tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-620033997567463526.post5324180716415281510..comments2023-04-02T01:24:09.580+11:00Comments on The Michael Duffy Files: Mike Rann, Safety v Civil Liberties, and a knock on the door from Constable Plod a cure for everythingUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-620033997567463526.post-7832778873811175212009-06-14T08:39:58.154+10:002009-06-14T08:39:58.154+10:00Eer actually life is short, feel free to move anyw...Eer actually life is short, feel free to move anywhere for your entertainment. As if I should care what an anonymous reader chooses to do with their anonymous time?<br /><br />Meh. This is a loon pond, I'm a loon, and libertarian loons are welcome here. Yes, even loons from South Australia ...dorothy parkerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00816807935021738560noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-620033997567463526.post-10140332732356959552009-06-13T22:34:55.659+10:002009-06-13T22:34:55.659+10:00"But then if you grew up in New South Wales....."But then if you grew up in New South Wales..."<br /><br />From the Rum Corps to recent times that’s the history of a State that began just a few generations ago with loads of criminal stock, and I don’t just mean the convicts. NSW is slowly, slowly outgrowing its origins and sometime it’s two steps back for one forward. Just because SA is ahead of NSW in law enforcement is not an argument against Rann’s laws. And SA doesn’t have an ICAC (as it should) nor does Australia have a Bill of Rights, so we’re a long way from a perfect legal system. But don’t forget the role Ombudsmen play – surely even NSW has them?<br /><br />"Rann is in effect boasting about how Victorians copped a wave of bushfires..."<br /><br />So unless you can guarantee that laws can prevent all fires then it’s not worth trying? Where’s those murder/rape/robbery/drink-driving laws we have…toss them out will you as Dorothy has proved they’re not working. His solution – it’s don’t try anything except pro-active policing where police drive around a lot in cars. Where do they drive? Oh, just anywhere, it doesn’t really matter where, as long as they haven’t thought beforehand they might go where there might be some criminals doing criminal things, as that would be assuming some people are guilty until innocent, and we don’t live in a totalitarian State now do we. And to suggest Rann is boasting that nearly 200 Vics died while none did in SA is contemptible.<br /><br />"Funnily enough, the incident Rann celebrates..."<br /><br />Fingerprinting! What an invasion of civil liberties!!! No police force should have a database of fingerprints – we’re not living in Nazi Germany you know! Before you know it they’ll want to use DNA to solve crimes! "Two alleged offenders...face life imprisonment". Where's the presumption of guilt that Dorothy told me is to be the law?!!! Harumph!!!<br /><br />"Meantime heaven help you if you get tagged..."<br /><br />Ombudsmen maybe? Just like we have for when you get incorrectly given the wrong credit rating.<br /><br />"That's a never no mind to the pious, gloating humbug of Rann:<br /><br />This seems to be the real sticking point with you on Rann - his smugness. Get over the delivery, it’s the ends that count and not the means. You think asking crims to stop doing their crimes is going to make them? No, it’s men and women with guns who do that a.k.a. the police enforcing the government’s laws. And yes, police enforcing bad laws is bad, but police don’t get to choose which laws to enforce or to make their own. At least not in SA.<br /><br />"One commenter on the column..."<br /><br />If you’re going to quote others to support you – and I don’t suggesting you do as your arguments should stand up or fail on their own structural merits – then at least use something not written by a libertarian loon. It just makes you look like…a loon.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-620033997567463526.post-68708608870751987962009-06-13T22:34:16.755+10:002009-06-13T22:34:16.755+10:00"Which means you might have a hard time expla..."Which means you might have a hard time explaining exactly where that mp3 came from (not to mention those ripped discs)."<br /><br />Bad laws are meant to be broken. I’d actually like this to happen because society’s reaction to police arresting kids in possession of illegal mp3s would bring about the end of the stupid law wherein corporations and some musos think they can get paid over and over for the rest of their lives for something they did once a long time ago.<br /><br />"Excellent, I'm beginning to get the hang of this. Guilty until you can produce some evidence you're innocent..."<br /><br />Two non-sequiturs and an ad hom:<br />First, police aren’t charging anyone with anything when they’re just knocking on your door, so no-one is guilty until innocent. And why would they be knocking on your door unless they had good reason to, like perhaps your criminal record or some circumstantial evidence. The latter is actually a technique they use to solve crimes now. You’re not suggesting that you have to be caught performing a crime to be charged, are you? Imagine a society where that applied – it would be a crim’s paradise. At least for a while until even they realised that unless they’re the biggest, meanest dog around that they’re just prey too. You see, even crims like some laws, just not the ones that prevent them from robbing you.<br /><br />Secondly, thought crime? I don’t believe Rann suggested he cared about what people thought, only what they do. And you’re using Orwell in an arse-opposite way – he might have invented the term ‘thought crime’ but he didn’t actually believe it existed other than in the eyes of the Stalinist IngSoc govt of 1984.<br /><br />And the ad hom, Rann has probably received death threats from crims such as bikies, as do pollies of all stripes I imagine. I doubt he doesn’t fear for his own safety or that of those close to him. So what’s your point, anonymous blogger?<br /><br />"Now I don't have a problem with pro-active policing..."<br /><br />Then you are against all police as they do have list of ‘usual suspects’ for various crimes or can quickly link up databases to determine who’s in and out of jai.. If they didn’t we’d all be complaining about how stupid and wasteful of taxpayer money policing is. And again, if you’re not charged with anything then you can’t be found guilty.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-620033997567463526.post-32082201966682068612009-06-13T22:33:37.921+10:002009-06-13T22:33:37.921+10:00"The knock on the door at the dead of night....."The knock on the door at the dead of night..."<br /><br />And why not? Some might even call this pro-active policing. Isn’t the idea of that to prevent crime by way of police being seen to be out on the street? Ah, but there’ Rann’s pro-active policing and then there’s your pro-active policing. I think I’ll take my chances with Rann’s – I know one year’s correlation doesn’t prove causation but the argument is good and it seems to have worked. I’m prepared to risk it and (I hate to argue from popularity but this it can’t be avoided when it comes to politics in a democracy) so it seems are a large majority of SA voters.<br /><br />"And even a whack across the chops with a telephone book..."<br /><br />It doesn’t follow that a knock on the door will lead to illegal violence by police, let alone a member of the public. Then again, those Jehovah’s Witnesses might be armed with more than Watchtower, so I better kill them when they come calling next Sunday.<br /><br /><br />"In fact, you could start knocking on almost anyone's door at any time..."<br /><br />Of course, dobbing is wrong and un-Australian. Live and let live/kill/rape/whatever I say, it’s your libertarian Australian right to do so. I wish I could believe you think this should apply to corporations, then we could have a Whistleblower Act. Oh, we already do? Then we’re living in Nazi Germany already but we just don’t know it. Very clever of the bastards.<br /><br />Exactly what is wrong with this sort of pro-active policing? Oh I see further down, it’s only pro-active policing when you say it is, and in Rann’s case the Gestapo will be reformed in SA, the state that apart from Tasmania has the best record of progressive law reform in living memory. I suspect Rann believes that we Croweaters are prepared to risk these laws in the knowledge that we still live under the Australian Constitution, for what it’s worth, and if the price we pay in the short term is for all arsonists and criminal bikes to leave SA for friendlier climes (like NSW – proud to be the home of baseball bat wielding heavies enforcing ‘democracy’ in a not so legal way) then we’ll laugh all the way to the bank with the savings in the policing bill.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-620033997567463526.post-19694025719246358442009-06-13T22:32:41.819+10:002009-06-13T22:32:41.819+10:00"Er actually no,..."
As if democracies ..."Er actually no,..."<br /><br />As if democracies don’t already limit civil liberties. Drunk driving, smoking in pubs, freedom to discriminate against (and bash if that’s your fancy) boongs, poofs and women – oh for the good old days when these were high among Australia’s cherished freedoms. At least we can still bash our kids, not like in those nine or ten totalitarian western European democracies that deem this illegal. (Gee, writing sarcastically ala your style is fun – seriously – but I’m not sure it’s an entirely useful way of communicating a message).<br /><br />As I’ve commented before – the Nazis were the criminal gang persecuting the innocents, whereas Rann’s laws persecute criminals and evidentiary psychopaths like arsonists that prey on and threaten damage to innocents. Exactly 180 degrees of difference.<br /><br />Anyway, life is short. As far as I’m concerned that’s strike two on this incorrect analogy. One more and I’ll stop reading your stuff and move on elsewhere for my entertainment.<br /><br />"Rann goes way back to the 1983 Ash Wednesday bushfire in South Australia..."<br /><br />Your presence on that day is supports your arguments how? Oh – you don’t try to explain, just throw this fact in as if having been there means what you are about to say has cred. Apart from coming over all hairy-chested, you sounds like a loon using a personal anecdote to rant against something useful.<br /><br />"So Rann doesn't need rhetoric to remind me of that dodgy time..."<br /><br />Yes, without Rann’s fearmongering we hick SA's would believe bushfires are just luvverly. Except for the recent ones in Victoria that killed nearly 200 people, we love them bushfires over here in SA, as you might recall from your stay here you keep bringing up as if to suggest some sort of expertise on SA. I’ve heard the locals talk about the chickenshit interstater who thought bushfires were a bit scary but I ne’er believed it until now.<br /><br />But seriously, I like the analogy of arsonists being the equivalent of cockroaches, although I think roaches have got a lot of bad press historically and probably don’t cause nearly as much damage as psychopathic firelighters do in Australia. But as we can’t morally take the low-cost way out and cut their throats, (unless there’s enough of them to be a threat that we’d then be legally able to declare war on them and kill them with the zealous efficiency US paratroopers in WW2 used in Europe and the Pacific), then I’m quite happy for government to use its powers to prevent these nutters inflicting harm on us.<br /><br />By the way, I know for a fact that the SA government is considering pysch testing as part of getting a driver’s licence – and if you fail the test you won’t get a licence but you will qualify for help to make you better so that you might be able to get one later – and I’m all for it. God forbid we try and reduce the road toll by doing what we can to keep the most likely worst drivers off the road. Apart from the trauma for crash victims this would be a smart economic decision for a small State to make. I suspect economics is behind the criminal “bikie” laws too, as the SA Govt are at least a bunch of good economic managers, and making these arseholes some other “free” State’s problem is fine by SA. And if all States had these laws then goodbye criminal bikie gangs from Australia. Democracy at work, slowly grinding it’s way forward from the signing of the Magna Carta. What, you want to live in a country that has criminal bike gangs and arsonists roaming at will? Then by all means exercise your legal right to emigrate, no totalitarian Oz govt will stop you. Or you can either stop whining, or start raving like a loon, which would be sad.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com