tcpip | Sedition, We Are One Day, Intelligent Design, Truth, RuneQuest

Sedition, We Are One Day, Intelligent Design, Truth, RuneQuest

The weekend started with a visit to the small demonstration for civil liberties. We live in dangerous times when people retreat into their private commercial lives over involvement in the public sphere. Chris Savage calls for sedition. I approve of his call for arms: "Because I do not want to see liberty nibbled at, I urge an association of Australian men and women to act mightily, with seditious intention, against the sovereign and against the Government of the Commonwealth of Australia." Who else is up for a bit of sedition?

Afterwards went to the We Are On Day annual meeting at the Melbourne Town Hall. Neither the array of speakers (from the Humanist Society, the Uniting Church, Christian Scientists, Bahai, Islamic Council, Kagyu E-Vam-Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh) or the compere (ABC's Encounter presenter Maraget Coffey) seriously addressed the serious problems in the divergent interests and beliefs, despite claims to similar core values.

Sunday I gave the extended service at the Melbourne Unitarian Church on intelligent design. Quite a good turnout and an interesting discussion by Dr. Bill Hall and Nigel Sinnot. Meanwhile, seventy thousand Australian scientists urge the government not to allow it into the classrooms. More on the presentation at my

convert_me post.

Following the service was an animated philosophy group discussion on the nature of truth. I pulled an old rabbit out of my hat by using universal pragmatics to draw the sharp distinction between truth and sincerity (this is where people often get very, very confused). The debate really took an odd turn when matters of "contingent truthfulness" conflict with moral principles. In other words, the old discussion of the difference between moral principles and situational ethics has returned.

After all that, was the continuing adventures of the RuneQuest game run by Andrei. Magnificant stuff; we managed to find the Storm Khan leader of the White Bison clan (my clan!) and distract the army of Broos hunting for him, by tricking them and a century of Lunars into a conflict. The magnificant conclusion of the day saw the summoning of the Clan's Founder to dispatch the remaining chaos creatures and the subservient Lunars singing our praises. Waha help us if they ever discover it was due to our trickery that they fell into conflict with the Broo. It was high fantasy storytelling at its very best.

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Sadly, yes.

I've just looked into it, and there are a couple of ways we might be able to get away with it. The allowable reasons for registering a .org.au domain, under auDA's rules, include:

Domain name refers to a service that the registrant provides
Domain name refers to an activity that the registrant facilitates, teaches or trains

However, I'm concerned that if we enter into a legal agreement on the basis that we provide, facilitate, teach or train in "sedition", we're opening ourselves up to all kinds of nastiness from the get-go.

Incidentally, sedition.org.au is available, but I seriously doubt any registrar would allow us to have it (ie. under one of the reasons above) without our previously having incorporated an association with a related name.

Hi Jeremy,
My knowledge of the Associations Incorporations Acts of both WA and Victoria is a little rusty, but I seem to recall that the registrar can deny incoporation based on a "deeming" power. If the registrar deems the proposed association to be outside of the law, then the application can be rejected. Incidentally, incorporated associations also come under the Federal Corporations Act; with pretty heavy and to my mind indecipherable penalties for legal and "ethical" breaches.

I'd suggestlooking into setting up a "sporting" or charitable trust, based out of Western Australia. to my knowledge WA is the only state that permits this type of trust. The advantage of a trust is that it is an instrument rather than an entity, so legally it is a little vague and slippery; and can operate a trading name. Leading to the registration of a perfectly legal domain name.

However, to put the all important caveat in here, I'm not a lawyer! So it would be a pretty good idea to bounce this off a lawyer to investigate the protections afforded the trustees should the activity engaged in breach any law. Specifically, can the trustee be held personally responsible when operating within the guidelines of the trust deed instructions? In this case given that those instructions will certainly breach the sedition rule above. Maybe Bernand or Katrina could help out with the specifics?

Regards,
Chris J.

All good advice; thanks

anthanum. (Notice how I carefully adhere to LJ etiquette. ;)

However, establishing any kind of trust is going to be time-consuming and potentially expensive. I would suggest that, while we may want to go down that path later, right now all we need is a place to stick a wiki. Does anyone object to registering a .org for now, and planning to register a .org.au when we are able to put the requisite legal structures in place to enable it? (And if not, we're still left with a need to choose the .org; after all, assuming people aren't interested in the VRoA, we don't have a name for this "discussion group".)

Incidentally, what are our broad aims to be? (Before answering this, please consider the legality or otherwise of anything you say.)

Herein is the greatest problem; it is against the law to advocate that people ignore a law (no matter how unjust a law is). That's pretty much the basis of sedition.

VRoA is acceptable; vroa is acceptable. A wiki is a good place to start. I'm pondering on a working statement for broad aims, except on the lines of;

- To establish a republican government in Australia
- To overturn sedition laws.
- To enshrine the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?

Hey, no sedition against the Sovereign. After all, if the Governor General were doing his job, he'd refuse assent to these ridiculous laws. By tradition, he refuses assent to any laws which are, at their heart, unconstitutional.

And these are, since they violate the unwritten constitution. Sure, scoff at the unwritten one, but the High Court in 1992 held that there was an "implied" right to freedom of speech here. For other implied rights, see here: http://libertus.net/censor/fspeechlaw.html

A proper Governor General would, along with the state Governors, stand as a defender of the Sovereign as protector of the Constitution and the liberties of the people. Alas, nowadays we only get former politicians and ambitious toadies as Governors General.

Habeus corpus, a right held by Englishmen since 1207, will be abolished by the proposed laws. If there is _any_ "implied right" in the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia, that must be there. Alas, our High Court judges are also ambitious toadies, as we've seen in recent decisions about detention of refugees, etc.

We don't need a new Constitution, we need to follow the old one. As Machiavelli said in his _Discourses_, "In order that a religious institution or state should long survive it is essential that it should frequently be restored to its original principles."

Our original principles were _good_.

Separation and independence of the branches of government - executive, judiciary, legislature. Today I would add, "corporate." Since we have allowed them so much power, and since they require so much government co-operation to exist, they have become in effect a branch of government. So we need to either abolish them entirely, or acknowledge their power, and keep it separate from others.

A permanent and independent civil service - when ministers appoint their buddies to secretarial positions, we get rubbish like the WMD reports. Ministers need independent and honest advice, not flattery. Better Sir Humphrey Appleby blocking you than Wormtongue whispering in your ear.

An appointed Head of State, such as the Governor General, or a monarch. When the position is elected, quite naturally the person will come to imagine that they have a "mandate" to use their powers. When Executive powers are used, we see a confusion and mixing between the executive, judicial and legislative (and corporate) branches, as in the USA; this is detrimental to liberty.

Sedition against the government and its oppressive laws and violation of our Constitution I can agree with; sedition against the Sovereign, never. Our problem is not that our institutions were bad, but that they are violated by our government.

I find myself thinking of Milton's _Areopagitica_, in which he spoke against censorship - and our government is trying to censor us with these sedition laws - and called for tyrannicide. http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~rbear/areopagitica.html

Of course, now that we see these "sedition" laws, we understand why our government was so keen to take away military-style weapons from the populace. After all, when they wish to remove all _legitimate_ means of redressing grievances - by abolishing habeus corpus, rights to appeal, independence of the judiciary and executive - then all that is left to us is _illegitimate_ means of redressing grievances.

And that is the great danger of the Industrial Relations and sedition legislation. When people have no longer peaceful and legal means of dealing with their discontents, they will choose violent and illegal means. The government, in fact, is sowing the seeds of genuine and violent sedition.

Cheers,
Kyle

Excellent points Kyle... BTW, when are you setting up an account? Even if it is just to record your Brittany RPG?

Okay, done:)

First post, all about sedition!

The Brittany Immortals campaign is on hold. I've got a job in the country for half a week, and slaving away in kitchens drains the creative juices...

it is against the law to advocate that people ignore a law [...] That's pretty much the basis of sedition.

Yep, we'll essentially be conducting a civil disobedience campaign against the sedition laws (something I believe to be defensible under current law, but which might well become illegal under the proposed law). But we should be careful not to break any other laws while doing it.

VRoA is acceptable; vroa is acceptable.

They aren't really alternates, just different formats for the acronym...

A wiki is a good place to start.

I'm currently working on a wikipedia article called Australian Sedition Law as a resource. As I suggested earlier, a user-space article (perhaps under a special-purpose user like "Australian_Sedition") might be a good place to discuss our proposed activities without appearing to be a terrorist conspiracy. If people don't want to use wikipedia for this purpose, I repeat my offer of hosting space with a selection of wiki software.

- To establish a republican government in Australia

We need to discuss this (and thus the use of the "VRoA" name too). While you and I might, it's possible not everyone wants to conflate republicanism with this anti-sedition effort.

- To overturn sedition laws.

Yep, although we need to be sure "overturn" doesn't have unwanted legal implications.

- To enshrine the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?

I don't like this. At least part of my basis for wishing to change the government lies in my belief that the Prime Minister is acting against the interests of this country at the behest of a foreign power. Such a clause sounds way too much like the dogma of that foreign power.

Do we need aims as broad as this? Sure, if we're writing a Constitution for a VRoA we probably want some of this kind of stuff in there. But shouldn't we start off with something more specific and build the general as and when we can?

They aren't really alternates, just different formats for the acronym...

Yes, I stuffed up ;-)

it's possible not everyone wants to conflate republicanism with this anti-sedition effort.

Quite right. This is a single issue campaign.

Yep, although we need to be sure "overturn" doesn't have unwanted legal implications.

Although we may make a couple of carefully worded references to the US Declaration of Independence (which is one of history's most carefully worded yet forthright statements of sedition)

it's possible not everyone wants to conflate republicanism with this anti-sedition effort.

Quite right. This is a single issue campaign.

Maybe, but I don't think we've resolved that yet (nor perhaps should we expect to do so, at least until we've got a decent mailing list going and had time to ponder all the possibilities). After all, what's to be the basis of our "sedition", if not opposition to the system of government?

we may make a couple of carefully worded references to the US Declaration of Independence

Fair enough; even Uncle Ho went there (for all the good it did him).

Try that again.

We don't need to support sedition, we just need to express opposition to the existence of sedition laws.

We don't need to support sedition, we just need to express opposition to the existence of sedition laws.

Sounds a bit like semantics to me. Still, maybe that's a sensible legal posture.

Not a lot seems to be happening with this idea, and the whole thread has now gone into "condensed mode" so I can no longer easily tell when anyone's added anything new. (Is that down to my settings? Can I flip some secret LJ switch to get it to display fully expanded?) If we're to maintain any momentum, I suggest a mailing list is in order. Unless anyone has a better idea, I suggest setting up "sedition@yahoogroups.com.au".

Sounds a bit like semantics to me. Still, maybe that's a sensible legal posture.

We don't need to advocate overthrowing the government, we just need to advocate that people have a right to say that the government should be overthrown.

Sedition is a silly law.

Unless anyone has a better idea, I suggest setting up "sedition@yahoogroups.com.au".

Let's stay on condensed mode. Heck, we three/four can work out the details here.

Q 1) What do we want to do?
A 1) Remove sedition laws

Q 2) How are we going to achieve this?
A 2) Mass protest. Heck, it's the only way that any progressive change occurs.

Q 3) What do we need?
A 3) This I don't have an answer for. If we have a website, what goes on it? If we have a mailing list what do we discuss? etc etc.

After carefully analysing the legislation, I believe (and I'm more than happy to be told I'm wrong about this; please do check my working) I have determined that the new laws will make it impossible for an individual unassociated with an "unlawful organisation" to be convicted of sedition, unless they call for the use of violence in some form.

That said, the new laws are very far from perfect. Not only do they create a ridiculous state where foreign citizens in foreign lands can be charged with sedition against Australia, they retain the disturbing indication to the Courts that they should doubt "good faith" in instances where Australians are advocating support for an enemy of an ally, regardless of whether such country is an enemy of Australia. (One can well imagine a situation where one would be restrained from opposing a US invasion of Venezuela, despite our government's decision not to become involved.)

The question is, should we devote our time and effort to opposing this particular law? My feeling is that we should back-burner this effort, at least until the Terrorlaws have been passed. (Let's face it: no effort we make now is likely to help prevent that happening.) We might like to visit the issue thereafter, depending on the final shape of the laws. (After all, who knows what trickery and double-bluff might emerge in the wake of all the COAG horsetrading?)

"(Notice how I carefully adhere to LJ etiquette. ;)"
Yeah ok, point taken :)

This said, when the post comes through to the webmail or other email client it will say something like..

"Chris, cj, jonesboy, jonesy and other permutations (anthanum) replied to another comment somebody left in your LiveJournal post. The comment they replied to was:"

d'oh
well you learn something new every day.

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Sedition, We Are One Day, Intelligent Design, Truth, RuneQuest

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