Is society getting worse?

[watt price tully]

[pietillidie]

There are degrees of deprivation and remediation which would be very difficult to assess from afar. Not to mention people always forget that even bad situations can get worse. To assume something is "vaguely terrible" now and will still be "vaguely terrible" tomorrow even if we halve expenditures is to obscure many degrees of betterment or suffering.

The problem from an organisational POV might well be that "better oversight" means devolving from bureaucrats to practitioners on the ground, and that's (a) not cheaper, and (b) not amenable to manipulation at election time. The need for more spending and less control is the last thing any government wants to hear, effectively scuppering going forward right there.

This is identical to "work for the dole" talk; it gets thrown about excitedly every election but it never gets introduced because it costs more money and time to do it properly than to keep the present system. The result? Status quo.

In the same way, endless harping on about "security" and "safety", without putting police on the ground, is empty posturing.

Some things are complex and expensive because they're complex and expensive, not because opinionated Uncle Joe really knows better. I do happen to know people with extensive, sophisticated experience in Aboriginal communities, and the conversations and issues are incredibly complex. Furthermore, people on the ground have duties of care, legal obligations, human relationships to respect, human stress to bear � even as they're hemmed in by remote, air-headed politics.

Not to mention, even the most careless talk on this topic still presumably agrees that many rights and dignity-based expenditures represent "losses" from the POV of "ROI", such as health spending on the very old, sick and disabled.

[stui magpie]

[pietillidie]

^Unfortunately, many people think that term means "some payback for them", even if via some social outcome. But, as with those groups I mentioned, amelioration often pays nothing back beyond the enhanced subjective experience of the individual recipient.

Of course, in the case of work done with Aboriginal peoples, outcomes are likely very positive much of the time, despite familiar intractable problems. Data can be very deceptive this way, because a "terrible" outcome can still mean 68.2% people did okay. (Then off we run with this word "terrible", as if no other good exists at all, and everyone might as well be dead).

Talk about the predicament of Aboriginal peoples is often so extreme it refuses to acknowledge even the most minimal rights we routinely grant others.

[Skids]

This should help

Sydney University adopts law courses pushing for recognition of sharia law, polygamy and young marriage in Australian legal system

�Where found guilty of transgressing Western values, for example in gender equality, or violating national security, courts have clearly communicated their denunciation of �traditional� or conservative Muslim values when sentencing, dispensing exemplary sentences and announcing aggravating factors, even when the written law does not explicitly demand it,� it says

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/sydney-uni-adopts-law-courses-pushing-for-sharia-law-in-australian-legal-system/news-story/2a7fc86e24920b10164945b50e5ed5ae?utm_content=SocialFlow&utm_campaign=EditorialSF&utm_source=DailyTelegraph&utm_medium=Facebook

[stui magpie]

^

What a crock. The shit they support in that article is rubbish. If your religious beliefs are incompatible with the law of the land, your religious beliefs should lose. Period.

[Jezza]

What bullshit!

[pietillidie]

^Can someone help me establish the precise claim being made here?

Is Sydney University "pushing"/"wanting"/"supporting"/"adopting" something (verbiage taken from related newspaper headlines), or is there a book containing controversial content on a course list in a course in a degree at Sydney University?

[Skids]

[Pies4shaw]

^^^I've never seen an article making such wild claims in my life! I couldn't get past the first 7 words - if they could make such an absurd statement, they must be taking the pi$$.

[think positive]

I read the second one, what's the big deal? It's for law students who may for some ungodly reason want to work in an area that might have to deal with countries where these barbaric laws still exist! 23 kids enrolled. Maybe ask them if it's a training ground for trying to bring the laws here! No different from any of the other weird and wonderful courses offered - take a look at any uni course book, some of the none core units are pretty odd! Out of the 23 how many came away thinking 'what a bunch of <snip>heads still allowing these laws to exist!'. Non story.

How many of you actively use calculus!

[HAL]

I do not speak Latin

[David]

[Pies4shaw]

I think the essay questions used for assessment might be informative. I expect the topics will be of the kind "To what extent do you consider that customary Islamic law is compatible with the common law of Australia - discuss with reference to at least two of the following: succession, family law, criminal law, banking and finance law", rather than "To what extent should the infidels be boiled in oil in order to ensure the replacement of the common law of Australia with customary Islamic law - discuss with reference to the accomplishment of jihad".

When I used to teach public international law, it was common for us to discuss and analyse, amongst many other things, resolutions of the UN Security Council. Just because we might have spent time analysing particular ones that authorised the use of force in certain circumstances didn't mean that anyone in the room was endorsing war.

[watt price tully]