Stop discrimination on the basis of race by stopping discriminating on the basis of race (0)

Posted 29 June, 2007 in Politics

In a landmark decision yesterday the United States Supreme Court has made it illegal for public schools to attempt to fill racial quotas. I say about time, especially for a nation that prides itself on the individualism embodied in “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness”. The decision only got through with a five to four majority.

Here’s one of the ‘pro’ rulings:

“Before Brown, schoolchildren were told where they could and could not go to school based on the color of their skin. The school districts in these cases have not carried the heavy burden of demonstrating that we should allow this once again - even for very different reasons. For schools that never segregated on the basis of race, such as Seattle, or that have removed the vestiges of past segregation, such as Jefferson County (Ky.), the way ‘to achieve a system of determining admission to the public schools on a nonracial basis,’ is to stop assigning students on a racial basis. The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”

Amen to that.

Now while we’re dealing with the issues let’s not back away from the big ones. While it is right that the citizens of a country should be treated equally without regards to race by the government, as per the Fourteenth Amendment in the US, this doesn’t preclude, in any way, the right of individuals or private organisations from discriminating however they see fit when going about their own business or when on their own property.

So here’s to public schools open to every eligible individual child, regardless of race, sex or creed. And here’s to the freedom of private schools to discriminate as they may see fit on the basis of race, sex and creed. These two paradigms do not contradict each other in any way, and both are necessary for civil society.

The secular state, reason and creativity (1)

Posted 28 June, 2007 in Philosophy, Diary

The Secular State

My long time friend Nathan Zamprogno, a committed Christian family man and prospective politician, has written a piece on ‘What does Church / State separation really mean?’ Check it out. My response is simple: separation of church and state simply means that all government policy and law is based in the reason of secular civil society, and never justified through theology. That doesn’t mean Christians shouldn’t state their case on why their value system is relevant. Nathan also appears to take this line.

Reason and Creativity

As part of the management side of my Masters I’m writing on knowledge management in organisations. I also have an unfortunate affliction in that I can’t study anything or write on anything that doesn’t interest or stimulate me in an immediate and direct way. As such, I’m centering most of my writing around Edward De Bono’s work in this area, because frankly the guy has worked it out! (BTW, don’t just read his stuff, get DVDs of his presentations. For Aussies, his 2004 address to the National Press Club is worth it and probably available through your local library). Anyway, as some of you probably know, he’s about creativity and the limitations of reason. As someone who’s based a lot of my morality around Rand and Objectivism, this has to get me thinking. I’m pretty sure I can come up with some good stuff, but if anyone wants to interject feel free: what is the relationship between reason and creativity?

Threat to former leaders of the free world exposed here (0)

Posted 27 June, 2007 in Humour, Diary

One of the best aspects of my current job is working with a team of engineers. In my former engineering roles I’ve generally been working as part of a large team of disparate professionals, or been the sole engineer on a larger team of gunslingers and pilots (who take themselves far too seriously and rate themselves far too highly at times). When you put engineers together, or probably any group of technical people, a certain dynamic tends to ensue. Two aspects of that are great conversations on the most disparate and unusual subjects, and what I refer to as ‘geek’ humour.

Today’s ‘left field’ topic was the unusual way the roles of US government departments seem to be grouped. The best example would have to be the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Other than the fact that these things can be a lot of fun when put together (and even more fun when combined with motor vehicles, preferably hotted up utes), can someone tell me why these things would be combined in the charter of a single government department? (I’m guessing something to do with prohibition….but why are they still grouped together?) And the US Department of Homeland Security being the ‘Department of Just About Everything’ except what would appear to be the dominant agency in these matters, being the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Anyway, as Aussies we can’t fathom the nuances and historical legacies of those crazy Yanks. However I think we stumbled onto something thus far overlooked.

The United States Secret Service is in charge of keeping the President safe, as we all know from numerous Hollywood movies. In what would appear to be another unusual grouping of roles it is also responsible for protecting US currency against counterfeiting and fraud. As such, it was part of the US Department of Treasury until 2003 (when it became another arm of the Department of Homeland Security). As we all know, Treasury is responsible for designing and printing the currency of the US. Now consider what features on that currency: US Presidents. Now what happens to old and rare currency when the person on it dies? It goes up in value, of course. Conflict of interest potentially undermining the leadership of the free world…………….I’ll let the reader decide!

Nationalists: keeping prices down through brute force (0)

Posted 24 June, 2007 in Politics

Despite the fact I consider myself quite libertarian I tend to have a lot of right-wing friends. (So much so that it appears during the next Federal Election I will be working a polling booth for the Liberal Party). I’m yet to work out exactly why this is the case, but I have to admit I generally dislike people with collectivist views, those who want to reduce society to the lowest common denominator, force their irrational morality on others or live at someone else’s expense. Some of my friends are even further out than the Liberal Party. They bemoan our current political situation and long for a truly right-wing party in the Australian political spectrum. A few are, as they say, to the right of Genghis Khan.

I know they are good people. They claim to simply want to manage Australia for the good of Australians. I agree with that. We just differ on exactly how to go about it.

In a lot of our political debates the issue of the poor, or the ‘Aussie battler’, is one of the key justifications we both use to claim our positions are correct. I claim that free markets generate wealth and opportunity. Having lots of wealth and opportunity means that there is more to go round, and the people at the bottom of the scale can make a go of it. I argue this from my own experience having come from a not particularly well-off background. They argue that free markets exploit the poor and that it’s the government’s duty to protect those at the bottom through lots of laws enforced with a heavy hand. Here we have the nationalist mindset: once the government has enough power it can set prices to whatever it wants for the good of the people. This is a banner I’m told was on the latest One Nation (Qld branch) newsletter:

Now I am definitely not an economist, but I know prices are not set by a legislator’s pen. Coming more from a physical sciences background I think of the rules governing the market much like I think of the laws of physics. Market forces are very much like aerodynamic forces: sometimes hard to see but very real nonetheless. You can work with them and use them to your advantage, but ignoring them will at best achieve nothing, at worst end in disaster. It makes we wonder how they came up with petrol at 50c per litre. What was the thought process? Are they harking back to the good old days of their youth? Perhaps they all sat around in a committee and voted on what they thought it should be. Was there any thought at all to global prices, or even the taxes currently applied to petrol? I doubt it.

I would be happy to see the Australian political spectrum balanced out with a minority party to the right of the Liberals, much as the Greens are to the left of Labour (even if it was just to pull the spectrum to the right and stick it up the lefties). While the Greens come up with some good stuff from time to time our friends on the right don’t, and needless to say, the Greens get elected. The Greens sell a consistent philosophy that borders on religion and attracts followers. Our friends on the right need to develop a consistent philosophy that they can push to the public. That would mean coming up with something better than the economic equivalent of ‘if it don’t fit, get a bigger hammer’.

One Arab woman who knows what’s up (3)

Posted 6 June, 2007 in Politics

One thing I believe about the current rise of Islamic terrorism is that deep down it isn’t about a group of people who feel their god has been disrespected, or who are truly repulsed by the liberal values of the West. It is a response from people who’s only sense of worth is their standing in their society. They have no sense of individualism and see themselves through other people’s eyes. Their society has been in decay for the last millennia. Their value system is an archaic religion that prevents them moving forward in their own lives, but demands total submission to it’s irrational rules, under threat of death in some places. They know they are behind the West and they know they are seen as backwards. They know that a lot of the West not only don’t respect their religion, but see it as a joke or an archaic abomination from another era. This also applies to their culture in a lot of respects. So they feel disrespected, and because their sense of self worth comes from other people’s perception of them, they lash out at the society that makes them feel stupid and worthless.

Here is an American Arab woman who I think explains this quite well. She shoots down an Islamic cleric with a great secular argument based solidly in reason. One of the best arguments I’ve seen put forward; the cleric is completely out of his depth and tries to make a pathetic rebuff with ‘are you a heretic?’. I’m sure a rational argument like this could of got her killed in some (recently liberated) parts of the world. (Takes a while to load on a slow connection.)

First Post (0)

Posted 3 June, 2007 in Diary

The first post of this blog is a bit of personal ’home run’. I bought the domain name sutcliffe.com in 2000, with the intention of setting up a site like I have done here. Apart from a few temporary pages I haven’t actually managed to do anything. So, seven years later, here it is.