Pixelated Semantics

You can say anything I want

It's been a difficult day for "free speech". A Canadian politican has an "unacceptably" direct turn of phrase: "coalition of the idiots" - in reference to plans for the "Son of Star Wars" missile defense shield that Man of Steel has signed Australians up for, no doubt again following the fearless honesty of his advisors. The Canadian Prime Minister however doesn't like the term "idiots": "you're going to get very strongly held views but let me tell you those strongly held views have got to be expressed in language that is acceptable." Although "acceptability" is an extremely elastic term, a top spokeswoman for former PM Chretien had to resign in 2002 for calling GW a "moron". The Americans also have another language problem - translation at the kangaroo courts they call "fair hearings" for the Gitmo internees. It has been observed there are glaring deficiences in the rendering of Tribunal questions and answers, which in this case will have life or death outcomes. As an Al-Jazeera writer puts it "the questions have a completely different meaning and consequence for the detainee". And Man of Steel has another "ethical problem", which is a polite way of highlighting his apparent exploitation of the exemption in the Government's Spam Act 2003 for political parties - by paying the Liberal Party to pay his own son to send unsolicited emails supporting Howards' re-election campaign. Nepotism and hypocrisy are just two terms that spring to mind, but again the "ethical" question is raised and again JW's credibility is tested. The 2003 SPAM Act made it illegal for commercial operators to send unsolicited emails - unless they're patronised by the PM it seems. But it doesn't stop there - the Attorney-General recently sought to extend anti-defamation laws to cover the dead, (reputedly driven by a personal "crusade" to restore the name of his Father, an MP who described as a "dud dropper", which is old slang for "a dealer in sub-standard goods", though this is a journalist's speculation.) One key argument against it is that the proposal will inhibit contemporary historical writing. Ruddock's paper has it that when the Law Reform Commission floated this idea 25 years ago, reaction was sought from historians, and the commission reported that "reaction to the proposal was favourable. In particular there has been no objection from anyone concerned with historical or biographical writing" - which was difficult enough to accept then, but while Howard is lambasting the ALP for looking to the past for its campaign over his ethics, it is apparently fine for a dubious proposal from a quarter of a century ago to be used to support serious consideration of a current issue. And the A-G certainly seems to be a man who knows the chilling effects of even threatened defamation proceedings: when he was the subject of a Senate investigation into links between Liberal Party donations and the minister's discretion to grant visas, Ruddock apparently responded to a journalist's question by stating "I think anyone who writes about it is clearly leaving themselves open for a defamation action". This "uniform code" is contrary to current social beliefs, more restrictive than any existing laws and looks backwards for its impact assessment, while the SPAM laws are clearly being white-anted to suit the PM, and yet we are to believe this is an honest government that is concerned for the future. It's time to call a "coalition of idiots" a "parliament".

Item posted by AutoEditor at 10:18 am ::