Verballing’ is an old problem, and one which used to be more common. It can be safely assumed that this practice still continues to some extent.
Full story: https://sterlinglawqld.com/son-of-kristina-keneally-charged-with-fabricating-evidence
Of cabbages, kings and a meeting of Blog war protagonists
Leon Bertrand and I have a face to face meet up with Scott Bridges planned for today which should be quite interesting to say the least, because how often do you get a chance to meet up with your online “enemy ” after a decade long blog war?
Hold on comrades this could be an interesting ride
Its On
Despite my concerns I am actually happy that this matter as been resolved so promptly and in many ways quite decisively, its also nice for our PM to take the time out fo his busy day to reassure me personally via email.
As most people will now know the spill motion is on. I’m a little sad about this but if this means that the current government can improve its standings with the public. One thing that we can expect if there is a change of leader is that we won’t see the sort of bad grace that Rudd bought to his party.
You can bet that the Liberal Party phones will be in meltdown in Canberra over the weekend
Cheers Comrades
in the leadership change game the trick is not to make an arse of oneself
Come back Peter and other current events
On the Radio this morning is the cheerful news that Peter Greste has been released and deported from Egypt I am sure that his family will be very pleased indeed, I am as well even though I don’t share the view that seem prevalent among the usual suspect that some one who is a journalist is automatically some kind of secular saint. Anyway that is an all’s well that ends well situation.
Now to events closer to home and something that has left me feeling profoundly depressed, Yep the state election its a terrible result for Queensland that will see the incompetent Labor party back into government. That said we live in a democracy and that means I have to accept the result with good grace, fucking hell though its hard with that idiot of a woman in charge. The irony is that for all of the rhetoric about the reforms made by the LNP over the last three years, things like the thinning of the bloated public service and other fiscal savings will not be reversed so its, once again going to be a case of the LNP wearing the pain of necessary reforms and the ALP will be able to get the benefits gratis.
I feel nothing but dread for governance of our great state of Queensland over the next three years… On the upside though It will be far easier to attack the government’s inevitable incompetence than it has been to defend the missteps of the previous administration.
Not much to cheer about from my perspective Comrades
Helen Dale posted in Australian Libertarian Society (ALS) ” Why Australians can’t be Charlie”
I was quite taken by Helen Dale’s argument here:
Helen Dale 23 January 11:08 “I hate to break it to you, but we are not all Charlie.
The reason is simple: Charlie Hebdo was consistent in its support for freedom of speech. Its editors were not just targeted by Islamists: they’d been hauled through the French courts (where they won) and were figures of hate to both the French extreme right and conservative Catholics.
Charlie Hebdo had been out on a limb for years, true to the freewheeling anti-clericalism that owes its origins to the protests of 1968. Charb, its editor, refused to buckle.
The rest of us – with the partial exception of the United States – have buckled. There are widespread restrictions on speech, in France and elsewhere. Australia has 18C, among many others.
“Hate speech” laws are frequently based on the supposition that hate speech has the same effect as the common law offence of incitement. Incitement requires a demonstrable effect on the intended audience. Burning a cross on a black family’s front lawn, for example, amounts to incitement to commit acts of violence against that family.
It’s also important to remember hate speech laws are akin to the definition of “advocating terrorism” in the national security legislation. Because – as George Brandis told me last year – incitement is difficult to prove, governments look for other ways to restrict speech. “Advocating terrorism” in the Foreign Fighters legislation removes the requirement for demonstrable impact.
At the heart of criminalising “hate speech” is an empirical claim: that what an individual consumes in the media has a direct effect on his or her subsequent behaviour. That is, words will lead directly to deeds.
But because this is untrue – playing Grand Theft Auto and watching porn hasn’t led to an epidemic of car thefts and sexual assault – justifications for laws such as 18C and hate speech laws now turn on the notion that offence harms “dignity” and “inclusion”. Obviously, dignity and inclusion can’t be measured, while crime rates can.
Support for dignity and inclusion produces weird arguments – white people are not supposed to satirise minorities, for example. Sometimes, legislation is used – bluntly – to define what is funny.
Allowing what is “hateful” or “offensive” to be defined subjectively, as 18C does – and not according to the law’s usual objective standard (the reasonable person) – means “offence” is in the eye of the beholder. It enables people who are vexatious litigants and professional victims to complain about comments the rest of us would laugh off.
Tim Wilson, Australia’s Freedom Commissioner, has already argued18C ensures an Australian Charlie Hebdo would be litigated to death. Despite the fact 18C refers only to race, Tony Abbott’s justification for backing down on repeal was to preserve “national unity” with Australia’s Muslim community. This conflates religion with race in the crudest possible way.
This conflation is what leads to the coining of nonsense terms such as “Islamophobia”. “Homophobia” actually means something, because being homosexual is an inherent characteristic, not a choice. Islam is an idea, and it is perfectly reasonable to be afraid of an idea.
18C is far from the only potential constraint. The equivalent Victorian legislation explicitly takes in religion as well as race. A smart lawyer would bring suit in Victoria, because Charlie Hebdo would probably be caught there.
The confusion of religion for race is so pervasive – even in the US, where people ought to know better – that French people across the political spectrum have been forced to point out – while France does indeed have “hate speech” laws – they are used to protect characteristics that people cannot change, such as being black or gay.
“We do not conflate religion and race. We are the country of Voltaire and Diderot: religion is fair game” French left radical Olivier Tonneau wrote in response to repeated claims that attacking Muhammad or Islam was racist.
Apart from being unsupported by anything approaching evidence, hate speech laws have serious unintended consequences. Recently, British polling firm YouGov surveyed British attitudes to Muslims and discovered Britons see Islam negatively, but are unwilling to say so.
In other words, governments and law enforcement have to rely on anonymised polls conducted by private firms to find out what people really think.
It’s not maintainable to have partial freedom of speech. The fact that most Western countries now do makes what little freedom we still have harder to defend. Muslims who respect arguments for free speech can’t help but notice our inconsistencies. Anyone who thinks they don’t notice is guilty of treating people who profess a certain faith like children.
We won’t be Charlie until we have purged 18C, its state-based equivalents and the illiberal national security legislation from the nation’s statute books.”
So what do my readers think about this?
Cheers Comrades
Iain Hall's SANDPIT 