Posted on 09/01/2007 3:42:13 AM PDT by Dundee
POSH lawyer Geoffrey Robertson QC - previously prominent during the Republican debate when he argued in favour of severing ties with the British, using a British accent acquired during many decades living in Britain - believes Australia needs a Bill of Rights.
"Australia is the only country without a Bill of Rights," Robertson said this week, Britishly.
"We are alone among advanced liberal democracies in not having a Bill of Rights which has a presumption in favour of freedom of expression."
A fine idea, Geoffo. But who would compose such a Bill? Ideally we'd be able to go back 150 years or so, grab four or five normal middle-class citizens and put them to work...
A sensible charter would result. Trouble is, in 2007 any Bill of Rights project would be captured by panic lobbyists and grievance shriekers and other types generally confined to asylums in enlightened 1857. You'd end up with a legal document enshrining the rights of bisexual SBS employees to state-funded vegan heroin, or something that allows people to vote via YouTube.
Full human status might be granted to sugar gliders.
Or Greens senators.
No. That won't do. As one of the few mid-19th century throwbacks currently employed in the Australian media - you may recognise us by our monocles and refusal to recognise any post-partition maps of India - the responsibility for an Australian Bill of Rights clearly falls to me...
1. Australia shall have a free press. That is to say, it shall not have a press funded without the consent of taxpayers, who otherwise might be compelled to hand over some $750 million every year for a load of commie bull on the ABC...
(Excerpt) Read more at news.com.au ...
4. If an intruder unlawfully enters a house and is confronted by an armed homeowner, all bets are off.
6. Artists may attack Islam with the same vigour they attack Christianity. Please, go ahead. Try it right now. Good luck with all those changes of address.
10. Protesters at events such as APEC will retain the right to be treated gently by police, as has become customary, despite incendiary provocation. Except for one event per year, not to be indicated in advance, during which police may respond as they wish with absolutely no fear of prosecution.
I love number 10, it reminds me of Joe Peterson (sp).
The Europeans’ ‘Charter of Fundamental Rights’ is full of a lot a unnecessities (if unnecessities is a word). Suspect that almost any Western country making a Bill of Rights today would have plenty of unnecessary additions, too.
Tim Blair, the article’s author, also has a blog that tends to be a lot of fun.
http://timblair.net/ee/index.php
It’s a free fire zone targeting general leftardishness in OZ, the US and around the world.
Actually, boys and girls, they wouldn’t have to worry iffen they had our 2nd—and the guns to prove it!
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