Sheehan goes from bad to worse

I have previously tut-tutted over a Paul Sheehan opinion column, but his February 1 effort reaches a whole new level of objectionable. I should have passed on reading it, I know that. I should have just let it slide by, knowing that it would just angry up the blood, but still I was drawn in. I guess it’s not really surprising - making bold claims that are derided as idiocy by some and lauded as speaking truth to power by others is how opinion writers earn their keep. Eyeball share is what matters, not thoughtful arguments and considered judgement. Why do you think I get so few visitors to this blog? ;-)

But, since I did read Sheehan’s piece, I find myself compelled to retort. I can’t compare to other, more informed and better written rebuttals (sorry, no link - you’d just read them instead of staying here), but I think I can add a little to the mix.

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Hemp-tastic!

This is a very good development. I hope it presages a seachange in Australia’s attitude towards the incredibly useful (and yet maligned) cannabis plant.

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The Stilwell Manifesto

Those of you who have read my blog for a while might recall I wrote an incomplete critique of Frank Stilwell’s Who Gets What?, a book that analyses income and wealth inequality in Australia. Coincidentally, I’m currently doing a summer school course called Economics as a Social Science, a long-standing core subject in the Political Economy stream, that is coordinated by Stilwell and uses the textbook he wrote, Political Economy: the contest of economic ideas. Read More »

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Those who would give up essential liberty…

Two opinion columns in today’s Sydney Morning Herald, one by Ross Cameron on Vladimir Putin and one by Paul Sheehan on terrorism trials, shared a common theme of minimising the importance of human rights.

Ross Cameron, a conservative Christian former Liberal MP, wrote about Putin’s 10 years of wielding power in one form or another, claiming he is the “finest leader” Russia has had in 300 years. I’d hesitate to call the potted history of Putin’s background and achievements hagiographic, but it comes close. Cameron sees fit to concentrate on Putin’s admittedly impressive economic reforms while ignoring economic mistakes, and glossing over the less salubrious events under his watch. It is only in the last descriptive paragraph that any mention is made of the state of civil rights in Russia, and even then it is in the form of apologia.

Nowhere does Cameron express any misgivings about Putin’s crackdown on democracy (under the traditional despot’s guise of encouraging it), or the brutal practices in Chechnya, or the explosion in corruption at all levels of society. Cameron praised Putin’s commitment to the rule of law, but appears blind to the repeated violations in the media, commerce, and elections. There is no mention of Putin’s pursuit of the original oligarchs, probably because to do so would open up discussion about Putin’s grooming of a new cadre of monopolists, in keeping with his “national champions” ideology.

It strikes me that Putin is basically Havelock Vetinari.

Cameron states that he can’t see why anyone “could regret [Putin's] continued influence in Russia and the world.” In the absence of a counter-factual, you have to weigh up the pros and cons of what happened. Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin has plenty of entries on both sides of the ledger. There is nothing to be gained by closing your eyes to the negatives.

Paul Sheehan, an experienced journalist and author, has a much better piece that is somehow more disturbing. He comes down firmly on the side of exceptionalism in the ongoing debate about how to treat people accused of terrorism, and the wider questions it raises about our legal system, tradition and philosophy.

His core argument is that having a rights-based legal system is a weakness in the fight against crime. I say ‘crime’ and not ‘terrorism’, because although Sheehan is only talking about that particular crime, his argument is a general one. And he’s right - we do hamper our crime-fighting efforts by assuming innocence until proof of guilt, by insisting on reliable evidence, by having equality before the law, by having strict procedural rules. It would be much easier and quicker and more effective to dispense with this historical detritus. We would certainly convict a lot more people.

Of course, such an argument is wrong. There is a reason our venerable legal system has accumulated all these protections - because the consequence of removing them is injustice, plain and simple. Sheehan’s proposal is essentially that terrorists are so outside the criminal norm that our standard responses are inadequate. Clearly he doesn’t see the conceptual danger in this. The first pitfall is the right at the start - what is terrorism? Which acts are going to be defined as crimes that negate normal human rights? Where is the cut-off? Such practical questions highlight the absurdity of classifying some people as worthy of legal protections and others not.

The next, more insidious pitfall would appear at some point in the future, maybe sooner than later - if we can treat accused terrorists like this, why not others? After all, there are many heinous crimes, many that are more damaging to society than most acts of terrorism. I’m typically wary of slippery-slope arguments, but on this occasion I believe stepping back from our absolutist legal doctrines could lead to an unravelling of key freedoms gained over a thousand years of judicial progress. That is a much bigger danger than anything terrorists can inflict.

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Ethical omnivores

Humans are descended from ancient apes, and like them (and modern apes) we are generally omnivorous. But should we still eat meat and animal products? Animal rights activist Katrina Fox doesn’t think so. It is not an easily dismissed idea - after all, just because something is ‘natural’ doesn’t mean it’s good. Yet I remain unconvinced that veganism is the only ethical way to eat.

Fox checks all the boxes on the reasons-not-to-eat-meat list, citing the sentience and higher-level thinking of animals, the lack of a biological necessity for animal foods, the conditions under which animals are farmed, and the ecological cost of animal farming. She also raises a historiographical argument, which I’ll leave until last.

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Censorship is ***** **** *******

Against the odds, Senator Conroy is going ahead with his ill-conceived plan to force mandatory filtering at the ISP level. Despite multiple experts from academia and the industry saying it’s a bad idea, he is going to ignore any dissent and introduce legislation before the next election to bring about an unprecedented level of censorship of the Internet.

To recap the absurdities:

  • It will block websites with ‘refused classification’ material. It can’t do anything about peer-to-peer sharing and chatrooms, where most illegal content resides.
  • Under the guise of protecting social norms, it will actually cover a great deal of material that is merely politically controversial
  • Under the guise of protecting children, it treats all adults like kids
  • It looks worryingly like a play for the social conservative vote, instead of being in the nation’s best interest
  • There are at least a dozen filters available for anyone who’s concerned about their children’s web browsing
  • If it stays as a static list of URLs, then it will be ineffectual. If is expanded in any way, it will generate false positives (Scunthorpe Problem) and affect speed. A trade-off exists, despite Conroy’s handwaving on the matter.
  • It potentially could leave children more at risk, as parents might assume the Internet is now ’safe’

I urge anyone with even a passing interest to contact Senator Conroy - or their local MP, their local ISP, their newspaper - to express concern about this foolish plan. If you want to learn more about it, this site is excellent. And I strongly suggest reading this advice on how to get your voice heard most clearly.

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Poverty and trade revisited

The anniversary of this blog passed by without me realising it. In belated celebration, I’m re-printing the post that started the whole thing below the fold. It’s my attempt to persuade left-wingers that they should support free trade if they are serious about their principles.

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Competition. It works, bitches.*

I’ve long extolled the benefits of companies competing for consumers’ business. According to orthodox economics, it reduces prices, and therefore profits, and thus shifts the division of the economic surplus towards consumers. Competition is generally a Good Thing.

Unless you’re the company being outcompeted, in which case it’s cause to go running to the regulator, hoping that they will stop the big bad bullies doing things better and cheaper than you. Like Paul Uniacke, managing director of Franchise Entertainment Group, which is the franchisor of 750 Video Ezy and Blockbuster stores. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that he has lodged a complaint with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission because supermarkets are offering cheap DVDs when you go above a spending threshold with your groceries.

The ACCC “declined to comment”, but here are five reasons why they should instead have spoken out, and stated that they are in fact in favour of competition and that Uniacke is being a whinging crybaby:

  1. The number of discounted titles is… wait for it… three. Three, out of how many thousands? Granted, they are best-sellers among parents (the target market), but it’s hardly an all-out price war.
  2. You have to buy at least $80 worth of groceries before you get the deal. That’s well below an average family’s weekly food budget, so it’s not onerous if you’re doing that anyway, but it’s not something you’re going to do every day, or every week. Do it once, you have the DVD, the deal isn’t relevant anymore.
  3. How much does this really impact on Video Ezy and Blockbuster’s margins? They have been moving to selling DVDs more than they used to, but their primary business is hiring. They can’t compete on price with big discounters like JB HiFi anyway, they don’t have the requisite business model.
  4. Low prices are not “predatory” like Uniacke claims. If one company can provide something cheaper than another, they have every right to take market share - it benefits many, and impacts negatively on only a few. Predatory pricing is a fallacy, unfortunately codified in law with “anti-dumping” legislation, but that’s a subject for another post.
  5. Why should Video Ezy and Blockbuster have special protection anyway? They don’t even fall into the normal categories that advocates of protectionism say are worthy of special treatment - they’re hardly vital interests or the “commanding heights” of the economy.

In short, the complainers are exaggerating the threat to their business, and even if they weren’t, their woes don’t deserve any consideration from the ACCC. They are essentially asking consumers to subsidise their business, and should be rejected outright.

Ironically, the full cost of the DVD is embedded in the groceries, so people are deluded if they think it’s much of a bargain. It’s not a price war, just smart marketing. Time for Franchise Entertainment Group to stop running to Mummy and instead start thinking creatively about how to run and grow their businesses. If not, good riddance.

* In case anyone takes offence at the title, it’s a reference to this.

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Catch-up

  • The by-elections are done, and in Bradfield, Lucy Gabb of the Liberal Democrats has so far received 516 votes, or 0.8% of the total. I think this is an excellent result for a campaign by an unknown party with no budget putting up a candidate a few weeks before the election. We beat One Nation, which is nice, and got double Andrew Hestelow’s vote. Going by the comments about Hestelow left on my blog, this is a good thing.
  • Turnbull tells it like it is, taking a swipe at Abbott’s “low cost” solution to climate change, and indirectly at Rudd as well (with his desire to mitigate the costs of climate change mitigation and therefore minimise the political cost to himself and the Labor Party). Well done, Malcolm. However, by previously arguing for amendments that increased the giveaways in an effort to reduce the cost of mitigation to polluters, Turnbull is guilty of the same thing. Looks like that blast backfired.
  • I meant to draw attention to this column by Cassandra Wilkinson, but then forgot. Forgive me, I’m getting old. Anyway, I highly recommend it as an excellent piece of writing that is solidly libertarian without once resorting to boilerplate.
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Fred Nile, his logical fallacies and blatant stupidities

While letterboxing for the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in the federal electorate of Bradfield that has a byelection on December 5th, I spied some opposition material in a discarded-junkmail box. Not the Opposition, but the LDP’s opposite, the Christian Democrats (CDP). It was a pseudo-survey, purporting to ask for the views of residents on a variety of issues, but clearly simply pushing CDP talking points in a somewhat bizarre fashion. A scanned copy is below the fold.

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