This infantile individual has followers in Australia?

Photograph of Daryush Valizadeh, date unknown*

This is the world according to very infantile Daryush “Roosh” Valizadeh creator of Return of Kings:

“1. Men and women are genetically different, both physically and mentally. Sex roles evolved in all mammals. Humans are not exempt.

2. Men will opt out of monogamy and reproduction if there are no incentives to engage in them.

3. Past traditions and rituals that evolved alongside humanity served a net benefit to the family unit.

4. Testosterone is the biological cause for masculinity. Environmental changes that reduce the hormone’s concentration in men will cause them to be weaker and more feminine.

5. A woman’s value significantly depends on her fertility and beauty. A man’s value significantly depends on his resources, intellect, and character.

6. Elimination of traditional sex roles and the promotion of unlimited mating choice in women unleashes their promiscuity and other negative behaviors that block family formation.

7. Socialism, feminism, cultural Marxism, and social justice warriorism aim to destroy the family unit, decrease the fertility rate, and impoverish the state through large welfare entitlements.” [Daryush Valizadeh]

In this world apparently rape is all the woman’s fault (with rare exceptions) and always solely her responsibility to avoid.

Daryush holding forth on this subject at Rooshv.com, accessed 1 February 2016:

I thought about this problem and am sure I have the solution: make rape legal if done on private property. I propose that we make the violent taking of a woman not punishable by law when done off public grounds.

The exception for public rape is aimed at those seedy and deranged men who randomly select their rape victims on alleys and jogging trails, but not as a mechanism to prevent those rapes, since the verdict is still out if punishment stops a committed criminal mind, but to have a way to keep them off the streets. For all other rapes, however, especially if done in a dwelling or on private property, any and all rape that happens should be completely legal.

If rape becomes legal under my proposal, a girl will protect her body in the same manner that she protects her purse and smartphone. If rape becomes legal, a girl will not enter an impaired state of mind where she can’t resist being dragged off to a bedroom with a man who she is unsure of—she’ll scream, yell, or kick at his attempt while bystanders are still around. If rape becomes legal, she will never be unchaperoned with a man she doesn’t want to sleep with. After several months of advertising this law throughout the land, rape would be virtually eliminated on the first day it is applied.

Daryush went on Twitter on 1 February to tell the world he was coming to Australia, hinting that he was flying out of the U.S. on 4 February 2016 – destination Canberra. He also stated that if he was denied a visa then he would smuggle himself into the country. Presumably because, having male genitalia and a U.S. passport, he shouldn’t be baulked in any way.

Australian readers will of course be amused that he presumes that Canberra is the place to be. When it is a national capital with probably the third smallest population of any capital city in Australia and, during at least two days of his alleged stay it will be empty of federal politicians, the Canberra press gallery and anyone else who might matter to his effort at self-promotion.

However, it seems that this emotional toddler may not be serious about landing on Australian shores – he had not applied for a visa as of 2 February 2016 according to the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection.

The ego at work......

Rather predictably, as the time to act on his boasts came nearer, Daryush backed down and, according to his website, is cancelling his big night out because he cannot guarantee the safety and privacy of the men who want to attend.

If his foray into Canada in 2015 is anything to go by, it's more likely that not enough men wanted to get together with him to celebrate such a bizarre and immature outlook on life.

On or about 5 February 2016 he also added a disclaimer to his year-old post on rape on private property - now calling it "satire".

It will come as no surprise to readers to learn that Daryrush is said to live in the basement of his mother's house in Silver Springs, Maryland. Needless to say there is no evidence of the shiny Mecedes Benz (that he flaunts online) in front of his mother's small  terrace house.

So yesterday came and went with no 36 year-old American braggart in spectacles standing on Australian soil and barely a person will be able to recall his name by tomorrow.

* Yes, I was naughty and picked the most unflattering photo of this pickup artist I could find.  I don’t apologize - I’m an Australian woman and rape is part of my community and family history, sadly including the abduction and rape of minors.

Tweet of the Week

Quote of the Week

Abbott  was born in England in the 1950s and he is still a creature of it. He represents a narrow strand in Australian culture which is in many ways more British than Australian, and that is part of the reason why he was unsuccessful.

[Author Aaron Patrick in The NewDaily, 29 January 2016]

Just because it is beautiful..... (2)

Image from Nature Australia

Is this a discreet way of saying that in 2014-15 up to 12,800 people tried to hide assets in order to be eligible for an Australian aged pension?

[Australian Government, Dept. of Human Services, 2014-15 Annual Report, p.22]

Labor called Turnbull Government's bluff - now ordinary voters should demand their right to know

When Dyson Heydon decided to permanently conceal from public view one volume of the report produced by the Royal Commission into Union Governance and Corruption, he did a grave disservice to the democratic process.

Opposition and cross-bench parliamentarians are starting to demand access to the secret 'facts' a commissioner (trailing apprehended bias allegations behind him) relied on, before they consider new government legislation. 

Now in this 2016 federal election year it's time that Australian voters also fight for access to a copy of this volume with individual/company/place names redacted.

It may be a hard fight as I rather suspect that Heydon's hidden hyperbole won't stand up to close public scrutiny.

The Australian, 18 January 2016:

Labor has written to the Turnbull government to formally request access to the secret volumes of the Heydon royal commission report on trade unions, as it accused the Coalition of selectively using the inquiry’s recommendations for its “immediate political interests”.

In a letter to Employment Minister Michaelia Cash, obtained by The Australian, opposition employment spokesman Brendan O’Connor says the government must provide access to all sides of parliament — “and potentially to other interested parties” — if it seeks to use the chapters “to make the case for legislation”.

It comes after The Weekend Australian revealed the government would take the extraordinary step of providing crossbench senators with redacted versions of the confidential volumes in a desperate bid to end the stalemate with the independents over its industrial relations reforms.

The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet is arranging a viewing of the secret parts of the report after independents Jacqui Lambie and Glenn Lazarus demanded to see the full document before deciding on the government’s stalled IR bills.

“If your government wants to rely on these secret volumes to make the case for legislation, the opposition is of the strong belief that the government must, at a minimum, provide them to all sides of the parliament, and potentially to other interested parties,” Mr O’Connor writes……

Royal commissioner Dyson Heydon has recommended a volume of the interim report be kept confidential to protect the physical wellbeing of 29 witnesses and their families. He has also urged for a sixth volume in the final report to remain confidential.

Mr O’Connor, who has slammed the royal commission as a “political witch hunt”, said it appeared the government “only respects the royal commission’s findings when it suits your immediate political interests”.

“A failure to provide the opposition with an opportunity to access the confidential volumes will only confirm this,” he says.

High Court judgment enables Australian Government to wash its hands of asylum seekers' fate

THE CHILDREN……

THE JUDGMENT……

High Court Of Australia PLAINTIFF M68/2015 v MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION AND BORDER PROTECTION & ORS [2016] HCA 1, 3 February 2016:

Today the High Court held, by majority, that the plaintiff was not entitled to a declaration that the conduct of the first and second defendants in relation to the plaintiff's past detention at the Nauru Regional Processing Centre ("the Centre") was unlawful. The majority of the Court held that s 198AHA of the Migration Act 1958 (Cth) ("the Act") authorised the Commonwealth's participation, to the extent that the Commonwealth did participate, in the plaintiff's detention.

The plaintiff is a Bangladeshi national who was an "unauthorised maritime arrival" as defined by s 5AA of the Act upon entering Australia's migration zone. She was detained by officers of the second defendant and taken to Nauru pursuant to s 198AD(2) of the Act. Nauru is a country designated by the first defendant as a "regional processing country" under s 198AB(1) of the Act.

On 3 August 2013, the Commonwealth and Nauru entered into an arrangement relating to persons who have travelled irregularly by sea to Australia and who Australian law authorises to be transferred to Nauru ("the second MOU"). By the second MOU and administrative arrangements entered into in support of the second MOU (including arrangements for the establishment and operation of the Centre) ("the Administrative Arrangements"), Nauru undertook to allow transferees to remain on its territory whilst the transferees' claims to refugee status were processed. The Commonwealth was to bear the costs associated with the second MOU. Since March 2014, the third defendant has been a service provider at the Centre pursuant to a contract with the Commonwealth to provide "garrison and welfare services" ("the Transfield Contract").

Section 198AHA applies if the Commonwealth enters into an arrangement with a person or body in relation to the regional processing functions of a country. Sub-section (2) provides, in summary, that the Commonwealth may take any action, and make payments, in relation to the arrangement or the regional processing functions of the country, or do anything incidental or conducive to taking such actions or making such payments. The plaintiff brought proceedings in the original jurisdiction of the High Court seeking, amongst other things, a declaration that the Commonwealth's conduct (summarised as the imposition, enforcement or procurement of constraints upon the plaintiff's liberty, including her detention, or the Commonwealth's entry into contracts in connection with those constraints, or the Commonwealth having effective control over those constraints) was unlawful by reason that such conduct was not authorised by any valid law of the Commonwealth.

The Court held, by majority, that the plaintiff was not entitled to the declaration sought. The conduct of the Commonwealth in signing the second MOU with Nauru was authorised by s 61 of the Constitution. The Court further held that the conduct of the Commonwealth in giving effect to the second MOU (including by entry into the Administrative Arrangements and the Transfield Contract) was authorised by 

s 198AHA of the Act, which is a valid law of the Commonwealth.

* This statement is not intended to be a substitute for the reasons of the High Court or to be used in any later consideration of the Court's reasons.

Transcript of full judgement can be found here. 

WHAT THE JUDGMENT MEANS…...

George Williams, Professor of Law at the University of NSW, writing in The Sydney Morning Herald on 3 February 2016:

The result was that the federal government has the power to detain people who come to our shores claiming to be a refugee. It also has the power to send those people to other countries without first determining whether their claims are correct.

Once removed, their fate is put beyond Australian law and the oversight of our courts. As Chief Justice French and Justices Kiefel​ and Nettle stated, once removed from Australia, the plaintiff is 'detained in custody under the laws of Nauru, administered by the Executive government of Nauru'.

This follows from the fact that Australian courts do not rule on what occurs within another sovereign state. This is true even if that state, as is the case with Nauru, is beholden to Australia, and has a dubious record of upholding the rule of law within its own borders. In such a case, asylum seekers can find themselves removed from Australia to what is in effect a legal black hole.

These findings of a majority of the High Court put beyond doubt the capacity of the Commonwealth to continue its offshore detention policies in Nauru.

What is striking is just how few checks now apply to these policies. There is no requirement that children are well treated, or that their best interests are safeguarded. There is also no need for asylum seekers to be treated fairly, such as by having their claims promptly and properly assessed.

By sending them to Nauru, the law enables Australia to wash its hands of such matters.

I note that the High Court ordered the Bangladeshi woman "M68" to pay the Federal Government's legal costs in this case, so not only will she and her infant be returning to an island nation of only 21 km² whose income appears to be derived in part from acting as an open-air gaol, she will go back burdened with a debt she can not possibly pay.