Bias in academe is real 21 October 2005

EATING in the University of Queensland refectory, surrounded by communist posters and anti-IR reform propaganda and having just finished listening to a lecturer’s anti-Howard/Bush diatribe over global warming, I nearly choked when I read Professor Jan Pakulski’s call for universities to resist ideological takeovers from either side of politics (Letters, 20/10). The closest analogy I can think of is the Vichy government calling for the French to resist foreign occupation in 1944. Left-wing bias is not a conspiracy theory, it is an unchallengeable reality for anyone who has ever set foot on our campuses, or ever attended a lecture given by the sociology/political science faculty, as I have. Does Prof Pakulski care to detail how many Liberal Party voters work in the Arts department at the University of Tasmania? In the US, among registered university faculty members, 90 per cent vote Democrat and 10 per cent Republican, and they offer the same wild warnings of resurgent fascism if conservatives dare to tackle the progressives’ stranglehold on the higher education system. Joshua Avenell (BSc student) University of Queensland

Welcome to the world, Josh.

Shoot to kill is an emotive issue after the UK Police killed an innocent man acting guilty subsequent to the London bombings. Todays Australian lists the arguements

“We are not giving police the right to kill somebody who is escaping preventative detention,” Mr Howard said. “We are merely saying that if there is a risk to somebody else’s life or bodily injury and there is no other way, they can use deadly force.” The Prime Minister said the changes were important in allowing police to be certain about their legal osition.

But state premiers and other critics of John Howard’s draft anti-terror legislation yesterday said the Prime Minister was wrong to say it merely replicated these existing “shoot-to-kill” powers. The debate boils down to whether police will be allowed to use lethal force against individuals who, although not suspected of criminal offences, are still sought for preventative detention under the anti-terror laws.

Law Council president John North said Mr Howard’s laws created “a new class of person” who police would be able to detain without sufficient evidence to charge with an offence.

That is irelevant. It doesn’t matter what the person is being detained for or whether the police have any evidence. What does matter is whether he draws a gun and decide to shoot it out. Let’s face it, ordinary crims have been known to draw weapons and kill police while being questioned over trivial traffic offences. Are terrorists going to act any different? There is a chance they wont. The Australian editorial has some advice… Terrorism, not police powers, is the issue that matters

OPPONENTS of the proposed anti-terror legislation should get a grip, because the debate on how to protect Australia against attack is being lost in hyperbole and hysteria.

….and highlights the ABC’s political stance.

On Wednesday night on ABC TV’s Lateline program, host Tony Jones tried to enlist Steve Bracks and Peter Beattie as opponents of the proposed laws, particularly the possibility of police shooting to kill terror suspects.

Not surprised I note that SBS are screening a “Look how wonderfull and inventive Muslims are” show soon and was reminded of a post by Zoe Brain who linked to a website extolling Islam’s virtues. She headlined the post” The Heyday of Islamic Science Appears to have ended in the 13th Century“. What is SBS’s agenda in this issue? Some balance is fine but Zoe’s comments are relevant. Progress halted in the Middle East when the Mullahs gained supremacy and while they marked time the West advanced. The luvvies who watch SBS and believe everything will walk away from the lounge all imbued with wonder for the Islamic world. I bet that at no time will the show highlight the dearth of science that has troubled the Middle East for several hundred years.

Check this out. Warning…not for the feint hearted…pics of snake eating kangaroo!

I live in a suburb where I was told the streets were named after Pacific islands. I live on Tupia Street and have wondered about the origin of the name for some 30 years. I hate unsolved mysteries as I had never heard of a Tupia Island but it turns out some of the streets are named after Pacific Islanders of note, including mine. I recently won a book on ebay by Alan Moorhead, The Fatal Impact, where he details the impact of Western civilization, in the form of one James Cook amongst others, on the islanders.

As Cook was making his plans for departure from Tahiti he was beseiged by Tahitians who wanted to sail with him and at length he agreed to “take a chief and a priest” named Tupia who would be useful as an interpreter and as a guide on the other islands. Tupia was allowed to bring with him a servant, a boy named Tayeto

Eureka! I have found out the source of the name, I thought. It turned out that the ships crew thought highly of Tayeto and little of Tupia as John Marra, one of the crew, remarks;

Tupia was, he says, ” a man of real genius, a priest of the first order and an excellent artist; he was, however, by no means beloved by the Endeavours crew, being looked upon as proud and austere, extorting homage, which the sailors, who thought themselves degraded by bending to an Indian, where very unwilling to pay; and preferring complaints against them on the most trivial occassion. On the contrary his boy, Tayeto, was the darling of the ships company from the highest to the lowest, being of a mild and docile disposition, ready to do any kind of office for the meanest in the ship, and never complaining but always pleased.”

236 years later I live on a street named Tupia. Maybe I should petition the Brisbane City Council to rename it Tayeta Street. Ahh…the joys of reading and the pleasures and knowledge it brings.

Steve Lewis puts himself firmly in the human rights-activist camp as he suggests we impede the progress of laws that will help protect our citizens. He opens his article with support for Jon Stanhope.

ACT Chief Minister Jon Stanhope should be applauded, not condemned, for publishing a draft of the Howard Government’s anti-terrorism legislation. It is the Government, operating in undue secrecy, that is corrupting the parliamentary process.

Rubbish. ACT Citizens should be glad I’m not Prime Minister. If I were they would all exist in an ignorant state as no way would I ever allow Stanhope access to confidential material. Ever. It’s not that Australians aren’t entitled to be informed – they are. It’s just that a government or even a corporation are entitled to set up planning papers and discuss them internally before arriving at a position that they then submit to public discussion. The fact that all the other Labour State leaders are generally supportive of the issues raised in the discussion paper/draft bill puts Stanhope squarely in the loopy left human rights/activists camp. Lewis goes on;

For heaven’s sake, jail terms of up to seven years can be served on those who advocate causes linked to terror attacks. It is critical they receive more than cursory examination by the Senate.

Why? Jail terms of up to seven years for aiding and abetting the terrorist mass-murderers seems fine to me but he suggests Howard should allow greater Senate procrastination of the kind we had in the previous Government. You recall all the Labour/Democrat/Green ideological based Senate enquiries that only served to hamper progress and act as a Howard bashing base. This country has long needed a law that contains and neutralizes those who would act in support of others killing Australians. During the Vietnam war there were Australians who gave Russia and the North Vietnamese money and moral support that better enabled them to kill Australian soldiers. Who would argue that they shouldn’t have been taken out of circulation? The country and the Senate know by now that we need to take some drastic measures. Our citizens are being slaughtered and we don’t need a Senate enquiry to slow down the implimentation of laws that help stem the flow of blood. Lewis suggests democracy was

… traduced last Thursday as the Government, using its Senate majority, sought to trample the democratic process.

As I understand it the government’s Senate majority was as a result of a general election. The electorate gave the Government a majority so I find some difficulty seeing how the use of that majority tramples democracy. With Australians dying now I want the bill passed now and the system enpowered to act in our interests. If it isn’t passed soon we will have the macabre situation where more Australians are murdered half way through a Senate enquiry – something the bill may have stopped. Let’s get on with it.

Sunshine Coast lawn bowlers have closed ranks to protect an elderly man accused of killing a brown snake during a bowls tournament at the Kawana Waters club last week. Fifty percent of all deaths from snakebite in Australia involve the Brown snake. They have venom which can cause death to humans relatively quickly if left untreated. Brown snakes up to 2.3 metres have been recorded in Australia. Then there is the King Brown….yep, it’s a whole lot worse. I’m with the old guy. How times change. When I was young and on the farm, the arrival of a snake was a bugle call for all the men to gather, hunt it down and kill it. To the best of my memory all snakes in the south west of West Australia were poisonous, but even if they weren’t they were still hunted down. In the small timber and farming community of Pemberton the men reasoned any snake left alive could one day kill a woman or child and they just weren’t taking the risk. Years later I was an NCO instructor at the famous, or infamous (depending on whether you were an instructor or student) Jungle Training Centre at Canungra, Queensland, and when teaching patrolling would stop and kill any snake I came across, including Carpet snakes. I don’t discriminate..if your are long and legless, you’re dead! I recall telling my Captain about a Carpet snake I killed one particular day and he went off his head. Protected species…harmless to humans…I’ll charge you if you do it again. Hmm…city boy, I thought, as somewhat miffed, I hastily departed the scene . The next morning the local Courier Mail, with terrific timing, carried an article about a farmer in Far North Queensland who kept a carpet snake in his barn to keep the mice down. The snake had done such a good job that there were no mice left so he went further afield for food. To the homestead, in fact. The farmer was woken by the screams of his 6 year old son who was stressed out at seeing his leg being swallowed by the ten foot snake. I cut out the article, requested an audience with Captain City Boy, politely placed the evidence for the defence on his desk without comment…saluted smartly and withdrew. My Dad always said never smirk in front of the defeated foe.

Most readers would be aware that I don’t comment often but sometimes restraint dissolves and I feel compelled to throw in my two bobs worth. Bryan Law, Phil Moffat and Micheal De Angelos are the cause of said dissolution of restraint. I responded here and here They should all be hyperventialting by evening but alas, I have to forgo the pleasure and go do some work. I look forward to this evenings late read. UPDATE: Sigh! No one at Margo’s seemed to understand what I was saying. Never mind.

To follow up my thoughts that education is the key to the terrorist problem Maj K has a post on the problems of trying to teach the Iraq military how to soldier.

Iraq is a third world country. While this is not a surprising fact to most people, it seems as if this little fact is lost on too many people with access to microphones. It was a third world country before the 1991 Gulf War. It was a third world country before Saddam was removed from power. It will likely remain that way for some time to come. Evolving out of the “third world” category is not a rapid process. It involves much more than merely economics. It also involves, culture, rule of law and widespread education.

Go read and start to understand some of the problems. Read the comments – there is some wisdom there as well.