How 'the nanny state' turned Aussies into hooligans

PEOPLE tend towards "hooliganism" when they're allowed unmoderated and unfettered access to a publishing system, a senior IT researcher says.

And Australians tend to behave worse than most because we are not used to having so much freedom.

“We live in nanny state where everything is controlled and you can't do anything without getting in trouble,” Dr Christine Satchell, a senior research fellow in computing and information systems at the University of Melbourne, said.

“So it's hard for us as Australians to be in a space with no rules.”

Dr Satchell said users should be encouraged to moderate themselves rather than relying on police and real world laws.

She said a successful example is Slashdot, one of the world’s oldest tech websites, which is almost entirely moderated by its users.

Each is rewarded with privileges depending on how they do it, creating a system that encourages better online behaviour.

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/technology/how-the-nanny-state-turned-aussies-into-hooligans/story-e6frfro0-1226441580173#ixzz22Nc9JGat

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Don't you like the way this cookie twists this thingy about, by blaming the "Nanny State" for "people behaving badly".... "not used to sooooooo much freedom!" CRAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's a lot of codswallop... It looks like a new thesis is on the way to show that worms never go into apples if the apples are nice... Brother! History is full of crap like this, but then it's Merde-och fantasy land... versus the hard facts....

Problem 1: Too Much Opinion

As former press secretary Lachlan Harris has argued, 'every year the number of journalists goes down and the number of commentators goes up.' One factor is simple economics: journalism costs money and comment is often free (as in the case of this article, ironically).

My concern about comment is not mostly about ideological bias. My own systematic study of media bias (co-authored with Joshua Gans) found that during the period 1996 to 2004, most outlets adopted centrist positions. My chief concern about the rise of opinion is the risk that it threatens the information commons, and threatens to split people into increasingly extreme echo chambers.

Problem 2: Nastiness

The second trend that concerns me is nastiness. In her address to the Sydney Institute last year, Annabel Crabb argued that 'there is a hostile, scratchy feel to politics at the moment'. In the latest Quarterly Essay, Laura Tingle contends that 'Australia's politics and our public discourse have become noticeably angrier'.

Problem 3: Shallowness

My third concern is that new media technologies are driving towards a shallower national conversation than in the past. One manifestation of this is the rise of 'showman politicians', who are known more for their exaggerations and snappy grabs than their thoughtfulness. Waiting one day to speak to reporters on the doors outside Parliament House, it occurred to me that the 24/7 media cycle has the same effect on the political system as if we offered a cash prize for the parliamentarian who could come up with the most outrageous line of the day.

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4174128.html?WT.svl=theDrum

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One thing for sure is that the clever opinionated spruikers have taken over the communication "news" channels... And they have become more rabid, rancid and negatively one-sided to get noticed... And there is a peer pressure to appear to outdo damage to Julia... On the lopitical side (political side), you have politicians, namely one Tony Abbott who promotes acrimonious negativity and porkies with barely contained anger...  A lot of his lackeys like Pyne are full of bile... The way Abbott twists reality is viciously sneaky... And most of the journos oblige with helping him because that's where their bread is buttered... They love Tony Detritus...

It is mostly forgotten that the great workplace bogeyman, the HR Nicholls Society – the fortress of managers' rights, the unions' bête noire – was opposed to WorkChoices. In 2006 ACTU boss Greg Combet described WorkChoices as "Kremlin-like". The president of the HR Nicholls Society, Ray Evans, agreed. "It's rather like going back to the old Soviet system of command and control, where every economic decision has to go to some central authority and get ticked off." He went on: "I don't believe the Howard Government is that keen on freedom."

This makes recent claims that the rebirth of the HR Nicholls Society is a harbinger of WorkChoices comically ludicrous.

But then, what does it matter? The point of talking about WorkChoices isn't to warn Australian workers. It is to find anything that might restore Labor's support. WorkChoices is a scare campaign, sure. It's also very tired and probably futile.

Chris Berg is a Research Fellow with the Institute of Public Affairs. His latest book is In Defence of Freedom of Speech: from Ancient Greece to Andrew Bolt. Follow him on Twitter @chrisberg. View his full profile here.

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Chris Berg is a rabid RITEWINGNUT who has not understood anything about the planet, its humans and its nature... Calling oneself a Research Fellow of whatever sounds like a solid intellectual piece of work but then I can call myself a Research Fellow of the Berlin Universal Institute without blinking... 

Below is the list of ludicrous recommendations from Chris Berg to Tony Abbott — all being of the careless ritewingnuttery kind... It's sad, really... And the worst thing it's what Tony believes as well but cannot utter in public ... 

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We should be more concerned about the Australian National Preventive Health Agency - a new Commonwealth bureaucracy dedicated to lobbying other arms of government to introduce Nanny State measures-than about bias at the ABC [GUS: THE BIAS AT THE ABC IS MOSTLY IN FAVOUR OF TONY ABBOTT]. We should be more concerned about the cottage industry of consultancies and grants handed out by the public service to environmental groups. We should be more concerned that senior public servants shape policy more than elected politicians do. And conservative governments should be more concerned than they are at the growth of the state's interest in every aspect of society.

If he wins government, Abbott faces a clear choice. He could simply overturn one or two symbolic Gillard-era policies like the carbon tax, and govern moderately. He would not offend any interest groups. In doing so, he'd probably secure a couple of terms in office for himself and the Liberal Party. But would this be a successful government? We don't believe so. The remorseless drift to bigger government and less freedom would not halt, and it would resume with vigour when the Coalition eventually loses office. We hope he grasps the opportunity to fundamentally reshape the political culture and stem the assault on individual liberty.

1 Repeal the carbon tax, and don't replace it. It will be one thing to remove the burden of the carbon tax from the Australian economy. But if it is just replaced by another costly scheme, most of the benefits will be undone.

2 Abolish the Department of Climate Change

3 Abolish the Clean Energy Fund

4 Repeal Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act

5 Abandon Australia's bid for a seat on the United Nations Security Council

6 Repeal the renewable energy target

7 Return income taxing powers to the states

8 Abolish the Commonwealth Grants Commission

9 Abolish the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission

10 Withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol

11 Introduce fee competition to Australian universities

12 Repeal the National Curriculum

13 Introduce competing private secondary school curriculums

14 Abolish the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA)

15 Eliminate laws that require radio and television broadcasters to be balanced'

16 Abolish television spectrum licensing and devolve spectrum management to the common law

17 End local content requirements for Australian television stations

18 Eliminate family tax benefits

19 Abandon the paid parental leave scheme

20 Means-test Medicare

21 End all corporate welfare and subsidies by closing the Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education

22 Introduce voluntary voting

23 End mandatory disclosures on political donations

24 End media blackout in final days of election campaigns

25 End public funding to political parties

26 Remove antidumping laws

27 Eliminate media ownership restrictions

28 Abolish the Foreign Investment Review Board

29 Eliminate the National Preventative Health Agency

30 Cease subsidising the car industry

31 Formalise a one-in, one-out approach to regulatory reduction

32 Rule out federal funding for 2018 Commonwealth Games

33 Deregulate the parallel importation of books

34 End preferences for Industry Super Funds in workplace relations laws

35 Legislate a cap on government spending and tax as a percentage of GDP

36 Legislate a balanced budget amendment which strictly limits the size of budget deficits and the period the federal government can be in deficit

37 Force government agencies to put all of their spending online in a searchable database

38 Repeal plain packaging for cigarettes and rule it out for all other products, including alcohol and fast food

39 Reintroduce voluntary student unionism at universities

40Introduce a voucher scheme for secondary schools

41 Repeal the alcopops tax

42 Introduce a special economic zone in the north of Australia including: 
a) Lower personal income tax for residents 
b) Significantly expanded 457 Visa programs for workers 
c) Encourage the construction of dams

43 Repeal the mining tax

44 Devolve environmental approvals for major projects to the states

45 Introduce a single rate of income tax with a generous tax-free threshold

46 Cut company tax to an internationally competitive rate of 25 per cent

47 Cease funding the Australia Network

48 Privatise Australia Post

49 Privatise Medibank

50 Break up the ABC and put out to tender each individual function 

51 Privatise SBS 

52 Reduce the size of the public service from current levels of more than 260,000 to at least the 2001 low of 212,784

53 Repeal the Fair Work Act

54 Allow individuals and employers to negotiate directly terms of employment that suit them

55 Encourage independent contracting by overturning new regulations designed to punish contractors

56 Abolish the Baby Bonus

57 Abolish the First Home Owners' Grant

58 Allow the Northern Territory

59 Halve the size of the Coalition front bench from 32 to 16

60 Remove all remaining tariff and non-tariff barriers to international trade

61 Slash top public servant salaries to much lower international standards, like in the United States

62 End all public subsidies to sport and the arts

63 Privatise the Australian Institute of Sport

64 End all hidden protectionist measures, such as preferences for local manufacturers in government tendering

65 Abolish the Office for Film and Literature Classification

66 Rule out any government-supported or mandated internet censorship

67 Means test tertiary student loans 

68 Allow people to opt out of superannuation in exchange for promising to forgo any government income support in retirement

69 Immediately halt construction of the National Broadband Network and privatise any sections that have already been built

70 End all government funded Nanny State advertising

71 Reject proposals for compulsory food and alcohol labelling

72 Privatise the CSIRO

73 Defund Harmony Day

74 Close the Office for Youth

75 Privatise the Snowy-Hydro Scheme

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ALL THESE ITEMS ARE TOTALLY OUR OF LINE

They would promote the kind of political selfishness akin to that of the dark ages. They would kill off social equity to be replaced by "charitable" handouts at the whim and glory of the rich and floggings of workers beyond your imagination...

It would aso propel the problem of global warming at twice the speed... But I have the feeling Berg does not believe the science, his god being Andrew Bolt and Alan Jones... And what about the bias on the ABC? he can talk... He's more a guest of the drum than any other dudes like me... The hypocrite.

Fact checkers are required primarily for calling out lies — deliberate statements of falsehood, made knowingly by politicians, the media and public commentators.

Australia, the USA and Britain today are rife with fabricators.

Journalists lie about public figures, about climate change and about Aboriginal people.

The IPA routinely fabricates and distorts in its advocacy on behalf of its undisclosed clients on tobacco marketing, internet privacy, climate change, controls over shonky charities and many other matters.

These are profound challenges facing Australia, the USA and Britain. Fact checkers can help us deal with them.

* Despite his bio in The Drum, Chris Berg appears to be only a former editor of The IPA Review, with the current editor being James Paterson 

read more : http://www.independentaustralia.net/2012/business/media-2/ipa-falsifiers-fear-fact-checking-fad/

See article above... and toon at top.

The nation got offended an awful lot in 2012. Ours was such a year of outrage that all these little episodes seem to have blurred into one: a swirling furiousness against Qantas, Alan Jones, Kyle Sandilands, in defence of Charlotte Dawson, against Charlotte Dawson, Alan Jones again, in defence of Robbie Farah, against Robbie Farah, "Twitter trolls", Alan Jones again, and then finally, tragically, the two 2DayFM hosts.

By the time the 2DayFM hosts made their prank call, there was already a fixed outrage-on-commercial-broadcasting playbook: shut down advertising before advertisers can shut down themselves, bare your soul to the press.

But, 11 months on, can you even remember what was so outrageous about Yumi Stynes? Don't Google. It was Negus, not Stynes, who speculated about Corporal Roberts-Smith's sexual prowess: "what if they're not up to it in the sack?" Hence the "dud root" comment. Stynes suggested the good soldier wasn't that smart.

Was this a tasteless? Okay, if you want. But, really, "the nothing hosts of this second rate show MAKE ME SICK"?

...

Outrage is politics packaged up for the water cooler: it's transient, meaningless, forgettable, and, for a brief moment, intensely all-consuming.

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4436234.html?WT.svl=theDrum

Yes, you may have noticed: Chris Berg did not mention Tony Abbott, Craig Thomson, Peter Slipper, the AWU, the HSU and Julia Gillard, much... Sure the little scandals festering on the "popular mediocre media" gives him the most to talk about... Chris Berg is a one-eyed bigoted expert attached to that ghastly IPA... In his subtle manner, this is his way to make the long list of Tony Abbott cock ups vanish like insignificant wafties... They don't rate in Chris Berg's list of offences... Or like Andrew Bolt, Chris Berg may think that Paul Henry was a great interviewer...

Like many self-appointed priests in the media, Chris Berg suffers from selective amnesia... He visits too many water-cooler sites for his research...

Chris Berg's waffle being a regular stinking occurence on the ABC Drum is beyond me...

A person cannot be held responsible for what others do with their reputation. But Chris Berg argues that George Orwell's outsized reputation has gotten way out of hand.

Last Monday the left-wing magazine New Statesman declared it was "Orwell Week".

How utterly shameless.

George Orwell is no longer a journalist. He is an all-purpose, all-terrain vehicle for the vanities of other writers.

This is particularly obvious in the case of the New Statesman. In 1937, the magazine's editor, Kingsley Martin, rejected two of George Orwell's pieces on the Spanish Civil War for being excessively critical of communism. His articles would "cause trouble", Martin claimed, because Orwell had described fascism and communism as two sides of the same totalitarian coin.

The New Statesman was a bastion of sympathy for the Soviet Union. Orwell later said its typical reader "worships Stalin".

Now the New Statesman wants to wear George Orwell as a political badge.

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4488608.html?WT.svl=theDrum

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There-there Chris... Chris Berg is yet again used by the ABC as the important right wing village idiot, as if he was the mayor in charge of the industrial dunny cleaner... Mayor Berg. Chris does not understand much unless there is the concept "bash-a-leftie-today" smoked-written in the sky, but Berg manufactures understanding out of his own misconceptions... 

If Orwell were alive today, Chris Berg would be deemed "Orwellian". Chris would be declared as one of the pigs. If Machiavelli was alive today, Chris Berg would be declared one of his heirs — one with the enormous conniving bile but none of the delicate subtleties. 

As Chris Berg debases Orwell's wingspan, it's only about enlarging Chris Berg's own ego... If someone appears large on the horizon and you tell your viewers you have recognised that person was piss-weak, it inflates your own status... Sure that someone else aligns themselves with Orwell's work while not worthy of it might stain, but it certainly does not stain Orwell as Berg is trying to indicate...