What Makes It Great

My church is in partnership with a charity in Uganda.  Through this partnership some great outcomes have been achieved through multiple projects.

I believe these outcomes are so great because the government was not involved.  No push for increased foreign aid would have achieved what my church achieved.

Churches are perfectly placed to take on charities like this.  We can be more direct in our aims, see a specific need and meet that need.  The affect is immediate and heart felt.   Its amazing to here stories of the difference that our relatively small contribution had made.

We are called to love people so it’s a given that all churches should be doing similar projects whether locally or internationally.

Having It All

A big thankyou to Julie Bishop this week.  She is the first high profile female politician I've heard point out the fallacy that women are able to ‘have it all’.

‘It all’ usually means having a happy family and a burgeoning corporate career.  Women have been lied to by the feminism movement.  Sacrifices have to be made.  It’s a fact of life.  We need to put our selfish goals aside if we plan to have children. This belief that they can ‘have it all’ must have hurt so many families over the past few decades.

The same applies to men.  Only difference is that we never had a movement telling us we could have it all.  We had the feminism movement telling us we weren’t any good at anything so women had to do it all.

There ought to be no pressure to ‘have it all’.  It all won’t last.

Mere Formality

Now women can ‘formally’ request part time work from their employer under an addition to law by the Gillard govt.  Not sure what was holding women back from doing this prior to the amendment.  The employer can still say no, which is their prerogative.

The Greens want “more teeth” to such a proposal.  “More teeth” would mean forcing employers to allow part time employment upon application.  Even though this may not suit their business and may increase operating cost.  This would result in less people employed, part time and full time.

Forcing businesses to do anything they don’t wish to do is very risky.  The Greens need to back off for their desire for more teeth and think through the ramifications for their emotion driven actions.

Businesses left to make their own decisions will best able to make arrangement for women trying to juggle family with work.  Businesses want to hold on to good staff, so they don’t need to be told by government how best to handle them.

A Vibe

In politics it seems if someone is against a certain method then it’s assumed that they are also against the desired outcome.

Example 1

I am all for technological advancement.  BUT I am against the government’s wasteful and negligent spending on the NBN.  They bypassed a cost benefit analysis and were reluctant to deal with the private sector.

Example 2

I am all for increased funding of schools.  BUT I’m against it being regarded as a silver bullet.  Funding is part of the solution while other areas like increasing teacher quality and principal autonomy are ignored largely due to union pressure.

Example 3

I am all for a humanitarian program for asylum seekers.  BUT I’m against a criminal making thousands of dollars off each passenger to board leaky vessels and overwhelm our immigration system.  It slows down the process for genuinely persecuted people seeking asylum.

Free To Speak

“In Defence of Freedom of Speech”

edited by Chris Berg

This is a book created by the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA).  It was sent to every Federal Member of Parliament and Senator.  It was also distributed to the general public at the same time.

Its intention was to illuminate various attacks on the liberties of individuals that were being perpetrated primarily by the Labor govt.

You can be sure that it was read by some of its intended target as then Greens leader, Bob Brown, referred to it during an address to the National Press Club.  His snide remarks about the book had no essence of truth in them.  But that didn’t matter to him.  Nor did the IPA mind that he misrepresented their work.  It just went to show how set in their anti liberty ways the Greens really are.

It is one thing to have someone disagree with you.  It is a completely different thing to take measures to stop them from saying it, even though it might be true.  The vast majority of criticism for the current government has been absolutely justified, but they don’t like their faults being pointed out so they try and stop people from criticising.

The book describes a history of freedom of speech from ancient Greece to modern times in Australia.  It describes why the various acts were performed and their consequences.  It’s surprising to see how much has been done in the name of liberty and also protectionism. 

Over the course of history there were no groups that shone brightly as bearers of the liberty torch.  In all eras there fluctuations in freedom and protectionism.  Even Christian groups, who I thought would be bastions of freedom of speech, had fallen for the protectionist ideology at times.  When liberties were taken away it was usually due to the institution of totalitarian regimes.

What this book has shown me is that freedoms are important and not to be messed with by any government entity.  It’s a slippery slope when governments think they can mess with liberties.  It stems mainly from the intellectually elitist ideology that you are too stupid to make educated decisions for yourself if given certain liberties.  This ideology is both demeaning and insulting.  I’m glad we have institution such as the IPA that took on the cause of freedom of speech with such vigour.