Big-Issues.Org

Warning - This may be more of a rant that a considered contribution. It is hard not to despair a little when witnessing the current Australian federal election campaign between Abbot and Gillard.

Trade in small arms seems to often be the trigger for civil conflict or at least for a dramatic escalation in the carnage that is caused by civil conflict. This applies both to guns being more readily available to individuals within stable countries and to political groups or bands within less stable countries. In both situations there is a political element and often political hypocrisy.

What is the best form of government? There is often an assumption that democracy is at the top of the list - but democracy comes in a range of forms many with glaring shortcomings. Let's see if we can at least agree on some of the attributes we would want the the best form of government to include:

In days past nationalism was the standard by which all else was judged - people who stood up against or protested the course their country was taking were portrayed as 'unpatriotic' and 'traitors to their flag'. But in this day and age where human rights are discussed far more loudly than any other kind of rights, where do human rights end and national rights supercede them?

Last night I watched Andrew Denton's interview of Richard Dawkins in Denton's Elders series. At age 68, Dawkins looks back at a long history of promoting a scientific approach to life, and of criticising religion as non-scientific and something we would all be best rid of.

As Copenhagen starts, there seems to be more popular debate on climate change and what needs to be done about it, but the popular debate seems, at least in my Australian experience, to founder or be distracted quickly on belief differences about the science foundations.

Most criticism of free markets is based on the distortions caused when the conditions for free markets are clearly imperfect. These can typically include

• collusion between key market participants,
• incorrect or distorted information being supplied to market participants,
• misalignments between the market's effective reach and the legal jurisdiction protection that market participants assume.

In Australia the Labour government is trying to protect both its electoral support and its "balanced" position in regard to asylum seeker "boat people".  According to the media and to some recent polls it is doing it tough. Apparently Australians get very jittery when less than a couple of thousand economic refugees use flimsy boats to put themselves on our humanitarian doorstep.

Have a look at this video and its coverage of the health and income trends across and within different regions and countries over the past fifty years. Impressive presentation, and some important ideas.

My neighbour has a problem. A person who used to live across the road apparently used to break bottles on the road immediately in front of cars parked there. Not sure why, perhaps there was a reason. Maybe he thought there were too many cars parked in a narrow road. Maybe it was a statement against a consumer society. Maybe it was a result of some perceived wrong. Maybe from a sense of powerlessness.