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Peter Howard is Wintermute, mythologist

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« Recent Media Consumption :: Sydney, NYE 2008 »

Slouching Towards Bedlam

02January2008 [directLink] [myth]

In which first they come for the communists

A New Year rolls around, and they’re quietly removing more of our legal rights. The burden of proof has traditionally lain with the prosecution — part of the whole innocent until proven guilty thing. But that’s now being reversed.

NSW Bar Association president Anna Katzmann warned it could introduce a new system where “yes” can mean “no” if the woman decides the next morning she must have been drunk to have given consent.

Attorney-General John Hatzistergos said the onus would now be on the accused to show he had reasonable grounds to believe the alleged victim had consented.

(SMH 30December2007)

What’s particularly bothersome about this is that this is just how fascism creeps in — first it was the “terrorists” (locking them up in Guantanamo without trial); now it’s “rapists”. And the whole way it’s difficult for us to cry out because we shouldn’t be sympathising with terrorists and rapists. And though it’s been bothering me for a few days, I’ve absolutely no idea what I can do about it.

cf Niemöller’s First they came…

And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out.

« Recent Media Consumption :: Sydney, NYE 2008 »

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