Nice try. However, even leaving aside that you failed to substantiate your non-sequitur claim or demonstrate how it undermines the validity of the hypothetical I posed,

How about you and all your little friends stick a cork in it and stop pretending you actually care about right and wrong.

At the risk of spoiling that beautiful bi-partisan atmosphere…. Anything which can make all these pompous, hair-splitting, self-satisfied, self-centred right-wing fat-heads puke so much must be doing something right.

Did anybody see Wilson Tuckey on the TV? He was practically crying with rage. It was absolutely hilarious.

It’s purely a apology from the government to an aggrieved people based on the fact that the government had previously mistreated those people. The fact that the individuals that make up the government are different is not relevant.

Basically, the apology has nothing to do with you.

Now, if by sorry we mean that we regret that they undertook those actions, there is no problem here; but the sorry campaigners keep using the term in the apology sense, not the regret sense. They are therefore demanding that statements that the people of today cannot legitimately make, any more than the PM of 2060 could legitimately “apologise” for the speech Kevin Rudd will make tommorrow.

In the post you linked, you asserted that:

It’s also reasonable in cases of systematic mistreatment of a minority to apologise on behalf of a nation, if a broader set of institutions (rather than merely the central apparatus of government) were involved, and if the citizens in general approved or behaved as if they approved.

Well, what you asserted is actually part of what’s at issue, isn’t it? It is really reasonable? For exammple, would it be reasonable for the PM of 2060 to make the “apology” I set out in my hypothetical? Or would it only be reasonable for him to say something along the lines of: “By 2060′s standards, what Kevin Rudd did in 2007 was mushy-headed and wrong, as we regret that he did it and the subsequent harm it caused.” I strongly suggest to you that only the latter would be a legitimate statement for our future PM to make.

Bruce

You should also read Andrew Bartlett’s post.

I don’t know what you mean by ‘mushy’. Since you’ve used it twice, you must be under the impression that it’s a killer put-down, but it really just illustrates the very point I was making.

As a nation we made a mistake that was based on a view of a race of people that is today abhorrent. In the context of the times this was a reasonable view supported by academics and governments. It was wrong and people were badly hurt. Surely we have the grace, as a nation, to say sorry.

First of all, who is this “we” being spoken of? Certainly not me or my age peers: indeed, me and my age peers had absolutely no hand in the ‘mistake’, whether as part of a nation or individually.

The truth is that, if one accepts the notion of ‘nation’, it was the people at the time of the mistake that made that mistake. They can apologise if they feel it is warranted, or people today can argue that they should apologise or that what they did was wrong, but people today cannot legitimately apologise for the (mis)deeds of others, any more than people today can legitimately claim the credit for the good deeds done earlier by others.

Second, consider David’s view that what wa done in the context of the times was “reasonable”. If one really believes this, then the idea that even the people who made the ‘mistake’ should apologise is, at a minimum, very contestable.

To see this, consider the hypothetical situation of 50 years hence in which the people of that time have overcome today’s currently fashionable political correctness in relation to differences in race and see that the “sorry business” of these years was wrong-headed and had led to a failure to address – and correct – the true causes of aboriginal disadvantage. Imagine in that situation that, even though what we are doing today is seen to be right by the standards of today, it is seen then to be very wrong, and so the PM in 2060 issues an apology for what we today are doing. Would that be reasonable? Would we think that that future PM would have a right to apologise on our behalves? Not a chance.

I agree with Jacques’ position as well. I’m glad its over with.

I don’t think it really exposes us to a skerrick of liability. First, we have a vastly more sensible judiciary than Canada, secondly, we haven’t actually signed any agreement etc, thirdly, our Government can simply legislative its liability away if the courts do turn Canadian.

$5.95 cleanskin from Liquorland
2006
Merlot
South Eastern Australia

I should have got 2.

SATP theres a very big gap between the standard of evidence and things not actually being true. Apart from anything else, this is neither a court nor a trial were talking about.

Good grief, can this creature actually vote? How can so many people graduate from university with such low level critical reading skills? Bringing Them home is a scandalous and largely mendacious work of ethical transgression, misrepresentations of facts and law, lies, and fantasy.

Clearly , there is a useful idiot born every minute.

An historic day in Parliament too, with the first ever Welcome to Country, it could be said that ignoring this custom, (before today), we weren’t exactly. One too, that (oh how I loathe this expression, JWH I’m lookin at you), sends a clear message to the rest of the world about a more sincere attempt to be on a much better footing with traditional land ‘owners’ by recognising them as such. Its only taken a couple of hundred years, but its a start.

That Elder is just one of the tribes who are fighting between them to find out which is the one who owns the Government House land

Privatise the land which Government House is built on? What a wonderful idea!

Never seen a Royal visit before, Phil?

..Provided it does not lead to a bunch of compensation claims which leads to people feeling bad about themselves and each other. Ken or Helen could perhpas clarify the extent to which saying sorry leaves the feds open to litigation. I recall hearing (on the ABC) that the word sorry, at least in some contexts, is treated as admission of guilt. When one wants to apologise without legal prejudice, the convention is to use the word “regret”. It can’t be that simple though, since the states have all said sorry.

Good to know they in a smelly minority that only deserves contempt.

‘Bringing Them Home’ allowed a lot of people to get their story on the record. It wasn’t evidence. But there is evidence. It sits quietly on files in the Australian and various archives.

As a nation we made a mistake that was based on a view of a race of people that is today abhorrent. In the context of the times this was a reasonable view supported by academics and governments. It was wrong and people were badly hurt. Surely we have the grace, as a nation, to say sorry.