Civil Liberties

Ideas on Iraq and civil rights at home

Last night at dinner with the in-laws (my boyfriend's mother's 50th birthday dinner, actually) we all got onto the debate of Iraq, and America's actions and attitudes. Great conversation ensured. As a family, we never talked like that. No one ever really had an opinion at the dinner table; we sat, we ate, we got up, we went our separate ways. Dinner was just a functional thing, not an intellectual thing.

Which is why I love dinner with the in-laws.

So last night it was his dad saying (about his brother and myself) that we're just America haters, we'd hate anything America chooses to do, we could find fault with anything they'd do. It's not that, although America does give us plenty of material to whinge about.

I believe the crux of what we were arguing about, was civil liberties. I'm a great believer in the analogy that countries are people, with all the associated issues. We, as individuals, have a right to privacy. We have a right to access to a lawyer when accused of a crime. And the police can't come into our house (at least in Australia) without first obtaining a search warrant from a magistrate. And there has to be a good explanation given by the police to the magistrate to get that warrant.

Lets take my countries = people analogy. US = police. Iraq = citizen. UN = magistrate. In this instance, the UN did give the warrant, infact they helped look. But they didn't find anything. The police, without any evidence, ignored the advice of the magistrate, and barged into the house, not only violating the civil liberties of the residents, but also trying to assassinate the head of the house, and then change the way the house runs.

Obviously there are differences, but it's basically the same thing. Iraq was judged guilty by the people who don't have the right to judge them guilty. We have the UN for that. But now with the US doing what they damn well please, it's much the same as a crime syndicate doing what it wants because the police are powerless to stop them. And who wants to piss off crime syndicates? No one.

Now, I'm mostly being a devil's advocate here. I believe that yes, there probably were WMD in Iraq, and that Saddam Hussein is a bad person, used murder to get his own way, maltreated his people, etc etc. And yes, I think Iraq probably would be a nicer place with a democracy.

But we have international laws for a reason. For the same reason it's illegal for the police to enter your house without a warrant. Sometimes the criminals will get away with the crime. Sometimes they'll get away with murder. But the second we take away the common person's right to privacy, and security within their own home, and give that right to the police to enter their home, then we're living in a police state.

Heck, I'd much rather a magistrate made the decision to ransack my house looking for evidence, rather than the average policeman. The average policeman isn't interested in justice, he's interested in answers for the mysteries he's trying to solve. We have magistrates who are appointed to keep our civil liberties.

Here's another analogy, which we also discussed last night.

A common storyline on cop shows and legal shows is the plot where the cops have obtained evidence illegally. We the viewer know the accused is guilty, the cops know it, the judge knows it, even the jury knows it. But because the evidence was obtained illegally, it's inadmissible, and the accused gets away with murder. The average person screams "injust!" and I don't blame them. It pisses me off, too. But as my bf's brother said last night, he'd rather 12 criminals go unpunished, than 1 innocent person incarcerated. Or even executed, in some states of America. And I agree. We have to maintain our civil liberties.

My bf's father lives in a reasonably affluent suburb, and has a good job, two educated healthy sons, and a loving wife. He doesn't do anything wrong. He'll never break the law, and chances are, he'll never be accused of something he hasn't done. He can't *know* what it's like to be falsely accused of something. He'll never live in a country where his way of life is threatened. Iraqi's have a way of life too, and we're threatening it. I asked him "so if Iraq moved into Australia, forced you to worship Allah, pray 5 times a day, cover your wife from head to toe, not eat meat, how would you feel?" He said "if I lived under a government that has been guilty of genocide, and the new regime promised to do things fairly, I'd be standing at the wharves, waving them in, welcoming their way of life." Besides thinking that's bullshit, I then pointed out that the Australian government *had* been guilty of genocide with the Australian Aboriginals, and he went rather quiet at that point. Still, I think it's remarkably easy for him to make those kind of value calls from the safety of his dining table, knowing that Australia is "friends" with the biggest bully in the school yard with the biggest fists.

The US judged Iraq without due process, and found them guilty, having ignored the independent arbiter in the process. To me, that's illegal. And we lose a culture along with it. The middle east has supported life (whether or not we personally agree with that way of life) for thousands of years. America is a baby, compared to them, what gives the US the right to march in and shove a democracy down their throat? Japan had functioned for over 500 years without a civil war, before America decided it needed to industrialise them. America started with a religious argument, then committed genocide with the American Indians, had a civil war to get it's own independence, and now is taking away the independence of a different country, under the guise of "giving them their independence".

Is anyone else worried that America has troops in many many MANY countries throughout the world now? If you think "no", ask yourself would you be worried if they were all German troops stationed all throughout the world, and Germany had access to so many weapons of mass destruction. I think you'd sleep a little less easy.

I see the US like a TV evangelist. They think they're right. They think they have the only solution. They think everyone would benefit from seeing things their way. People who think differently are going to hell. Their life's mission is to convert everyone to their way of thinking, and they can't fathom how someone might like to live a little differently.

Personally, I don't agree with Saddam Hussein's politics, and murder doesn't sit right with me. Neither do nuclear weapons of any sort. But what sits even less right with me, is blindly treating everyone that doesn't think the same as you, as a criminal that needs to be "fixed".

Australia is one of the most diverse countries in the world, we are made up of so many different cultures. Unfortunately my bf's father doesn't see that as a good thing. I think we should embrace diversity, and enjoy our differences, and see everyone as equal. And admitting that even if you don't understand someone, a culture, a race, a country, you accept them anyway. We're all equal!

Moving On

Thoughts on loving ex boyfriends

Once you break up, is it better to move on completely? How do you turn intense love, into indifference? Often that can occur when the split up is nasty. Intense love turns to intense hate, in an instant.

But what if you still have intense love for someone, and they dump you, how do you deal with that? People tell you to "move on", and sure, you can find someone else. And sure, you can love that person with just as much intensity.

But what about the ex? Do you begin to not care for them?

Once I love someone, I can't really undo that.

I don't love all my exes with the same intensity, though. There are two that I still love dearly. I guess it can be put down to whether I'd date them again. These two, I would.

But I'm currently attached. To someone I love.

You know, if we lived in a more open minded world, I'd be quite happy dating all three. Call me a bigamist if you will, or polygamist, actually. But I have love for these people, I care about what happens to them, and about their happiness.

I've been chatting to one of my exes today. It's like we stuffed it up when we had a go at it, and we've both changed. Given other circumstances, we'd probably give it another go. I guess the "other circumstances" is if I was single. Well, that also depends on my ex, and whether they'd actually give it another go, too. I know I would.

Am I wrong for thinking about it, whilst I'm attached? Should I deny love I have for others, when I'm with someone? I'd prefer not to.

Of course, I don't blab about them all the time. Or blog about them all the time. I guess in an ideal world I'd be able to show (and prove) my love & affection for those that love me back.

Until jealousy rears it's ugly head.. It's easy to be a hypocrite in these situations.

What are we?

Thoughts on our atomic composition and our position in the world

We're just atoms, right? What's a rock? Atoms. What's my laptop? Atoms. Where did I come from? Well, apart from that book having the answer, it's established that we're not sure. Where did my laptop come from? Well, it's component parts, I suppose. Out of the ground. Where did my ancestors go? Into the ground. Are my ancestors part of my laptop? Quite possibly.

Consider us humans, and consider a rock. What's the difference? Not much. We have component atoms. We just have moving parts. Ok, perhaps we have more in common with plants. What's the difference? We have legs, they do not. We have intelligence; they, arguably, don't. With our intelligence we've crafted clothes to wrap our bodies in, tools with which to make it easier to get food. But we're still basically the same thing, component atoms. When we both die, we both get absorbed back into the earth, back to join the large pool of atoms that don't currently make up humans, or plants, or other "living" creatures.

Apart from the odd meteorite hitting earth, or the satellites we fling into outer space, we're not growing or anything. We basically keep the same amount of atoms, we can't "create" any, right? So the greater we populate the earth, the more of this pool of atoms we take up, right?

So the earth is just this big hulk of atoms, some rising from the earth to be part of humans or to rise from the earth to be plants, to be consumed my humans, to become part of humans, and then to be released back in to the earth at a later stage, possibly to become another plant, a rock, or a mineral only to end up in someone's laptop.

To me that's remarkably visual.. this ever changing ever morphing lump of earth, popping out "creatures" on it's surface, only to take them back in later.

Fascinating.