Dr James Allan: And the Legacy Media Wonder Why Nobody Trusts Them

Last year when I was asked to write a chapter for a US book on the incredible inroads and attacks on our civil liberties during the thuggish Covid lockdown years I decided, in part, to rank the worst offending groups. The lawyerly and doctorly castes were bad. They were woeful in fact. But the politicians as a class, the ones who ultimately made the calls, were worse – and there were very few exceptions to that generalised claim, as any Australian knows who looks for politicians who, say, resigned from Cabinet on principle (nada, zero) or who spoke up publicly and loudly against the massive authoritarian over-reach and aping of the policies of the Chinese Communist Politburo (a mere handful at most). So I gave the silver medal for thuggish lockdown commitment and stalwart thuggery to the political class. However, in terms of letting all of us citizens down I reserved the gold medal for the journalists of the legacy media.

Dr James Allan: Annoyances

Here are a few things that get my goat. They really annoy me. Start with the strange coalition between open borders Left-wing progressives and chamber of commerce types (some, but fewer these days, nominally conservative) about how ‘there are jobs locals won’t do’. A mere moment’s thought tells you that’s wrong. Such claims aren’t that far off the ante-bellum, pre-US Civil War queries from some in the south about ‘who will pick the cotton if we end slavery?’ It’s simple. In market economies all jobs will be filled if you offer to pay enough. All of them without exception. It’s just supply and demand.

Dr James Allan: Trump’s Lesson in Remedial Education

I have hesitated to respond article-by-article to Roger Partridge’s continuing attacks on the Trump administration beyond my initial response and rebuttal in these pages to his first anti-Trump piece. That was where I argued that Roger’s comparisons of Trump to Hitler, Mussolini and Hugo Chavez were, shall we say, a tad overdone. My general view is that more than a few people on the political Right side of politics (and near on everyone on the Left side) have been infected with a strong dose of TDS, or ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’. All of us can agree or disagree with this or that policy of a US President, including those of President Trump.

Dr James Allan: Australia’s Conservatives Are Paying the Price of Kowtowing to the Left

When the so-called ‘moderate’ MPs in a Westminster conservative political party remove a sitting Prime Minister from their own party, one who has delivered a majority government but is to the right of these moderates, the long-term effects are not good. Back in 1990, and after delivering 11 years of majority governments, Maggie Thatcher was knifed by the wets or moderates in the British Tory party. It is arguable that the party has never recovered.

Roger Partridge: Trump’s Authoritarian Arrogance

Jim Allan’s spirited response to my Quadrant Online column, Trump’s war on constitutional democracy, misses what makes this moment so dangerous for America. While Jim and I share deep concerns about judicial activism and bureaucratic overreach, his attempt to normalise Trump’s recent actions ignores their unprecedented assault on constitutional government.

Dr James Allan: Mandates matter

I’ve asked this question before, and I’ll ask it again: why do right-of-centre politicians want to go into politics? If the answer is nothing more than ‘to win elections’, then notice what follows from that value-free vacuum. You can get an Angela Merkel, who won election after election, all while opening up the country’s borders to young, single men from Afghanistan and the Middle East, who overall lacked any obvious sympathy or liking for the whole array of Western values. How has that worked out for Germany?

Dr James Allan: Dictator Trump? That’s Just Silly

In Saturday’s edition of Quadrant, Roger Partridge lambasted Donald Trump as an enemy of America’s constitutional democracy. On Sunday, James Allan, Garrick Professor of Law at the University of Queensland and the author of Democracy in Decline, took his friend and colleague to task.

Let me start this reply to Roger Partridge’s column (‘Trump’s War on Constitutional Democracy‘) by laying my cards on the table. I know Roger Partridge. He is one of the best lawyers in New Zealand. He, like me, has grave worries about the sort of judicial activism or judicial usurpation of the role of Parliament that he sees over across the Tasman (and which, in enervated form, is on clear display here in Australia too).

Dr James Allan: Climate Change Giving Meaning to Life

The religious mindset embraces the belief that there is more to life than the material world of the senses. There are truths that transcend the here and now. Things that give a non-contingent meaning to human existence. This is obvious with the monotheistic religions, and a little less obvious with Buddhism and polytheistic beliefs. Still, the appeal of this sort of belief in transcendent truths is pretty obvious. That means that not all that many people who reject established religions will move over to some sort of David Hume or Bertrand Russell-type sceptical view that what you see is what you get – we are here because of the fortuitous collisions of trillions of atoms, lots of time and even more luck. As Hume famously said, “the life of a man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster”.