Well, well here I am again thrusting my opinions on the world. It's official now apparently, I'm a Law student with no more soul than a mosquito. However, despite this today I would like to talk to you all about justice and the concept of justice. Most dictionaries you look in will define justice with words like fairness or equality, for the sake of this post I'm going to define justice as the pursuit of fairness. In the Australian judicial branch of government justice is carried out in many ways, from the court system to the state and federal policing bodies. However, through some of my readings, my personal belief about justice has been challenged. To understand why we are in this pursuit of justice we need to look at what we define as just and fair, and that is fairly easy. We can look at the codified laws and rules that define us. Nonetheless, the closer we look at our laws the more we will find that the concept of justice is hard to define and even harder to carry out.
In Australia and the United Kingdom in the court system, justice is paying for the crimes you have committed in the for of a 'punishment' ie incarceration or the payment of a fine. For example; if Paul were to physically assault Kate, he could potentially be sent to prison because it's against the law to commit assault. Kate is seen as a witness to his crime and not a victim of a it. Paul has committed a crime against the state and not Kate, despite infringing on her human rights to not be assaulted. There is justice for Paul, however, Kate doesn't not get justice for the repercussions as a result of her being assaulted. Justice for Kate is not seen as being a priority because the crime was not against Kate but the state in the eyes of the law. Despite this, judges are not robots, they don't operate on 'automatic pilot' with immunity to the pressure of values. Their job is not solely 'complete and absolute legalism', otherwise we would not need them, they judge and mediate on a case by case basis. The Hon. Michael Kirby after a lifetime of service to the pursuit of justice and devotion to the rule of law, said that being a judge is not simply upholding the rule of law and maintaining legislative integrity but to judge with values and consideration to the situation. All parties in a crime should receive their justice, not just the perpetrator.
Justice and fairness are not ideas easily carried out, there will always be a degree of unfairness, however, the law should work hard to minimize this. As humans we pursue fairness, but fairness and justice are different from a vendetta.
Tuesday 26 February 2013
Saturday 2 February 2013
Episode 17: Penis Envy
"I myself have never know what feminism is, all I know is that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat"
~ Rebecca West
Today I would like to talk about something that really ruffles my feathers and as you may have guessed, it's feminism. This post is a partial response to this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIdB4wS4MVU
Long story short this girl ^ believes that feminism should be taught in schools or at least woven into the curriculum. I don't know about all of you but I firmly believe that feminism is a belief that should be explored by an individual, schools don't teach people to be fascists or communists so why should they teach people to be feminists. People's beliefs are a personal thing that should be explored and discovered by the individual, children should not be branded feminists in the same way they should not be branded with a religion.
People often complain that, school does not teach enough about influential things women have done, well once again i don't know about you all maybe I went to some special unique schools but I have been to catholic, Protestant, co-ed, same-sex, primary and secondary schools and at all of them I was taught about influential women in history. I was taught about Joan of Arc as well as Alexander the Great, Marie Curie and Thomas Edison. Feminists complain that not enough important women are acknowledged in school for their achievements but to be perfectly honest there are not many significant women to recognise. Women were not commonly, play writes, leaders of armies, religious figures, and these are the people that we highlight in history, but if you look where there was a woman that stands out like, Joan of Arc, Elizabeth I, or Penelope (wife of Odysseus), she gets more than her share of recogniton.
Another point that many feminists get riled over is women in politics. In Australia as well as Britain and I'm sure other places, Member of Parliament are elected. As in chosen by the people, women run for these positions and sometimes they get them and sometimes they don't. To say that we need more women in Parliament is great, yes I am sure we do. How is it you propose to achieve that? Do you intend to go against the law and the people and appoint these women? The people chose the person they wish to represent their ideals and morals. If a woman does not hold those then she will not be elected, it's not because she is a woman. If you have read some of my other posts you will know that I am not a fan of Thatcher and her ideas but she had a massive following of people that supported her ideas, it wasn't because she was a woman.
Being a woman before now was a disadvantage but not anymore. There is no place for feminists!
~ Rebecca West
Today I would like to talk about something that really ruffles my feathers and as you may have guessed, it's feminism. This post is a partial response to this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIdB4wS4MVU
Long story short this girl ^ believes that feminism should be taught in schools or at least woven into the curriculum. I don't know about all of you but I firmly believe that feminism is a belief that should be explored by an individual, schools don't teach people to be fascists or communists so why should they teach people to be feminists. People's beliefs are a personal thing that should be explored and discovered by the individual, children should not be branded feminists in the same way they should not be branded with a religion.
People often complain that, school does not teach enough about influential things women have done, well once again i don't know about you all maybe I went to some special unique schools but I have been to catholic, Protestant, co-ed, same-sex, primary and secondary schools and at all of them I was taught about influential women in history. I was taught about Joan of Arc as well as Alexander the Great, Marie Curie and Thomas Edison. Feminists complain that not enough important women are acknowledged in school for their achievements but to be perfectly honest there are not many significant women to recognise. Women were not commonly, play writes, leaders of armies, religious figures, and these are the people that we highlight in history, but if you look where there was a woman that stands out like, Joan of Arc, Elizabeth I, or Penelope (wife of Odysseus), she gets more than her share of recogniton.
Another point that many feminists get riled over is women in politics. In Australia as well as Britain and I'm sure other places, Member of Parliament are elected. As in chosen by the people, women run for these positions and sometimes they get them and sometimes they don't. To say that we need more women in Parliament is great, yes I am sure we do. How is it you propose to achieve that? Do you intend to go against the law and the people and appoint these women? The people chose the person they wish to represent their ideals and morals. If a woman does not hold those then she will not be elected, it's not because she is a woman. If you have read some of my other posts you will know that I am not a fan of Thatcher and her ideas but she had a massive following of people that supported her ideas, it wasn't because she was a woman.
Being a woman before now was a disadvantage but not anymore. There is no place for feminists!
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