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First Australian to go to jail over Afghanistan & Iraq is a whistle-blower. Truly a kangaroo legal system. I find it hard to blame the judge here, it is their
by jpgvm 2y ago
First Australian to go to jail over Afghanistan & Iraq is a whistle-blower. Truly a kangaroo legal system.
I find it hard to blame the judge here, it is their duty to discharge the law as written.
However Australia's laws are inherently anti-whistle-blower and IMO therefore anti-democratic. How are the people expected to hold their leaders accountable if their leaders are legally allowed to deceive them and punish any who would expose that deceit?
Claiming that "national security" should somehow trump what are meant to be the most core tenets of our society is just simply more proof that the ruling class considers themselves above criticism, even if it costs the truth to snuff it out.
Why is it we can have a government that is so consistently anti-Australian? The politics of it don't seem to matter because swapping parties in and out hasn't had any impact. Both sides of the ruling class still believe they are above us while still preaching tall-poppy syndrome for the rest of us.
- ToucanLoucan 2y ago[flagged]
- zaphar 2y agoThis is a deliberate mischaracterization of democracy. If the system meets these criteria then it by definition isn't democracy. Allowing people to claim that it is democracy just let's them hide behind the idea without having to meet any of the obligations that idea puts on them.
- ToucanLoucan 2y agoI mean, I fully agree with you. But this is the demonstrable reality of modern democracy. They all meet these criteria, and yes, they all hide behind the term democracy while not actually meeting any of it's obligations. If pressed they would say, "What are you going to do about it?" because they designed a system in which you are powerless, and so they know you can do nothing about it. Our planet is on fire and our world leaders twiddle their thumbs and prepare bunkers to coast out the collapse. Tell me how that's conceivably a result of an empowered populace after decades of said populace campaigning for climate change legislation.
- dsabanin 2y agoYou overestimate the concern of the “populace” with the planet being “on fire”.
- ToucanLoucan 2y agoThen pick any issue you wish from the absolute truckload of issues where the people have clearly spoken and yet their government does nothing despite supposedly representing them.
- hedora 2y agoHere are the numbers: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/08/09/what-the-data-says-about-americans-views-of-climate-change/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/08/09/what-the-... 9 in 10 democrats want this addressed, yet when the democrats have control, very little happens. Depending on the question, a majority of republicans do too. Over 66% of the US population wants more action, and 75% say we should be more involved in international initiatives to combat climate change.
- nuancebydefault 2y agoWeird, i thought half of US people voted for someone who called it 'mostly a hoax'?
- talldayo 2y agoMore than half of US people voted for a man who is famous for saying "If Israel did not exist, America would make one" and I guarantee you the majority of those voters don't agree with that statement. The conservative lobby rallying around global warming revisionists is mostly an alignment of interests; if it was a hot-topic issue you'd see it on TV ads and at debates. You don't.
- nuancebydefault 2y agoIn the US there is no option, the politics of both Democrats and Republicans support Israel heavily, one reason is to protect US' interest in the region, another is being anti-antisemitic. The same cannot be said for (denial of) climate change, or at least not for the hoax guy that represented the Republicans.
- antegamisou 2y agoBootlickers downvoting unsettling truths once again.
- dang 2y agoCould you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
- mdgrech23 2y ago[flagged]
- 7bit 2y agoI would bet most democratic nations still are inherently anti whistleblower. If not all. Australia and USA are no exception to the worse and I mean this in a good way
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- croes 2y agoWhat's so special about australian treatment of whistle blowers compared to the US? Chelsea Manning went to jail for something similar. I bet other countries act exactly the same way
- gopher_space 2y agoIt's interesting to look at the shelf-life of actual, logistical national security issues and compare that to the "peeling an onion" rhetoric around information release. The useful time span seems to be weeks to a handful of years.