You’re right it has nothing to do with how fair or unfair Corby’s sentence may be. It has everything to do with the degree of outrage we are entitled to feel towards a specific injustice, and most of the outrage has nothing to do with the injustice in of itself.

“How can she be guilty if she is so distraught?”
I didn’t say that, or imply it, or frame it.

I don’t think any sane person would think such a thing let a lone a rational person, but the media and the way the general population interacts with it, is neither sane nor rational. I didn’t mean to imply that you supported such a view.

I agree with your comments about the media, but I don’t pay the media too much attention these days. I said it was a media circus, if you’ll notice.

Then you are someone who cares about the specific injustice of this case, I think you are a rarity (and that topic alone belongs in a different post), but I also think that care is contingent (I know mine is) upon the massive public awareness of this case as created by the media. I also care about the injustice of the Australian government’s agreement with East Timor over the distribution of oil resources in the Timor sea, I only know about that because I watch SBS and hang out with a few lefties.

How many people that you know are acting like this, versus what’s in the paper? To what extent are journalists driving the hate campaign?

I don’t know many people who represent an accurate representation of the ‘average Australian’. Most people I know are fairly progressive and (small l) liberal. Most people I know don’t support the government’s policy on mandatory detention.

I have no idea to what extent journalists are driving the hate campaign and are not representing the values of ordinary Australians. I’m prepared to admit that my knowledge of this is generalised and through media accounts. I also think the majority of people who do feel real hate towards Indonesians for this, are not the sort of people who routinely read philosophy blogs or participate in philosophy related discussion groups.

Another generalisation on my part, I probably have an overly pessimistic view of the ‘Australian People’ at this point in time.

I think there are objective reasons for believing Indonesia’s policy on drug offenders to be unfair, thus making this a specific example of an unfair principle.

Your comments about local injustice are spot on. That has, however, no implication for the fairness of the Corby outcome.

“How can she be guilty is she is so distraught?”

I didn’t say that, or imply it, or frame it.

I agree with your comments about the media, but I don’t pay the media too much attention these days. I said it was a media circus, if you’ll notice.

How many people that you know are acting like this, versus what’s in the paper? To what extent are journalists driving the hate campaign?

So what is probably really unfair is Indonesia’s policy towards drug offenders and that way it is instituted in its courts.

I never suggested that one injustice justifies another. What I think the case of Chika Honda demonstrates is that “Miscarriages of justice, if that is what has happened in the Corby case, can happen in any country, even one with a sophisticated legal system untainted by corruption, such as Australia’s. Even one whose citizens presume to hold the moral high ground.”

You would not see this outcry happen in any other country. If she wasn’t a white Australian and didn’t speak with an Australian accent you wouldn’t see this outcry. If she were tried in Australia you wouldn’t see this outcry. Schapelle Corby gets an outcry because she’s a victim of a foreign legal system over which we hold no control and hold enormous resentment towards over the Bali Bombings and the prosecution of those responsible. Corby gets an outcry because she is somewhat attractive and very emotional.

“How can she be guilty is she is so distraught?” Lindsay Chamberlain was prosecuted by the media too, for not being emotional enough. Australians deemed her guilty, she was later found to be innocent and pardoned, and there is no outcry over that miscarriage of justice. There a plenty of such miscarriages that go on in our own country, as Chika Honda demonstrates, they get little to no public outcries.

You don’t think there is racist backlash against Indonesia for this verdict?
What do you call demanding the Tsunami Aid back?

There are signs of a backlash against Indonesia over the verdict, with charities saying they’ve been asked for tsunami aid to be returned.

That is an injustice if ever I saw one.

Or how about what Malcom T. Elliot said on 2UE:

Malcolm: The judges don’t even speak English, mate, they’re straight out of the trees if you excuse my expression.

They don’t speak English, they read books, they don’t listen to her. They show us absolutely no respect those judges.

This is not to say, all Australians are racist or have responded to the Corby case with racism, but a lot of them are, and a lot of them get their views heard by mainstream media. It sickens me.

I watched 60 minutes when it first aired the Schapelle Corby story. Is she innocent? No way. She was a stupid, ignorant, bludger from Queensland who gets what she deserves for involving herself in drugs. But the victim story played better, and Channel Nine has played it for all it has been worth and then some.

(Most) Australians don’t outcry against brutal sentences or miscarriages of justice. Who the hell gives a shit about David Hicks? One of ‘our boys’ who has spent four years in prison without charge. He doesn’t ‘look’ nearly as innocent as Schapelle, so we won’t run that story.

It makes me sick.

We also question the competency of the defense team.

It’s a mistake of yours to use one example of injustice to justify another.

You do sometimes see racism in Australia, but I’m not sure that’s what’s happening here. People are reacting to what they consider a brutal sentence, and I think that’s fair enough. You would have seen an outcry if this had happened in any other country.

Also, saw some good Corby jokes. A new sign outside her shop “Back in 20″

And the new lawnmower being sold “Holds 4.5 kilos of grass, guaranteed for 20 years”.

-MP