Club Troppo

As we celebrate the Fall of the Wall 20 years ago we should remember the  effort that was put in by the friends of freedom in the West during the Cold War. I am thinking of the  worldwide network of groups which resisted the propaganda efforts of the communists and their fellow travellers. This was an uneasy alliance at times, involving a coalition of social democrats, social conservatives, classical liberals and others. Not surprisingly, the alliance did not long survive the Fall of the Wall. Robert Manne, who earned our gratitude for his principled stand on communism did not maintain alliance with the free traders, for example.

Quadrant magazine was the Australian organ of his effort, initially under the editorship of James McAuley. The early issues make interesting reading, especially for those of us who came to it years after when we had been told that it was a magazine of unbridled rightwing prejudice. For the most part, excepting a fiery editorial and mission statement  from McAuley it was nothing of the kind. It hosted a wide range of opinions which were expressed with the utmost civility. This is Peter Coleman’s account of the McAuley Quadrants.

The first issue was far more literary than some of McAuley’s polemics had suggested it might be. He would not allow Quadrant, he had announced, “to exemplify that ideal of a completely colourless, odourless, tasteless, inert and neutral mind on all fundamental issues which some people mistake for liberalism.”  The first issue had poems by Rosemary Dobson, Judith Wright. A.D.Hope, Vincent Buckley and Roland Robinson. (They all were metrical and rhymed.) There were articles by Hope, Alan Villiers, George Molnar, and George Kardoss.  There were reviews of Patrick White, David Campbell and Judith Wright. 

The friends of communism had a windfall when it was found that the CIA contributed funds to the freedom movement, including Quadrant. As if this invalidated a single word that was printed in the magazine. The knockers of Quadrant have yet to understand or admit that in the Cold War the friends of Quadrant were on the correct side and the communists and fellow travellers were not.

Rest in honourable peace, James McAuley, Richard Krygier and other helpers.

Interesting development!

Last week a UK High Court gave the green light for a green activist to sue his employer, who had sacked him for refusing to do an errand because it conflicted with his green beliefs. For intellectual ballast, the judge quoted no less or, should I say, no more? than Bertrand Russells A History of Western Philosophy, a work whose authoritativeness matches that of Bill Brysons A Short History of Everything in the history of science discipline. But thats not really my point.

My point is to draw attention to the five criteria that the judge offered to expand the definition of religious discrimination that may be invoked by others in the future in similar cases:

The belief must be genuinely held.

It must be a belief and not an opinion or view based on the present state of information available.

It must be a belief as to a weighty and substantial aspect of human life.

It must attain a certain level of cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance.

It must be worthy of respect in a democratic society, not incompatible with human dignity and not conflict with the fundamental rights of others.

Humanism was given as an example meeting the criteria, while belief in a political party or the supreme nature of Jedi knights, from the Star Wars movies, were offered as ones that do not.

The general response to this ruling has been positive, with some lawyers seeing it as opening the door to the re-classification of stances like feminism, humanism and vegetarianism as protected religious beliefs. Even New Atheism might count!

George Soros picked up the idea of  the open society from Karl Popper at the London School of  Economics and he spent a great deal of money promoting the idea through Open Society Institutes in Eastern Europe.

Lately he has moved on to target market fundamantalism as the great threat to human welfare and he is backing this with real money to set up another Institute to address the  issue. This is  the text of one of his talks in a recent series delivered in Budapest.

I define market fundamentalism as the undue extension of market values to other spheres of social life, notably politics. Economic theory claims that in conditions of general equilibrium, the invisible hand assures the optimum allocation of resources. This means that people pursuing their self-interest are indirectly also serving the public interest. It gives self-interest and the profit motive a moral imprimatur which allows them to replace virtues like honesty, integrity, and concern for others.

I have got a problem with the way that so-called market fundamentalism is depicted by critics like Soros and Kevin Rudd. I think they have not laid a glove on classical liberalism which includes a moral framework and a legal framework as well to limit the damage that people may do if they have no regard to the consequences of their actions.

As for the decline of  public morality which Soros attributes to the rise of market fundamantalism, this can just we well be attributed to the rise of Big Government, plus  the kind of conservatism that Hayek deplored in his famous  piece “Why I am not a conservative”, add the welfare state mentality (and the unhelpful concept of social justice) and the activities of the radical adversary culture.

The chances of the forthcoming UN Climate Change Conference actually reaching a workable global agreement to reduce greenhouse emissions sufficiently to make a major impact on warming are remote.

In an article at Online Opinion, three academics from the Centre for Global Studies at the University of Victoria in Canada succinctly explain the main reason for the likely ongoing impasse and canvass a possible solution.  Heap, Carin and Smith put the reason for the problem like this:

The nub of the problem is easy enough to state. Developing countries are totally unwilling to accept greenhouse gas caps unless developed countries pay for the impact this would have. The southern view is that developed countries caused the problem in the first place, and they must pay for solving it. Developing countries refuse to cripple their own economic development and thereby hamstring their efforts to reduce grinding poverty simply to pull developed countries irons out of the fire.

At the same time, if developed countries are to act to meet the conditions laid down by developing countries for participating in a climate change deal, significant impacts will be felt in Western economies which remain fragile in the wake of the recent financial crisis. Lifestyle changes would need to be contemplated at a time when western electorates feel especially vulnerable. And even if developed country leaders make major concessions, the level of mutual distrust is such that developing country leaders will be hard-pressed for domestic political reasons of their own to come on board.

In fact the developing countries’ position doesn’t stand up to critical analysis, as my Troppo colleague Nicholas Gruen has pointed out before.  Developing countries already profit enormously from the industry and application of the developed West, because they can “piggyback” on the technological innovations it took centuries to invent and perfect, and sell their products and services into prosperous developed international markets that would not otherwise exist.  It’s for these reasons that countries like China and India are managing to pursue explosive economic growth trajectories rather than taking hundreds of years as the West did.  It isn’t unreasonable for the developed nations to insist that the developing world pulls its weight in reducing greenhouse emissions.

(Continued)

Based on current feedback, I’d say paying a lawyer to talk about software patents at this point would be like setting money on fire.

– Ryan Gordon

For a bit of commentary, explanation and another very different closeup of the crystalline surface, click here.  

With Rudd Labor’s sudden slump in opinion polls this morning, I can’t help saying “I told you so” (in my recent post about asylum seeker policy):

Indonesia is doing all that it can to stem the flow, but with partial success at best.  It is unlikely that action by Indonesia alone, even with Australian help, will be enough to slow the continuing increase.  Rudd will need to take decisive action, just as the Hawke government did in 1990 and Howard/Ruddock in 2001.  Exactly what policies will be needed remains to be seen, but mere tough rhetoric and crossing our fingers that Indonesia will somehow manage the situation are unlikely to suffice.  Rudd is fooling himself if he imagines that immigration and refugee questions arent every bit as powerful, divisive and potentially vote-changing issues as in the recent past.

Of course the Newspoll might just be a “rogue”, or the asylum seeker issue might not be the predominant cause of the sudden reverse for Labor.  However Rudd’s seemingly ineffectual handling of the Mexican standoff with Sri Lankan Tamils on board the Australian customs vessel Oceanic Viking (and the asylum seeker issue more broadly) is the only obvious evident change in the Australian political landscape over the last few weeks, so it’s a reasonable guess that it’s a key factor.

No doubt many left-leaning pundits will either ignore this uncomfortable fact of public opinion, or dismiss it as the untutored response of the prejudiced Bogan masses, exhibiting the same ignorant lynch mob mentality so charmingly portrayed on last night’s Four Corners in relation to serial paedophile Deniis Ferguson.  However, on this occasion popular response and sound policy may just coincide.

Perhaps the Left needs to start grappling seriously with the proposition that John Howard’s infamous “we will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come” line was on the money in a policy as well as populist sense.  Australia is clearly facing an imminent and ongoing asylum seeker “pipeline” of at least 10,000 irregular boat arrival asylum seekers per year.  Moreover, with refugee numbers worldwide estimated at 24 million, we may eventually face the prospect of even larger numbers if the current flow isn’t stemmed.

(Continued)

Jon Skeet explains that human complexity is one of the causes of software complexity. Everything you might think is simple — numbers, letters and dates — is actually devilishly tricky.

Last year I wrote on this blog

Meet Nikita McBride.  Shes the daughter of friends of mine Ken McBryde and Stephanie Smith who are the co-founders of the wonderful architecture firm Innovarchi.  Nikita has recently been diagnosed with juvenile diabetes type 1.  In January 2009 shes participating in the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation Bike Ride to Cure Type 1 Diabetes. I received an email from Stephanie directing me to this website where you can keep an eye on her participation and help out with a donation if youd like.

And January 2010 is coming around. Here’s Nikita and her sister Bianca’s websites for this year and I’ve jumped in and made a donation.

Hello, My name is Nikita, and I got diagnosed with type 1 diabetes on the 8th October 2008. On 19/10/09 (my b-day!) i will have done at least 1,504 injections (4 per day) and 2,256 finger pricks (6 per day)!!! Three days after being diagnosed i did the 3km Walk to Cure diabetes out at Olympic Park, and loved it. In January this year I did the 2009 Ride for a Cure. Last time you all helped me to raise $12,500 and I rode a total of 40 kms. I am really excited that JDRF are funding research that is really close to finding a cure for people. Some of the important research achievements in the last year were: Researchers at the Garvan Institute in Sydney found a potential vaccine for type 1 diabetes A JDRF industry partner is now commercialising a new drug designed to reverse the autoimmune process that causes type 1 diabetes Researchers found that two common cancer drugs can block & reverse type 1 diabetes in mice. Stupid mice! what ever happened to curing people?! In January 2010 I’m going to do the ride again with my mum Stephanie and my sister Bianca. So please help me again and press the donate button at the bottom of the screen, not just to help me, but to help every one of those other five kids that get diagnosed each day. thanks!! Love NIKITA :-) /) /) ( -.-  ) c( _ _ )

Please feel free to jump in yourselves.  As Jacques commented last year “Donated. A very simple process I must say.”