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

[tcpip]

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.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

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

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

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

[jimboboz.livejournal.com]

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...