Haneef case descends into farce
As the Haneef case descends into farce, so passes a golden opportunity to drive the final nail into the coffin of an over-ripe corpse.
Had the Labor party acted with principle on this matter in the first place and refused to endorse the prejudicial actions of Kevin Andrews, the Labor party might have been in a fine position to make political capital out of this farce. For there is no crime, moral or otherwise, in making political capital out of farce.
It is, on the other hand, a sin against natural justice in using another's liberty as a pawn in a political game. Both the ALP and the Liberal Party are patently guilty of this sin.
The ALP can try to defend the moral high ground now, if they dare. Perhaps people won't notice the foul smelling mud dripping from their clothes.
posted by Jon Seymour at 08:39
1 Comments:
Terror wins votes - for the incumbent. Would G W Bush have been re-elected if 9/11 had not happened? I doubt it.
Governments crack down (overreact) when terror occurs. And people love it; a recent poll said that a majority of Americans were in favour of "increased inconvenience to themselves at airport security screenings".
I don't want them to inconvenience me, I want them to inconvenience terrorists. What percentage of US airline travellers are terrorists? A vanishingly small percentage, that's what. Yet they inconvenience millions - they crack down on carry-on items, the amount of carry-on a person can bring, on people who wear T-shirts with slogans, on mothers with water in drink cups, and so on. It's what Bruce Schneier calls Security Theatre.
The Haneef case is more of the same. They _must_ make a show of overwhelming force against this possible terrorist supporter, to justify their jobs, to rouse the population in nationalistic fervour, to suppress any other would-be terrorist supporters.
This wins votes for the Coalition. And Labor doesn't want to be seen as soft, as an also-ran this election. There's no political capital in standing up for such nebulous concepts as rights when we have a real Muslim supporter to oppress.
Thanks for adding the dates to the comments :-)
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