the State, as
Supreme Arbiter of Morals, by
Supreme Methods of Procedure, and
Supreme Priestly Power.
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CHAPTER 9
Addition January 2013 from
Now the Highway, Then the Heights Ch. 8
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CHAPTER 8
HUMAN RIGHTS AND ANTI-DISCRIMINATION BILL 2012
The Right to Blight, the Sickly Solution
RELIGIOUS SUPREMACY ACT ?
Put this sub-heading in that way, and read it, this Anti-discrimination Bill, and find if this would not appear a just heading! The Government seems to be lofting towards almost unbelievable heights of supremacy, in the forbidden field of religion, and many social fields relating to it, towards taking charge of some of the functions of deity. Currently there is a Bill. In February there is to be an official report on reaction to it. Large numbers of responses have been received and made available on the internet.
But what of this Bill ? While it speaks of anti-discrimination, and consolidating law on anti-discrimination, it appears to consist in no small measure, in methods of making a National Law, passing an Act to establish in the State*1, an undivine god. Its potential presumption seems as great as its functional enormity. In this Bill, what is proposed, extensively and minutely formulated, seems fit to create in or through the State, in this case the Commonwealth:
Supreme Moral Authority
Supreme Disposal Power in the Field of Religion
Supreme Evaluative Power over Religion
Supreme Interpretive Power over the Human Psyche
Supreme Licensing Power over Speech
Supreme Investigative Power in Thought
That is why, as a Christian Pastor, one can and must speak. This is indeed in accord with our charter in the Bible, in Jesus Christ, for when all religions are made subject to State inventive law and authority, then freedom of religion is lost, interference looms, caveats accrue, and a State Lord in this very area, arises by democratic consent, to mingle its mouthings with those of the Lord.
The insistence that the Constitution be kept, is a safeguard in this instance, against erosion and abuse, and loss of liberty in ordinary discourse in this field. How this is so is part of the exercise of this Chapter to exhibit. It is therefore important to present this finding, in the hope that the detriment to the people who know Christ as Lord and Saviour, may not become enlarged, and they be not needlessly entangled or pre-occupied with covert or implied secular religion, inventing morals without foundation and giving exceptions to these as it impounds liberty and exalts itself (II Timothy 4:1-5, II Corinthians 10:5ff.).
The cry from the Government is that it is trying to integrate a number of laws. That is interesting, but the point is what new things are being made at the same time, in extension of power, intrusion of action, disposal of persons and in aggressive State clout over man, morals, religion and thought. Even religion has to gain exemption from the bold moral rules instituted, as if it were with a broken arm, and had to have allowance for its weakness. How bold is this State! or is it to be blocked ? The parliamentary representatives may still vote against it. They may still put principle above pressure. Startlingly, there is no referendum on this Bill of Wrongs. Moreover only about a month was given for comment, as Christmas neared. It surges like an invasion force into the land.
The way this nation deals with this, its government's intrusive presumption will show us whether it is only the rush of power to the minority government's head, or a national failing, that is in view, one leading to frustration, weakness, oppression and endless litigation over questionable motives, interpretations and verbal assaults, one way or the other or both, with repressive power sharply in focus.
The Government starts with the assumption that in a chosen and select group of 18 little considerations such as age, disability, gender identity, political opinion, religion, race and sex, as it puts it, presumably gender issues, there are to be found "protected attributes". In this, it is going to look after us, penetrating like a missile, into the innermost sanctums of the heart, as we will show.
It is well for the government to seek to protect people from intrusive powers, such as manifestly the government itself may deploy in allegedly protecting, when what is in view is misuse of physical power and assault. We do not want people Diploma of Education freely to be at the striking end of inflammatory fisticuffs, piercing knives or murderous guns. When however words are in view, such as might occur in the presentation of a viewpoint or religion, opinion, assessment or critical analysis, then it becomes an Anti-Freedom Law that "protects" by penalising and assuming guilt till innocence is proved. It thus becomes a discriminatory law.
This is so unlovely that it needs much consideration even to conceive why such a ruin of a free nation (free in many respects, though not in education by any means*1A) could even seriously be contemplated. Indeed, this then becomes a HUMAN WRONGS AND DISCRIMINATION BILL, designed to rule, arbitrate, determine and penalise in the area of attitudes, viewpoints, argumentation and assessment. Like a god, the government authority sits to assess, interpret, know, consider, determine and by its august decision, make people pay if they cannot prove the allegations against them to be false! It is not a pleasant god, and since this one did not create the universe, it lacks the perception of the actual Creator, while showing little restraint in arrogation of power not belonging to it.
The fiasco in this way actively threatens to become such as that in the USSR, which also guaranteed religious freedoms in word, but in ways unspeakable, in terms of actual State profusion of intrusion, denied its reality till one could hardly speak without the great possibility of consignment by the State to penalties various and authoritarian. The case in principle appears similar here. It is emphatically not a thing to import, in notion, potion or portion. It would be like importing a new type of influenza, with antidotes available for those willing to leave the country.
What then is the procedure in this pejorative pronouncement, this Bill in effect to limit freedom, invent understanding from flights of soaring fancy, and dispose the depths of man as it will ?
The procedure*1B is first to itemise the 18 discrimination targets as above, making a spread like that on a Christmas table before dinner, and then to make it clear that the State will act in terms of such things as "offence" suffered or deemed to have been suffered by any one among its subjects. It even covers offence about to be suffered, merely planned, or implicit in planning, in the opinion of the Authority. The roll of control is fast and furious, presumptuous and spurious.
The offence which can be used for legal action, is to be characterised as what is done, felt, suffered, experienced, engendered in any way in the heart, mind, thought. Suffer ? Bring in the law. Feel bad about what is said ? Sue in assault, for the Authority is ready at arms.
You feel offended. Act. That is, it is UNQUALIFIED. OFFENCE, unqualified in nature, said to be suffered by someone, and this becomes a source of initiating challenge to YOUR reputation, freedom, in terms of punishment, subjection to militant and directive authority, if not quivering at the bar, then arraigned for investigation by knowledgeable pundits, who know about these things ...
As to the aggrieved party, and offence : If you find it, there it is. Your preliminary case is in effect made. You bring this intolerable thing to the notice of the investigators, the feeling that you are offended by someone, somehow, by that person's words or apparent plans. Then ? why then you have put it in the hands of those who may use compulsory interviews, under the eye of examiners, as one of the steps in your degradation of your alleged tormentor, or hurter of your feelings. As to that offensive party, let us consider that person. This action against you, it seizes you by government authority, while YOU PAY, unless you have so little that terms of aid my be manufactured. If you have a bundle, then consider dropping it, as you pass by the Authority.
It is not clear that you will ever be repaid, regardless of outcome. For a society already in fiscal trouble, as this sacrificed nation increasingly is, it seems much more than unwise to open this tap in the savings tank, with such grievous and almost abandoned seeming political ease. It seems the height of unfairness to have this chained dog, ready to released upon you, while in the sanctuary of Parliament, ferocious verbal assaults are made with so little supportive evidence, that even a word designating hatred may be used through special new ideas about it, to allege what is not even beginning to show it. This is corrosive, and clear of action. The Press likewise may be arraigned, till only Parliament may speak its mind; but it is supposed to REPRESENT the people, not to become a monopoly on freedom of speech.
As to procedure, then, the offence is FELT, then it is NOTED and thus RECORDED, so that, what appears to the Court the prima facie case, is taken to show that you are guilty till proven innocent. Now the onus on whom ? You have guessed it, it is on YOU. On this, consult *4 below.
It is necessary to emphasise this last point. Such is the new power of the Authority, that the "victim" of this offence, the one assailed by the alleged sufferer, may be charged with causing sufferings which may be entirely verbal and psychic. A psychic shiver, an insubstantial sliver may be the basis, and in the glorious fulness of understanding of your Judges, you are to be considered and this conceived, with all the delicacy of a trumpeting elephant, for man is not capable of assessing hearts, in the one or the other, with accuracy in such affairs. It is the prerogative of God who knows enough, realm on realm, truth on truth, to judge.
What then here ? It is the subjective which counts. Psychiatrists may labour to read between, under and around the lines, concerning their clients, but no such problem faces the Authority. It will find out, and you will pay if it deems the case to be such. It is rather like putting a mouse under the authority of cats, the latter having total power to determine issues. To be sure, you could always hope for an unprejudiced cat, a discriminating but undiscriminatory one, but then cats themselves have their own natures to contend with ...
Accordingly, the complainant has a privilege of manifest and unusual force, in this land, that the offender, in terms of who knows what psychic level in the long cultural and national past of the one offended, is deemed guilty until found innocent, to be assessed till guilt at last may even possibly be dismissed. The person offended perhaps was not REALLY offended! It is not clear how this could be achieved, but a paraphernalia of investigation, not without cost, by experts appointed, proceeds.
It is almost impossible to overreact to this horror, this making of minions of innocent citizens, AS OBJECTIVELY THEY MAY WELL BE, putting them into the condign hands of law, and marking them till they might be cleared, as would-be criminals, or their virtual equivalent, objects ready for scorn, and if so far guilty in concept, then abased in fact.
One voting in such a travesty of truth and arrogation of supernal power, intimidatory intrusion would have a very ... special idea of liberty, and available is a decision of the need for frank discussion, uninhibited investigation, fearless research and accurate findings. Offence is offence. In the whole gamut of millions of psyches, avoid it, or you may be fined, compromised, abused with findings from vast heights, and if history is any guide, often from low depths. Indeed, such is man, that it is perfectly possible in the generality, to have depths of which you are unaware, except that they are normal for you, operative and seem good.
Where atheism or any moral-inventing theory is held, then there is virtually no limit to these depths. Where religion is involved, there are things like nightmares in some cases, which demand beheading, amputation, spearing, mass destruction, and allege it to be good. This must not of course be adjudged evil in itself, just different, or perhaps you will find yourself a victim of those offended. In some types of religion, it is EVIL to be submissive, meek, kindly and considerate. In one stage, in Europe, this caught on massively. Laws in a vacuum are unwise; laws in a seething morass mixed with various other ideas, are mere adventurism. See in this area, News 19.
Unless the one deemed guilty of offence is DEEMED too poor to pay legal costs which could mount to many thousands, pay they will. This is a financial, moral apparatus, abused by the State, intrusive and abusive in this manner. It is not till you are cleared, if need be by compulsory meetings with appointed jurisdictive officers and whoever else they with State authority choose, that the potentially intrusive-abusive use of your time and funds, may lapse ... till the next time.
If you are spineless, characterless, foxy and very aware of traps, you might escape at the outset. Throughout history, many like the famous figure of the "Vicar of Bray", who knew how to sit on the fence while dangling his feet on either side, as the situation required, have managed to escape this sort of policing - provided pure malice and fraud did not intervene from parties alien in mind.
However, many consider it important that ideas be stated, tested, considered, debated, thrust forward, as part of being in the image of God, and find it important not to bow to would-be godlets, who work out all about feelings, such as ... feeling offended, and fix up costs for you as they opine.
Thus, if you are not like the Vicar of Bray, perilous here would be your way.
Valiant for domination, the State or its appointee then it would proceed to find, at least in preliminary meetings, some without regard to evidence, what appears to be the case, and what might be a resolution. This is elevated power! This is the office of priesthood, categorically rejected by many (Hebrews 2, 7, 8-9), here set in secular hands. It is moral in character, and more intrusive than many priesthoods in this, that the guilt is so far assumed. You may be far from confessing it.
To assume guilt for one second constitutes an assault. This is, even if temporarily so, legally bound power to assault. It is not enough to be in danger from ruffians, it must now be from a legally constituted entity that this can come!
Guilt, however, It is proper, in terms of this Bill, however, as a concept to be used against the Authority; for it is above this law, providing the motive of its action is to fulfil the law (Section 21). Here at last MOTIVE enters in, but only for the sake of the Authority, to clear it for faster action!
If this is not absolutism, what is! Moreover, it is based on relativism, the realm of feeling, and psyche, and how one reacts to another, in this way, moral, mental, spiritual, physical, any way you like provided the pseudo-sacred term 'offence' is in view.
It sets the victim of this highly discriminatory procedure, the one claimed to have offended, in a degraded light, in a negative position, and to clear himself, or herself, this is the obligation of the unfortunate thus apprehended for compulsory sessions, at the will of the Supreme Authority, which has already compromised the victim in this atrocious and insulting manipulation of the notion of GUILT.
Thus you have two types of victim. First is the one who objects, declaring this, 'I have been offended.' He or she may be lying, using this as a ploy for revenge on just discipline in a company, or disapproval of some action which has been made manifest, as to be now assessed by
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Supreme Priestly Power. |
To be sure, the quasi-priest or officer in attendance, may not choose, in his temporary plenipotentiary power (always as dowered by the State*1C), to elicit a confession, though doubtless this might help, and some might submit to lie in order to avoid further entanglement, though ill advisedly. However, there is the one who objects, and he has his requirements.
The second type of victim is the one who is now temporarily deemed guilty, by the awesome power of the State Supreme (to fine, exhaust finances - not its own - through legal costs, intimidate by authoritarian atmosphere and dispose of the person assaulted by the ostensible victim in this way). Thus there are two assaults: that claimed by the one statedly offended, and one by the Authority against the one allegedly causing it. Allegations readily fester at such depths, producing results like puss from a thorn.
Whether envy, mere dislike, misconstruction, over-reaction to humour, super-sensitive imagination as is so common, in deeming that negative which was positive or neutral in the respect in view, whether indeed it be a matter of devious devices to downgrade someone or something which that person holds, or again, to molest the upright or shame the righteous, very common things throughout the history of our race: yet the OFFENCE may be stated, and examined by ... no, not angels but people. And these arbiters ? very possibly, they are not without their own hang-ups, unconscious servitudes, psychic burps and whorls. Angels are worse than rare to find among men, all of whom are sinners, and digging into psychic depths is not their gift, however endowed with power.
Vast is the scope, sound or unsound, most various, as ground of the declared "offence". Vast is the opening for offending the alleged offender, but the Authority need not worry about that, being legally protected.
As to the 'offence', it may be genuine or cleverly acted out, result of pathology or real. Nevertheless, to law we go at the will, whim, caprice, inflammatory feeling or in some cases, true offence suffered by the complainant. The cause can vary greatly, as can the effect, even when all parties seek honesty. When the terms of reference are virtually unlimited, however, the wisdom to handle this is NOT. We are not gods: as the Bible puts it for those with supreme ideas concerning themselves or their powers: "I said, 'You are gods, and all of your are children of the Most High, but you will die like men ..."
Off to law, then. What next ?
Off to finance we go, to be given aid if too poor to pay for this succulent legal dish (and law readily can make one poor as the due process proceeds on through its various stages), and set are the conditions for getting this aid, or without it, slowly to watch the slender substance of years evaporate while the Bill, if turned to law, bites. Such is the way of this psychological extravaganza, political pirouetting, shameless assault and insult to citizens. In seeking justice, it is well not to breach it in your very presumption, arrogance and procedure!
At best, someone's feelings are satisfied, however super-sensitive and subject to dull perception in the first place, they may have been, as is frequently found in life, as time passes, and history unfolds. At worst, but readily, someone's unjust feelings are satisfied, upset is sated and peace, if possible, resumes as time goes on, and life ebbs away, as it is inclined to do under such duress, time, expense and immoral reflections as the preliminary assumptions of the Government-appointed body in fact constitute. If you want a new god, here is one for you. Biblically, however, to put in the hands of men, the prerogatives of God, is idolatry. This is a gross outrage in terms of religion, its manufacture and its appointment (cf. Ezekiel 14:4).
Thus, in these ways, by historical observation, there are likely to be of numerous sub-types, multiple motivation and often enough legally-made victims, subject to little less than extortion, as the State-imposed tyranny over truth proceeds, an atomic bomb of aspiring super-morality, where in some cases a slap, in some an explanation, in others, an understanding might have sufficed.
For each wrongly accused, and with such vast parameters of 'offence' , these in sum are likely to be many, whether or not the Supreme Moral Authority of the State concurs or condemns, life in some form, goes on. What components do we then find, and what goes out! The latter includes many elements.
What then goes out ? Time, money, energy, burden, blight, these do, together with subjection to directive authority of people with ostensibly supreme moral power in their hands, together with such freedom, let us remind ourselves, that so long as the stated OBJECTIVE of the Law (if it be passed) is what they seek, then they are not themselves even subject to it. This goes out like a vast fishing network, catching what they may. Whatever the motive, the results stand out.
Anything MORE DISCRIMINATORY, it would be difficult to imagine. It reminds one of a nightmare sketched in Punch magazine, where the experient is shown playing golf with almost unlimited difficulty. Things happening are unjust, unfair, intimidatory, but always occurring, until at last, when the golfer comes to the green, the devil appears as the opponent, and simply removes the golf ball of his opponent, and puts his own in the hole. Such is the vulnerability of this type of liability to ruthlessly authoritarian imposition in such fields as these.
This however, as much as one might wish it were, is startlingly for those awake, not a dream at all. Rather in all seriousness, it appears to be the wish of some in the Government, amidst other things of course, TO IMPOSE. Who could buy into that, whatever the imagined benefits. Is it not a premature release of an ill thought out approach involving discrimination such as could scarcely be thought of in its acrid horror, even months ago!
However, haste is not wise in the formulation, intimation and application of such grossly presumptuous and self-expansive powers on the part of any State, whether in the Middle East, or Africa, the Pacific or Europe, let alone, one would have hoped, in this once fair country, noted for independence of spirit, agreeable liberty of expression, imaginative entrepreneurial activity and readiness to spring into action without undue fear. Nations often go through phases; and our country so far for some time in the past, has had a thrust of toleration, not excluding expression of things as truth, which may be about to be violated.
All this is ready to be harassed. It is ready to be altered in a subjection in thought, mind, morals, supreme power and arbitrative splendour that digs into the most private of places and waves its wand of authority in the most hideous of manners. A new phase ?
It is like being offered the option to vote for an almost inexpressibly presumptuous tyrant. Who will dare to vote for it and imperil the future of this once significantly free land, to which so many wish to come, some with a hope of imposing this or that authority of foreign origin ? Perhaps many who do not want in such a setting, to be marked out! Perhaps others with long-held hatreds to be indulged. There are many other scenarios, but this is as open as one walking in a mosquito infected jungle, while scorning all sprays and deterrents, leaving the matter "open". Here it seems the Government has at least no small desire to present to the nation, what constitutes an imposition to challenge some the worst of cases, potentially to become listed with the most intrusive and discriminatory.
This is allegedly a law of anti-discrimination! Rather is it near to being the most discriminatory one could readily imagine, since it assigns guilt before anything more than possibly some variously interpretable words, are considered. This is temporary ? So is a cut. The results vary.
It gives multiple large handles, to stick out of the populace, ready for any hand to grab, including those of youth for the mere sport of it, or age for the venomous desire of it. All these vistas of possibilities open up, with as much in the way of safeguard, as grease to prevent slippage. It lies a horror stretch of vulnerability, and a testimony to the possessive power for religious control.
Make no mistake, even though there lies within this Bill (as currently it is, one to be examined further, but already written out), provision for religions other than this one, here displayed by the Government itself, for its own application, these are subjected to its scrutiny. The Power of the Jurisdictive Authority determines what is what in that field, what acceptable and what not, in terms of its own rules and criteria. To religion EXCEPTION is GRANTED from the threat to what is deemed discrimination, for many spheres more generally. It is given exemption.
In so acting, the Bill makes each religion SUBJECT at once to control in terms of being, like a house relative to council laws, under the authority to resolve, consider, construe and so forth. Exemption from the norm ? how nice to be set above the common basis, set free of it by authority for it, granting by its will, a select status. What if the select becomes unselect, as often happens within nations ? The POWER is assumed in this Bill, and it is intolerable, in terms of the INABILITY of Government to institute or mandate religion.
If religion does not imply a shortcoming in needing an exception from such moral imperium, yet it is GRANTED standing. Control at the outset, merely has to be varied, from time to time, by the new moral, religion-allowing, body. If you GRANT exception, then you may with the same power, NOT grant it, unless in the first case you have over-stated your authority. The Bill however so deems grants by its ... grace.
As in China or in the former USSR, the Church is subjected to the interests of the State, as they variously happen to be. While some are spelt out, however spuriously applied, there are in this Bill, even places where what a 'reasonable' person would think, is made the criterion*1C. One occurs in Section 21(of this tome of moral authority). We here learn that if the object of some action is the fulfilment of the LAW in view, ostensibly anti-discrimination, then it is not to be deemed discrimination if reasonable persons would consider it really was done for this reason.
Reasonable persons, their views, were in earlier legislation, ludicrously made a criterion. A reasonable zealot for communism, socialism, capitalism, Islam, Buddhism and so forth, might on premises held dear, consider this or that reasonable. In mathematics, the premises are clear. In social/political/moral areas, in the human race, there is such a variety of initial premises, and they vary so much from time to time and place to place, culture to culture and in terms of cultural change at this or that rate, that in the secular field, the term readily becomes almost meaningless when the specific topic is BLAME. For this, you need a fixed criterion, and here you do not have it. The question is OFFENCE. THIS is blameworthy as a category.
The former use of the reasonable person approach*2, which alas readily grows into a cultural concept rule, in which what is currently popular becomes a kind of dictator to determine reasonableness, whether consciously or unconsciously, was vexatious. This new Bill however, this exclusion to give yet more authority to what is already an extreme of presumption and authoritarianism mixed, seems like a rather formalistically expressed view of any dictatorship. IF to the Party (or to its Authority created), this or that is the aim, then against the party no restraint can be brought in. Why ? It is because this is the Party which rules. In extreme cases, such an attitude is often used in this way: Because the State is supreme, therefore anyone who criticises, offends the State, is deemed to be violating its law as formulated from time to time. Hence any such critical person or group or entity, is deemed subversive. Vast our the penalties for not accepting the pseudo-religious ferocity implicit.
The Communists have grossly misused this arbitrary rule, making of the State an all-consuming god!
While such a subversive approach as this, is not spelt out here, yet the odour of authoritarian flexibility, almost at any cost, to achieve an aim, is certainly present. That, indeed, is where the Ruling Body has some kind of apparent flexibility. Here it draws near to the place of Awesome Authority, in that what it seeks, if found present by "reasonable men" and the like, then nihil obstat. Its ways are beyond the law.
POINTS IN VIEW, AND DEVELOPMENTS
We have been checking, so far, on the list of potential offence areas. We have then seen that offence is one major action centre for the government to pursue, when anyone deems himself or herself to have suffered this thing, discrimination. For this, unfavourable treatment appears the nub, offence the rub. We have considered a few aspects of the authority set up and its workings, but basically there is a sequence in view, to which we now turn. Here some discussion of items may recur, but as put in the sequence.
Thus
1) the LIST of 18 areas to be governed by Government in this effort at anti-discrimination, is given.
2) The MEANING of discrimination is given attention. This is deemed to occur in terms of "unfavourable treatment." Thus if you consider yourself the victim of this action, you have a case for help in legally attacking the alleged discriminatory agent, who is held guilty until able to show to the Authority's satisfaction, that guilt does not belong. If you don't have the money, it may be forthcoming to help your need, in the attack, in any way prescribed. Similarly, if the one alleged to be offensive here is in view, he can use his own if he has enough of it.
3) Unfavourable treatment, in series, is then given attention. If occurs in a number of ways, which are given a species of inventory. The case may include any of: harassment, or "other conduct which offends, insults or intimidates the other person." It covers also the imposition of policies which may be imposed in the affected categories, or even may be PROPOSED to be imposed! There lies a whole new realm for litigation, assumed guilt and the like, as to whether such and such a thing was in fact proposed.
This gives a fine time for law to find out whether you merely thought of this abstractly or really proposed it, merely envisaged it among others, or specifically planned to set it in motion; and if you envisaged it, whether this in itself means proposed, and what other features .... etc. etc., ad nauseam, might be thought of in verbal sparring and intrusive assumptions. This is the very openscenario such as occurs when morals are invented, and spleen may be vented, with little restraint for any particular reason, or any reason perhaps not quite so particular.
More is given, and the Bill is careful to note that even all of this is not exhaustive. What may offend is not limited to this. The Bill likes repeatedly to be open-handed, and beyond the limits, to prevail, even if its exponents do not keep it in applying it. It is difficult to imagine something worse in KIND, even in a nightmare of undisciplined provisions, intrusive at will, whim, caprice, or perhaps even for good reason. It is ... very open.
4) Let us now, in sequence, come to the worst of it, for the worst of a chain is its weakest link, which breaking, spoils all.
The protected categories here selected for noting from this voluminous Bill, in definition of what constitutes unfavourable treatment, are given attention. For them, the core of discrimination, it appears, includes what "offends" a person. Let us further examine this aspect.
You may be offended, in fact, in this life, because your super-sensitive feelings about real or imagined defect stir you unduly, and you 'flare up' in such a way that people try to avoid this aspect in the interest of having peace or progress. You may flare up because you once were mistreated in this area, and tend to imagine that many things quite innocent of what brought your earlier cause to light, are present when they are absent. You may state that you are offended to avenge a real or imagined mistreatment, such as being passed over for promotion, or not appreciated for your 'true worth'. You may resent the 'class', financial, professional or other, to which you conceive a person to belong in this or that feature, and hence be very imaginative when this is the scene of the imagined for actual offence. The possibilities are all but unlimited.
In addition, you may be or deem yourself to be 'offended' in order to extract money from someone you do not like, whose manner does not appeal, or who strikes your psyche amiss as you look with disapproval at his or her manner of life; and all this may be more or less conscious or unconscious. You may feel in need of help for some project, good or evil, and either cunningly contrive a trap to get money from the alleged transgressor, against whom you complain; or again, you may simply want to reduce his wealth, so that you may commercially or personally better compete with him, or even socially become more important than he or she.
Human nature can be debased to various measures and degrees, and crime is but one of the areas where this is found!
Thus being OFFENDED as a ground for the arousal of the discriminatory machinery proposed in the anti-discrimination Bill, is more ludicrous than throwing away money in unproductive ways, and then glorying in it. This is throwing away life in unproductive ways, since the Bill is ludicrously unprotected in mode of operation, grossly invidious in assuming guilt before proof, and heavily counter-productive in misdirection of vital resources for what is neither established nor just, in its preludes. It becomes the SOCIAL PSYCHE model, in which the psyche is made subject to the arm of the law, relative to various persons, and the administrators have this power to determine what is exceedingly likely to be beyond their expertise: EVEN IF they were perfectly honest, unguileful, clear as the day is bright in honour, conscience and commitment, not aware of leaning this way or that. They would need to be also so equipped with wisdom and thoughtfulness, discretion and sensitivity and sensibility as to be models. Past that, for reliability in these diversely and conversely estimable areas, they would need to be gods; and even that would be limited.
Despite even these qualifications, their religion, which in fact might be true or false to facts, might be deemed by them to be utterly beyond all question of any kind, and by this they might in all conscious honesty, act and determine, think and proceed. It may be the utter contrary of that of the potential victim (the accused). There is scarcely any limit to the folly of such procedures with such power in such issues, in such authoritarian and intrusive ways as the Bill proposes.
In the USA, freedom of press and of speech is a protected variety. Here their loss of it is in danger of being a protected variety by this ill-considered and ill-conceived Bill. Here, instead of the rejected Bill of Rights, we have something rather worse, a Bill of Wrongs*3. But the Right implies a Wrong, and there is little difference in kind.
THE GOVERNMENTAL RELIGION
What is it then that uses Supreme Moral Authority, over right and wrong; acts as Supreme Arbiter and Disposer in Moral and inter-Personal Issues. What is it that
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Determines what lies in the heart ? |
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Condemns or acquits on the basis of such knowledge ? |
It is of course a religion, though not a good one. It insists that it will, or could, or should know all needed for such things. This is what you need when dealing with the elements of the psyche and its demonstrability or otherwise to those assessing! Biblically, God declares that He only knows the heart (Jeremiah 17:9-10). Even if there were 'good' motivation in the assessors, it is too much when you move with such authority into such premises, to control, determine and appoint what you are moved to assert, with such plenary solemnity invested! But, it is just as easy for there to be solemn farces of things that "of course" are the case, depending on the current effluvium of culture, though in historical hindsight they are seen to be ludicrous; and this is common in the history even of science.
Further, you cannot read the heart of man, and there are motivations which stir, consciously or not, which readily tilt the result will be unjust in principle even in the heart of man, as its place of purpose, action and understanding. So do we find our own version of the thought police of Orwell's 1984. They do not here come in helicopters or space ships, but they compel the victims - in this case those wrongfully arraigned - to attend at their own pleasure (not that of those arraigned, but of the Investigators). These have the power to punish in these things.
For this new religion, the priests are given amazing authority, for as we saw, and now see in this context, their actions in certain cases are not even subject to the law they are to impose. The subjects are ruled from a high and lifted up throne, which may not be questioned. They are to act as directed, and told how to proceed at every level, whether to consultation unofficially, forced to appear and to share company such as the Relevant Authority Sees Fit. It can dispense with evidence, and assign guilt by rule, before investigation of the case on its merits.
Consider the religious status. Such a religion would be a debased one, since it is so quick to act, and so slow to come to terms with principles, which are so mobile that those concerned may be exempted from control by them, as the investigation proceeds with its exultant motif. It is however a
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Supreme Moral Authority, |
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Supreme Sovereign Over the Psyche
(in practice and in power), |
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Supreme Guardian of the Feelings of
its People, |
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Supreme Arbiter of Relative Values, |
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Supreme Determinant. |
If then someone finds offence (as just ONE of the points for potential assault on citizens) , then this is prima facie ground for incrimination of what is deemed to have offended. The Authority degrades, assigns and stands ready to order about the one deemed to have offended, and now deemed to be guilty.
In instituting
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these supreme supervisory formulations, |
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principles, |
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powers, |
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evaluations and |
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authority to act, |
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allowing or disallowing religions and speech in one fell swoop, |
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by its own special dispensation, |
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the Government sets itself over all religions, |
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licensing by will, and in so doing is |
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taking power beyond any religion. |
In surpassing religious power, it does of course constitute, by decree, a new religion, just as has been done so often in so many stricken lands. The Supreme Practical Sovereign State Being speaks and it is done, assigns and it is assigned; does not have to keep its own laws, declares and it is so. Acting even in assigning initial guilt in its mystic prowess as the incubus of "offence" arises, its grandeur expands. It rules over its subject in its own appointed ways. It enables them to pay for these horrendous antics, till they are so reduced that they need help, and if so, then at its own determinate will, it will give it if and as it sees fit.
In the Bible, for example, God does insist on laws applicable because they are TRUE, and not dispensable. He even has gone so far as to become man, in order to bear sin for man, and apply this result to free those who receive the dispersal of this gift, by His own willingness to pay, vicariously. It is He who sets up the nature of morality, of breach, and of the way in which breach is to be healed. So far from merely authoritarian rule and penalty, He sets up mercy BASED on His empathetic and substitutionary action. It is far kinder than arbitrary human presumptions, and its source has far more ground for total knowledge, indeed infinite, giving evidence that it is the Creator and the Judge Himself as in
and many other members of this 215 volume set.
What has NO CLAIM WHATSOEVER for such a position, in a land founded in terms of Christianity in its current form of government, can produce only amazement at its effrontery in setting itself up as what is thus a NEW RELIGION. Here, mere mortals, to be born and normally to die without consent, make of themselves such exalted AUTHORITY in such innermost places!
As such, the action designated in the Bill would be unconstitutional, since the Commonwealth is denied in the Constitution the power to enforce religion. It is beyond its scope. Whatever lawyers may determine, as their various viewpoints loom into play, the exclusion of power to dispose in the field of religion is rigorously denied to the Commonwealth.
"The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth." That is Section 116 of that document.
The BILL, on the other hand, proposes a law to act with such bravura, panache and coverage, as above, that it in fact proceeds to establish a State Religion, to make absolute morals, absolute results, with absolute authority in affairs of the heart and conscience, licensing religion as to what exempts it from the final arbiter's direct rule, and impugning it as needing exemption from what otherwise constitutes discrimination. In so doing, it automatically puts its own authority over moral authority, so becoming its arbiter and its assessor.
The Bill would USE and thus establish in determining breach of law or not, a psychic tool, with absolute authority and assumed power to assess. It thus in effect surpasses social, psychological, emotional and spiritual belief and perception, as it inspects the heart, in assigning guilt or otherwise, and this through people giving no ground for any assumption of possessing such effectively pure properties, as they judge, or deploying a knowing penetration of the human heart and its motivational depths. Indeed, there is no assurance that the latter is considered at all, as OFFENCE declares its blatant and over-arching primacy! It is not What is the MEANING, the intent, the reality, but what is the offence which is crucial.
These among us, then, are to reach such heights, plumb such depths, or simply ignore these realities, in order to gouge out not only opprobrium, but also financial results. How much must who pay ? That depends on how much the alleged offender ... has! as notable in Section 133 of the Bill. Such is for the thought of The Authority.
Here in one more illimitable limit for estimation and unequal impact for the same offence. People do not pay for what they do, simply, however abusive and intrusive such determinations may be; they pay in the way now clearer and clearer, AS THEY ARE ASSESSED, according to what is available. Respect of persons, differential treatment, personal persuasions, one way or the other, begin to appear almost as an obsession. The various victims also are presented as subjects, to be stripped differentially as Authority determines over their presumably servile souls.
So in its terms,
"justice is turned back, and righteousness stands afar off;
for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter," as in Isaiah 59:14.
This is a SOCIAL RELIGION, A CULTURAL RELIGION, A PSYCHIC RELIGION, A DOMINANT RELIGION, AN INTRUSIVE RELIGION, A MORAL RELIGION, all in ultimate regards. Founded without basis in what IS absolute in its own being and self, knowing all, it is yet absolute in action. This is in this way, the very essence of imposition, and the fabric of fantasy.
What then ? In this Bill, were it to become law, we should be faced with the sovereign, ostensibly all-knowing, all-discerning State, both in outlining its principles and total power, even assigning a measure of guilt before investigation proceeds materially; while in applying these, it dispenses costs as will also. It has thus, in this format, become as in other lands, themselves totalitarian,
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the Governor of Religion, |
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its final authority and |
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its Inspector and Dispenser of privilege. |
If you want a culturally dominant, politically intrusive, psychically authoritarian substitute for your religion, or a new religion if you have no other, here is your opportunity. If however you have access to the Creator and Saviour, or do not want to change from whatever you have, then this is not for you, and thus action seems required, so that people be informed. If this is what they, being adequately informed of options, and constitution, then want, then democracy shows itself in this case, to have such religious desires which in effect deify the authority of the State.
In the case of Australia, it would become a self-inflicted wound that absorbed it, not a necessity. So great, moreover, would be this self-inflicted wound (S.I.W.) as it used to be called at least in World War I, that to slash oneself by having it, one would have to break the Constitution of the country, to achieve it. We are fortunate. We are safeguarded against such breach of reality and tyranny, absorptive costs of mere presumption, by what was done over a century ago.
However, as you see in the case of Hitler, merely to watch political dynamics, you have only to be fascinated like a bird by a snake, rather than being alert like a mongoose, and legal dreams may attempt to remove this, as by sleight of hand; and many are they, on various sides, who fail to realise their own motivation, being gripped by ideological passion, which comes and goes, though at the time it leads to war to the death, and vile viciousness.
So is it with all relativistic rulings at this
level: for what HAS no absolute, having removed it from view altogether,
has on this model NOWHERE TO FIND IT. It is not there. Hence there can only be
instability and presumption, when the truth-free, tell you what it is (cf.
Finale, below).
Here is an Anti-Discrimination Bill which would tend to throttle free speech, till it becomes a mere cipher, a residue, after people's innermost feelings have cut out what they find unattractive to the psyche. Here is the New Society which legislates freedom in terms of the IDOL of FEELING, to enable current culture to rule in ultimate realities tolerated, and hence as a religion of what man must live by. As such, it is clearly unconstitutional. Whatever may be said the fact remains, for these are the powers to be dowered*4 Government, which would change the religious character of this land utterly, authoritatively, giving and taking wealth and name, reputation and place, as it will.
Moreover, the concept of the State inventing an independent body to effect these parliamentary desires (where nothing remotely like this kind of oppression rules, but free speech sounds like impassioned bagpiping, in all directions not seldom), is merely an instrumental consideration. Whoever is APPOINTED to do it, does so at the will of the State, which embodies in it just whatsoever powers have been noted already. In theory, it is so; in practice elevating man to such heights and operating to do so, is simply to bypass the Highway of Holiness, and to institute the low-way of quanderies where the celestial being bypassed, the heart no longer beats, except its own drum.
NOTES
From our monthly site, What is New ? the following (in red) is taken in this connection, from the February News. Since that news item was written, we find that The Australian, Monday, January 28, 2013 has extreme calls for an awakening such as has been made on this site. Here it has been on a specifically Christian basis, especially since 2008, including the article, The Paganisation of Australia. This is all put together in the volume
Man in Retrospect, in Prospect and in Bold Relief (2008, No. 143 in the set)
which this year has been extended.
This includes a collection of items featuring Australia, and now in 2013 two new Chapters have been added to this, not least because - as two Professors of constitutional law (Universities of Sydney and Queensland) rightly attest in a submission noted in today's Australian (January 21, 2013) - there is a grave possibility that this Bill would be declared unconstitutional, if challenged in Court. Certainly, were it to come into force as law, even with some obvious purgings of the more invasive and pugnacious sections, it involves a massive recast for Australian life, shackled within a maelstrom of invasive law. Further they consider that the law may breach international obligations of Australia in terms of freedom of speech, religion, association and cultural expression.
Points not dissimilar to these were made in the two new Chapters, but with focus and special attention given to the area of religion, as befits a Christian missionary and educational ministry such as this.
Making mandated morals by what "reasonable" people think (in assessment of those attacks where people are deemed to have been offensive, insulting or intimidating), so making claimed offence and insult a legally actionable event, it goes further. Once the challenge is taken up for investigation, guilt is to be assumed till the case is proven otherwise, so that it tends to offer a haven to out of work lawyers (if any) and a litany of wrongs for victims of its ill-considered crusade, without even so much as a referendum. Even the Bill of Rights required this (and lost in that past referendum). This is far more invasive, a virtual Bill of Wrongs. As to religion, within the Bill, it is licensed by circumscribed exemptions from the new morals, and given conditions for operation contrary to its freedom as in Section 116 of the Constitution. Indeed, even academic and scientific areas appear to lose their usual screening from purges, except in the case of racial matters.
See further in notes B) and C) below.
January 2013
1) Further pursued in December 2012
A) in addition to the note below on this volume: This now has more on the incarnation, "the glorious liberty within the sovereignty of God," and the place where mystery belongs, enthusing and enticing, not contradicting the clear depositions of the Bible!
B) There are two correlative works in this volume on the nature and significance of information.
Ch. 1 deals with this in the midst of a review of the politics and religion of FORCE, COMMAND, the latter found in our own DNA, not to dictate but to make us, in body. Concerning dictation, however: Further concerns focus the perspectives inculcated in such lands as Australia, where censorship has been toying with enslavement of opinion to what a "reasonable person" would consider right. Later, even now, in Bill form is the yet more idolatrously inclining effort for a far more feverish government control of liberty by the SOCIAL PSYCHE. Here man is your new measure: bow before him, or be stricken. Hurt feelings become a new religious morality, objections paid for by the State. All this is by courtesy of a Government which, whatever its political hue, is clamant for control, seeking to impose what are inhumanly humanistic commandments on the land.
This looms like the ice-berg for the Titanic, and in some danger of coming into force. In this sought surrender of opinion to government control and virtual religion, EVEN the reasonable person's view, itself ludicrous as a virtual religion to command with legal penalties, is deemed too little to harass speech. The consideration of what this is, is reserved, DV, for later in this work (as in C below)..
Ch. 3 also deals with information in its basic character and implications, this time as the main topic, leaving no logical room for manoeuvre, even in the escapist menus of today.
C) It is to be noted that Ch. 8 deals with an urgent topic in Australia, one which has been strongly spoken against, which concerns the liberty in the land.
HUMAN RIGHTS AND ANTI-DISCRIMINATION BILL 2012
The Right to Blight, the Sickly Solution
RELIGIOUS SUPREMACY ACT ?
This matter is given further and urgent attention in the Epilogue and the Finale.
See That Magnificent Rock Ch. 8.
Since 1988 in South Australia, there has been a rampant seizure by Government of the reins of education via curriculum, and the notorious Circular to Principals, which in an extravaganza of misguided, dictatorial zeal, initially required creation materials to be kept in the Principal's office, though it is the only logical way of treating the data scientifically! So vast was the mind control, the dereliction of duty towards progressive education in free enquiry and unprejudiced examination of theses and discoveries, and the art of implication, that this turned the schools in one of the most significant parts of all learning, into the modern equivalent, in passion and indoctrination, at this level, of a Nazi youth camp.
The details appear in TMR Ch. 8 as above, and the errors are exposed, in kind, in Chs. 1 and 7 of the same volume, as well as in
The gods of naturalism have no go!
Other logically and evidentially apt works in this field include those of Astrophysicst, Dr Jason Lisle, in his work,
Taking Back Astronomy, and
The Ultimate Proof, like Dr Michael Denton in his,
Evolution: A Theory in Crisis in biology (cf. News 57), and that of Dr Steve Austin in his volume,
Grand Canyon, in geology, and the numerous works of Dr Jonathan Sarfati, such as
Refuting Evolution,
Refuting Evolution 2,
The Greatest Hoax on Earth and Refuting Compromise.
With these examples above, there is also tht of Astronomer, Professor John Hartnett with Alex Williams in their surgical work,
Dismantling the Big Bang.
This provides further confrontation with the naturalistic fallacy while Dr Robert Humphreys in numerous academic contributions has not only formulated a creation-based account of magnetism, but made verified forecasts, based on it, some shown true by the Voyager 2 space-craft, concerning the magnetic field strengths in Uranus and Mercury. His predictions proved vastly superior to the naturalistic ones, there being simply no comparison to his forecast, in their competence to cover searching test such as this. As always, the naturalistic resiling from logic, fails equally in prediction and performance.
The above represents merely a small collection of refutations, but at the base, there is always the logical solecism that nothing cannot produce anything, and that therefore something was always there, and it was necessarily competent for all in mind, matter fn spirit, which would come, or it could not have come. Eternal competence to produce the laws of logic which undergird all thought, which is the basis of all theory (except for revelation) is the only alternative to irrationality, which by its nature is already out of court in any argument. You either beg the question, in contradiction not only of logic in its canons, but scientific method in particular, or have God from the outset.
Although rational education would not dare to ignore what alone meets reason or gains verification - evolution is never once found in the laboratory, that is a spontaneous expansion of ordering and organised information, in kind (as noted by Dr Werner Gitt in his work, Without Excuse) - what is called education has been perfidiously drafted. Educators must educate with reality, and if they want imagination, it must be so categorised! Thus this misguided educative philosophy, given power by various governments, indoctrinates sham shamelessly. Some of the earlier moves in this direction, then in Victoria, are exposed in my Diploma of Education thesis for Melbourne University in 1977 (Lead us Not into Educational Temptation),
This is merely one confirmed area of the loss of freedom, since for example in South Australia, children in science do not even have liberty to demand an informed and scholarly coverage of the options in these areas, or to have presented out of science classes, what is decisive and conclusive in the field so invaded by the curriculum. This being not only child abuse, but prison-type exemplification of the same, the current move to subdue adults also with invasive laws against liberty, inventing crass 'liberties which also ignore logic, is merely one more step in the subduing of the masses, in prohibitions in the fields of thought, speech and education appalling to contemplate, degrading in type, and disruptive of advance in understanding.
Accordingly, let it be frankly noted, that while it is indeed true that this nation has had no small reason for its reputation for independence of mind or spirit or utterance or thought, this has already been mortgaged severely by the mental and spiritual abuse of children, the fallacious ignoring of the application of scientific method to science when religion is concerned, and the erosion of truth into convenience. Indeed it is now many years since I lost a position as a Lecturer in this field in an institution now tertiary, BECAUSE I refused to cut out the reality of what scientific method requires, and the outcome of this, from a presentation in Communications. My tongue is not for sale, because truth is far better, and the God of actuality is infinitely superior to the changing tides of mere conformist passion.
In some ways, the new exploration of means of people management in the anti-discrimination Bill, is mere advance on the works of confusion of 40 years in this land. It makes of a pock-marked political skin, an obvious inflammation, a viral calamity.
A pdf version of the Bill appears at:
EXCURSION ON 'JUSTIFIABLE CONDUCT'
The Bill wanders about from time to time and place to place looking for some sort of reasonable approach to its drastic and dire Bill of Wrongs approach. After all, if you are going to regulate all liberty, take words out of the mouth and dissect them if someone uses his "right not to be offended," and lay about with financial and social methods of humiliating those who dare to have opinions, so that they must now back them with lawyer time in court, you need something that at least LOOKS a little less dictatorial, less a public socialistic mauling of mankind in order to subdue him to conformity. To what ? to the wishes of those in Parliament who have not the slightest intention known to man, to curb their utterances, or suffer such injurious and ridiculously intrusive religious mandates over themselves: and this from NO defensible ground at all.
The ground chosen in this distressing impasse, as in Section 23, is that of what a reasonable person might do. Then, we find, it may become 'justifiable'. As to be seen in *2, and in the text, this depends on what reasons the 'reasonable person' has as premisses in his or her worldview. It is to some eminently reasonable to behead people and stone adulteresses and others. Their premisses, as in geometry, are of that kind, and reason following these out, points to the result. But what of the premises themselves ? Just for Australia, are they to be what a reasonable Australian, reasonably related to a reasonable survey with reasonable statistical confirmation is about to do or think or deem, in the area where the median cultural concepts lie!
Absurdity is the result. It is subjective, ephemeral, autocratically determined in the first place, and the most reasonable thing that could be said about it is that it is not a work of reason in the end, at all, but of cultural conformity on whatever, the judge's ideas or other, seems to be acceptable. It is moreover eminently religious in the end, choosing its ultimates as it will, as foundational for the autocratic impositions. Moreover, even what is to be allowed as 'reasonable' is spelled out in terms of alternative action possible, whether this, that or the other options had been available and so on. A nightmare might be more lenient on living in goodwill, than this.
This is not only religion by culture, on the basis of current concepts of culture, or man conditioned by man, on a slippery statistical basis, but allows a whole range of possible methods of finding the 'reasonable' basis among other competing religions! that is, religions other than this religion of Statism. It is of course as in all these interferences on the premises, starkly religious in the end, and so unconstitutional. That is how life is to be run. Australia was meant to be free, and it is being bound. Is it a light thing to ask for mind-cuffs ? actually to vote for their imposition!
Is it reasonable to have such enormities of moral presumption apply to the non-parliamentarians, newspapers, private Web presentations, discussion, conversation, so that the uttermost discrimination becomes their lot, all-tied up, while the people in Parliament are given by comparison, virtually unlimited power to assault one another as recently, without substantial hold, with even pejorative use of ambiguous terminology, carrying a backload of highly offensive implication, allowed ready utterance! If this is robust debate, then to circumscribe others in inter-personal relations becomes hypocrisy as well as hype. May they thus insult each other, or anyone else for that matter, and then ask for this ritual of disrelish, this sacrifice of liberty for others! This means the utmost, degenerating, degrading discrimination against man, against the non-parliament sector, on the basis of a chosen religious basis, an ultimate moral agenda, and so against the Constitution, in terms of Section 116.
Even academic and scientific grounds for "exemption" from totalitarian attitudes with something like reverence, instead of that due to TRUTH, are found only in one place: namely where racial "discrimination" may be considered otherwise applicable. This too is supplied with various additional cuffs for the wrists of liberty, in terms of publication, to make sure nothing escapes the psychic sovereignty in view, as noted in Section 51.
The use of discrimination as a concept quickly balloons from protecting people from deprivation of fundamental liberties, to removing liberty of speech, almost altogether. It puts a peculiar people (if they vote for the tongue-cuffs) on hand-outs as to what they will be SUFFERED to do, if ever they are to escape charges of being discriminatory and subjection to potential ruin by legal means. This is the eminent folly of the Bill: it makes up morals, almost indefinably obscure, but ruthless against citizen liberty, and then allows AS IT WILL, Authority determining every move, EXCUSE from this or that in certain cases ... to be determined, by Authority, at cost. Guilty ? but of course, in perfect contradiction of our past, until found innocent. Lawyers alert! when was there ever such a torment and torrent of abstracted confusion in this land, submitted to such expensive determinations, and such initial duress!
Some lawyers, of course, might deem it just as dictatorial and unfounded as others. It is to be hoped that their point of view would not be found, this also, discriminatory.
Discrimination can have two basic meaning. It may mean seeing things with acute perception, and it may mean acting without due regard to facts. In opting more for the latter, the Government or those in it with this desire, are in eminent danger of finding guilt in the former, so stultifying society with an imperialistic invasion of liberty. The fact that facts are not, even then, the criterion, but feelings of offence do very nicely, makes of the travesty to truth, already present in this failure, a more massive degrading of our people, even yet again.
A Bill of Rights was rejected by this nation; this current Bill of Wrongs is incomparably even more perilous. A referendum saw off the former; there seems current no plan to subject the present lapse to one. There can be little doubt of the result if it were.
See Freedom,
the Nation, the Internet and the Next Generation, Ch. 1,
*2 for example.
A specially pertinent feature is found there, and it follows.
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Did reasonable men make Hitler ruler ? sustain him as he advanced ? |
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Did
reasonable men seek to exterminate the Jews |
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Did
reasonable men twist the thumbs, crush the bones and extort 'confessions'
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Did
reasonable men put millions of kulaks into Siberian torture |
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Did
reasonable men make thousands of slaves, and make them work, |
The Bill of course, goes in general far beyond what a "reasonable person" might do, such to be imagined into existence by judges! It determines the matter. It is the Authority.
The clutter of a conception of a Bill of Rights was considered when this possibility was being put to the electorate. It was not accepted. Vulnerable as a Bill of Rights is, in its various legal shades and implications, with too great a liability to be used contrary to its simple intention, a Bill of Wrongs is far worse. While ostensibly it is to protect people from scoundrels and manipulators, it in fact exposes them to such an extent, that it is rather like cutting off your arm in order to prevent its being bitten by mosquitoes. it actually in its procedures, exposes people to a whole range of evils, with the aid of the law on the side of those from whom the citizen is supposed to be protected.
It is like amputating an arm, so that the blood flow in it will not vary.
Of interest is the following in the Bill.
Section, 124 Burden of proof in proceedings under section 120 etc.
18 Burden of proof for reason or purpose for conduct
19 (1) If, in proceedings against a person under section 120, the applicant:
20 (a) alleges that another person engaged, or proposed to engage,
21 in conduct for a particular reason or purpose (the alleged
22 reason or purpose); and
23 (b) adduces evidence from which the court could decide, in the
24 absence of any other explanation, that the alleged reason or
25 purpose is the reason or purpose (or one of the reasons or
26 purposes) why or for which the other person engaged, or
27 proposed to engage, in the conduct;
28 it is to be presumed in the proceedings that the alleged reason or
29 purpose is the reason or purpose (or one of the reasons or purposes)
30 why or for which the other person engaged, or proposed to engage,
31 in the conduct, unless the contrary is proved.
32 Note: See also section 8 (multiple reasons or purposes for conduct).
INSTITUTE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS CITATIONS
are also helpful in considering the Bill. In its FREEDOMWATCH page, 21st, December 2012, the Institute provides the following data, the same words taken from another part of their site, earlier. We find first in the above site, that it characterises the 2012 Bill as representing "An unprecedented threat to freedom of speech and thought."
The Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill 2012 makes a number of significant changes to anti-discrimination law in Australia, including:
broadening the definition of discrimination to include conduct that ‘offends’ and ‘insults’ (clause 19-2)
making it easier for a person to claim they were discriminated against, by requiring them to establish only that they were personally offended, not that a reasonable person would have been offended (cl 19-2)
expanding the range of personal characteristics against which it is unlawful to discriminate, to include not only matters such as disability, race, and religion, but also ‘political opinion’ and ‘social origin’ (cl 17-1)
reducing the legal protection of a person accused of discrimination, by: declaring them guilty unless they prove their innocence, i.e. the ‘onus of proof’ is reversed (cl 124-1)
restricting their right to legal representation (cl 110-4)
requiring them to pay all the costs of their own defence even if they are found to be innocent (cl 133).