America-bashing

In the USA, the government is demanding that bookshops disclose the purchasing habits of their customers. This is a chilling prior restraint on free expression. If people know that buying a controversial book will get them on a government list somewhere, people are less likely to read controversial books. When this was tried in the 80's with libraries, 48 States reacted by passing laws limiting the information that libraries can disclose about peoples' reading habits. Bookshops have no such protection

At the end of a column on the subject (which I can't find online), shop owner David Unowsky noted:

"One further piece of irony: Attorney General John Ashcroft, citing the sanctity of the Second Amendment, refused to search gun purchase records for information about weapons purchases by terrorists. What we have, apparently, is a misguided (at least in this case) administration that fears books and ideas but loves guns."

Australia-bashing

Just before the recent Federal election, pictures were splashed across newspapers across the country of refugees, arriving in Australia by boat, throwing their children overboard in an attempt to stop themselve being turned away at the border by the Navy.

This information, and the pictures were released by the incumbent government, who had been using a fear campaign against refugees to support their "hard line on boat people", and thust boost their very shaky popularity rating. This story was harped on repeatedly - "Look! These people just want to get in the country illegally. Look, they'll even throw their own children into the sea to try to get picked up! We should keep turning them away, or locking them up in camps for up to three years while we decide what to do with them."

The problem is, it never happened. The pictures (and the later-released video footage) were taken the day after the alleged incident, of a completely different boat which was sinking, hence the need to be rescued. The government invented the report from whole cloth to get themselves re-elected.

And who's going to pay for this? Nobody, of course. The inquiry into the event names Defence Minister Peter Reith as the culprit, but of course he retired after the election, and a reputation as a ruthless lying bastard is only going to help his career as a corporate consultant. It states that senior public servants in both the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister's departments knew what was going on, but the obvious fact that this means the two politicians knew has been omitted from the report. We have the smoking gun, but chances are the bastards responsible will all get away scot-free.