Tim Blair

Tim, stop it. Shooting fish in a barrel is cruel.

Hey!! its only hedge politics if the teachings of the Prophet Adams say so.

When the Republic plebiscite was roundly rejected in 1998, it was back on the agenda within ten minutes, with the call that the Australian people were misguided, irrelevant, uninformed, stupid, etc etc.

Bring on the debate.

I am getting pretty goddamned tired of being told that, if I don't agree with these lefties, it's because I'm 'panicked', 'apathetic', 'shell-shocked', or 'fearful'.

UP YOURS ADAMS, YOU FAT FUCK.

Its the classic line - I support having a debate as long as at the end everyone agrees to my side of it.

Sounds like he wants a Cuban system where there is no debate - just firing squads at dawn and long prison sentences for the misguided.

...In a recent poll, politicians across the nation were asked if they favoured the death penalty for terrorism. A grand total of one – an independent with a previous career in the police force – put up his hand...

What kind of polls do you people down under run? Everyone in the whole country gathers somewhere for a show of hands? Seems damned inefficient if you ask me! ;-)

Having a show of hands means no chads.

That the public are stupid is a given of leftist thought.

The real battle is in preventing right-wing authoritarians from leading these frightened sheep in the wrong direction.

Save me please, Phil. I'm alarmed and ready to be coerced into doing something inhumane.

"...In a recent poll, politicians across the nation were asked if they favoured the death penalty for terrorism. A grand total of one – an independent with a previous career in the police force – put up his hand..."

What is Phil trying to imply with linking this poiticians support of the death penalty to being an ex cop?? I dont think he meant it as a compliment.

Surely the point about this is Adams is again producing something out of nothing because of his irrational paranoia about Howard.

I don't think Howard was in any way putting the death penalty on the agenda by his comments about the Amrozi verdict. To my mind he anticipated that there would be calls from the luvvies for him to pressure Indonesia to commute the sentance, and he made the simple pre-emptive statement that we will not interfer in the workings of the Indonesian justice system as it judges one of their own for crimes committed there. Really, that we'll show a bit of cultural sensitivity vis a vis the Indonesians.

But poor Phil is doing his best to make it an issue of public discource because he is so primed to see conspiracies lurking everywhere about Howard. Given what I understand to be the results of community polling on this matter, not polls of politicians, I'd have thought he would have been wiser to shut up and keep quiet.

PK

Another grate Prophet Chomsky, tells us that the quickest way to be saved and be equal in his enlightenment is to get a lobotomy.

Chomsky's politics are off the planet, but his work in linguistics is brilliant. I doubt he could have managed this with a lobotomy.

Prick, in linguistics circles, Chomsky's work is certainly not regarded any more as brilliant, if it ever was. A bit like still being a Leavisite in Eng.Lit. - time has moved on.

Rob, you are correct. "Was" is the word I was searching for. But your "if it ever was" is disingenuous.

Does Chomsky's linguistics skills give people a lobotomy?

Gary won't be needing one either.

this country debates any and everthing forever and ever and ever ....

"This in a country where a quiet consensus across all parties was reached decades ago – not to commit official murder."

What was consented to, that one can rape, torture, mutilate and kill as many people as they want and still, they are assured a comfy prison to gloat over their crimes.

I mean, who consented to Ivan Milat not to be given the death penalty?

Did any of you?

Phil didn't have time to check his facts due to his rigorous campaign fighting capital punishment in China, Pakistan, Cuba, ....

Book me on for that "comfy prison" tour.

More doublethink from the right. The Australian people debated war in Iraq and didn't want to be involved. But we did get involved. Conservatives trumpet the popular support for Asylum-Seeker policy whilst trying to force through unpopular cross-media law changes. So when should people lead and when should they be led? Obviously it varies to suit your ideological convenience. I look forward to the campaign to bring back witch-burning.

What you all do not understand is that when Philip Adams and his ilk talk of "free speech", it is really only the freedom to speak about certain issues (and never ever others).

Just who decides what topics we can have a "vigorous debate" and a "testing of ideas" on is much too difficult a task to trust to us ordinary folk.

From time to time, the intellectual elite such as the multi-millionaire socialist Philip adams will decide for us and will then apply the normal rules of politicl correctness and doctrinaire anti-Americanism which must form part of such a debate.

Yeah, but it's perfectly true that John Howard, who is personally opposed to the death penalty and is not actually going to do anything in response to whatever "debate" ensues, has only decided to raise this because he sees it as a wedge issue.

It's fair to point that out.

However, as usual, dumb fucks like Adams keep kicking the tar baby, producing precisely the effect that Howard is looking for. You'd think that they would learn just to roll their eyes, instead of treating every cheap little stunt that he pulls as an outrage.

Why can't they see that it only works because of, and not in spite of they way they react?

Ross Lightfoot supports the death penalty? Whoop-de-do. Still, at least he's up front about it. If Howard wants a debate, why doesn't he advocate something, pro or con?

If Howard wants a debate, why doesn't he advocate something, pro or con?

Robert: were it anyone else, I'd accuse you of being wilfully obtuse.

I'm guessing that in a similar was to his weaseling out on the censorship question, Tim won't be enlightening us on whether or not he supports the death penalty.

I'm guessing that in a similar was to his weaseling out on the censorship question, Tim won't be enlightening us on whether or not he supports the death penalty.

That's because he's already enlightened us in previous posts that he supports it, at least with it being used against the Bali terrorists.

Oh, and he eventually stated that he wasn't in support of Ken Park being banned.

Look - for the benefit of international readers, the Prime Minister of Australia has NOT re-opened, is NOT re-opening and will NOT re-open, any "debate" about having tyhe death penalty in this country.

That his comments about why he will not interfere or seek to lecture the Indonesians about their justice system cannot be interpreted by any reasonable person in that way.

This is just another Lard Bard fantasy. IIRC, I saw a report in The Australian that certain members of the ALP federal caucus also raised their fears about this in a recent meeting.

So some political players on the far left are blinded by their own prejudices about John Howard and his government and are falling victim to their own fantasies - again. What's new?

What is it with this constant refrain on the left?

...many Australians are taut with anxiety, fraught with fear.

Ohhhh, the cute widdle Australian people are scared! The nasty man's been frightening them. Come here, little snookums, let Uncle Phil protect you.

But seriously, I'm returning to visit Australia over Christmas. What should I expect? If I attempt to talk to an ordinary Australian, will she rear up in panic and try to bite me? Because all I hear from Phil and Hugh and She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is that Australians are skittish and fragile beings. Which, uh, is not exactly my recollection.

Strange how Phil and his ilk are shocked at the prospect of death sentences for terrorists who massacre innocent defenceless people and try to subvert democracy through armed blackmail.

Yet they support capital punishment of office workers for working in an American skyscraper, or of tourists for being white, or of Jews for living in the Jewish homeland, often cheering and excusing these atrocities at taxpayer's expense. No trial, not even before a military tribunal. No legal representation, no right of appeal. Just the premeditated mass execution of innocent, defenceless civilians and the maiming and mutilation of many more in cold blood.

Burn, you vermin.

I'm all for bringing back witch-burning if we start with that stupid slapper from "Def FX".

If any person, anywhere

(a) has a daughter
and
(b) knows the details of the Bega murders,

then he or she will be in favour of the death penalty.

End of story, goodnight, don't even argue, finito.

Fiona Horne. I've provided the witch, who's providing the mob with burning torches?
(And while we're at it, I'm sure that Bert Newton is her familiar, so pitch him on the pyre as well).

I light up Salem regularly.

I would only support witch-burning if it were proven that she floats like duck.

And weighs the same as a duck; maybe one of the ones bonded with the bitumen at St. Lucia.
To make it even, we would have to let the duck-crusher run Fiona over with a bus.
Let's see some wicca re-animate the daft cow after that. Have you ever noticed cars with a "Magic Happens" or like decal are invariably battered old heaps of shit running on 3 cylinders?
It obviously doesn't happen enough to change plugs and advance timing, let alone fix some panels.

Nice one habib! where i live all the losers have "magic happens" or "remember to breathe" or "the goddess is dancing" stickers on their crappy 80's volvos/citoens/and other assorted piles of french mechanical mobile shit. That's why me and a mate have made up some other stickers for our cars that say "remember to backburn!" and "the goddess is dancing! (on my knob!)".

Like a Volvo is French.

Hit a nerve did i p00p? I'm actually a mechanic who WORKS (unlike yourself) for a living and i consider myself GENUINE working class as opposed to people like YOU who are middle class LEFTIES with working class aspirations. get bent pencilneck!

Ooops, sorry p00p, i may have been a bit harsh there. Do you own a 144 or 244 volvo?

It must be so galling for Adams, et.al that Howard plays with them as a cat does with a mouse. These people know doubt thought that in their 60s, they would kingmakers and opinion leaders. Instead they are just tragic.