Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category
Monday, May 8th, 2017
I asked Sam Crane at Useless Tree:
Are there, in fact, any arguments against torture in Chinese philosophy that aren't basically utilitarian? If there aren't, then could there have been? In Western philosophy our arguments are usually from appeal to various notions of 'human rights', but that wouldn't be possible for ...
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Monday, May 8th, 2017
Christopher Hitchens has followed in the footsteps of Steve Harrigan and subjected himself to the process known as 'waterboarding' in order to be able to report more insightfully on just what it is that is the focus of so much controversy. He reports that it is clearly torture and that ...
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Sunday, May 7th, 2017
Context
UN resolution 242 calls for a withdrawal to secure and recognised borders.
Israel may have to accept that no conceivable borders can satisfy both criteria. The Arabs maintain a maximalist (or very nearly) interpretation which insists on Israeli withdrawal to the 1948 borders, but these are impossible for Israel , given ...
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Sunday, May 7th, 2017
The Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology has issued a report, "The Dignity of Living Beings with Regard to Plants," which declares that the ‘dignity’ of plants must be considered in our handling of them. Apparently "living organisms should be considered morally for their own sake because they are ...
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Sunday, May 7th, 2017
Well, no, not really. The title should really be something like ‘Thoughts on the Occasion of Castro’s Resignation;’ but then people might expect poetry. All I wish to do here is make some remarks with reference to a conversation that I had with a small group of graduate students a ...
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Sunday, May 7th, 2017
When people say that they support an Arab state in the West Bank and Gaza that is ‘contiguous’ I wonder what they think that word means. How do they propose that the Gaza Strip is to become contiguous with the West Bank? Geography seems to be their enemy here, more ...
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Sunday, May 7th, 2017
On Wednesday (13/02/2008) Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made his famous Apology to the Stolen Generations - that is, to those Australian aboriginal children who were removed from their parents because of their aboriginality. The theory behind the term ‘Stolen Generations’ is that in doing so government agents were implementing a ...
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Monday, January 23rd, 2012
Responding to no public call whatsoever, a ‘Panel of Experts' has prepared a proposal for constitutional reform. The proposal is for the Recognition of ATSI in the Australian Constitution. Given that Australia is hardly crying out for this amendment, and that the Constitution with the very small number of amendments ...
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Saturday, January 21st, 2012
Responding to no apparent public call whatsoever, a panel of ‘experts’ has prepared a proposal for reform of the Constitution of Australia. The proposal is for the Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islanders in the Australian Constitution. The proposal includes these main points (p. 230:)
Item 1
Repeal ...
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