When I say that the establishment should never put rules and regulations before ethics and commonsense, most people agree. When we put law before justice in our courts we deny the average person easy access to what should be reparation of wrongs. But when the establishment does manage to put ethics and commonsense before the law there is a public out-cry.
Currently the Australian government is refusing entry to a lecturer who claims Hitler has been maligned and the holocaust is Jewish propaganda. The reaction? Our government is denying this man his legal rights; freedom of speech. If someone were to publicly tell lies about you and your family would you call that freedom of speech? I applaud the government's stand on the occasion. I would not like anyone I cared for who is too young to remember Hitler and his atrocities being exposed to this man's obscene lies. Ethics of Rules? Remember Goebbels?
Every time a newspaper publishes scandal which intrudes upon the most intimate details of a person's private life and any attempt is made to stop such "exposures" the newspapers hide behind the law: "Freedom of the Press". How would you like the secret corners of your own sexuality exposed publicly? The intimate, private comments you may have made on seeing your lover naked? Well, we all say those things, but they are certainly not meant for publication.
When we allow law to take precedence over ethics and commonsense we get ourselves into trouble. The most obscene and disgusting publications hide behind "Freedom of the Press". Sex, ideally, is a beautiful expression of love, but these publications debase love and strip people of their human dignity. Personally, I like to look upon the pictures of a beautiful, naked body; whether it be male or female, oil painting or photograph. I would not like to see us draping nude sculpture in an excess of puritanism.
But publications dealing with child- sex, sexual orgies, oral sex, sadism and so forth are invasions of sexual privacy, denials of human dignity and, at worst, promoters of sex without love. WE all pick our noses, defecate and have sex. None of these activities is meant for public display.
How about some sensible laws on privacy, laws against the public corruption of human dignity and against public pronouncement of foul and indecent language? But remember, such laws should not be placed above commonsense, In the meantime who, as the man says, is looking after the children? We are, you and I. And we could do alot better!
© David Hurst 1995
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