The Case Against Death

I've blogged before about how much of a prat Michael Laws is. And he really is a complete and total failure of an individual, a poisonous blight on New Zealand's journalistic traditions. In New Zealand's marketplace of ideas, he's the deep fried Cicada in our McDonald's french fries, turning the already putrid stinking remains of the discredited carcass that is right-wing populism into a monstrosity of bigoted psycho-babble that is morally repugnant to all but the most bigoted echelons of New Zealand 'society'. By comparison, Travis the Chimpanzee is an eloquent, principled and reasoned individual. I'm always disgusted that apparently rational, right-thinking people gave him a newspaper column, a talkback radio show and err...the mayoralty of Whanganui. But there is some good to come from the columns of the Whanganui Whanker, in that just when I think that he has hit rock bottom, he comes up with a way of smashing his way to new, previously unplumbed depths. Recently however, he may have come up with his 'Mona Lisa'.

It's called, 'So this is Justice', and it follows much of Laws's traditional formulae. (A spoonful of assertion of the inherent violence within Maoridom, stirred with 2 cups of advocating for forced sterlisation, with a pinch of 'all criminals were born evil and brown' for seasoning.) But this particular display of self-righteous petulance had an extra-special sweetener, in the form of Laws's new shibboleth, advocating the return of the death penalty (or in his words 'the ultimate retribution'). And what were his arguments in favour of the courts (and presumably juries) having the right to end lives? There were twofold, 1) THAT it's what the public wants, and 2) It's justice on the cheap. Both these arguments are laughable, but that shouldn't detract from their repugnance.

With response to his first argument,lets assume that the people really do overwhelmingly support the reintroduction of the death penalty. Although we should be no means accept this as true, Laws bases his evidence on the fact many people have rung up and expressed this view on his talkback radio show. While talkback radio is the last refuge of the lonely, bigoted and stupid, 'an eye for an eye' remains an instinctively understandable response to a gruesome and wanton destruction of an innocent person's life. But regardless of the level of popular support, populist appeals to the wisdom of the voting masses, aka 'The 'people' want it, so lets give it to them' is never a good basis by which to conduct policy. Of course, in any good system of governance the general will of the public should be a highly relevant factor, but the general whims of a populace that at most will have a read of couple of newspaper articles on an issue should never become the overriding consideration. Governments have a duty to create a case for a policy based on both political philosophy (what ought to be done) and a pragmatic assessment of the socio-economic conditions (what can be done), not enact the tyranny of the majority. Just because everyone thinks something is good, it doesn't neccessarily entail that that thing is good.

Laws's defence of the death penalty as the most fiscally prudent approach is not only bizzarre, its truly cuntactular. He's actually talking about ending someone's fucking life with the same matter of fact attitude delivered by people who think government ownership of rail networks is financially improper. Sure, the prison system may cost a tonne of money for a system of punishment that creates more redictivist offenders than it does morally-upright candidates for sainthood, but surely that's an argument against incarceration in favour of more rehabilitive approaches to justice, not an argument for the electric chair. We're talking about the right to life here, it transcends fiscal boundaries. An attempt to take away the right to life from anyone requires a better argument than 'it's cheap'. (As an aside, the endless appeals that would be required under a system of capital punishment would in all probability balloon the cost of the justice system, beyond that which currently exists)

In order to justify the reintroduction of the death penalty, Laws (or the 'Sensible' Sentencing Trust) has to justify why the state should be the ultimate arbiter of who deserves to live, and who deserves to die. And that, to my mind, is an insurmountable obstacle. We expect that the state should keep us safe, but the right to life is inviolate, and an appeal to the safety of the greater good cannot be a justification for the killing of the few in any liberal democracy. Neither, should the state be prepared to slake a public thirst for 'vengeance'. It is one of the great shames of our time that a rehabilitive approach to justice has been wholly abandoned in a favour of an all-out emphasis on the punitive aspects. ( I blame Dukkakis) This creates nothing beyond a sadistic watercooler-discussion of how long was 'criminal X's sentence'. The state should ensure that the mentally ill criminal recieves adequate treatment, and that there is an attempt to rehabiliate the sociopath, not just 'be seen to be doing justice' by locking that sociopath away and forgetting about them. Finally, pro-deather's should be prepared to defend their systems of capital punishment as foolproof. Any justice system places a high burden on the prosecution to ensure that innocent people are not deprived of any rights. However, errors remain and innocent people have been (wrongly) found guilty and (wrongly) deprived of their liberty. But it is a different and dangerous ball-game to wrongly deprive people of their life. Again this is an insurmountable obstactle, as a foolproof system is impossible.

There can be no case for the death penalty in a liberal democracy. In reaching this conclusion, I have no doubt that Laws (unto) himself would deride me as 'swingeing namby-pamby PC homo' who just 'doesn't get it'. And maybe I don't get it. Maybe I am putting too much faith in the powers of restorative justice. But I'd rather be an idealist than a murderer.

Alex

(Just realised when I finished writing this, that this was our 50th post. Yey, go us.)

Bowling for Zimbabwe

If they were to hand out an Oscar for 'Worst Hell on Earth', Zimbabwe would surely be an unbeatable favourite to take the title. A crippling inflation rate in the billions has ensured every Zimbabwean is a 'Slumdog Millionaire', while a disastrous cholera epidemic has ensured the average life span in Zimbabwe is less than the running time of 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button'. Years of political degradation on an unfathomable scale by Robert Mugabe, former hero of Zimbabwe's war for independance, have led to a phantom state where civil society has virtually ceased to exist. Worse, attempts by Zimbabweans to vote Mugabe's ZANU-PF party out of office last year in favour of Morgan Tsangavirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), plunged the country to new horrific depths as ZANU-PF supporters raped and killed supporters of the MDC until Tsangavirai was forced to pull out of a run-off election. (A far better explanation, and comprehensive news updates can be found here. A rather desperate and comprehensive attempt at propaganda can be found here. ) Following on from Paul D's last (and excellent) post on the comparative crappiness of people's lives,its hard for me, a decadent New Zealander whose greatest worry for the day will be trying to remove a large raspberry cordial-induced stain from his favourite (pink) polo shirt, to even imagine the scale of Zimbabwe's suffering, and to be perfectly honest I'm quite pleased to be as far away from Harare as possible. But the Black Caps, New Zealand's cricket team, are due to tour Zimbabwe in August this year. And quite controversially, I think they should.

For a good, logical argument against the tour to Zimbabwe, the NZ Herald wrote a brilliant editorial. (For a bunch of nonsensical rubbish that makes this blog look like The Economist, check here.) But with respect to the Herald, their basic position can be summed up as 'Governments on principle should not interfere with private sporting bodies freedom to decide who, where and when to play BUT in this situation, anything less than a legislative ban on sporting teams playing Zimbabwe would be an endorsement of Mugabe's flouting of democratic principles.' That's wrong on both counts. Of course Government should intervene when a sporting body, or indeed any private body that claims, in its business affairs to represent New Zealand, begins relations with a body that is anathema to all that New Zealand stands for, and to have that relationship associated with brand New Zealand would severly undermine New Zealand's stance on an issue in the world. In the 1980's the Government should have refused to let New Zealand tour South Africa, or South Africa tour New Zealand, on the grounds that the policy of apartheid to was abhorrent to the ideals held by New Zealanders.

But Zimbabwe today is not the South Africa of yesteryear. In apartheid South Africa, coloured peoples were denied selection from sporting teams on the basis of their colour. An All Black test with South Africa, therefore became an implicit endorsement of an apartheid policy - sorta like saying ' We are aware that your selection policies, which stem from policies of your government unfairly discriminate on the basis of race, however we do not care, we shall play sport with you anyway.' (In the 1960's New Zealand was so keen for some racial sporting action that they agreed not to take Maori's over to South Africa with them.). But in Zimbabwe the situation is more akin to a team that just wants to play cricket, while the goverment stampedes over every conception of human rights in that team's wretched, wretched country. Mugabe's government does not ask for Zimbabwean cricket to practice any flagrant violations of human rights and democratic principles, circa South Africa.The people of Zimbabwe do not even support these human rights abuses, as was the case in South Africa where hard-line apartheid government were endorsed by the white minority in election after election. Zimbabweans attempted to vote Mugabe out, and were subjected to a horrific bout of violence and bloodshed. Mugabe retains the Zimbabwean presidency against the will of the Zimbabwean people.

These cricketers are just like any other legitimate business that has been caught up in one of the greatest humanitarian catastrofucks of our time, and shares no culpability for that mess. Zimbabwe is not akin to 1980's South Africa, it is more akin to modern day North Korea, or Fiji - countries that have been subjected to an anti-democratic takeover by despots of varying shades of wankiness. New Zealand has recently hosted international sporting tournaments where both North Korea and Fiji were in attendance, and the goverment stayed silent. Hell, the most consistent cricket team to New Zealand this decade has been the Sri Lankans, and their goverment is faced with mounting criticism over its heavy handed persecution of Tamil civilians in that country's bloody civil war. Furthermore, Zimbabwe has in recent days, made fragile gains toward a return to democracy that would be unfathomable in Kim Jong-Il's Korea. It is too soon to say whether the 'unity' government concocted last week between ZANU-PF and the MDC can bring Zimbabwe back to at least a shadow of her former glory, but signs are encouraging - such as the appointment of Tendai Biti to Minister of Finance, replacing Gideon Gono, a man whose only plan to curb inflation was to 'print more money'. But at the very least, democratic leaders around the world should applaud their efforts to try, not castigate them as pariahs.

The Black Caps should not play in front of Robert Mugabe, and it would be entirely appropriate for the players, and those who control the game in New Zealand, to issue strong criticisms of the ZANU- PF party, and try and attract attention to just how pitiful the life of the ordinary Zimbabwean has become. But to ban, by statutory law, a cricket tour to Zimbabwe would not be consistent with New Zealand's approach to 'sporting tours to countries that suck on the rights front'. Rather it would be a radical departure from principle. Furthermore, it would be a punishment not to Mugabe but to Zimbabwe cricket and the people of Zimbabwe, and would be a slap in the face to those in the Movement for Democratic Change that must constantly walk a tightrope between a ZANU-PF party that is willing to gun down its own citizens to remain in power and an international community that shuns and abhors any suggestion that ZANU-PF may be allowed to remain in power after clearly losing the election.

John Key, New Zealand's Prime Minister, recently stated that he was thinking of banning the tour with regards to 'health reasons', presumably the rampant cholera epidemic put players lives at risk. This was a pathetic fudge from a man who likes to say he can't remember if he was for or against the 1981 Springbok tour (yeah right John - this was a tour that generated such huge protests the army was ordered to fire on protestors if they got too close, and the final rugby test is remembered for Gary Knight, the All Black prop, being knocked to the ground by a bag of flour that had been dropped from a low flying aircraft). It's not about cholera, the Black Caps would not be spending their soujourn to Zimbabwe ekeing out a meager existence in cholera-friendly conditions like the vast majority of Zimbaweans. It's about whether the New Zealand government should be holding Prosper Utesya (Zimbawean captain, and one of the worst players ever to grace the game, check out his awful stats.) as a proxy for the sins of Mugabe. No, they shouldn't.

Alex.

The Comparatively Crapiness of Your Life

"Today, my girlfriend dumped me proclaiming she wanted someone more like her "Edward". I asked her who Edward was. She held up a copy her "Twilight" book. She was talking about a fictional vampire. FML" (Noname, #9321, fmylife.com)

The quote above came from this real interesting website that lists 1-line anecdotes from people all over the world. These lil stories summarize some of the worst things that happen to them. While reading through them I laughed at some, sympathized at others, and recognized the few that had happen to me as well. Then it dawned on me: the ones I recognized I hadn't (for the most part) thought they were that bad. Does that mean that my life is worse than theirs? After all, what does it say about my life if crappy experience x happens to me and I'm like "whatever... gotta roll with the punches." while x happening to others makes them react like "that's the worst thing ever! I fucking hate my life... what's the opposite of lol?"

When you stop and think about it, if you have the ability to read this, your life is pretty sweet. Not only to do you have the resources to access the internet and the competence to find the best website out there, you also have the time to waste it reading this. I mean, in all likelihood you're not: in a refugee camp, a village without running water, or part of a band of gypsies. I feel safe in assuming you're part of the upper most privileged crust of the 6+ billion people on the planet. Even then, when we just look at those few of us in the western world, you're probably not below the poverty line (unless you're a student... but being below the poverty line and a student is really different than being below the poverty line and NOT being a student). Nor are you probably in prison. Really, if you're reading this, no matter what's wrong in your life, it's way way way better than most people on this lil blue dot of ours. Nevertheless, when shitty things happen to us, why to we feel and act as if the world is ending?

At least intuitively, I think there are 2 reasons why we have such reactions: (1) we fail to recognize the big picture; and, (2) we rate our successes and failures compared to those of the people around us. Regarding the former, I think it's understandable. It's hard to keep the big picture in mind. When some bimbo spills her cosmopolitan all over your new white Armani shirt, you're probably not gonna think "oh well, at least I have an Armani shirt, unlike those poor lil African kids." And you probably don't what to think that either. Every time you fail to finish eating your 21 oz. sirloin steak, and some snot nosed idealist pipes up "don't be wasteful, man! Don't you know people are starving all over the world, dude?", you just wanna punch 'em in the balls and reply "ya, but those hemp pants didn't save your balls, eh hippy?" Sure it sucks that the lives of most people in the world are worse than yours, but there's only so much you can do about it... or, rather, only so much you can be expected to do about it. Your life is sufficiently withdrawn from theirs that you're justified in not comparing yours to theirs.

The second reason hits closer to home, I think. We all have this kind of built in desire to compete with the Jones family next door. To have a prettier lawn, smarter kinds, or whatever. It's almost as if we judge how well we're doing in our life by comparing it to those around us. Which is understandable; we need to have some means of evaluating our own performance and this seems to be and easy and effective means. So it doesn't matter if your life could be a lot worse and still way better than the lives of impoverished farmers in China. But it does matter than Jimmy Jones just got a new iPhone and you can't afford one; or than Janet Jones just got engaged, while you just got dumped for the ... time. Contrasted with this benchmark, your life sucks. And I think this is a reasonable benchmark to use. Here there are attainable goals: if you work hard, you might also get an iPhone and married. This sort of benchmark is universal: When Sally, in the refugee camp, gets an extra bowl of rice she knows she's got it pretty sweet compared to the other refugees; it does her no good to realize that Jimmy in London got an iPhone.

So when you get a C+ in the Philosophy of Love and Sex at uni, while your friends all got A-, you should feel bad. Your life does suck. don't try to find solace in the fact that some people don't even have the opportunity to go to uni and learn about Love and Sex, that's irrelevant. I could say more, but I think that’s enough for now. This is just my spur-of-the-moment thoughts on the subject. I could be wrong. After all, what do I know.

Of Forgiveness and Happiness

“The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget.” (Thomas S. Szasz)

Were someone to ask you if everyone deserves to be happy, I think your immediate answer would likely be “hells ya, bitch” unless you’re even more cynical than I. But I figure if we think about it for a minute, it becomes clear that everyone doesn’t deserve happiness. Or, at the very least, society doesn’t consider happiness to be an inalienable right. And I think the definitive case in point is life in prison. Jail ain’t suppose to be fun or make those who are there happy; that’s kinda the point. While I’m sure people in jail do experience happiness, part of the reason we put them there was to make them unhappy (and, sometimes, to protect others). But even jail and the legal system aside, I don’t think everyone deserves happiness; or at least not total happiness. It all depends on how you treat others. When you trespass against others (especially those you care about) you risk trespassing on your own happiness. Maybe this is purpose of guilt; a moral emotion for those who don’t deserve happiness.

So it turns out that everyone doesn’t deserve happiness. What about forgiveness? If you’ve wronged others, it seems as if being forgiven is essential to be able to get happiness out of your relationship with the person again. There’s heaps and heaps of new literature in philosophy on forgiveness; but, unfortunately, when I was exposed to it I was too busy daydreaming about rainbows and puppy dogs. (So if you wanna know what the learned people think about forgiveness, you’ll have to do the research yourself.) But my intuition is that everyone who has done something wrong doesn’t deserve to be forgiven; there are unforgivable sins. I’m not going to give examples of things people could do that might be too egregious to warrant forgiveness. While failing to give examples will make my job harder, I think we all consider different things unforgivable. I think it depends on the person and the situation. I hope that, for my purposes here, it’ll be sufficient to say that we all can think of wrongs that could be committed against us that, whatever they are, we wouldn’t be able to – or want to – forgive.

So when we refuse to forgive someone for something they did, what are we doing? Well, it seems to me that – if nothing else – we are defining the nature of the relationship between you and the wrongdoer as one where he/she cannot derive happiness from it; or one where you don’t want the wrongdoer to derive happiness (at least until forgiveness/amends has been made). To refuse (or be unable to) forgive is kinda like putting the wrongdoer in emotional jail when it comes to you. Sure the wrongdoer might still be able to derive happiness from you, but it will be overshadowed by the crime which hasn’t (and might not be) forgiven. More often than not, if not always, this means the nature of the relationship will altered. If you were friends, you might not be friends anymore. Or you might be not as close as before. If you were romantic partners, you might be no more than friends. Or nothing at all. I mean, refuse to forgive someone is to say something like “it’s not okay for you to get what you want from this relationship because of what you did to me; at least until you make amends and I forgive you”.

But when forgiveness isn’t a possibility, when faced with an unforgivable sin, can your relationship keep the status quo? (That is, how it was before you were wronged.) Hmm. Hard to say. If forgiveness is impossible, surely that fact will always loom in the background. Maybe at best you can get real close to how things were before; kind of like being on parole. But I’m unsure of even this. And it may be moot: even when forgiveness is granted, the relationship is fundamentally changed. To keep this jailhouse theme rolling, it might be akin to how people who served their time, reformed, and were released from jail are able to be normal upstanding citizens, but can never escape their perma-stamped ex-convict status (and its stigmas).

Don’t get me wrong; I’d love it everyone could be happy. But it just doesn’t seem like everyone deserves it. Which is unfortunate, but that’s the way life is. Someone might argue that, when forgiveness is genuinely sought (that is, when the wrongdoer does everything possible to correct or make up for the wrong), you’re obligated to give it. But I don’t know if that’s right – I’m not sure if forgiveness is something you’d ever be obligated to give someone. I could say more, but I think that’s enough for now. This is just my spur-of-the-moment thoughts on the subject. I could be wrong. After all, what do I know.

Amongst the Savages

“personality goes a long way.” (Jules, Pulp Fiction)

So, I’m sitting here, trying to blog for my faithful-yet-non-existent readers when I should be doing something more productive. But it’s not going well. (Both being more productive and blogging.) It’s not going well because the sounds coming from out my window make me think I’m in downtown Baghdad. But don’t worry, I’m not in any danger. They’re just fireworks. Nevertheless, it’s distracting. And stupid. And I don’t get it.

What’s wrong with people? I mean, come on. People are dumb. People are irrational. Here I mean “people” as groups of individuals. From People we get mob mentality, which gives us riots and looting. People are strange when they come together and form large groups, and I’m not sure why it happens. People abandon almost all sense of personal responsibility when they become part of an ad hoc large group. If the group has one or some leaders, the individuals submit to the will of the leader(s). While the root causes for why it happens escape me, I guess the behaviour is understandable: individuals loving submitting to the authority of others; the Milgram experiments show that. But even without any real leadership, individuals submit… just generally, to the will of the group. I suppose this is harder to understand since there isn't a clear authority. And it's more dangerous since it's probably less predictable; these mobs can act more like a stampede of cows. Getting at why people act the way they do when part of a mob is problematic. I’m sure some academics from some field have worked on this, but I’m unfamiliar with it (if you know of any articles, share ‘em as I’d be keen to check ‘em out... I'd even be interested in any thoughts of your own that you might have).

But even if a large crowd doesn’t get out of control, crowds are still bad; or at least unpleasant (not nearly as awful as buses or eating, though). It's never fun being surrounded by so many people such that it’s hard to move or get to where I wanna go. Doubly so if those people are people you don't like, like communists, or smell bad. Nevertheless, though, there is an amazing palpable feeling that comes with being part of something where you share a experience with a group; at a concert, for instance. It can leave you with a feeling of being part of something more; which a lot of people, understandably, like. So large groups have the potential to be beneficial, but also the potential to go wrong... like after so many Canadian NHL games.

But what about individuals? Surely, if you take one person aside she’s likely able to act rationally. But even though most individuals are reasonable and responsible, some individuals like fireworks; and fireworks are stupid to the point of being irrational. Individually we like ridiculous things (fireworks being one of them (and if you were gonna comment that fireworks are “cool”, save it. They’re not. They’re just cutesy explosives detonated in the sky. Whoop-ti-do. Just another example of why you’re a savage amused by the simple things in life.)). But that’s okay. While I don’t really care for fireworks, I like other silly things. Most people have interests like that. And that’s good. Why? Because it means you’ve got personality. And personality goes a long way. Having unique interests make you interesting. Those plastic girls and douchey guys who only like the trendy things are empty on the inside. Which means they’re necessarily ugly on the inside too. If all the things you like coincide with the things most people like there’s something wrong with you. And this takes me back to people. If you don’t have any interests that make you unique, you’re just another boring face in the crowd. Just a part of the mob.

So what am I saying here? Well, for one, fireworks are stupid. And crowds are stupid, and unpleasant. Individuals aren't much better, unless they have interests. Even if those interests are stupid, like fireworks. This is just my spur-of-the-moment thoughts on the subject. I could be wrong. After all, what do I know.

Wear it their way?

Every now and then an issue presents itself which is totally, completely, monumentally insignificant in the context of world history, but where the parties concerned are so enthusiastic about the principles of the thing they are fighting for that it appeals to my ornery and embittered heart. So this blog post is not, as I first intended it would be, a comment on the EIGHT HUNDRED AND NINETEEN BILLION DOLLAR stimulus package that Barack Obama and friends are trying to get passed in the US Congress. Therefore, it's not possessed with the title 'That Boehner sure don't stimulate MY package', which made me giggle for at my own peurile humour for a full thirty seconds. Instead, this post is gifted with easily the lamest title of my short blogging career, and is about two schoolkids that wouldn't get served at Burger King.

You can find the story by clicking on this link. Trust me, it's worth doing just for the sheer stupidity of the reader comments. But, if you can't be arsed or live in Somalia, Myanmar or South Epsom (and therefore have dial-up internets), then basically the story is about two 14 year-old kids who turned up to a Burger King in Christchurch after school. They were turned away because of a policy that banned people in school uniform (on the grounds that some children had been abusive, and thrown Coke at the store's employees). Denied their sacred inalienable right to Whoppery goodness, they complained to their mummies. Who then complained to the Human Rights Commission. Who then said it was discrimination.

While at first glance, this looks like a case of two fat housewives needing a break from their EastEnders marathon who decided to make life hell for a poor business that was just trying to protect its staff from racial abuse. But these women deserve to be applauded. A store, or any other place should not be able to deny service to a certain group of people, simply because members of that group have shown themselves to be more likely to engage in disruptive behaviour than others. Just because all coke-throwing racists in that Burger King have, so far, worn school uniform, it does not follow that all people wearing school uniform will throw coke and be racist in that Burger King. Essentially what a blanket ban does, is automatically presume that all members of that group are guilty, and denies them a service thats wrong.

Of course, the obvious argument against this is 'yeah, but if one group is more likely than others to commit crime, surely the business owner is just being pragmatic, and preventing damage, by excluding that group.' Pragmatic maybe, but woefully wrong-headed regardless. Imagine, if you will, the 'pragmatic' domestic airline in America that denies Muslims the right to fly on their airline on the grounds that 'All terrorists on domestic airlines this decade have been Muslims. Therefore, Muslims are more likely to engage in terrorist takeovers of domestic aircraft, so by excluding all Muslims from flying our airline will be safer.' I appreciate that I've made a bit of a leap in scale, from sticky little retards in Burger King being denied the right to childhood obesity, to a religion being placed on a no-fly zone. But I think its a logical 'next step', and it does show the ability for the reasoning exhibited by Burger King to have severe impacts on the freedoms innocent, morally forthright members of the community.

Burger King could have hauled the kid to a police station and charged him with the appropriate offence, be it property damage, disruption of a public place or whatever. Maybe the sight of one kid being punished will act as deterrant to other kids thinking of committing similar actions, while kids who would never consider pouring their drink over a racial minority can continue eating their shoestring fries in peace. Alternatively the Burger King could speak to the school, and demand that action is taken to educate children about appropriate behaviour in a Burger King. (They could for instance, use the Wurtilizer, or marvel at the James Dean memorabilia). This would obviously place a greater onus on the Burger King than simply enforcing a blanket ban on school uniforms. But while its hard, and we can sympathise with the poor business for having to go out of his way to discipline some punk kids, this is what liberty, and the principle of the presumption of innocence in a free, democratic society demands. It may seem trivial, but hey, its principled.

One final point. It's easy to defend the right of ordinary school-uniformed kids to go to Burger King, or the right of Muslims to fly. But the most interesting expression of this argument (and the one most difficult to defend) isn't in the field of burgers, or Muslims or planes (oh my) - its located on the gang patches of the Mongrel Mob and Black Power. It is true that many murder, rape, child abuse etc cases have had their roots in gang culture and gang rivalries. Does that, therefore justify a ban on the wearing of gang patches in public? I would argue, no. While I'm obviously disgusted by cases of murder, rape and child abuse, and share in the general public sentiment that the people that commit these animalistic acts should be bought to justice. But I dont think it follows that banning the signs and symbols surrounding gangs will make a difference. Laws exist to deal with the criminal offending, while a surge in the popularity of gangs could be combated with a wide-spread strategy to deal with the systemic poverty that exists in areas where gangs are most popular. Targeting the dress code of a group, rather than the behaviour of some of its members is backward-looking and doomed to failure.

As I said earlier, the women that brought this case to the Human Rights Commission deserve to be applauded for highlighting the fact that membership of a group, and dress code within that group, cannot be grounds for discrimination - even if that group has shown a propensity for anti-social behaviour. I just wonder if those women would have fought the case with the same fervour if it had have been someone elses kid, decked out in full gang regalia.

Alex