On Bullying And The Debate About Corporal Punishment In Schools
The recent launch of anti-bullying campaigns in Australian high schools has brought up public discussion on whether or not the use of corporal punishment should be re-implemented in Australian education.
This, as is par for the course in newspapers, is accompanied by a stew of other articles complaining about our youth in decline. Youth binge drinking and violence against teachers are other examples. The Myth of Cultural Degeneracy is unfortunately alive and well, in spite of the fact that there is simply no conclusive proof things are actually worse these days. Really, the news just can’t find something else to panic about so they manufacture another worry to make us watch news reports.
The stabbing of Elliott Fletcher, a 12 year old student at St. Patricks Catholic boy’s school, is an undeniable tragedy, but there is absolutely no reason to believe that it is somehow indicative of a systematic increase in bullying as a whole. Regardless, the incident did trigger Kevin Rudd to speak on the subject of bullying, and the federal Opposition to introduce an anti-bullying policy.
Attention Whore
Attention Whore
by Andrew Russell
It turns out that my last post was indeed convenient!
Video Game Blog Kotaku has recently revealed (via http://www.kotaku.com.au/2009/11/atkinson-to-appeal-modern-warfare-2-ma15-classification/) that South Australian Attorney General and arch nemesis to all video game lovers in Australia, Michael Atkinson (member for Croydon) is going to appeal the MA15+ rating for the video game “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2″ and attempt to ‘persuade’ the OFLC to refuse the game classification; essentially asking for the game to be banned.
I am not interested in Modern Warfare 2, however I believe several things about this game make Atkinson’s move rather significant.
- Modern Warfare 2 is an extremely critically acclaimed game which many video game fans have been anticipating for a long time.
- The game has had an extraordinary amount of advertising and media coverage; on the first day of the game’s release the game made US$310 million in the US and UK alone. This makes Modern Warfare 2 the largest entertainment launch in history.
- The game was released on November 10. The game cleared the OFLC’s procedures and bureaucracy a rather long time ago.
Thus, Atkinson is attacking a game which has already been released and had spent a very significant amount of time being classified. He could have checked out this game’s content (and then go to the press to launch a moral panic) when it was being ran through the OFLC. Doing this is well within his powers.
But he didn’t.
Why?
The Preposterous Posturing of Platonic Piffle
The Preposterous Posturing of Platonic Piffle
or
Why South Australian Attourney-General Michael Atkinson Needs A Brain Enema
By Andrew Russell
As is well known by regular readers of this blog, I happen to be fond of playing video games. This has led to my own following of the debate about permitting an R18+ rating for video games in Australia. Since my tastes in games tend towards those with darker subject matter, occasionally there are times where games I want are refused classification by the OFLC and hence banned from being sold in Australia.
As you are probably all aware, video games are rated on a different scale to literature and films. Specifically, the highest a game can go is MA15+. If a game cannot be fitted into this category, it is refused classification and it will not be sold in this country.
The fact that games are rated differently to other forms of media causes a lot of discontent amongst the Australian gamer community. As such, there are proposals involving the introduction of an R18+ rating for video games. In order to do this, every State Attourney General must agree to modify the classification system.
The one State AG that has refused to allow this to happen is Michael Atkinson, ALP member for Croydon and a social conservative who is a devout Roman Catholic.
To put this in context, the support for allowing an R-Rating, equivalent to the one used for films, to be introduced to the Australian video game classification system is overwhelming (see the following: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1427266). To put this in further context, the study clearly shows that the average Australian gamer is a legal adult.
So no, it is not fair to say that “games are for kids.”
But this is not about the fact that Atkinson is attacking human liberty in the name of his values. This article attempts to place Michael Atkinson’s censorship in an historical and philosophical context.
A Rant Against Video Game Censorship
Recently, at the video game blog Kotaku (www.kotaku.com), South Australian Attorney General Michael Atkinson made a series of arguments in favor of preventing an R18+ rating for video games (and it is because of this that Silent Hill Homecoming is being delayed for its Australian release whilst they censor the hell out if it) . Readers responded with a series of arguments arguing that the current scheme is distortionary, and that MA15+ games often include content that should be R18+, and thus Atkinson’s stance is not only confusing parents but actually harming the children.
I am not a fan of “for the children” arguments and thus I posted my argument on Kotaku’s commets page a while ago. I am reposting here:
An Update From Hong Kong
Hong Kong is currently the world’s most free-market economy. As such it is the recipient of much affection from classical liberals/libertarians the world over. And as I am currently spending my end-of-year-vacation here, I cannot deny I am in love with HK (the food! The booze! Oh my god, yes!).
However, it seems that during my stay in HK, I have come face to face with my arch-nemesis: the clergy. In particular, I have had the displeasure of reading some truly appalling and profoundly idiotic comments made by HK’s Roman Catholic Cardinal Jospeh Zen, and Hong Kong Island’s Anglican Archbishop Paul Kwong, currently on display on page A3 of the December 25th issue of the South China Morning Post.
Below will be the text of two emails I have sent, the first to Cardinal Zen, the second to Archbishop Kwong.
Read more »
“Punishment Capitalism,” The Curious Motivations of Some Supporters of Free Markets
by Andrew Russell
One of the more twisted maladays that the concept of “Fusionism” has inflicted upon us pro-market advocates is an attitude towards markets I like to call “Punishment Capitalism” (not inherently related to the similar sounding “Sado-Monetarism”). The concept of Fusionism, by which advocates of liberty could justify noncoercion as a means to Conservative ends, was first proposed by Frank Meyer; editor of the intellectually toxic “National Review” magazine. Previously, I have discussed the problems of Fusionism, for example how it forces libertarians to justify freedom as a means (implying that freedom is not a worthy goal in and of itself), and also how it was the libertarians who provided all the intellectual ammunition and cultural assets (i.e. Mises, Hayek, Schumpeter and Friedman re-conquering academic economics for markets, Rand and Heinlein who injected the ideas of liberty into popular discourse) yet it was the conservatives that grabbed all the political power. Regardless, the ever-widening faultlines between conservatism and libertarianism are rendering Meyerian Fusionism obsolete. This article will look not at Fusionism itself, but at the attitude of Punishment Capitalism, which the Fusionists frequently carry and have spread.
Catallaxy Files- Why did this native born Hawaiian once describe himself as a Kenyan? May 18, 2012As the accompanying article on Drudge says, Obama was indeed born in Hawaii but asks why there has been so little vetting of the president. As they write: It is evidence–not of the President’s foreign origin, but that Barack Obama’s public persona has perhaps been presented differently at different times. The US is not really [...]Steve Kates
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- Words from the wise May 17, 2012Graham Richardson has a must-read op-ed in the Australian today. He reveals the depths of hatred towards the PM. While it is clear Julia Gillard just doesn’t understand how bad things really are, she is at the very core of the disenchantment. These two MPs, who both voted for her in Kevin Rudd’s February challenge, [...]Sinclair Davidson
- Why did this native born Hawaiian once describe himself as a Kenyan? May 18, 2012
- inCISe
- Govt furphy on Indigenous homeownership May 16, 2012In a media release on the Indigenous Affairs part of the 2012 Budget, the federal government insists it ‘will continue to prioritise access to the new program for people seeking to move into home ownership on Indigenous land’ – but this is a furphy. The government is well aware that people living on Indigenous land will not be able to access money from the n […]Sara Hudson
- A move long overdue May 15, 2012At long last, services on Sydney’s highly inefficient rail network are getting some attention. Transport Minister Gladys Berejiklian has announced that 750 jobs will be cut in a restructuring effort intended to reduce bureaucratic waste. Even more heartening is that RailCorp’s projected job cuts are relatively mild, consisting of voluntary redundancies to m […]Alexander Philipatos
- Generalising about racism May 14, 2012The Sydney Morning Herald is running a poll asking if Australians are Racist. So far 74% of respondents say yes and 26% say no. Some of the commentators include Larissa Berendt who argues that Australia is a racist country because Aboriginal people have a shorter life expectancy. However, there are many reasons why their life expectancy is shorter than the a […]Sara Hudson
- Govt furphy on Indigenous homeownership May 16, 2012
- IPA news
- The unhappy compromise of European 'austerity' May 14, 2012Has austerity worked in Europe? Well, if "austerity" means savage cuts to government spending, then there has been no...
- The politics of projection: there's a reason we can't all just get along May 12, 2012Politics is almost entirely in the eye of the beholder. Obviously conservatives, libertarians, progressives and...
- Great expectations vanish May 10, 2012The federal budget was entirely predictable. The dodgy accounting. The flimsy "surplus". The higher taxes on the wealthy....
- The unhappy compromise of European 'austerity' May 14, 2012
Oz Political Quiz
