The Baden-Clay judgement is a worry.

I have read this judgement and it both odd and worrying.

It should be noted firstly, that this judgement does not overturn Baden-Clay’s conviction of murder on any legally technical ground or any aspect of trial procedure. The judges of the court of appeal make no substantial criticism of the trial judge’s summing up and yet conclude that the verdict was incorrect. In short, the they have simply ruled that the jury were not justified in making the finding that they did. This is worry for the whole jury system.

The gist of their argument is that the jury had the option, on the basis of the evidence, of bringing in a verdict of murder or  manslaughter and, given that the forensic evidence did not establish anything in the way of an intention to kill, they could have and should have opted for the lesser finding of manslaughter.

Much of the judgement is devoted to dismissing the notion that Baden-Clay’s lying supports a finding of murder. They appear to accept that the scratches on Baden-Clay’s face were in fact fingernail scratches, explicitly referring to them as such in para 35 and elsewhere – but suggest that he possibly lied about these scratches and everything else, “in panic.” Indeed, the judgement basically consists  of  the judges suggesting an alternative scenario to the killing, which they describe as the “reasonably open hypothesis” that Baden-Clay accidentally killed his wife and then concealed the body and lied about the circumstances of her death out of panic.

There is, of course, an immediate problem with this hypothesis which is that, if Baden-Clay accidentally killed his wife, why would he, when faced with a murder charge, continue to insist on his complete innocence rather than plead to the lesser charge of manslaughter. It is not really conceivable that he was in a state of panic during the entire period of his arrest and trial and, in any case, surely his defence counsel would have advised him to plead to the alternative charge seeing that the circumstantial evidence for murder was so strong.

Oddly, the judges accept that the jury was entitled to conclude that Baden-Clay killed his wife, moved her body, deposited it under a bridge and lied about the scratches on his face. What they refute is that the jury had any right to infer, from his actions and his lies, that he intended to kill her. One of the key elements in reaching this conclusion is that they completely dismiss the motives that were adduced by the prosecution for the crime – i.e. Baden-Clay’s affair with Ms McHugh, his promise to Ms McHugh to end his marriage and his financial difficulties. The reason for rejecting these as valid motives is never explained: the judges simply state that the “pressures on the appellant (do not provide) a motive in any conventional sense of the word”. (my Italics). This defies understanding since evidence of an extramarital affair and the possibility of benefiting financially from a spouse’s death would normally be accepted in any murder trial as valid motives for murder. For some reason, no reference is made in the judgement, to Allison Baden-Clay's $800,000 life insurance policies which her husband stood to receive in the event of her death. 

However, what is most concerning about the judgement is the sense that a lack of evidence for murder should properly lead to a finding of manslaughter. This is based on the erroneous idea that a conviction for manslaughter requires a lower level of evidence than murder. In fact, it requires a higher level because the defence has to show that an act which has quite clearly led to the death of the deceased was not actually intended to bring about that result. In the case of, say, a drunk driver who kills another person on the road, the lack of intention is clear: the deceased was not known to the accused and the death was clearly attributable to recklessness on the part of the accused and an culpable disregard for others’ safety etc.

In a case, however, where the accused shoots someone in the head who then dies, it is going to be difficult for them to convince a jury that they did not intend death to occur. Note that in such cases, while the onus of proof in trials is always on the prosecution, in this sort of situation the prosecution need only rely on the “reasonable person” test. i.e. any reasonable person shooting someone in the head must of necessity reasonably expect it to be fatal.  In this situation, the onus of proof would fall onto the defence to prove that the accused shot someone in the head without intending to kill them - a big ask.

In the Baden-Clay case, such an argument was never presented by the defence because their contention throughout was that Allison Baden-Clay was not killed by her husband but by person or persons unknown.

In dealing with this question of evidence manslaughter, the appeal court judges rely heavily on the fact that there were no detectable physical injuries on Allison Baden-Clay's body. They see this as providing no evidence to indicate “an intent to kill or do grievous bodily harm”.

In fact, I would regard this as evidence to support murder rather than manslaughter because it is almost impossible to conceive a form of manslaughter that does not leave obvious physical injuries. 

Only such unintentional acts as accidental poisoning, or accidental gassing might kill someone without leaving physical damage. Murder, on the other hand, because death is intended from the outset and there is a desire to conceal the act, often involves methods of killing that leave no visible signs. What we know about the death of Allison Baden-Clay is that it happened sometime during the night or early in the morning, that there was no evidence of a fight or struggle, that her body showed no signs of overt violence such as broken bones, head trauma etc, no sounds were heard by neighbours (except for one inconclusive report of a scream) and the children did not wake. The judges seem to feel that this lack of physical evidence in the home and on the body seems to somehow justify a finding of unintentional killing. I would maintain that it suggests exactly the opposite. The state of the evidence does not suggest something like a violent physical altercation that resulted unexpectedly in death: it suggests an act that was carried out in silence and with some level of consideration if not actual planning.

In the end, this judgement does not overturn the conviction on any technical legal grounds. What the appeal judges seem to have done is to re-interpret the evidence and offer a possible alternative explanation for the killing of Allison Baden-Clay and then conclude that, given the inherent ambiguities, the jury should have found for a lesser charge of unlawful killing – i.e. manslaughter. 

This is worrying because overturning the decision of a jury is no light matter. It is not the role of appeal courts to reverse the verdicts of jury trials unless there has been some clear breach of legal principles, misdirection by the trial judge or some complete misunderstanding of some vital piece of evidence. In this case the jury had the choice of bringing in a verdict of murder or manslaughter and in the end unanimously decided on murder because, given the motives that had been suggested and the absence of any evidence for an accidental killing, murder was the more probable scenario.

In this case the court of appeal has set themselves up as an alternative jury and delivered their own verdict.

The irony of this judgement is that, at the end of the day, if there is no evidence that Baden-Clay intentionally killed his wife, and no evidence that he killed her accidentally then he should have been acquitted.

The question of “legalising” drugs

 We frequently hear calls for the legalisation or decriminalisation of drugs. The arguments are usually the same: criminalisation hasn’t worked, the “war on drugs” has failed and we should be considering “harm minimisation” programs rather than arrests and convictions.

Some people advocate simply decriminalising possession for personal use; others believe all drugs should be legally available.

Of course when people talk about legalising drugs, they are talking about the drugs that are currently illegal, not the medicinal pharmaceuticals that we use every day. These drugs are “legal” but not legal in the sense that the advocates of legalisation mean of being able to be manufactured and sold at will.

Ironically, these so-called "legal" drugs are strictly regulated. Drugs must be tested for years and pass rigorous tests before they are allowed to be marketed. When they are sold, unless they are almost completely harmless like aspirin or Paracetamol, they must be prescribed by a doctor and dispensed by a chemist. Those regulations are backed up by a system of legal liability. If a person suffers detrimental side-effects from a drug they can sue. If the chemist dispensed the wrong drug or the wrong dosage, they can be sued; if the doctor prescribed the wrong drug, they can be sued: and if they were not at fault – the drug company itself can be sued, and many have been - in multi-million dollar legal actions.

Of course when people talk about “legalising all drugs” they are not suggesting that pharmaceuticals in general should be freely available for anyone to manufacture, sell and purchase over the counter without any sort of controls.

What they are talking about is legalising so-called recreational drugs and this is what leads us into an absurdity.

Legalising so-called “recreational” drugs, would lead to a ridiculous double standard where, to get a blood-pressure or cholesterol drug, you had to go to a doctor and a chemist, but you could buy drugs with known side-effects and the even the potential for a fatal overdose over the counter - without any need for a prescription or any sort of medical examination. It would also mean that people could manufacture these drugs in any sort of back-yard lab they wished and not be breaking the law. And of course there would be no legal recourse in the case of side-effects or death. There would be grounds to sue either the dealer or the drug manufacturer as they would have no duty-of-care to begin with.

Some advocates suggest that, if recreational drugs were legalised, then major drug companies might start to manufacture them, guaranteeing the quality and ensuring that they were “safe.” This, of course, is a pipe-dream.  The drugs that currently illegal could never obtain certification by the FDA or TGA for public use for the simple reason that they’re NOT safe. There is no safe version of them and even if one could determine a “safe dose” of these drugs, you could not monitor their usage unless you went down the path of having people get a prescription specifying the correct dosage from their GP. However, no GP would ever prescribe these drugs because they have no medical value.

   

The question for a pharmaceutical company that was even thinking about manufacturing these drugs would be how they could protect themselves from the inevitable law-suits when people had adverse reactions. To put it simply, no drug company would be crazy enough to manufacture the drugs that currently illegal because they would be wiped out in litigation that made the billion dollar James Hardie asbestos case look like pocket-money.

Similarly, whereas chemists and supermarkets are happy to have headache tablets, and hay-fever capsules on their shelves, available without prescription, they would never be stupid enough to sell marijuana, MBA, opiates, methamphetamines or anything else, because they would  be sued the first time someone commits suicide, lapses into schizophrenia, turns violent or depressed, or even just become an addict. Not even a corner shop would risk it. Remember that a pub or a bar that serves alcohol to a person who is already intoxicated can be sued if that person subsequently causes a serious car accident so retailers can be held responsible for the results of intoxicants they sell.

The result is that even if you “legalise” illegal drugs, the scenario under which they are made and distributed will be almost exactly the same as what exists now - people growing or synthesising the drugs in a kind of cottage industry and selling them anonymously either in person or over the Net with no legal liability. Drug takers will never have any guarantee as to the purity or safety of these drugs because no legal safety standard or method of regulating their manufacture can ever exist.

So, in the end, removing criminal sanctions against manufacturing, transporting, selling or possessing drugs may stop people going to prison, but it is never going to reduce the instances of death by overdose or suicide, mental illness including depression and schizophrenia, family breakdown, relationship breakdown and career breakdown. The current laws against drug cultivation and synthesis are the same laws that prevent Pfizer, Sigma or Bayer from marketing a drug that causes detrimental side-effects. Similarly, the laws that prevent the distribution and sale of illegal drugs are the same laws that prevent people from selling foods with botulism or toys with toxic chemicals in them. How could we - why would we - exempt one particular set of products from those laws, especially when the harm they do is so manifest, so visible, and greater than all the other dangerous products combined?

At last! The long awaited sequel - COLD WAR II - The Russian Empire Strikes Back.

As we celebrate the return of the Back to the Future franchise, a new Star Wars movie and a host of new editions of computer  games by for the most long awaited sequel of all:

Cold War II – The Russian Empire Strikes Back.

The Australian today, accurately if somewhat belatedly, warns us that “we could be returning to the Cold War dangers.”  Could be. Except that it’s already happening.

The Cold War of the Fifties and Sixties was less about the US and the USSR building up competing vast stockpiles of nuclear weapons and more about the economic and military cultivation of client states around the world.

In two decades after WW2, developing nations “shopped” for aid, playing the superpowers off against one another; offering allegiance to whichever would provide them with the most money and, more importantly, the most military assistance to to either protect the government from insurgency or to arm the insurgency itself.

Competing with Russian influence in the Third World first saw the US initiate the Marshall Plan which gave 13 billion dollars to rebuild Europe (and to forestall a communist takeover in Greece and other countries), establish the OEEC and, in the Kennedy era, set up USAID. That scheme has continued to spends tens of billions of dollars annually. USAID was partly to relieve poverty and enable economic development in the poorer world, but was also an attempt to stop nations becoming of Soviet client states. Naturally, the USSR not only refused to participate in the Marshall Plan but actively campaigned against US aid schemes - while at the same time running similar schemes of its own.

This process of creating a network of client states saw the US and USSR engage in a number of proxy wars.  The Vietnam war, where North Vietnam and the Viet Cong were funded and armed by Moscow, was just such a war. The US was there in person: the USSR was there by proxy.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union in the late Eighties, that great competition ran out of steam for a while.

Now it’s back with Vladimir Putin determined to rebuild a Russian Empire.

Putin has already annexed Crimea and continues to arm and fund rebel militias in eastern Ukraine, hoping that that country will be split in two and the east returned to the Russian fold. He has also expertly intervened in Syria with the dual purpose of propping up the Assad regime and wiping out ISIS. This is, of course, at odds with the US and other countries’ aim of removing both Assad and ISIS. Putin, with no regard for the West, has commenced bombing the "moderate" rebels in Syria to secure Assad’s position (which is quite shaky) and, having done that, will then work with the Assad regime to attack ISIS. This is a win-win for Russia -  preserving a valued pro-Russian state and reducing the risk from militant Islam which is a much greater for Russia than the West.

It is also a lose-lose for the US and the West in general. Under Putin’s scheme Assad remains in power and he gets the credit for doing what America couldn’t – defeating or curtailing ISIS. Putin becomes the hero of Syria. And being a hero is what Putin is all about.

Now, following the US troop withdrawal, the government of Afghanistan is nervously looking to Russia for possible military assistance against the Taliban. One can only imagine the satisfaction it would give the Russians to take revenge on the Taliban since it was they who drove the Soviets out of Kabul in 1989.  Obama has ordered US troop withdrawals be halted but this may be too little too late.

Maintaining a hold on Syria and re-attaching Afghanistan as a Soviet puppet state could provide Vladimir Putin with a greater Christmas present that he could have ever hoped for.

As Tom Lehrer sang "Who's next?"

Freedom of Religion vs the Rights of the Child.

Today, in The Australian, the Archbishop of Melbourne defended the circulation of a letter in Catholic schools in Tasmania that outlined the church's opposition to gay marriage, by saying it was all about Freedom of Religion. However, Freedom of Religion means having the right to practice any religion you choose. It does not mean having the right to impose your religion on others. Except the Archbishop thinks it does, at least when it comes to children.

Indoctrinating children in religious faith is the main function of religious schools. But how does this tally with the general principles of education?

In the 19^th century, Britain and many other countries implemented systems of universal, free, compulsory education. There were several reasons for this In the case of Britain, which is the model for Australia, they were: 

1. The economic development of the nation. Britain feared it was lagging in the science and technology race against other European nations.
   
   
2. The removal of the class system. It was regarded as a social evil that the children of the wealthy were educated while the lower classes remained illiterate and unskilled. Universal education, it was believed, would allow people of ability to transcend class barriers.
   
   
3. The eradication of other social evils such as alcoholism and sexual incontinence. It was believed that educated people would lead more moral lives.
   
   
4. The intellectual and spiritual enhancement of the individual. It was believed that the intellectual abilities of every person should be fully realised and that no one should be uninformed about the world, or denied access to the great works of literature, historical accounts, appreciation of art or understanding of science achievements.

These aims, which are both social, economic and personal still inform educational policies in the Western world albeit with slightly different emphases. It would be fair to say that (b) has more or less been achieved in that it is now possible for someone from a working class background to become Prime Minister and (c) is still as a work in progress in that alcohol and drug use are still mainly (though not at all exclusively) the province of people at the unskilled and uneducated end of the social scale. (a) and (b) remain the active justifications for general, free and compulsory education.  

 To them I would add another justification for education: (e) the Right to Knowledge.

Human beings are unique amongst the creatures on this planet in that they have a vast store of shared, accumulated knowledge that is stored outside their brains in libraries, databases, galleries, images, recordings and other repositories – a giant collective memory which is accessed and added to constantly by the entire population. This store of knowledge is collectively owned and is, in a sense, the inheritance of every child born on the planet.

It is a challenge to any social theorist or police maker to justify how one person should have access to the entirety of this vast store of information and understand, and another not have.

Which brings us to the issue of religious schools.

The existence of Islamic fundamentalism in the Middle East can be largely traced to religious education. In countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan many children - boys only of course - undergo an education in the madrassas which consists of rote learning of the Koran. Not much else is taught.[1]    In the West we deplore this because such an education clearly does not equip the child for a comprehensive and mature view of reality world; it lessens their ability understand the wider world and make decisions to their own advantage. That of course is of no concern to the religious teachers. Self-actualisation and self-determination is not the primary aim of religious schools - their aim is the perpetuation of the religion itself. It is a fundamental principle of many religions that the individual is not as important as the faith.[2]

Yet while we disapprove of the madrassas of the Middle East, we defend the right of Australians to send their children to Jewish Catholic and Islamic religious schools. While, unlike the madrassas, our religious schools do include a standard academic curriculum that runs alongside the religious teaching, these schools still have the inherent problem that they emphasise one religion and it associated cultural observances and attitudes, as being of overriding importance.

It is often asked how schools which exist for the prime purpose of reinforcing a particular religious belief can be compatible with the wider aims of education which are to offer a comprehensive view of society and teach an understanding of the scientific method. The answer is that they are not.

Recently there was a scandal involving allegations of sexual abuse against the principal of a Jewish school. This school catered to an ultra-Orthodox sect called the Adass, a kind of Jewish version of the Amish, which shields children from almost all contact with the outside world: no televisions, tablets, sex education or, indeed, contact with the opposite sex at all. Oddly enough, while news reports focussed luridly on the allegations of sexual abuse, the wider abuse of raising children in a highly traditional culture that ill-prepares them for any engagement with the world outside the sect is not considered to be a problem. Indeed the Adass community, like the Amish, is regarded as being sort of cute. Indeed, the members of the sect do seem to have a certain hippie- like contentment, as you might expect people living in a kind of Fiddler on the Roof theme park but it’s an upbringing that does little to prepare young people for life, should they ever leave the community, which of course many do.

The issue here is a fundamental question of human rights. Do parents, or other adults, have the right to restrict the education and information available to children in order to perpetuate their own lifestyle in the next generation? The answer to this can only be “No.”  The result of limiting education, or withholding knowledge or understanding from young people can only be negative, both for the individual – as it denies them their due inheritance of knowledge – and for the society as a whole – because it perpetuates and fosters myths, prejudices, fears and intolerances.

If that seems prejudicial towards religion, ask this question:  what ideas, principles and attitudes are taught in the Islamic, Catholic schools and other religious schools that are of benefit to the wider society? There are plenty of teachings and beliefs that cause problems for others - opposition to abortion or even contraception, the notion that homosexuality is sinful, that sex in general is sinful, hatred of other religions, creationism and so on. Now list the teachings that are of benefit to society as a whole? They are conspicuously absent.

The problem is that religions, in privileging their dogma over the wider body of scientific knowledge and mandating that obedience to the religion as more important than the intellectual growth of the individual or any benefit of the wider society, violates the three of the five aims of public education I listed above. It fails to raise the general level of intelligence of society as a whole, or to develop to their fullest the intellectual abilities of the individual, or to grant open access to the accumulated store of human knowledge.         

This week there was an issue over a letter circulated in Catholic schools which outlined the church’s opposition to gay marriage. It justified the opposition by making ignorant, insulting remarks about gay people. The Tasmanian Greens have alleged that the church as violated the anti-discrimination laws.

To return to the current Tasmanian issue: in defending a document which seems to makes ignorant and defamatory comments about gay people, the Archbishop Melbourne quotes the judgement of the Canadian Supreme Court in the Quebec “Loyola” case. In that case a Catholic school found itself required by government legislation to teach a general “ethics and religion” course that gave an overview of all religions which emphasised that no faith was any more “true” than any other. Naturally, since the entire purpose of a Catholic school is to teach that their faith IS the one true faith, they objected. The Supreme Court upheld their objection saying that parents are "entitled" to transmit their religious beliefs to their children. It is a disappointing judgement because, by only a slight extrapolation (not a total reduction ad absurdum) it could justify any form of teaching, no matter how dangerous and discriminatory, if it were deemed to be “religious.”  Thus teaching children that Jews are evil or Africans are sub-human is permitted if those claims are held to be part of someone's "faith."

The unqualified assertion of a "right to transmit" must clearly be subject to some sort of limitation. The concepts that are being “transmitted” by parents must be subject to some sort of reasonability or social benefit test and the potential damages from that "transmission" must be recognised. We do not accept for a moment that people have the right to perform genital mutilation in the name of their religion or indeed inflict any sort of physical modification of children so why do we allow what is often the modification of their minds? Religious ideas are not purely abstract concepts: they have, intentionally, strong emotions consequences. Instilling fears, illusions, empirically unprovable assertions and pejorative attitudes to certain groups in society has the capacity to produce crippling emotional states of anxiety, guilt, insecurity and shame? What is the effect on a gay Catholic teenager reading a pamphlet that says "gay people are not whole people"?   

Freedom of religion is a fundamental right, but the rights of children not to be indoctrinated, and not to be intellectually and emotionally damaged by religious education, outweighs it. Children are not simply clones of, nor possessions of, their parents to be raised as carbon copies or in any way the parent fancies. On the contrary, parenthood is a set of responsibilities paramount amongst which is to give the child an education that will afford them, as adults, both the opportunities and the capacity to make their own choices about everything -  including religion or freedom from it.

---

[1] .  This was evidenced to me in a minor way a couple of weeks ago when I was in a taxi in Sydney. After listening to a strange incantation coming from the radio I asked the driver what he was listening to and he said he was listening to the Koran. This led onto a discussion about religions during which, at one point he asked “So when was Jesus alive?” Slightly amused I told him, it was 2015 years ago as current year date suggests. He was fascinated, having never known that the western calendar was dated from the putative birth of Jesus.

[2] The same paradox is inherent in Socialism where the State is more important than the individual citizen even though the State is a collection of individuals.

Jihad déjà vu: Islamic State and the Communist Scare of the Fifties.

It’s not uncommon when reading some historical account of the 1950s to come across references to “anti-communist hysteria” or, in the Australian context, fears of “Reds under the bed”. These terms tend to imply that, during the Cold War, there was an irrational fear of communist infiltration in the western world which led to the imposition of intrusive surveillance measures, draconian legislation and violations of both personal and political freedom. They tend to be used by people who either were communist sympathisers during that period (and perhaps still are) or were not actually alive at the time.

To get some perspective on what the level of threat actually was, it would be fair to say that the “communist menace” of the Fifties was not unlike the threat of radical Islam today.

The reality is that goal of the International Communism in the Fifties was identical to the current goal of Al Qaeda and Islamic State: that is to say - world domination. The aim of I.S. is to establish a worldwide Islamic caliphate. The aim of the U.S.S.R. was to establish a worldwide union of socialist republics. Of course, like I.S., the U.S.S.R. could not simply invade other countries and impose a communist regime on them (though it would do so later to stop them becoming UNcommunist) so its strategy was to preach the doctrine of Marxism as far and as wide as possible and cultivate revolutionary cells in as many countries as possible.

The m.o. of international communism was therefore remarkably like that of its counterpart today.

Like I.S., the Communist Party especially targeted young people in spreading of its ideology since young people tend to be idealistic, already resentful of authority and not too well informed. Both organisations had and have their sacred texts: the Koran for I.S. and Das Kapital and the Communist Manifesto for the Socialists. Both movements also promoted their philosophy via a promise of Paradise. For I.S. it is a paradise in the afterlife; for Communists it was a paradise on Earth.

Both movements also employed different strategies to foment revolution depending on the type of society they were targeting and the degree of impetus towards an actual revolution. The Soviets sent organisers, agitators and propagandists into the western democracies to assist with party structuring and operation. They trained the locals in recruiting techniques, and funded the costs of printing booklets and pamphlets, paid for office rental and costs of travel – often to Moscow for "advanced instruction." In the developing world, where societies were already simmering on the brink of revolt, they provided arms and military advisors to assist the overthrow of governments.

In the same way I.S. and Al Qaeda jihadists adopt multiple tactics to advance their aims. They recruit soldiers whom they train in Afghan camps to conduct military invasions of provinces in Syria and Iraq, while at the same time creating bases of sympathisers in the western democracies to provide financial and other assistance for those militants. In moderate Moslem countries they cultivate the growth of radical Islamist cells and a return to sharia law and in non-Moslem countries they send proselytisers to encourage the “lone wolf” martyrdom attacks and provide instructions for bombs and other terror weapons via the Internet.

In the end however, what communism and radical Islam have most in common, is that they aim to impose totalitarian order on the world – to establish a system of government where individual choice is impossible and dissent illegal. There is thus no real difference between an imam at a mosque exhorting young Moslems to wage jihad and a university lecturer telling students that a Marxist-Leninist society that Socialist is a moral responsibility.

Of course, at the moment, radical Islam seems to present a more immediate threat than the Communist Party of Australia who, as far as we know, has never beheaded anyone or crashed an airliner. But the fear of Communism in that period of the Cold War was not unjustified.

In the 20 years following World War 2, communist or communist supported uprisings occurred in Malaya, Indonesia, Cuba, China, Korea, Congo, Vietnam, The Philippines, Ethiopia, South Yemen, Mozambique, Burma and Sudan, amongst others. Some of these, such as those in Malaya and Indonesia were overcome, others ended in stalemate, partition or the rise of dictators; others continue to the present day. It is true that many if not most of these uprisings were against brutal dictators and/or exploitative and inhumane colonial masters. The problem for the democracies however was that with each overthrow of a colonial dictatorship – regardless of how justified - the international influence the of the U.S.S.R. grew. Whereas the radical Islamic presents a threat of random localised acts of violence, the mingling of communism with nationalist and independence movements threatened to strengthen an expansionist regime that possessed thousands of nuclear arms and intent on ruling the world. What such a world might be like was graphically illustrated in the swift and brutal response of the Soviets to Hungary and Czechoslovakian when they sought to declare independence from the Soviet bloc.

However the fear of Communism was not just that it was tool for increasing the political influence of a ruthless, well-armed, totalitarian regime. It was seen as a threat for a far more subtle reason – the very fact of its superficial plausibility. The actions of jihadists - martyrdom, mass murder, destruction of artefacts, beheadings and enslavements - are so alienating to most people that only the alienated, the ignorant, the stupid and the psychopathic are drawn to it. Socialism on the other hand weaves a subtle web of persuasion, appealing to humanitarianism, pacifism and notions of natural justice. The great fear during the Cold War was that, even given the violation of human rights, the mass executions, the labour camps, the appalling economic mismanagement and deaths of millions through famine in U.S.S.R and China, many Westerners would continue to be seduced by the childish idealism of the Marxism. And indeed, the fact that in spite of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the failure of Cuba and the corruption of nearly all communist states into brutal autocracies, there are still people - academics, artists, broadcasters and public intellectuals - in this country who tacitly or explicitly espouse and endorse Socialist doctrine, and that many of the illogical tenets of Marxist theory still influence public discourse in this country, shows that those fears of 60 years ago, were not unfounded. 

Requiem for a Lightweight. The end of Tony Abbott

There is probably no Australian Prime minister except for Billy Hughes and William McMahon whose passing will be less mourned than Tony Abbott.

Someone on Facebook commented that Abbott “Should never have been Prime Minister” and in a sense that’s true. Abbott’s rise to the position was more or less accidental.

Abbott’s ascendancy was due in the first place to a blunder by the Liberals during the Howard years: they assumed that when it came time for Howard to retire, Peter Costello would automatically step up as leader. When Costello declined, they found themselves without a backup plan. At that stage Turnbull was a potential leader but as yet he was too new and too Left for most of the party.

The second mistake the Liberals made was to assume that Howard’s electoral success was due to his being a moral conservative therefore, they reasoned, falsely, they needed a successor who was also a moral conservative. What they failed to realise was that Howard was a successful despite being a moral conservative not because of it. Unlike Howard, Abbott did not have the political talent to offset his somewhat rigid personal views with good government.

The third factor which led to Abbott’s success was the lamentable performance of the Rudd/Gillard/Government – a gift to any Opposition. Rudd, had he remained PM for a full term would have had no trouble dealing with Abbott but his abrasive personal style led him to be replaced by the hapless, clueless, Julia Gillard. To quote the bitter Bill Hayden in 1983 “a drover’s dog could have won the election” against Gillard. As it was, Abbott only outpolled Gillard marginally in 2010 (remember that the Coalition won more seats in that election: Gillard only became PM because Oakeshott and Windsor betrayed their electorates and backed her.)  Then, of course, the last minute deposing of Gillard and re-installation of Rudd made the 2013 election a walkover for the Coalition. Abbott’s becoming PM was the thus result of incompetence by both the Liberals and Labor.

Of course, people who don’t look very Prime Ministerial at the outset can grow into the role. Howard was regarded very much as a joke throughout the Eighties but became one of Australia’s most successful Prime Ministers. Not so with Abbott.

Abbott, without intending to be, was a divisive Prime Minister managing to achieve the almost impossible task of having more people hate him than Howard. Most Abbott haters attribute their animosity to his policies and what they perceived as a raft of personal prejudices. Neither of those factors however really fully explain the antipathy.

Firstly, Abbott’s policies, such as “stopping the boats” were not materially different in their intention (and actually more humane) than Labor’s Malaysian and PNG Solutions which were devised for the same reason – to stop people-smuggling. The perception of a personal traits such a homophobia and misogyny was also, if not completely false, exaggerated. The misogyny label in particular was just a slur created by Gillard desperately grasping for something to cloak her own disastrous performance. Anger over Abbott’s reluctance to legislate for marriage equality also ignores the fact that Gillard refused to legalise gay marriage though she had the numbers to do so. The explanation in both cases is the same: Abbott and Gillard were both afraid of the conservative elements of their parties.
 

I believe the antipathy to Abbott stems from problems that are both deeper and more superficial than policies and attitudes. Firstly, the superficial.

Abbott, without a doubt, had/has the worst speaking style of any Prime Minister ever recorded in Australia. William McMahon was derided for his squeaky voice which became shrill when he became agitated but even he sounded relatively normal compared to Abbott’s odd one-word-at–a-time speech pattern. Prior to become Prime Minister Abbott had a habit of grunting between each word:  “I – ugh – don’t – ugh –think – ugh –we – ugh –should – ugh –consider – ugh –action – ugh –of – ugh –that – ugh –nature – ugh – “ etc. As PM, he managed to remove the grunt but was still incapable of delivering an English sentence in one breath. He continued to speak one word at a time with tiny pauses between. I. Want. To. Assure. Australians. That. We. Will. Continue. To. etc.

This style of speaking is hard to listen to and disconcerting to the listener. It gives the impression the speaker is actually thinking about each word as they speak, rather than having a sentence already prepared in their brain . It suggests they have trouble formulating their thoughts, are unsure of what they’re saying and lack conviction. What is particularly odd is that, from all reports, Abbott doesn’t talk like this in private, meaning that for some unknown reason he adopts an oddly formal approach when speaking as a politician, not unlike the tone you might adopt when talking to someone who doesn't understand English, or is deaf. This not only comes across as condescending, but also makes the voters feel as if they're never seeing the real person.

The first thing that was refreshing about the election of Malcolm Turnbull was to hear a Prime Minister who speaks fluently and confidently as if he were engaged in a normal conversation.

In addition to the odd, halting, speech, there are the problems of Abbott’s walk, in which he rolls his shoulders like a punch-drunk prize fighter, a scarily reptilian smile and a strange, mechanical, almost robotic laugh that is actually unnerving.

Much as we might disapprove, it is an inescapable fact that appearances count in modern politics. Speaking styles, body language and facial expressions very much determine how people respond to political candidates and leaders. A single idiosyncrasy can be acceptable, even endearing, but Abbott’s combination of vocal, facial and bodily oddities simply made him uncomfortable to watch or listen to. It was unnatural, unrelaxed and often, as in his long silent stare, just weird. 

The deeper, matter concerns the erratic quality of his decision making. Personally I support restoring the old Knights and Dames honours system because I think Australia’s honours system is an embarrassment. Contrary to the protests of the republicans, knights have nothing to do with monarchy per se. There is no reason why you can’t have a republican knight: the term simply means a hero of the realm. The term Dame is more problematic in being gendered and having nothing like the same heroic connotations. If we hate the idea of titles like “Sir” and “Dame” we should also abolish “Dr”, “Mr” and “Professor” – but I digress. The point is I was happy to see the honours system restored. So what does Abbott do? He grants a knighthood to a duke – a duke being already six rungs above a knight in heraldic order. And not just your common or garden duke but a royal consort who has the rank of Prince. It was an act so unjustified, so ill-advised, so destructive to his own cause as to almost cast doubts on Abbott’s sanity.

Lastly there is the issue of the togs. Laced through his whole career there is Abbott’s obsession with sports and fitness. While his involvement in sports was initially seen as a positive – attesting to his youth, energy and simpatico with the outdoorsy Australian culture - there are serious questions about whether a person should still be running triathlons once they’ve become Prime Minister. For a start, most voters would be justified in asking how he had the time? Isn’t being PM pretty much a 20 hour a day job.  While we accept John Howard going out for his brisk morning walk prior to tackling the day’s agenda, continued involvement in strenuous sport seems to suggest that the individual has not fully committed to the demands of office.

On top of this, if you are a politician who is always drawn by cartoonists wearing Speedos, and lampooned for always being on a bike or a surfboard, when you are criticised for being too much of a jock, a bloke, and a man’s man - maybe it’s time to cut back on those activities. Abbott’s refusal to change his image a little – to appear less of a sportsman and a little more cultured, cerebral and sensitive – could be seen as a kind of integrity, a refusal to compromise oneself just for the sake of image but with Abbott I doubt that is the case. It was not an expression of integrity: just a kind of dumbness. Abbott simply didn’t get it.

Abbott will be remembered as a strange, slightly socially inept man, uncertain about his masculinity and even his identity, who found himself Prime Minister by default, never really understanding the social and economic challenges of the 21^st century, too reliant on support from the conservative wing of his party and simply not having the breadth of vision and combination of intellectual and pragmatic skills that make for a statesman.

 

Syrian Refugees. Why do we treat the sympton but not the disease?

In the last twelve months, Australia’s relatively minor problem with unauthorised boat arrivals has been put graphically in perspective by the massive influx of refugees from Africa and the Middle East into Europe. The most visible component of this tide of arrivals is the wave of refugees fleeing the civil war in Syria. Some 4 million people have fled the war since it began and now much attention is being paid to the problem of how to deal with this mass of displaced humanity.

Germany has stepped up and agreed to take a large number of these refugees – perhaps because its economy is the strongest in Europe and also, perhaps, because its birth-rate is slow and it could actually do with a population boost, especially in the unskilled sector. Other countries are not so ready, willing or able to accommodate a wave of migrants and the burden on social welfare that it would entail. In 2014, a survey in France revealed that 80% of the refugees who had arrived ten years earlier were still unemployed and living on government benefits.

On top of the strain which a large number of new arrivals places on the economies, housing capacity and educational facilities of European countries, there is of course the overriding problem that accepting refugees en masse will dramatically increase the number of people seeking to relocate to the safety of Europe.

What is astonishing about the entire situation is that, despite the immense problems of resettling the flood of refugees and the horrors of the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Syria, the western world remains resolutely resolved not to intervene in the war itself.

In other words, Europe would rather spend billions of Euros accommodating fleeing Syrians than spend considerably less committing troops to end the war that is creating the crisis.

If the leaders of Europe are looking for a solution to the refugee situation, the answer is not in some far reaching agreement to share the responsibility for resettlement, the solution is simply as follows.

1.       Send a multinational force of  80,000 troops into Syria.

2.       Wipe out ISIS completely.

 

3.      Demobilise government forces (due to defections there are less that 100,000 soldiers still fighting) arrest Assad and put him on trial for war crimes as the UN did with Milosovic.

4.       Institute democratic elections in the country.

This would require the major members of the EU, Britain, France and Germany to provide contingents of around 10,000 troops each. The smaller members would provide contingents of between 1000 and 5000 depending on their size.

It would be essential that the operation NOT be under the control of the UN because that body is completely ineffective at conducting any sort of military action and the US should also not be involved except in providing air support because it is hopeless at conducting ground wars. The main role of the US would be to help Iraq to deal with the IS forces that would flee over the border into that country. Without access to their home base the Iraqi branch of IS would be relatively helpless.

Why would this action succeed? Because there would be enough troops to complete the job quickly. Every war that has been conducted in the Middle East in the last two decades has been marred by insufficient troop numbers resulting in prolonged conflict with inconclusive outcomes. They have also been hamstrung by having to be disguised as “support” or “advisory” actions with forces wasting time and energy supposedly “training” the local incompetent troops. The purpose of a large expeditionary force would be to quickly disarm all three combatants in the war – the government, the democratic rebels, the Islamist rebels and essentially take control of the country.

It would also succeed because, unlike Afghanistan, Syria does not have an impenetrable mountain range where the Islamists can hole up indefinitely to emerge when the forces leave, nor is there a country next door to offer covert support to the rebels (yes, we’re talking about you Pakistan). In fact Syria's neighbours all hate Assad.

Such an action would also limit Iran's power in the region by removing Hezbollah from their position of influence and even have a collateral benefit in sending an important message to Vladimir Putin that if Europe joins forces as a single entity, it is a force greater than Russia.

Of course NONE OF THIS WILL HAPPEN.

So why will the west not intervene quickly and decisively to end a conflict that is characterised by an endless stream of atrocities and threatens not only the future of Syria itself but is destabilising the countries around it?

Because the West has been overtaken and essentially paralysed by five decades of anti-war polemics and middle class “I don’t want to get involved/it's not our problem” isolationism.

The middle class of the West is trapped between two contradictory positions (a) that helping refugees escape from a life-threatening situation is not only admirable and humane but a fundamental moral responsibility but (b) to take action to remove the life-threatening situation itself is war-mongering aggression and western imperialism.

Thus the democratic countries of Europe will flap and cackle about how to house a million refugees but not for one moment consider taking military action to eradicate the factors that are creating those refugees.

At the same time, while the Left is captive to a there are no good wars, imperialism is bad, national sovereignty is inviolable, blah blah blah doctrine, conservatives are also adverse to any sort of intervention - but in their case purely out of self-interest.

While not opposed to war in principle, and having little or no sympathy for the plight of warring Islamic factions, conservatives are still smarting from the flack they copped over Iraq and Afghanistan. Even Vietnam still lurks ghoulishly at the edge of memory in the US and Europe. After watching the vilification that George W. Bush endured over Iraq, Barak Obama is not the only US politician who will not even toy with the notion of a ground invasion of Syria. In Britain there are still people like the monumentally stupid George Galloway calling for Tony Blair to be tried for war crimes over Iraq. In other words, saving the Syrians from the brutal forces of Assad and the even more brutal forces of IS is simply not worth the effort politically. We feel sorry for the Syrians... but not that much. Let them fight it out amongst themselves, see what the outcome is, and then form a strategy. 

So, in the end, for the people of Europe, and the rest of the western world, it is easier just to find the extra money to house the refugees than to endure the inevitable backlash from the peace-nuts that will come from mounting a military invasion. Besides... it’s actually good to have some refugees to feel sorry for. It makes us feel good about ourselves.      

Objections to gay marriage are not inexplicable – just dishonest.

Once again, arguments over gay-marriage in the government have prompted a McFlurry of articles from conservatives, church leaders and other homophobes opposing gay marriage. Prominent amongst their arguments are cries of “what about the children?” and other dire warnings that gay marriage will lead to a breakdown in the concept of marriage itself (like that hasn't already happened), wholesale immorality and the general destruction of society.

These arguments conveniently, wilfully and maliciously ignore that fact that gay couples are ALREADY living together in marriage-like relationships and are ALREADY raising children despite  which, the total destruction of society has not occurred.

Some homophobes - and let’s be clear, anyone who opposes gay-marriage IS a homophobe - even point to the fact that gay couples are already in de facto marriages or “civil unions” and ask, given that, why gay marriage should be even necessary. This is a devious argument that attempts to subvert the entire issue by alleging it doesn’t matter. But obviously it does matter to them, otherwise they would just agree to it.

The fact is that all these argument are fundamentally dishonest.

The opponents of gay-marriage know damn well that there are already gay couples living together, and even raising children. They truth is that they hate this but can't do anything about it. Their response is therefore to say “Okay, we can’t stop gay people living together like husbands and wives and we can’t stop them raising children but at least we can stop these acts from being officially recognised in law.”  You see it’s all very well to say that gay couples have the same protections under the law as all other de facto couples and it’s all very well to say that they can be registered as civil unions but the argument is not about the rights and protections of the people in the marriage, it is about the relationship between the married couple to the state and the wider community. Marriage is regarded as a special condition under the law and accorded a special status by virtue of being solemnised through formal registration. Yes, it is perhaps mainly symbolic but that symbolism is powerful: it symbolises acknowledgement and respect.

Denying gay couples the right to get legally married is like saying a gay person can go to university and study a degree; they can have access to all the facilities, attend all the lecture and pass all their exams and be judged as having obtained a degree but they cannot get up on the podium at the graduation ceremony and actually be handed a certificate by the Vice Chancellor. Imagine the university saying “We can give you a print-out of your results proving that you passed the degree and that will enable you to get a job but we cannot actually award a degree or call you a Bachelor." And it would be little consolation if they added "But it doesn’t really matter because it’s really only  symbolic.”

The arguments against gay marriage are the same types of argument used in Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia years ago to prevent African-Americans from enjoying the same freedoms and privileges as white Americans. Make no mistake, the battle for gay-marriage is exactly the same sort of fight. It is also worth remembering that when Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson took action to end segregation in those states they did not start off by holding a plebiscite. They passed laws and set about enforcing them.

 

Why do gay people need permission from non-gay people to get married?

Underlying the debate about legalising same-sex marriage there is a more fundamental question.

Why do gay people have to get permission from non-gay people to get married?

The campaign to grant legal status to same-sex unions in Australia has been boosted by two events – the Irish referendum which mandated legislation and a decision by the US Supreme Court – both of which cleared the way for gay marriage in those countries. These events have of course ignited debate with same-sex activists renewing their demands for marriage equality in Australia and opponents spouting a flurry of rebuttals.

The arguments adduced by the opponents of same-sex marriage are all easily dismissed: they are basically nonsense. The real issue is the question of how the issue should be decided. There are basically three options for changing the Marriage Act.

1.       A bill passed by a majority of members in both the House of Representative and the Senate.

2.       A bill passed as above after a plebiscite. (the Irish method)

3.       A ruling from the High Court to strike out the Act as it stands.

At present, most marriage-equality advocates are arguing either for a conscience vote which would lead to number one, or number two. Oddly, a large number of opponents, and what might be called agnostics, are also advocating a plebiscite.

While it is true that a plebiscite would resolve the matter decisively, and probably in the affirmative, and while it makes sense politically, there is still something troubling about the process of asking one group of Australians to rule on the rights of another group of Australians.

The question that troubles me is: why should non-gay people even have a say as to whether gay people can get married?

A few vocal opponents of same-sex marriage have tried to allege that legalising gay marriage would have an adverse effect on their own marriages and devalue marriage in general, thus making them a concerned party in the matter. That argument is too stupid to even listen to. Gay marriage affects no one but the couples themselves.

In the end, marriage equality is a legal issue, not a matter of public interest.

Though section 40(2A) of the Sex Discrimination Act exempts the Marriage Act 1961 from being bound by it, Sections 5 and 88EA of the Marriage Act clearly contradict the spirit of Section 5A of the Sex Discrimination Act. The Marriage Act also sits uneasily with Section 26 of the Sexual Discrimination Act where Commonwealth “agents” (for example marriage celebrants, who are technically administering Commonwealth law) cannot use information gathered to discriminate against people.

If the government cannot be persuaded to put the matter of marriage equality before the Parliament, a plebiscite is probably the best strategy to aim for. There is, however, a fundamental principle of democracy that should be kept in mind:

              Democracy is based on a principle of majority rule but that principle is itself governed by certain conditions. One of the most important conditions is that the people in the majority must not their numbers to disadvantage minorities unfairly. An example of an unfair disadvantage would be those in the majority outlawing something simply because they do not like even though it does not adversely affect them or any third party personally.

It seems a lot of people do not understand that principle.

Thus, my inclination to opponents of same-sex marriage is not to get caught up in refuting their arguments but just say to them, repeatedly, like Robin Williams to Matt Damon at the end of Good Will Hunting: “It’s none of your business. It’s none of your business.  It’s none of your business. It’s none of your business…. etc  etc.”  

 

Q&A is BS.

Q&A is probably the dumbest show on television. Yes, dumber than MKR, dumber than Dating Naked, dumber than American Pickers.

The first thing to be clear about is that Q&A is not a current affairs program - it is the political equivalent of The Footy Show.

Its formula is simple.

Step 1. Get a collection of people on a panel, raise an issue and ask for their opinions.  But be careful. This could be interesting if, for example, you had a couple of senior politicians or public servants, policy makers, scientists, legal advisors, foreign affairs experts - whatever - in a one-on-one or even a three way discussion. That runs the risk of being informative. But Q&A doesn’t want to convey information. It wants a fight. So make sure your panel includes people who have nothing to do with the issues but have strong feeling about them. Get in some all-round but irrelevant intellectuals like Germaine Greer, perhaps a novelist or poet, and even a bad wannabe comedian.

Step 2.  Get members of the audience to ask questions of the panel. To get this in perspective, think of all the public lectures you have even been to where they “opened it up for questions” at the end. Do you recall ever hearing an intelligent question from the audience? No. I didn’t think so. People in the audience never ask intelligent or interesting questions because they don’t really know anything about the topic. That’s why they’re in the audience instead of being on the stage.

Step 3.  The coup de grace. Invite people to Tweet responses to the show and actually put these idiotic comments on the screen.

So why does the ABC put this garbage to air?

Do they imagine is the modern equivalent of the old Monday Conference with Robert Moore, because it isn’t.

Do they think that it is their version of SBS’s Insight because it certainly isn’t that either.

The first and most obvious answer is that it is cheap. None of the people on screen is being paid, so it’s really only the cost of the production staff. And Tony Jones' $330,000 salary.

There is however a more troubling reason lurking in the background which has to do with that bete noire of the Left - the notion of authority.

Back in the ancient mists of time, the ABC was set up to be an “intellectual” broadcaster. It was envisaged that it would transmit programs on scientific, academic, cultural and political topics delivered by professionals in the field. In that model of broadcasting, journalists themselves became part of that echelon of professionals and for many years, current affairs broadcasting was mediated by experienced journalists who knew what questions to ask, which answers to accept and which ones required further interrogation. The ABC still conducts this sort of journalism in the 7:30 report, and specialist programs like The Business. The word which we might apply to these forms of journalism is “authoritative.”

But Q&A is not about this at all. Q&A is a product of the modern, post-modern, anti-authoritarian idea, that everyone should have a “voice.”  In its on-air promotions the ABC invites everyone to “Join the conversation.” as if the ABC was one big chat room. The ABC website, which could be, if it wanted to be, a premier news site, is substantially taken up with opinion pieces written by the Usual Suspects – Jonathon Green, Greg Barnes, Julian Burnside etc – followed by hundreds of stupid comments from armchair experts and fervent partisans.

The ABC apparently feels that in some way it is practising a form of “media democracy.”

But of course, organisations that purport to be anti-authoritarian always have their own form of authoritarianism working in the background. The “conversation” which people are invited to join on the ABC is limited to a specific range of topics and attitudes. While Q&A purports to be an open forum for views, anyone who expresses an unpopular opinion is quickly interrupted and cut-off by the moderator. Views that the hand-picked audience agrees with are applauded. When the ABC is criticised by the government for having inappropriate guests in the audience, the Managing Director makes it clear that it will not cave in to authority – in doing so establishing the ABC’s own authority. So, as usual, an anti-authoritarian stance is just a way to establish one’s own authority.
 

The SBS program Insight is an example of how a panel with audience program can work. It takes large scale issues and concentrates on them through a range of views and experiences. Those views and experiences tend to be complementary rather than adversarial. The interaction with the audience feels intimate and genuinely interpersonal. Most importantly, Jennie Brockie is very good at guiding the conversation through the key points. No sense of The Footy Show here.

In other words, the format can work, so why doesn't it work with Q&A. In the end, the program that is made up mainly of people expressing opinions succeeds or fails on the quality of those opinions. In short, Q&A is unwatchable because so many of the people on the panel, in the audience and watching at home are simply dumb.

By way of conclusion, let me list the things that I am personally NOT interested in watching on TV.

Panel discussions that jump from topic to topic. (Q&A)

Comments and questions from people in the audience. (Q&A)

Comments on political and economic topics from people in the arts. (Q&A)

Journalists interviewing other journalists (The Insiders, The Drum.)

Journalists delivering long editorials to camera. (The Bolt Report)

Tweets.

Especially tweets.           

Unfortunately these are the things that television current affairs programs currently consists of.

1-7-2015