Vergil Reality

Wow – Nastiness and cruelty on display by the British Government.

UK Minister Robert Jenrick ordered painting over of child asylum unit murals

Albo’s Arrogance

https://theshot.net.au/national/the-first-glimpses-of-albos-arrogance/

Margaret Thatcher famously said “There is no such thing as society”.  I believe the complate quote is:

“And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first.”

It seems to me that if there are only individual men and women, and no such thing as society, then she should also have said there is no such thing as “family” and no such thing as “government”.

If there were such thing as Society, there would be no Culture, no Nation, no need for a Government. 

Yes we are individual men and women, who form families, and villages, and towns, and cities and nations – otherwise know as societies.

Yes, no government can do anything except through people, because government is made up of people, and people make up a society.

Tim Wilson, with his Human Rights Commissioner hat on,  wrote an opinion piece in the Australian on June 8th 2015  claiming that the new same-sex marriage law proposals are a “triumph of conservative values”.  This seems a very strange conclusion to come to, given that Conservatives everywhere (though certainly not all Conservatives) have strongly opposed changes to the Marriage Act which would allow same sex couples to marry. Only last year the conservative Federal Government intervened in the A.C.T. to strike down their short-lived same sex marriage law.   The strongest conservative voices in the Coalition Government  (or at least loudest, as in Mr Bernardi’s case), are still clearly opposed to the idea, and others are organising to try and ensure the vote not only isn’t a conscience vote, but that the vote doesn’t even occur.

Clearly a very large number of Conservative Government members fail to appreciate that it is a triumph for them.

Wilson’s argument has two strands. First, marriage is itself a conservative institution so the fact that same sex couples want to get married is a confirmation of the value of marriage in society, and therefore is an acknowledgement  of the conservative view of the need for the institution of marriage in society – which characterised as a contractual arrangement between individuals.

Second, the claim is made that only a conservative government can introduce such changes – at the right time – because conservative governments, by their very nature reflect the will of the majority of people.  He notes that polls taken over several years have shown opinion to move from majority against  to a majority in favour of same sex marriage. So now is the time that the Conservatives can safely introduce such changes. Earlier than that would have been against the will of the people, apparently.

By implication, Progressives, of course (despots that they are), want to *impose* such things on Society before Society is ready to do so.The cheek of Progressives, wanting to impose equality and justice before we are ready for it!

Tim Wilson’s arguments seem to me to be, at the very least, unwarranted. It is not at all supported by the reality of the actions of Conservatives in general, who have been dragged kicking and screaming to this particular altar.

This is no victory for Conservatism, rather it shows that Conservatism can change too – albeit rather grudgingly – which is the whole point of Conservatism. It shows you can reframe the issue in conservative terms of contracts before the law, where we are all equal.  It is a victory, rather, for Progressives, because it is not Conservatives, in the main, who have been arguing for this equality before the law.

Also, Conservatives don’t own the idea of stable marriage. For Progressives to accept the value of  marriage doesn’t make them Conservatives.  Claiming that Progressives used to try and destroy marriage (free love and all that), but now they’ve changed their minds, is taking a rather black and white view of things.  Progressives and Conservatives don’t neatly fall into such categories. Destroying marriage isn’t the aim of Progressives, but extending the idea to all couples of different sexual orientation certainly is the goal.

However, most of the legal work has been done already in terms of equality before the law (a lot of this done under the Rudd/Gillard Governments) – without the final touch of recognising that marriage itself can be between same sex couples.  This move is very largely symbolic in my view, and certainly won’t change the views of the many conservatives out there who strongly believe that marriage can only possibly be between a man and a woman – no doubt for a range of reasons which extend beyond contractual arrangements between individuals.

Getting rid of prejudice, homophobia and discrimination isn’t suddenly going to happen because we change the definition of who can get married.  I think what happens is that more and more Australians will be able to say “Oh I know such-and-such couple who are gay, and married, and they seem like nice people…”.  This is the value of bringing it out in the open and the value of the symbolic act.

There is, however, a positive to Tim Wilson’s article.  By arguing as he does, and where he does (In the Australian newspaper) and claiming this change in attitude is Conservatism at its best, he is helping to make Conservatives a little more comfortable with the idea of marriage for same sex couples, and that can only be a good thing – leading to even more people to say “Oh, I know this gay couple, and they seem ok to me…”

A triumph for Progressives, you might say.

Welcome to civilised society.

Currently reading “You are not a gadget” by Jaron Lanier.

The Avaaz organisation provides links to information about this situation, both now and how it got to this point. 

1. Associated Press: “Israel Shells Near UN School, killing at least 30” (5 January 2009) http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ioi_0jtO9RjMwPNRoXNCndRPRq3gD95HTJE00 

2. “Gaza: outlines of an endgame”, Ghassan Khatib (6 January 2009) http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/gaza-outlines-of-an-endgame Al-Jazeera: “Arab ministers hold UN ceasefire talks” (6 January 2009): http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/01/20091522052418539.html Associated Press: “Diplomats seek truce as civilian toll rises” (5 January 2009): http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ioi_0jtO9RjMwPNRoXNCndRPRq3gD95HCD4G3 

 3. Israel Today: “Israel rejects European, UN efforts for immediate ceasefire” (5 January 2009): http://www.israeltoday.co.il/default.aspx?tabid=178&nid=17938 Yediot Aharonot: “Israel examining international treaty to isolate Hamas” (5 January 2009) http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3650522,00.html 

4. These parameters are advocated by a broad range of experts and policymakers. See for example International Crisis Group’s Ending the War in Gaza report (5 January 2009): http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=5838&l=1 

5. Reuters: “Hamas seeks truce but says lifting siege a must” (5 January 2009) http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L5111105.htm 

Strikingly, the US Army War College has just released a substantial report supporting the view that Hamas can and must be brought into negotiations and is capable of sustaining a long-term truce, or even peace with Israel. Linked via: http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/node/10703 

The inside story of the civil strife between Fatah and Hamas and the Bush administration’s involvement in this debacle is best-told in The Gaza Bombshell, an investigative article published in the leading US magazine Vanity Fair in April 2008: http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/04/gaza200804 

This news item from November 2008 provides more background to the story of how the Israel-Hamas truce collapsed: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/05/israelandthepalestinians

It’s been nearly 12 months since I’ve posted. Other things on my mind.

I have had occasion to to comment on belief in God in a discussion group again. It’s a funny subject. So here are some of my thoughts.

Years ago I asked my wife if she believed in God. She replied “when it suits me”. I really liked that answer. Sometimes the God concept is useful. She doesn’t much care for philosophical discourse, nor does she really care if God really exists. In practice she has little use for the concept.

Meanwhile, I’m down at the pub on some friday night, enjoying conversation with some work colleagues. After a few beers, for some reason we start talking about whether God exists. My irish mate says – yes of course God exists. He is catholic, but doesn’t really go to church except for the usual ceremonies. I carried on about why I didn’t believe (supported by Dawkins & Hitchens and some others). One of his responses was “but if there is no God, what is the basis for being good, for moral behaviour”. And therein lies the issue for many people. The usefulness of the God concept is that it seems to provide a reason to behave decently, otherwise we would all, presumably be evil ratbags. Hitchens and Dawkins tackle some of this if I recall correctly, but it is tackled head on in Daniel Dennett’s book “Breaking The Spell – Religion as a Natural Phenomenon”, and provides his arguments for why he believes the idea that religion is a necessary foundation for morality can no longer be supported.

Nevertheless, I suspect that many perfectly nice people believe in God (in some form or another), because they cannot imagine how you could control bad behaviour without recourse to a supernatural authority. So it is up to atheists, agnostics and otherwise couldn’t-care-less-about-it people to show why that is not the case. On the other hand, maybe some people really need something like a personal belief in a personal God (or some other definition of God) to give them meaning, purpose, a sense of self or whatever else they feel they need to make life worth living. (Personally, I think all we need is a really good relationship with a few people who matter to us)

Now my brother in law just thinks believing in any kind of God is just a form of mental and character weakness. So there you go.
By the way, my own definition of God, as in when I ask someone if he or she believes in one, is a supernatural being or beings whom you ought to be trying to please, who is capable of a personally engaging with humans, and who is the reason that anything exists at all. I reckon that’s how most people conceive of God, or something similar to that. Such a creature would give me the shivers, yet that is what is at the heart of Christianity, Islam and Judaism. I finish with a quote from Sigmund Freud (taken from Dennett’s aforementioned book)

“Philosophers stretch the meaning of words until they retain scarcely anything of their original sense; by calling “God” some vague abstraction which they have created for themselves, they pose as deists, as believers, before the world; they may even pride themselves on having attained a higher and purer idea of God, although their God is nothing but an insubstantial shadow and no longer the might personality of religious doctrine” – from “The Future of an Illusion”.

People will believe in God if they want to. There is nothing much new to be said about God’s existence or otherwise. My hope is that one day religion will be just another personal hobby, like stamp collecting. So when I ask my mate down at the pub whether he believes in God, and he says yes, then everyone yawns, we say in unison “that’s nice, what colour?” – and then we order another round and talk about politics.

There was a very interesting “Ockham’s Razor” broadcast on ABC Radio National this morning – you can view the transcript (or listen to the podcast) here: ‘Kiddofspeed‘

“Dr Rosaleen Love from Monash University looks at the Chernobyl disaster and tells the story of Elena Filatova who visited the area“.

A very interesting talk about the internet, whether we can believe what we read, what the underlying truth or message might be … and the long term consequences of nuclear energy might be. See what you think.