Leighton Smith Podcast #255 - September 11th 2024 - Professor Nicholas Aroney

For those who, for whatever reason, are unfamiliar with his name, Sir John Graham was a legend one of the greatest Maxim Institute, of which he was a founding trustee, as being responsible for establishing and maintaining the Sir John Graham Annual Lecture. This year was the fourteenth such event. Every year Maxim produces a guest speaker of considerable talent this year's speaker was Nicholas Herony, Professor of Constitutional Law at

the University of Queensland. The title was The Compass of Character. Sir John would have approved. Nicholas Arony guests in podcast two hundred and fifty five and we discussed the subject of his speech, but only after we traversed a number of other issues, beginning with democracy and challenges, of which

there are many. Layton Smith speaking of character. In a few hours and the so called presidential debate will be live on TV, and at that point this podcast will be ready for release, which will likely be during the debate. So I cannot comment on the battle that so many people are wanting it to be and hanging out for. I can't comment on that because I won't be in.

it with this. Kamala Harris's campaign is making women look incompetent is the title, Especially to those of us who want to see a female president. It's so awful to have a candidate who is so obviously not up to the job. Carrie Lucas writes, I want every little girl across our country to know this. You can do anything, even if it's never been done before. Said in August twenty six x post from the Kamala Harris Tim Wallson campaign.

It's vapid and cliche, the kind of feel good self help speak that should be avoided during the serious business of electing the leader of the free world. Yet it speaks to the uncomfortable truth for women. Closely following this campaign, Kamala Harris is trading new ground as the first female vice president and someone with a serious shot at becoming

America's first female president. You don't have to be a dei enthusiast to recognize that the first female president will have a special place in the history books as the culmination of the centuries long fight for women's rights in the United States. That's also why it's so awful to have a female presidential candidate who is so obviously not up to the job. Subheading, Americans would elect a woman, but this one isn't Ready. Surveys suggest Americans are willing,

even eager, to vote for a evil candidate. Harris's campaign is predicated on this. Publicly, the campaign hand rings about how sexism against women is a formidable obstacle that the trailblazing Kamala must overcome. In a country of nearly one hundred and seventy million registered voters, undoubtedly at least a

few simply will not vote for any woman. Female candidates looks, wardrobe decisions, and personal histories likely are generally subject to greater press scrutiny than that of the average male candidate. And yet it's also clear that Kamala sex is her greatest asset. I will skip the rest of this It's fairly long subheading the campaign Women Deserve Harris could have

offered Americans a very different campaign. She could have boldly defended the Biden Harris administration as a success that deserves another four years, or explained how as president she would but on a few critical policy issues, Americans might have given her points for admitting that mistakes were made in

good faith under President Biden and Harris's watch. Americans might have appreciated the honesty of saying that three years in office taught her important lessons and she plans to course correct. She could have fearlessly revisited her twenty twenty primary statements and described the process by which she has come to moderate her positions subheading deep inside Carmelin knows that she's incompetent,

and this is worth reading its entirety, which is fairly short. Anyway, she enabled the Trump campaign to make Kamala v. Kamala ads to expose her competing policy positions and reveal her as a chameleon. She confirmed the suspicion that her party doesn't trust her to handle serious questions or to articulate her party's policy agenda. They believe that she must be kept with notes behind a teleprompter. Hillary Clinton didn't not act like this. Nikki Hayley didn't ask a man to

tag along for big interviews. Why is Kamala allowing herself to be treated like she's incompetent? It's because of the worst truth of all. She believes it too. You can see her self doubt during any unscripted moment. Each sentence is a dangerous high wire act. She's in her head, second guessing every word she utters, hearing herself get tongue tied and falling back on the verbal tics that her

campaign coaches have clearly flagged as poison. Subheading. She can't even do a CNN interview herself, and we know the story behind that. Yes, many of us, she concludes, many of us do look forward to the day that we have a madam president, but not enough to buy the

scam being sold us today. We know we deserve better. Well, make your own judgment call based on the comments of Carrie Lucas, president of the Independent Women's Forum, and what you see or hear of the so called presidential debate, because not really in a few hours time now, in a moment, Professor Nicholas a'rony Layton Smith, there are essential fat nutrients that we need in our diet as the body can't manufacture them. These are Omega three and Amiga

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Farmer Broker Auckland Nicholas Aroni is a professor of Law at the University of Queensland, specializing in constitutional law, which for me at the moment as one of the most interesting legal topics on the planet. He is here for the annual Sir John Graham Lecture and that lecture is entitled The Compass of Character, and the lecture is very interesting. I know this because I got some advanced notes. So, Nicholas Roney, it's great to have you on the Latent

Smith podcast. You're much appreciated, I am told by the Maxim Institute for which you are delivering the aforementioned lecture.

is to participate in your own self government. And one of the interesting things that goes along with that understanding of democracy is that it can only really work at that highest level at a local level, ironically, because it's only at a local level that people are really effectively able to participate in their own self government. Bigger the country gets, the bigger the number of people, the more

distant the government gets from people. So that's my essential and underlying definition of democracy.

about political matters. That's always been seen as very essential and central to the process of participating in your own self government, because in a sense, we're talking about politics, and we're talking about how we govern ourselves collectively, and so to participate in your own self government collectively with other people, it's essential that you communicate with those people that we all together talk about how we're to be

governed and make decisions together after listening to each other's arguments, the reasons each gives for certain policies and so forth.

that are occurring in many countries. It seems to me that because I define democracy as something that happens best at a more local level, the underminding, sorry, the underlying challenge to democracy happens when you try to spread democracy over too larger compass, and then what happens is the government gets more and more distant from people, and power becomes more and more centralized in the government, and then the people who rule so distantly begin to just govern

more autocratically or more independently of public opinion. And I think that that's the underlying problem. If democracy is under threat, I think across the world, and I wouldn't even refer simply to the countries that most people think of it as being under threat. But even in our favored Western democracies, what we're seeing is increasing centralization and an increasing concentration of power in what we call the executive government, which

is distinct from our parliaments. During COVID, for example, across the world, we saw virtually all the nations of the world, even the Western democracies, relying on and functioning through an extraordinary concentration of power in the executive, and parliaments were shunted out of the process had little or no say

at all about how COVID was managed. So if democracy is under threat, it's because our political systems have become so increasingly centralized that when a crisis comes along like that, or a perceived crisis comes along, the executive takes the reins and starts to govern just simply on the basis of the decisions of the executive.

the One, as it were. It's interesting. I mean, I don't think we quite realize that. If stole and looked at our systems, he would say, wow, you're not really democracies. You are sort of mixed constitutions with an awful lot of monarchy. And he would say that because he means the rule of the one, and he'd be looking at our systems and notice just how much the power of just one central focus of authority he plays such a very significant role in the politics of our times.

not really very relevant. What's really most crucial is whether it's just one person who rules, a few people who rule, or the many who rule. And he analyzed political systems in those terms, and I think it's very illuminating because we've lost sight of that, and we congratulate ourselves on being democracies when we have very, very vast tracks of both monarchy and aristocracy in our systems.

And so there are just so many people of great intelligence and ability in our world, and how to pick which one of them would actually turn out to have the sort of stature of an Aristotle or a Plato in two centuries time or a millennia. Goodness, it's very, very hard to gauge whether there are any like that. I really would hesitate to try to answer that question, and that might sound like it seemed like a cop out. That's my honest and truthful answer.

philosophers or teachers in the universities. And while it's true that people like Harbamus and others are having significant influence in the way that people think, what's noticeable it seems to me is that if you were to ask me, you know who in our times has had influence, my mind actually interestingly turned to the founders of the American constitution, like James Madison, for example. And why it comes to mind is what's interesting about these figures is they weren't

just pure philosophers. They were practicing politicians. They were statesmen, They ran farms and businesses, and at the same time they undertook or engaged in philosophy and theoretical reflection on politics. So they were more like renaissance men, if I can

use that expression, broadly educated, but also broadly and practically experienced. So, not wanting to pour too much cold water on the thought that someone like Jurgen Habermass will turn out to be a significant figure, I'm actually not so sure that he will in the long run. And what I think is noticeable is that. And I suppose I'm being critical of my own class, but the academic class we do

live in ivory towers. That expression exists for a reason because really have any sense of what it means to put our ideas into real practice. And it shows when academics actually are given some responsibility administrative responsibility in universities, they don't act necessarily better than the politicians that they

so like to criticize from the sidelines. So it's the people that can actually put things into but also think deeply about it that I think I admire the most, and the ones that had the most lasting impact past.

is just most easily compared. So that's one reason why I, personally, and it's not answering your question, find the American system very relevant. I think the second one, though, is that it's just undoubted that the United States has become the dominant power of our generations, and therefore our interest in

it is driven by its success and its power. I think that's why the Roman Empire has continued to be a topic of perennial interest, because it was the dominant power over Europe as we know it today, and Europe evolved out of what remained of that empire, and so people look back to their roots and you sort of the sort of a gravitational force the powerful and the successful. Over time, though there's always an ebb and flow in

imperial and power and the strength of nations. And so you know, probably two or three generations ago, people would have thought that the British Empire was the most significant objective inquiry, and I think that's only the case. You saw that a lot of people very interested in the British system of government because it as the British Empire spread throughout the world, they established Westminster systems of government.

We call them Westminster systems after you know that small area in London called Westminster where the houses of Parliament are based. So I think our interest in these systems is largely driven by their power, their success, and the sense that well, they must be doing something right. So let's try and understand how it works and see how much we can emulate that success in our own nations.

that we have set up. And I'm talking, of course, because of the because of the competitive nature of those who are coming in for what they have left behind.

from Greece. They were migrants themselves. It seems to me that well, what's a very interesting thing is when these debates arise, they sometimes occur in a certain heated environment, and other points of interest or other issues are sometimes overlooked. And what I want to draw attention to is this is that I've done a lot of reading lately about the relationships between ethnic, linguistic and religious diversity and how economically successful a country is or how politically stable the

country is. Now, this is very quantitative data. What these people do, with social scientists and sometimes economists, is that they try to measure just how ethnically or religiously, or linguistically or culturally diversit country is, or how polarized it is, and then they try to work out how stable it is, how economically prosperous it is, and those sorts of measures, and they do this for every country in the world, and they try to do it at particular periods of time,

and they try to look to see whether there are correlations between one or the other. And so it seems to me that the very premise of that sort of an inquiry, and to some extent the findings of that research, is to say that you have to be very careful about too much diversity, particularly when it's done in a way or develops in a way that stops people talking to each other. And this comes back to the point

about freedom of speech, actually because what is startling? Actually to me it was, and then I thought about it while I thought, yes, actually, that makes a lot of sense. Is that while we sometimes pay a lot of attention to ethnic difference or religious difference, the biggest factor that has and can have a bad effect on the stability of the country and its paticefulness is linguistic diversity. In other words, people who speak different languages and cannot understand

each other. And reflecting on that, it seems to me that that's probably the most significant issue that you have to deal with that. If you have a country with people speaking different languages not able to communicate with each other, they lack the ability to engage in democratic discussion. They become enclave to themselves and they have their own speech community, and they develop their own ideas independently of the other

people's living alongside them. So it would set me one of the most important things to think about is ensuring

that people are encouraged to speak one language. One of the interesting things is, and I had a really wonderful PhD student who from Ethiopia has done some work of these questions, and one of the things he discovered, and some people didn't like him coming to this conclusion, was that one of the reasons India has been a moderately quite successful democracy dealing with you know, more than a billion people now is that it had a language that

could be the language that could unite the nation. English played a very significant role because sometimes when you have countries where you've got competing languages, whose language gets the language of the capri and sometimes it has to be a language that's neutral as between the different ethnic groups in order to get the agreement. In order to be a language around which they can unite, even if in the case of India, to that extent it was a

foreign language or a language of a colonial power. Now, I'm not wanting to make a strong argent about India or anything. I just really want to underscore the importance of language and a common language and how that has a very close relationship too, not just freedom of speech, but actual participation in self government, where people are collectively in a society freely able to and actually do engage in communication and discussion. Have you been about their collective concerns?

Have you been to India? No? I haven't, so I speak with some How do I put a reservation about saying anything too specific about India name by.

When I came to New Zealand some decade ago, for twelve months and here I am, the relationship was between Malcolm Fraser and Robert Muldoon, a very unhealthy one, but everybody, everybody survived, and so it has has continued.

that the two countries, I said, are demonstrating. So in a sense, it seems to me that it's a little like you're traveling down a valley and the hills on either side of that valley determined that the water or your even your own movement walking through the valley is going to be drawn towards the center of the valley line.

But politically, under different leadership, you can sort of lift one side of the valley or the other, and you can oscillate a little bit from side to side, but still the main direction of the relationship is down that valley. I don't know if that's a helpful analogy, but I think what's important to take that long term view and ask, well, what are the drivers of the relationship, what are the

drivers of the nature of the two countries. I'd also say that to think about this, you've got to ask, well, if we're asking what the trajectory of the two countries is and whether they're converging or diverging or will remain parallel, you've got to ask where are they coming from first?

And then where are they going? And I think when the Australian colonies federated in the eighteen ninety is actually money under and one, New Zealand took the decision not to join the federation, and that was a very very significant choice because in the eighty nineties, when you looked at it, it wasn't just obvious that the Australian colonies would become a federation, and even if they did, it wasn't obvious that New Zealand would not be a part

of it. In fact, New Zealand was part of those discussions, indeed, And if you look at the way in which the New Zealanders thought about that question and the way the various Australian colonists thought about it, they thought about it in the same way. They were enjoying the benefits of local self government. They were participating in their own self government, and they didn't want to give that up quickly sort of large federation that might just absorb them completely. So

they were very insistent on preserving their rights. And there's not the New Zealander said, but it's also what the Queensland has said, or the South Australian said, and so on. So the choice of New Zealand not to federate was based on very similar reasoning that just applied to a

different situation. And what the New Zealanders said, which I think is very interesting, is they said, look, we've decided not to join the federation, but we will end into treaties with Australia to secure the benefits of free trade and free movement of people and mutual self defense, which are two or three of the most important things that a federation achieves, but not actually become part of your federation and thus preserve an independent capacity to function as

an agent on the world stage. And they said that then, and it seems to me that that's exactly what has happened that over the course of the twentieth century New Zealand and Australia have vented into a succession of treaties which have united the peoples together in trade relationships, in migratory relationships, and also in mutual defense relationship, which are the fundamentals which define the relationship between the two countries

politically and constitutionally and legally. And that then becomes the foundation of the cultural attachment between the two countries, where we can have our sporting rivalries and jokes at each other's expanse and our accents and all of the things that we know about each other and sort of love to hate about each other, but mostly love about each other drives the sort of relationship, and there can be oscillations back and forth where England might sorry New Zealand

might divert a little bit. New Zealand has diverged in terms of the relationship to the United States in the ninety eighties over the nuclear free policy. They seem to be signs that New Zealand might be beginning to oscillate back to a little more of a convergent position on that. But I see those as oscillations within that valley that I describe the just general trajectory, which is a close relationship between two countries but running somewhat in parallel parts.

nation on the world stage. That means that you remember of the United Nations, you can make your decisions about whether you want nuclear ships in your in your harbors or not. And geopolitically, geographically, New Zealand like Tasmania are in one sense on the bottom of the earth and not in a bad sense, but well away from any

centers of geopolitical significance. And so that means that you're in a sort of a different sit situation where the threat of some sort of military confrontation is quite diffused because you're just distant. But the downside of it is is that you have to be self dependent, you have to be self sustaining. Oh this is actually something that Aristotle was very big one too, that you can't become a political entity without being self sufficient economically and militarily

to defend yourself. And look, it's very hard to know exactly how Tasmania would have turned out if it didn't enjoy a federation, but it would not have enjoyed the benefits of being part of the federation, because under a federation a sense of obligation develops that we are one people and one nation to some extent, and so we have a duty to the people who live in Tasmania to make sure that they have a standard of living that is at least in some sense comparable to the

rest of the country. So what happens within a federation is you have what is called, in technical language, horizontal equalization, where there are efforts to distribute some tax revenues to states that can't generate as much revenue because their economies are not generating as much revenue, to sort of balance things out a little. That sounds in Tasmania, let does get that benefit. It sounds like equity to me an extent, it does. Yeah, which does?

the government has control of that House of Parliament. And that means a small group of people are in control of two things, the exercise of executive power and the exercise of the legislative power. They have the power to make laws and they have the power to execute the laws, all in one hands. And it was James Madden that said you should separate those because if you consolidate them into the hands of one people become too powerful and there's not a check and balance on the executive power.

They have to negotiate with the other parties to get things passed, and so laws are less likely to be extreme in the sense of expressing or reflecting the extreme

view of the government. They have to negotiate. The second thing, and I think in some ways the even more important thing, is that houses of Parliament have an extraordinary capacity to interrogate the executive moment during question time, and they can use those powers to force ministers to answer question They can force even bureaucrats to produce documents, and they can ask the questions and den answers to them. And that again places governments under scrutiny, the type of scrutiny that

they need. And when that happens, then governments have to be again more responsive and more accountable for their decisions, and it places a check upon them that is a very salutary check in most suits. So that's why I would say that Queensland and New Zealand be similar constitutionally, and it's not really such a good thing. It would be better if both countries, I think, had a second chamber. It happened to Victoria is different if you mention that

as well. Yes, yeah, because Victoria. I would say that New Zealand and Victoria are comparable, partly because they are quite discrete states. I think that's similar, comparable climates to some extent, I mean, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but the most similar that beyond that, I think just

ideologically politically, they're very similar. Victoria is often now seen today as Australia's most left leaning progressive state in that sense of the word, and New Zealand seems to have become, from an Australian point, more left leaning than some of the other Australian states or even Australia as a whole in some respects Now, it's a difficult judgment call, and there's any ditions to that point, but there does seem to be some comparability in Victoria and New Zealand on

that metric as well. Yeah.

Executive has to act and have to act promptly, and if they have to get the parliament to give them permission to do it, they won't act least they need to, and the problem will just get worse and worse. Sounds good on paper, but what it is is a license for unchecked power. And the powers delegated to executive agents like chief medical officers and sometimes ministers of government, but often just bureaucrats to lock down people, to quarantine people

are enormous powers. Enormous powers, and power can be exercised people's benefit, but it can also be exercise very excessively, and I think we did see quite a lot of excess of power being exercised during the COVID pandemic infinitely only think I think I saw it. I think all of us saw videos it was, and I think that it was a very sad time actually, because I think the reputation of our police officers was tarnished during that time, and it continues to be by what we're seeing even

in places like the United Kingdom as well. And because interestingly the power of the not just social media, but all of us having phones with cameras on them, the police aren't really able to do too much without being filmed. And that's probably a good thing because it exposes to the public what they do when they seek to enforce law or their judgment what is necessary, and we see excessive use what appears to be excessive use of forts.

We have to be very careful with those videos because they can be edited and they can be framed to make things look bad and not in the full context of maybe the violent behavior of the person being apprehended prior to the video. But on the other hand, there are too many cases where the person is plainly not acting in any way violently, but a man handled in a very violent man on very questionable grounds and it's it has I think, broad the public attitude to the

police force. You know, it's had an effect on our view about the police, which I think is it all healthy because we do need police officers and they're you know, by and large they're trying to do the right thing and they're good people, but we do get these excesses and they're very concerning.

bit of time on this speech. In the Compass of Character, give us a brief definition of what character is.

The old language that used to be used that I think we need to recover, even though some people might find the term in some ways off putting, is the word virtue and its opposite vice. Virtues advices are our character attributes, either good or bad. And if people don't like the expression's virtue and vice, let me give you some examples. Because key virtues are things like courage, prudence, wisdom, justice, patience,

good judgment. Now, those sorts of character qualities or virtues are the good virtues or the good character qualities that oriented person to habitually respond well to a situation and act well. Whereas vices like greed, envy, malice, hatred, those sorts of things are again bad habits of mind and practice that orient us towards responding very badly to situations

and acting very badly. And it seems to me that the argument of my paper at its core is that our character in this sense determines the way we respond and act both as individuals and collectively. And I think that in our time we've lost touch with this, we've forgotten this. And because we've forgotten that these character qualities are what really drive the quality of our lives and

the goodness or the badness of our behaviors. Because we've forgotten that, we have turned to other mechanisms or other tools to try to deal with the lack of good character. And so we've turned to two things in particular. We've turned to law and we've turned education, and we've tried to use law and use education to make up for

the absence of character where it doesn't exist. And the problem is that the argument of my lecture is that law and education are good and can do really good things, but they have to stay within their wheelhouses, and they can't actually of themselves produce good character. They can restrain people from doing bad things. The law education can give us good information, good knowledge, and good skills to do things, but neither of those actually give us the character to

act well. And in my argument in the lecture is that it is what we used to call and still call in some sense religion that actually is most formative

of our characters. Because religion is that which forces us to ask those deepuestions about our personal characters and challenge us about the extent to which we are driven by malice, driven by anger, driven by greed, driven by envy, or whatever it might be, whatever vices actually do inhabit our minds and our hearts and do shape our behaviors, and the extent to which rather we embrace and seek to

inculcate within our own souls good virtuous character qualities like generosity, fairness, justice, patience, courage, fortitude, and so forth. So, you know, the my lecture, that the gift of my lecture is to say that let's not think that law and education are the only tools to produce a good society, and let's not over use them because it actually becomes counterproductive. Let's realize and recover the importance of what I'm calling religion for shaping our

characters in that good way. And that's the main point of the lecture.

very practical sense. Whereas the good friends that I have who've got a lot of good sense in any conversation always take it to a practicality and say, well, what happens here and here? What do we do here and now? And those sorts of people also demonstrate by their actions in real life what it means to live a life of good character or good common sense. So I think that common sense is a virtue in that sense of the word, and a very valuable one.

with the problem we identified earlier. It does not necessarily produce good people. And that is the goal of this as well, Is it not this paper to lead us down a path will at least give us some advisories of how we can produce good people to make a good civilization a good country.

and careful logical reasoning. And consider also the corollary. The more ignorant, the less intelligent, the more poorly educated you are, the more likely you are to be driven by emotion, prejudice, superstition, and dogma. These are widely shared views. However, the cognitive and behavioral science literature suggests that this is simply not

the case. Rather, as one, Or to put it, those who are highly educated, intelligent, or rhetorically skilled tend to be significantly less likely than most to revise their beliefs or adjust their positions when confronted with evidence or arguments that contradict their priors. And that was a mouthful, what else would you say?

But what I'll also notice was is that and even just I suppose, if I can be just really honest about myself, looking into my own heart, I knew that I had an ability to make clever arguments, to think quickly on my feet, and to deliver rhetorically effective rapusts to anything anyone might say to avoid the plain truth that they might be speaking, or to rationalize my own positions.

And so when I looked at this literature, which is in a rigorous way examined whether academics, if I can put it that way, are any more likely to revise their views when confronted with the contradictory evidence, it was in one sense startling, but also did sort of reflect my intuitions that the more intelligent you are, and the better or the better educated you are, the more ideologically extreme you can be, and the quicker and more capable

you can be. It's sort of shoring up your position without really coming to grips with some point of evidence or some line of argument that undermines your position, and so that all just then boils down to real character. It suggests that virtue and character are really relevant to the academic enterprise as well, because the search for truth

is not just something that is an intellectual enterprise. It requires good character because you have to be prepared to admit that something you assume to be the case was actually not correct or false, and you need to be prepared to change your opinion about something when the evidence

suggests that your opinion was wrong. But it's not very clear that without well, but I suppose the point is without good character, we as academics can be just as inclined to just hunker down in our opinions and find what to rationalize our positions in spite of evidence to the contrary. So it all comes down to good character as well as good intelligence, and both are needed to be the sort of academics we need to be to contribute to our society.

lead us through this. Our governments are advising us to do this. We need to support them in this. We need to make sure that our message is the same as the governments. And I think that dominated the media and the politics of much of the world for that period, and it was outside the mainstream media that criticism occurred.

And yeah, it was really tragic in a sense because it meant that the sort of contestation that ought to happen in public debate about what to do just didn't happen, or didn't happen effectively, and it generated a condition of fear through the society, and you saw people thinking and speaking and acting in a way that wasn't supported by the facts. I was startled, actually, you know, two three years later, now people are being a little more truthful,

even of those who exercised power at the time. You know, even journalists sometimes and politicians now, and even bureaucrats beginning to admit that they were wrong about things. But I found that startling because I was trying to form a view based on all the information that I could glean from experts across the spectrum of views, and I thought it was pretty obvious and well known or well established,

very very early on. But COVID was a disease that sadly had the worst impact for the most elderly, and fortunately for the young and the very young, had very little of any impact at all on my health basis, and that that should therefore shape how we view it as a disease. But it seemed like that was just

not well known. And when I have noticed a few people either in the media or in politics, or someone saying two three years later, I didn't know that at the time, but now we realize, I thought to myself, well, no, those of us who were reading this material became aware of that almost straight away. And that's an example I think of a very strange thing that happened there where for some reason that open contestation and weighing the actual evidence didn't occur. I mean, I also remember, even just

simply the fatality rate from the disease. I remember very early on a debate between epidemiologist experts, one from Stanford and one I think from Dale University that was held in I think in Canada, very very early on, and the Stanford professor was saying, my recollection serves me correctly that the actual fatality rate from the disease was going to be less than half a percent in his estimation, that was his best estimate based on the evidence he

had in front of him, whereas from memory, the Yale professor was saying it's in excess of three percent or upward to five percent or something like that. Now, that might not sound like a lot, but a half a percent of three or five percent is of orders of magnitude different. Now, the Stanford professor I think has been proven correct, is undoubted. But the number of people that I asked, just colloquially, you know, how what do you

think the fatality rate is? People would say, oh, ten percent, fifteen percent, twenty percent of people will die if they catch the disease. And it's just simply wrong. And it created a climate of fear which stopped people from being able to exercise their critical faculties and to think rationally about the disease and to think about how to protect the people who really were vol who are the very elderly, or those who already had certain comorbidities that made them very susceptible.

an appropriate, an appropriate thing. And the only reason they're now now revealing well pleading sorrow is because they have no choice, because the statistics and the associated understandings are now revealing what the truth always was.

with masks, and with masks that are not effective. Like the evidence seemed to be that there are different types of masks, as I'm sure you wouldn't know too late, and some are relatively more effective than others, and their overall effectiveness is all determined by how properly use them

and a whole lot of other facts. But to see people still walking around in masks of a type that are just not effective at all in open air, walking down the street, I think to myself, Wow, that's actually really very sad that that person probably although they may have some certain circumstances that I don't love about, but you do see it, and you think that fear has

become very widespread. But the countervailing consideration, which I think needs to be tested and measured, is the extent to which our population has become more skeptical as a consequence. I do do you think that the next time it happens, and if it happens within as it were, practical living memory, and so that's a very good point you make. You know, if it happens long in enough time we will have forgotten.

But it does seem to me that enough people have sort of realized that there was a whole lot of exaggeration, a whole lot of fear mongering, and a whole lot of disinformation from governments this time to make them more skeptical the next time around. I do think the dynamic will be a little different, but I hesitate to predict

exactly how it work out. But it seems to me it will turn on just what proportion of our population through that process have changed their minds about how they think about these matters, And I think that will be a critical question going forward. I don't know the answer to that, because I don't know what proportion of our populations how they're thinking about, how many people are thinking

everything was fine, we did the right thing. I still believe everything they said, and what proportion had have come to doubt that, and what proportion always doubted it, or you know, there's a whole lot of scales of response.

understood as a conversion of the soul. Would you care to wind up on that?

a sort of law. And while that definition works for the law, it doesn't really work for our society or our culture, because it's not what is distinctive about religion as I'm defining it and using the term, because religion goes to our deepest motivations, It goes to our deepest habits, It goes to the way we think in our minds,

It goes to our attitudes and our dispositions. It addresses the extent to which our habitual response to situations is typically anger or malice, or hatred or envy, or whether our habitual response to a situation is one of patients endurance, kindness, and so forth. The question is are we a generous people in our souls or are we miserly in our souls? And how we respond to people and how we act

in the world is shaped by those dispositions. Religion, I think well understood, is all about that, and it requires self examination. It requires us to ask ourselves, what are my motivations? And it requires us to actually acknowledge or even confess that we've got bad motivations to ourselves and even to our God. And to confess that and to use an old fashioned word, repent, to say I don't want to be like that. Help me not to be like that. That, to me is what religion is about.

It's about that reformation, as it were, of our souls. And it seems to me that in losing sight of that in our public clive, we place so much more weight on law and education to make up for it, and we don't ask ourselves and we don't talk about those deeper motivations in our hearts that really do determine the way we behave and the way we treat each other. And I do hope my lecture and even this conversation with you today Laton contributes to us all reflecting on

that question. For each of us individually, it's already done it.

deep internal division about what is really important. For the most part, churches in Nazi Germany look the other way when terrible things were happening to innocent people, rather than speaking out as the moral conscience of society. For the four hundred and forty leaders who have signed this open they have forgotten that quote. There is neither jew nor gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female,

for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Once church has choose to avoid conflict with the ruling political powers, it will not be long until they are forced to look the other way, as the how they have willingly supported threatens their existence too. It's not too late to decide as a nation if we are truly one people under the law, or if we want to go down the path of racial division, which will only fuel the fires of injustice.

about strength of character to today after the interview. Another thing what Carolyn said in the last podcast about reading the Herald, I do the same, and that was if I remember correctly choosing your bylines. Also a thing I sometimes do is to read the last couple of paragraphs of an article first to make sure the writing is correct to a positive headline and not a negative response. There is one person that the Herald has that lists under his name all the things the paper gives him

the authority to write on. It seems to make him a left leaning handyman writer. I wish the paper would allocate some of those things to someone else to get a diversity of professional opinion. I still support enzed Me by your podcast Radio zed Me and the Herald as well as the local newspaper by nz me when out of town regards Colin oh and more a bit of reaction.

speak for all New Zealanders? Who makes them think or believe they know or have the right to say only they know what that archaic document written and translated in three days by an Englishman for a purpose to suit the eighteen forties, what they think it could mean today? These religious groups are entitled to an opinion as individuals and under free speech. But yet again the left media enjoy sensational as they forget how religion is also a

dying entity in today's world. I vote them out and their dying opinion null and void, says Steve.

The fact the polling shows Trump and Harris's neck and neck proves either Americans lack intelligence or are believing the narrative the media wants them to believe. Also, on the transgender nonsense. As a child, I wanted to be a pirate. My parents didn't take me to have an eye and a leg removed Keep up the Great podcast, so I thoroughly enjoyed the simon there's a response to your email was reart to Trump that I'm going to park at the back end.

was so important to me. I said it's because I have a daughter and I want to protect her and other girls. As expected, they ignored me and passed this law despite countless others who voiced similar concerns as mine. The previous government knew that the bill gave them leverage to force us to permit men to compete in women's sports, open up women's bathrooms to men who identify as women, and mispronoun boys and girls. And yet now that we have a more conservative government in power, that as of

a law remains with us. This proves James Allen's point the right never appeals bad laws that the left ram through. If it took the misinterpretation of rov Weighed over fifty years to get corrected, we might have to live with the Births, Deaths, Marriages and Relationships Registration Bill for decades until it gets corrected when more conservative judges are appointed

to replace the current lot of communist judges. Thanks Shane Jones for the Moniker, or when this bad law is so heavily enforced that New Zealand does deeply feel the pain it inflicts. As Abraham Lincoln said, the best way to get a bad law apare field is to enforce it strictly.

okay globalists. Laden Phillips says, I was only responding to yours. Oh, if the law can make them, well, here we are. This is this is quite appropriate. If the law can make a man to be a woman, then an active parliament can declare that I have the powers of superman. I look forward to being able to fly to the moon and back by my own power without a spaceship or space suit. Josh, that's I think brilliant. Let me know when takeoff.

facts of which I was obviously unaware. I suggest the vast majority of your listeners were also unaware of his status and those options. Such is the advantage of having experts on your podcasts, and your astute choice of such experts. He's quite right there in both counts. Have I changed my mind? Let me say that I was not happy with Bromig's judgment in the first place. I still think the labels such as idiot and moron, which I am

applied to Bromich. I still think the label such as idiot and moron are somewhat inappropriate, but that is just my opinion. I now hold out some hope for an appeal, but Giggles will need an exceptional lawyer with a similar depth of knowledge to them of Professor Allan still an avid listener, I beg. I knew you would be because you wrote with You wrote with a style that I recognized. But there was something I was going to add there.

way it got me, it says says. I received an email from Family First regarding submitting a response to the Law Commission's review of transgender anti discrimination laws. I inwardly groaned at the thought and mentally put it to one side. However, yes day afternoon I started to listen to your podcast in brackets, as I do each Wednesday. Thank you so much and you're welcome, And after listening to your interview with Professor Allen, decided to revisit the Family First email.

The Law Commission document is over two hundred pages long, and it's full of mention of aete rower New Zealand marine names and terms and confusing jargon at a very detailed level. The submission form is also very detailed and one specific replies to each chapter. I attempted to write my thoughts in the boxes. It was a lengthy, tedious process where you had to keep switching from the submission form to the document to understand the context of each question.

They also state somewhere that they will not accept any disrespectful comments or words to that effect. I never thought that that would be an issue for me, but I felt it took some effort to remain polite and not resort to sarcasm. I just refer back to my comments to this assignment earlier with regard to language. I am

a professional and self employed and of sound mind. However, as I began wading through what I believe to be this load of nonsense, I've felt my patience waning and my frustration growing, asking myself, how did we get to this? A lot of people are asking that question in various ways. I've heard many people refer to the Left as living in an echo chamber and have wondered if I, too was living in my own Clearly, I have been as

I felt I had landed on another planet. Reading the Law Commission review and submission questions and I have no desire to listen to any more of this nonsense. We are in very shaky financial times and I am constantly astounded as to how we have the time and resources

to even consider investigating issues like this one. It seems so far fetched to be doing so while driving over potholes in our roads and seeing many qualified young people struggling to get into the workforce, as every job advertised is seeking applicants with experience, not to mention the work needed to improve education, health, law and order, and much more.

The document discusses privacy for transgender people, and I can't help but think of how everyone's privacy went out the window when COVID vaccine passes were issued and required to be shown just to enter a cafe. The document discusses privacy for transgender people. I don't see how you can have anti discrimination laws for transgender people without removing the same protection for women or employers. And by the way, I do not like the term cisgender. I Commendjuloven's as

someone from the left for standing up to this. I'm unsure if I can face completing the submission that I started by the deadline of five pm today, which was five September. It raises so many broader questions, like why is the Law Commission referring to our country as aetiro row and New Zealand. It not only grates on my nerves but adds unnecessary words to an already wordy document. Jeez, Heavelyn,

I'm with you one hundred and ten percent. I do not want to take any of it seriously, and with all the commentary on the issue, all I can think of is the Emperor's new clothes. I so enjoy your podcast and love Carolyn. We have never met, but feel we could be great friends. Kind regards, Evelyn, and then a ps. I have drafted several emails to you over the years, but they usually stay in the draft folder and never get sent. It's a shame because you write well.

I can only agree with you. I find nothing in what you've said disagreeable, and I wish that more people would exp well. I wish that more people would make their expressions felt.

always a bit of an adventure. Latin at newstalks ab dot co dot nz or Carolyn at newstalks Ab dot co dot nz. We shall return shortly with podcasts number two hundred and fifty six. Until then, as always, thank you for listening and we shall talk soon.