WHAT ABOUT THE FREEEDOM OF JIHAD JACK THOMAS?

by Ian Wilson LL.B:
According to Greg Sheridan "Seeking a control order on someone who has trained with the deadliest of terrorists is not a breech of civil liberties - it is the merest common sense." (The Australian 30/8/06, p.5)
This issue raises a fundamental philosophical problem about how liberal democratic societies respond to the threat of terrorism. Jihad Jack Thomas was found by the Supreme Court of Victoria to have made an involuntary statement, so his conviction was overturned. This is a technicality but one essential to our system of justice which requires meticulous care on the part of the police.

Sheridan is right to be concerned that those like Jihad Jack are a threat to us and that such individuals should be watched. Control orders though step over the line of civil liberties and erode the judicial checks and balances that have separated free societies from tyrannies. These orders are a cop-out for poor policing or under-staffing of security monitors. Good police work should make terrorist cases stick and not require the patch-up job that control orders deliver.

Jurisprudentially, there is good reason to suppose that control orders would be held by the High Court as being unconstitutional, violating the Constitutional separation of powers. Even if this is not the case, if the presumption of innocence is removed from the law then we are on the road to abandoning the fundamental tenet of our legal system.

THE HEART OF MULTICULTURALISM

by James Reed
For those inclined to philosophical ruminations about the point of Australia's post-WWII immigration policy, I offer as food for thought an interesting letter to the Editor (The Weekend Australian 2-3/9/06 p.16) by Mr. Con Vaitsas:

"Of course it would be good if Muslim migrants learned to speak English, just as it would be for the hundreds of thousands of migrants from the other diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds who speak very little English. I have relatives who migrated to Australia from Greece decades ago and still possess a poor grasp of the English language.
However, they have been able to contribute to Australia by either working successfully in their own businesses, or for an employer, without any government questioning their loyalty or their expertise in speaking the lingo.
As for "fully integrating" which the Prime Minister equates with "accepting Australian values" I do not know of one person from my own Greek background, including those of us who were born here, who has or is prepared to do this.
There are many Aussie customs and/or values we do not like or want to accept." - - Con Vaitsas, Ashbury NSW.

THE HOLLOW POLITICAL MANTRA

The current political mantra that Australia is a 'multi-ethnic', 'multi-cultural' and/or a 'multi-faith' society is in fact a political claim that Australia is no longer a society with Christian values. But this means more than the current mantra that we can't impose 'Australian' values or mores on newcomers to this country. In fact, it means that the metaphysical character of our society has, in effect been radically altered.

In a recent survey, a high percentage of Australians indicated they felt less secure in this globalised world than they once did. Of course they do, their nation doesn't any longer strongly reflect their culture, their history and their heritage, they are experiencing powerful feelings of alienation with the changes around them.
While Australians generally may not relate to the modern Christian churches (many leaders of which aren't sure themselves of their own foundations) they might be surprised to be told that their inherent values and beliefs stemmed from the Christian Faith.

Historically, the metaphysical basis of the English-speaking peoples, Trinitarian Christianity, was reflected politically in Trinitarian Constitutions and other civil institutions.
The Christian concept of the importance of the Individual in relation to the Group was expressed politically and culturally; after all, the unique value and dignity of each human soul before God, in the last resort, is the only rational justification of the concept of personal freedom.
The traditional family was seen as the basic unit of the Society. Generally, these were the accepted beliefs the first settlers brought with them to this land and the founding fathers designed the systems and institutions upon them.

All societies have a metaphysical foundation or basis:
As an example, that is why Sir David Kelly could insist in his classic work: "The Hungry Sheep":
The practical consequences of the high Oriental religion of Brahmin or Buddhist with its profound pessimism and depersonalisation is immense. If life is radically bad and the one goal is escape from personality, there can be no point in seeking justice and social reform.

The doctrine of Karma - reincarnation - explicitly means that your lot in life, your place in the community, is the penalty or reward for your actions in a previous existence. Rewards or penalties are distributed through the process of reincarnation, therefore it is believed the Caste system represents the working of an inexorable law…

He observed the new Indian 'democracy' still has her millions of "untouchables"! Hence, the tendency in a nation like India with this type of metaphysical foundation is towards passive acceptance of social and political abuses and loss of personal freedom.

THE PERILS OF ISLAMIC CULTURE

ON BEING A MANNE

by Peter Ewer
Andrew Bolt, a columnist for the Herald Sun in Melbourne, debated Professor Robert Manne on Radio 3AW, 27 June 2006 (The Australian 29/6/06 p.11).
Robert Manne has championed the idea of a "stolen generation" of Aboriginal children. Bolt challenged Manne to name 10 such children - I imagine that he wanted Manne to name individuals. If one is an expert then surely one should be able to name just 10 of these children stolen by 'racists'.

Manne, according to Bolt could not do this. The "stolen generation" incident was a weird debate: well intending missionaries and state officials sought to help mixed race children who may have been harmed, abandoned or killed by other Aborigines (who did not approve of mixed races). The Whites, not the Aborigines who abandoned the mixed-race children are the racists.

Never in this debate did the politically correct ever consider the moral position of those who threatened these children. You see, only Whites can be racist, or so the cultural Left assumes. It takes only a moment's clear logic to see that this debate was conceptually rotten to the core.

TRAVELLING BY DONKEYS

EUROPEANS REFUSE LANDINGS FOR ISRAELI ARMS PLANES

Source: European Jewish press: http://w ww.ejpress.org/article/10657
A number of European countries are refusing to allow Israeli planes carrying arms from America to stop over in their airports to refuel, an Israeli union head has claimed. Itai Regev, head of the El Al Israel Airlines pilots union, said the decisions came from countries considered friendly to Israel, including Italy, Britain and Germany.
The union chief wrote a letter of complaint to Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert, as well as the finance, tourism and foreign ministries. Blaming "political reasons" for the decisions, Regev said: "As a result, cargo planes are taking off from the U.S. with much lighter weight, and are reaching Israel with significantly fewer munitions than needed."

Radio Free Europe reports:
"Lebanon: Donors Meeting Expected To Net $500 Million."
An international donors meeting for Lebanon in Stockholm today is expected to raise at least $500 million to put the country on the path to recovery from war damage. The $500 million Lebanon hopes to raise from the representatives of more than 60 countries and organisations present in Stockholm will be little more than a beginning for the war-ravaged country. Lebanon's government says the damage done by the Israeli bombardment runs to billions of dollars.

The full extent of the costs of reconstruction still remains unknown. Thus, the European Commission has earmarked 10 million euros ($12.8 million) of its 42 million-euro pledge to go toward helping the Lebanese authorities to undertake a comprehensive damage-assessment study.
The government has said it estimates some 130,000 houses have been destroyed or damaged. Much of the country's infrastructure lies in ruins. The international aid agency Oxfam has said 85 percent of the country's farmers have lost some or all of their crops. The losses from investment flight and lost tourism revenues are more difficult to calculate…."

Comment:
I am having great difficulty in coming to grips with the idea that Israel should be able to bomb Lebanon to smithereens one month and the next month 'International Donors' are called upon to build it up again.
For how many years, and how many billions of Deutsche Marks did Germans have to pay reparations to Israel for 'the Holocaust'? Assuming it has finished paying!
Pray tell me, why isn't America's military/industrial machine, along with Israel, being asked to 'foot the bill'? They are the ones who caused the damage and profited from the sale of bombs, etc!

WORLD ELITE GATHER - AGAIN. YOUNG TO PROTEST - AGAIN

The internet is abuzz with the news protesters are promising a huge presence in Melbourne for the G-2 0 gathering of the world's most powerful finance leaders - one week before the state election. The state poll is to be held on Saturday, November 25.

We are informed:
"A tight security cordon will be thrown around the G-20 forum, on November I8-19, with police and politicians already nervous about security." Federal Treasurer Peter Costello will host the forum, to be attended by some of the world's leading finance heavy-weights including World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz and Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown. Finance ministers from the US, Germany, Saudi Arabia, France and China will also be here.

How apt, a 'Make Poverty History' concert: U2 Band to perform:
The forum will include a Make Poverty History concert at Federation Square on November 17, with police expecting a crowd up 20,000. Irish band U2, in Melbourne for concerts at the Telstra Dome, is expected to play a free concert in support of ending world poverty.
(This is the group who use tax free havens for their own business/financial affairs while at the same time promoting the idea of 'nations' - read other people's taxes - providing the funds for the relief of the world's poverty stricken!)

Notice the push is for the 'nations' to provide the relief for the world's poverty stricken - there is no mention nor push to change the grinding debt-poverty money system itself.
The young will expend their energies in the organised protests during the G-20 gathering, going away from the affair with tales to impress their impressionable listeners. But what will change as a result of the exercise? How many will take the time or trouble to come to grips with why the world is ruled by money, and then, on a systematic basis inform and educate their friends, their churches, their politicians, with a determination to seek a just change to it?

Well did Anthony Cooney observe in Social Credit - Politics:
"The technique of the centralized propaganda system is to provide people with potted opinions by means of press, radio and television. The majority of "thought provoking" features do in fact ensure that the reader or listener will only think along the lines suggested.
Beginning in the schools and continuing through adult life, a mentality is bred which finds comfort only in the pre-digested idea, the received opinion and the conventional wisdom.
A habit of mind is formed which automatically shuts out the challenging or unfamiliar with the off-hand rejection - "I don't understand that" - meaning of course "I will not understand that; it makes me feel uncomfortable."
This attitude is to be found equally in the highly trained person as in the ill-tutored. It is of course impossible to wake up a man who is pretending to be asleep."

BRING BACK THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE - ACM

In the context of the national debate over Australian values and Australian citizenship, the Australians for Constitutional Monarchy has issued the following call:

In 1986, on the recommendation of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission, the requirement for new citizens to renounce all other allegiance was abolished. In addition, they no longer had to state their names.

In 1993, arguing this would further multiculturalism, the Oath of Allegiance, in which the new citizen also swore to observe the laws of Australia and fulfil his or her duties as an Australian citizen, was abolished. The Oath was sworn on the Bible, or in a way consistent with the new citizen's religion.

Those without a religion were allowed to make an affirmation. This was replaced by a watered down pledge, read by large groups in unison. It is surely time to restore the formal Oath of Allegiance, which should be sworn separately by each new citizen before a delegate of the Commonwealth, with of course, the option of making an affirmation.
After all, this is required by the Constitution at the Opening of each new federal Parliament, and that can only be abolished if the people agree.

CONVERSION OF A REPUBLICAN

- from David Flint's Opinion Column:
Simon Heffer in the London Daily Telegraph of 6 September, 2006 tells the story of the conversion of Dame Helen Mirren, who plays the Queen in the film of the same name, from virulent republicanism to ultra royalism.
In a statement made by Dame Helen in the euphoria of her triumph in Venice, she spoke of her feelings about the woman she had just spent months studying and then portraying. She revealed: "I must say I slowly fell in love with her".

Now I still have strong reservations about "faction", the portrayal of current events in a democratic community as if they were factual, when indeed they are fiction and not based on anything of any evidentiary value. This is so even if there is an admission of this in the fine print. However Hugh Davies, writing in the same paper on 4 September 2006, says the film has been very well received. Yes as a film. But who, apart from those who were involved, and in particular our Queen, can say whether it was an accurate record of a contemporary event?

You can just imagine how the defamation writs would fly if any Australian or British media, or political figure, including republicans, were the subject of similar treatment. Simon Heffer observes that there is probably a sizeable constituency of people like Dame Helen, "people for whom scepticism about the monarchy, or downright hostility to it, was for a long time the default position. They gleefully lapped up the latest stories about the alleged humiliations of the Prince of Wales, or the frequent assaults on utterly harmless individuals such as Prince Michael of Kent, attacks launched for no better reason than that His Royal Highness continues to live and breathe. When some newspapers stated that the Royal Family was "dysfunctional", and implied that this was the obvious fault of the head of that family, they all nodded sagely."

"And then," he writes "one such person says, hang on a minute, isn't this a little unfair? Hasn't the Queen done her arduous and remorseless job now non-stop for nearly 55 years, with no sign of letting up? Hasn't she kept going in a straight line, despite all the horrors, traumas and provocations? Hasn't she always refused even to blink at the welter of usually unfair and inevitably vacuous criticism chucked at her for the past 20 years or so? Hasn't she, in short, turned out to be exactly the sort of person we all wish we could be?".

The main reason, these days, why people are drawn to love the Queen," says Mr. Heffer is that "she is not part of an increasingly contemptible political class. It rarely has a sense of duty before self: it has long been clear to the public that its members are often in it, irrespective of party, for what they can get out of it.
And it is, of course, people like that, not like Her present Majesty or even Dame Helen, who would lead us if a republic ever came to pass."

'PEAK OIL' A BIG 'CON'?

Tim Domin in the Ballarat Courier, 16/9/06 reports from an energy conference held in Adelaide South Australia recently:
"Contrary to what the energy doomsayers suggest, the world has an abundance of oil. ExxonMobil Australia chairman Mark Nolan has told a conference in Adelaide that world oil resources can be measured in trillions of barrels-at least three trillion. And so far in all the factories, all the cars and in all the homes, the world has only used about one trillion.

Taking aim at proponents of peak oil, which suggests world oil supplies have peaked or are close to peaking and will dwindle over the next 20 years, the oil company boss says such theories have no merit. In a bid to debunk the peak oil predictions, Mr Nolan told the Asia Pacific Oil and Gas Conference this week that peak oil theories had been around since the 1920's, particularly at times of high oil prices.

"The fact is that the world has an abundance of oil and there is little question, scientifically, that abundant energy resources exist," Mr Nolan said. "According to the US Geological Survey, the earth currently has more than three trillion barrels of conventional, recoverable oil resources."

Mr Nolan said the oil industry had always underestimated the extent of global resources and the ability of technology to both extend the life of existing oil and gas fields and find new ones.

"We should not forget that we can recover almost twice as much oil today as when we first discovered it over 100 years ago," he.said.
"And when you consider that a further 10 per cent increase in recoverability will deliver 800 billion barrels of oil to our recoverable total, we have every reason to be sure that the end of oil is nowhere in sight.""