Note: I posted a slightly different version of this on my blog last night, on the eve of the Fourth of July - well, it was the eve then, it's the Fourth now (I live in Australia, so I'm a bit ahead of y'all). It was a reaction to news I read that day, and a rumination about being an expatriate American on our national holiday.
Recent events regarding civil liberties have hit the news in Australia. World Youth Day, a gathering of a quarter-million young Catholic pilgrims, will kick off here in Sydney next week, and Pope Benedict will visit. It's a big deal for a country that's 25% Catholic.
Follow below for more, including some non-gratuitous vulgarities.
But civil liberties are begin curtailed left and right, and the police are being granted vast new powers, as I outline below. For those who don't know, while Australia has a written constitution, it does not have anything like a Bill of Rights. Civil liberties aren't codified into it like they are in ours (even if ours are being trampled by the Commander in Thief).
There is a republican movement in Australia, which seeks to break from the British monarchy and establish an Australian head of state (what a concept!). The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, is a republican, although he walks a weird line - not wanting to be too vocal about it, lest he piss off the monarchists, but more so that he has more pressing issues to attend to, like labour relations and health care and indigenous concerns.
Hand in hand with this republican movement, but also separate from it, is a debate about whether Australia should adopt a US-style Bill of Rights. It is incidents like the following that spark the debate.
Have fun:
To give you an idea of what the Fourth of July means to Australians, I mentioned to a colleague yesterday that today would be the Fourth of July. The colleague who sits next to me replied with, "I know! My best friend’s birthday!"
Yeah, well America will be 232, so beat that. (And she doesn’t look a day over 200.)
So on this momentous occasion, of the anniversary of my homeland’s founding, let me give one example of why America kicks ass, as opposed to Australia. It’s called having a Bill of Rights.
As you may know, the Catholic Church’s World Youth Day will take place in Sydney this month. It’s 11 days away, as the media keep reminding us, because here come the throngs (a quarter of a million pilgrims, plus the Pope), here come the traffic jams, here come the street closures ... and here come the gross infringement of individual rights by the State.
The Police in New South Wales have been granted extraordinary new powers of enforcement by the NSW Government during World Youth Day—and even before and after (they went into effect the other day and remain so until the end of July). These include making it a crime to:
- Wear a T-shirt with a message on it that might cause disruption or annoyance.
- Undertaking any kind of "Chasers"-style stunt. (Y'all may remember the Chasers for their trying to convince Hillary to hire them as interns.
- Handing out condoms at protests.
- Riding a skateboard.
- Playing music.
Those failing to comply could receive a $5,500 fine. Compare that to the fine you get if you expose yourself to someone ($1,100), and you’ll see, as Greens MP Lee Rhiannon pointed out, that wearing an anti-Catholic T-shirt is apparently a far worse crime.
And it’s not just the police, it’s volunteers from the State Emergency Service and Rural Fire Service, who will "be able to direct people to cease engaging in conduct that ‘causes annoyance or inconvenience to participants in a World Youth Day event’."
Of course, this is obviously highly offensive to me as an American—we have a Constitutional right to wear whatever the hell we want (that quaint little thing called the First Amendment)—and it should be to anyone who gives a shit about civil liberties.
But even more disturbing is the capriciousness with which these new powers will be executed. From the above-linked Sydney Morning Herald story (appropriately headlined "Thou shalt not annoy on Youth Day"):
A police source said causing an "annoyance or inconvenience" was a highly subjective offence. A police lawyer would define it in layman's terms for operational use by officers.
Yeah, that’s just what we need in the law: high levels of subjectivity. Because when you get that, and the lack of civil liberties written into your constitution, you get the case of a young man in Queensland who was arrested last week for wearing a metal band’s T-shirt on the beach. (The shirt said "Jesus was a cunt" and depicted a nun masturbating.)
A 16-year-old was arrested on Monday for wearing the shirt and was charged with offensive behaviour under the Summary Offences Act 2005 for public nuisance.
Senior Sergeant Arron Ottaway said the teen was walking along Hollywell Road, in Biggera Waters, when a [sic] officer saw him.
"I’m not religious but that’s just offensive," said Sen Sgt Ottaway.
"I’m not religious but that’s just offensive." How’s that for probable cause? So this Senior Sergeant Ottaway just decided he didn’t like some kid’s T-shirt and arrested him. For wearing a T-shirt.
Was the T-shirt offensive? Sure, it offends me, and I think it happens to be wrong in its characterisations of Christ. But I still firmly believe the dude has a right to wear it—just like the KKK offends the hell out of me and I think they’re all bigoted fuckwit assholes, but you know what? They’ve got a right to march down Main Street USA and wear their chickenshit hoods as long as they don’t assault anyone. Free speech means giving it to everyone, even to those we hate or disagree with.
That is, this kid in Australia should have a right to wear his dumb little T-shirt, because he obviously doesn’t. Back home, the ACLU would be all up in Queensland’s kitchen so fast, but then again, they’d have recourse in the First Amendment.
So here, on American Independence Day, let me celebrate my homeland with these words:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Those blessed words, which give me the right to say this:
George W. Bush is a cunt.
God bless America.