Defending liberal democracy 17 Mar 20094 Oct 2017 I urge people to go read Russell Blackford’s submission to the Human Rights consultative committee in Australia. It deals with the changes and challenges to civil liberties in the modern era and although Australia-focussed, it generalises well once you get past our odd spelling conventions and local events. Censorship Politics Religion
Evolution On the “Darwin Year” 1 Jul 2008 Readers may be somewhat surprised that Evolving Thoughts hasn’t made much of the Darwin bicentennial and the Origin sesquicentennial so far. Well, I haven’t needed to, given the number of other folk making hay from this. In particular I recommend Carl Zimmer’s piece, over at his new digs with Discover… Read More
Evolution Genesis 2 rewritten 5 Jun 200724 Nov 2022 It is also likely that if God re-issued Genesis 2, he’d do it as a comic strip like this. Oops I forgot to link it… fixed now. Read More
Politics Why the west invaded Iraq 12 Oct 2009 It’s awkward to say openly, but now-departed President Bush is a religious crackpot, an ex-drunk of small intellect who “got saved.” He never should have been entrusted with the power to start wars. From here. Read More
I argue that fully adequate protection of our rights and freedoms would require all of the following: The inclusion of core civil liberties — such as freedom of speech and expression, freedom of belief, conscience, and worship, and freedom of association — in a constitutionally-entrenched Bill of Rights, along with strong procedural protections before anyone can be subjected to punishment, imprisonment, detention, ill-treatment, or other loss of liberties. Hey! We Merkins tried this. It even works … occasionally. Very good, Russell.
I argue that fully adequate protection of our rights and freedoms would require all of the following: The inclusion of core civil liberties — such as freedom of speech and expression, freedom of belief, conscience, and worship, and freedom of association — in a constitutionally-entrenched Bill of Rights, along with strong procedural protections before anyone can be subjected to punishment, imprisonment, detention, ill-treatment, or other loss of liberties. Hey! We Merkins tried this. It even works … occasionally. Very good, Russell.