Why Activists Suck to Me

I mean there are great activists, that go commission a scientific study to conclude something obvious like "If a carbon emissions trading scheme is introduced to the effect that we had to pay for our pollution we produce, then we would have to stop polluting." They essentially are concluding that an emissions trading scheme would work.
Of course they reword it as "We would be forced to cut jobs and move offshore" and it sounds much more convincing, but these activists operate in small numbers, professionally, construct their arguments carefully, use the proper channels and can effectively stop the 'War against climate change' in its tracks.
These activists are good at what they do.

The book I'm reading now has a catchy marketing title 'how to win every arguement' but should actually be called 'alphabetised logical fallacies' and it has given me the method by which to most readily diagnose shitty activists that fuck me off.

argumentum ad hominem

It's basically where you evaluate an argument not on it's merits but its affiliation. Here's an example, I believe that climate change on a cost/risk analysis is one of the most worthwhile pursuits of mankind in combating.

You are talking about the loss of thousands of blue collar jobs and billions of dollars in fossil fuel revenue over the ability of the earth to sustain human life and perhaps hundreds of trillions of dollars in future repair work.
The risk of climate change going wrong is catastrophic, whereas the cost will largely be forgotten in a mear 40 years or so.
As such I'm a supporter of combating climate change.

I also believe that western medicine particularly is suffering from undue influence from pharmacuetical companies. Prescriptions are over diagnosed based heavy targeting by pharmaceutical company sales and marketing efforts.

So people might take these two associations and assume therefore that I would be a supporter of alternative medicine.






And that's just fucking ridiculous. What has happened is that because I have left leaning tendancies, my membership to the left brings with it a whole basket of beliefs that can be made up.
I have reasons for believing in climate change and pharmaceutical graft based on my education in both physics and marketing, and evidence submitted by various research institutes.
I am not convinced that any medical profession with ending in ....pathy is actually anything more than a scam. I am not going to get all misty eyed and assume Chinese Medicine has any real merit at all, dominated by superstitious tradition as it is.

Frankly I reject automatically anything that does not submit itself to scientific scrutiny. If something works in the good old fashioned 'cause and effect' sense I will take it.

Just because I lean left doesn't mean I reject sense and evidence.

A large body of activists does themselves no favors and is arguably counter-productive to many of the causes they support by suspending reason and subscribing to conspiracy theories.

Something that is an easy target for lampooning, like the FAG in Team America.

For example in Lex Wotten's unfortunate case

Indigenous man Lex Wotton has been sentenced to six years in prison, with a non-parole period of two years, for being a ringleader in the riots on Palm Island that followed the death in custody of Mulrunji Doomadgee in 2004.

the police involved in the incident were non-indeginous and rewarded with bravery medals.

This was put to me as 'An aboriginal man is getting sentanced to life in prison while the white cop he was rioting against recieved a promotion and a medal for bravery.' and it was assumed, not just me specifically but everyone the email was sent to, it was assumed that this was sufficient to spark my outrage.

I believe strongly that Australia is one of the more brutal examples of British Collonialism in history, that in many ways Australia has been allowed to behave in manners worse than apartheid by the very fact that apartheid is unnecessary when indigenous communities are a clear democratic minority (unlike South Africa) and that more needs to be done to elevate indinous living standards up to an equal footing with Australian well being on the whole. I abhor racism in general (although enjoy wrong humour which can be along racist, sexist or other criminal lines and still be funny to me).

All that said I also believe in a legal system that bends over backwards to protect the innocent and I would rather protect that legal system than any individual that is done wrong by it.

To break down the information provided to me more, you have a premise sufficiently lacking in details as to effectively say 'a black man is on trial, a white man isn't' which is not remarkable. I could point immediately to countless examples whereby two people had divergent fortunes from the same event, I discard the race in this case because principally it is irrelevant.
'Two people sit same test, one passes, one fails.' in other words is how this appears to me. Both men endured legal proceedings, one was found innocent through inquiry. The other was found guilty by a jury.
Both are legal processes.
Granted the inquiry may have been corrupted. Questionable and wrong outcomes may have been pushed by interested parties that didn't want to deal with the fallout of a 'guilty' verdict.
It may have happened but that is not something that is substantiated by a riot. If it did happen one should sue authorities to come up with an inquiry process that is actually independant enough that a 'not-guilty' verdict would be accepted. More concerning though than an inquiry being corrupted to find someone 'not guilty' unfairly would be one that finds someone 'guilty' unfairly. Infact given the allegation involved - that the death in custody was not accidental but infact a brutal murder, I would want 100% certainty that it was deliberate before a proclimation of guilt was issued.
To me 99% wouldn't cut it. (okay it probably would) but if it was 80% probable that a guy did it, but they couldn't prove with a certainty that he actually did, the law as always should err on the side of the defendant, not the plaintiffs.

Which is case number one. I'm frankly not interested enough to get active on the proposed miscarriage of justice beyond not moving to Queensland, something I was never going to do anyway.
Lex Wotten then got in trouble, he was found to be involved in Palm Island riots, arrested as a leader of it. Riots are illegal, because if you have a grievance with any process you are supposed to pursue it through the general legal channels.

I am opposed to rioting in general, but I also understand that under a totalitarian regime one might reject the allocated 'proper' channels, and rather than just going crazy on the streets might coordinate attacks against the regime.
Maybe the Palm Island riot's were such an attack on the regime, however I believe it was a little premature in establishing that the established legal order would not be sympathetic. Get lawyers first, they are expensive, but not as expensive as rioting.

So Lex supposedly according to the activist bent was trying to save the police and negotiated there safe release.
The injustice of him then being arrested for insighting a riot, or leading, or participating or whatever is then pretty clear apparently, and I should go and protest.

Well no, he just got charged, then the legal process follows. If it gets past the magistrate to a jury, it is because the police think they have enough evidence to convict him.
They got a conviction with a sentance of 6 years. Apparantly they rejected many of defences witnesses as insubmissable evidence.

This rejection of evidence was submitted to me as evidence that the man must be innocent and that there was a cover up.

I can unfortunately concieve of various legal justifications that a person's testimony might be refused.

For example, sheer irrelevance. If a person believes the defendant to be 'a really great guy' and would have no hesitation in testifying that 'someone would never do this.' I would imagine a judge should deem them as insubmissible.

The same goes for people whose interest in the outcome one way or another might influence their testimony.

I can understand how a judge might be loathe for a jury to hear certain testimonies that they may believe to be real evidence when it isn't.

So I can understand someone clamping down on circumstancial evidence.

Without being provided an account of the evidence refused and on what basis, I can't possibly infer anything.

The law is still on Lex Wotten's side. He must be convicted based on 'beyond reasonable doubt.'

Is our legal system perfect? No. Can you trust a jury to adhere to the strict discipline of 'beyond reasonable doubt.' No. Does Lex have legal recourse to appeal his sentance? Yes.

I can't believe activists would actually want their protesting to influence legal proceedings, to overturn a legal system designed to not be emotional and sentimental based on emotion and sentiment.

That if judge turned around and asked the bailiff to take Insp. Evil White Dude into custody, people would think this subversion of the legal process was a moral victory?

Now on Lex Wotten, I don't know if he's guilty or innocent, and frankly that's a matter for the courts to decide. For the moment they are deciding he is guilty. I am not going to personally presume upon his guilt or innocence. I would prefer trial by jury over trial by mob sentiment any day.

If there was one bit of advice for activists though, it is that when someone asks you 'what can I do?' don't go all misty eyed and say 'stand up, speak up, be heard!' because this is what the good activists maintain a very tight discipline on. They don't just let anyone speak for them. They have spokespeople, who speak to the right people.
Tell any aspiring activist instead to 'learn to speak.'

Next time you are listening to an emotive diatribe of 'corporations exploiting the poor and political conspiracies that allow oil and pharmacuetical companies to dominate the political agenda and that's why I eat my babies placenta after birth.'
Think of what activism is like at its best: