On the virtues of tolerating those you disagree with (no, really)
Race Discrimination Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane firing a broadside at The Australian’s Bill Leak for his cartoon depicting indigenous disadvantage, quoted in Fairfax papers, August 4:
Our society shouldn’t endorse racial stereotyping of Aboriginal Australians or any other racial or ethnic group.
It wasn’t about stereotyping, says the artist. Quite the opposite, in fact. Bill Leak, The Australian, August 5:
I was trying to say that if you think things are pretty crook for the children locked up in the Northern Territory’s Don Dale Youth Detention Centre, you should have a look at the homes they came from. Then you might understand why so many of them finished up there.
Is Bill Leak worse than anti-Islam Dutch politician Geert Wilders? Soutphommasane writing in The Age, February 25, 2013:
It was a good thing that Geert Wilders, the controversial Dutch politician, came to visit Australia last week. Because sometimes we need to be reminded that living in a liberal democracy isn’t always easy or edifying. Sometimes it can be hard work. I’m referring to the brute fact that we can’t always come to agreement. Often when there is unavoidable disagreement, the best we can do is to exercise the virtue of toleration. To put it plainly, we have to put up with things we may find repugnant. We have to tolerate the intolerable.
The Herald Sun’s Lucie Morris Marr breaking news of an inquiry into Cardinal George Pell, February 20:
A Victoria Police taskforce has been investigating allegations that Cardinal George Pell sexually abused between five and 10 boys.
The Australian’s Dan Box with more on the story, February 20:
Cardinal George Pell is calling for a public inquiry into Victoria Police, accusing the force of undermining the work of a royal commission by leaking “spurious” and “false” allegations of his involvement in child sexual abuse.
But it’s not a story until the ABC reports it. Leigh Sales, ABC’s 7.30, Wednesday night:
A big step forward in a police investigation involving Australia’s former archbishop George Pell. Victorian Police have confirmed they have flown to Rome to interview the cardinal over child sex abuse allegations. In July 7.30 reporter Louise Milligan revealed the allegations against Cardinal Pell and she joins me from Melbourne now.
Meanwhile in the US, Americans are disagreeing civilly about the election. TheWashington Post, Wednesday:
I realise I shouldn’t be proud of my transgression. Hanging out with a bunch of moms, we started grousing about the proliferation of (Trump) signs. We felt assaulted by the number of signs. The idea of “cleansing” our streets seemed like the fastest way to restore balance and alleviate our election stress — at least, that night it did … But the Falmouth police happened to spot us as we were preparing to leave the scene of the crime.
When they go low, we go sledgehammer. ABC News website, yesterday:
Donald Trump’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame has been defaced by a vandal wielding a sledgehammer and a pickaxe in an act captured on camera. Los Angeles police expect to arrest someone for the vandalism, which left the Republican nominee for president’s name scratched out of the star, the emblem in the middle dislodged and chips missing.