Secret Women's Business

It's been a bruising election campaign, but the results are in. Joe Biden is the President-elect of the USA. He has called for unity and civility. But how? Perhaps unity begins by finding a way to common ground. Perhaps it begins by believing in the good intentions of others. Perhaps it begins with a recommitment to civil discourse. Most Republican and Democrat voters want fewer poor people in the country. Republicans believe this is best achieved by encouraging private enterprise-driven employment, and through the efforts of church and private charitable endeavours. Democrats see a larger role for the state in supporting the poor and vulnerable. But neither side claims more poor people is their aspiration. They do have that in common. Most Republican and Democrat voters want fewer abortions in their country. Republicans believe the best way to achieve this is making the procedure illegal or unaffordable, and Democrats believe the best way to achieve this is to make contraception u...

I stumbled across the following statement on Facebook the other day: "Conservatives want to help poor & needy by taking responsibility & freely choosing to help. Progressives want to help by abrogating responsibility to Govt & letting them take money & redistribute it." No doubt this is intended as a generalisation: clearly some progressives engage in charitable giving, and some conservatives do not. But the premise itself intrigued me. Is private aid more effective than government welfare? This question is always relevant for democratic citizens. We regularly elect representatives who sit somewhere on a continuum in the role of government in supporting the poor.  I thought I'd crunch some numbers around what it would take for  private charity to replace the role of government welfare. Let's look at current charitable giving for starters: "An estimated 14.9 million Australian adults (80.8%) gave in total $12.5 billion to charities and ...

In the War on Truth, there are many casualties. We are in the midst of a global pandemic, and the health and the lives of many are under threat from misinformation.  But there are other dangers from fake news - for social cohesion, for the West and democratic values, and even for the health of the planet. Why is there so much "Fake News"? Tactics to spread pseudoscientific misinformation were piloted by the  tobacco industry  to preserve their profits at the expense of human lives. The same tactics were then employed (and in many cases the  same people  were involved) in  climate denial . Wealthy  right-wing mega-donors  continue to promote media that supports their vested interests, and have no qualms around generating misinformation. Less prevalent but more disturbing are those on the extreme right aiming for a  collapse of society . Bizarrely, their aims are the same as the Communist states they despise. There is credible evidence Russia h...

Conspiracy theories are commonplace. They are appealing. Graham Lawton from New Scientist notes that : “Conspiracy theories can… be emotionally reassuring. They provide truthful-sounding explanations for events that otherwise seem inexplicable, random or capricious, and often make your political opponents look bad. They can also give believers a pleasing sense of superiority because they – and sometimes they alone – have seen through the lies and cover-ups to reveal the ‘truth’.” Some conspiracy theories are benign. Flat-earthers aren’t harming anyone else (although one flat earth proponent famously and tragically had his own life end in a misadventure ). However, some conspiracy theories are exceedingly dangerous. According to a 2020 March poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, “only about half of Americans say they would get a COVID-19 vaccine…. 31% simply weren’t sure if they’d get vaccinated. Another 1 in 5 said they’d refuse.” ...