The link to the clip and a few notes by me can be found here: http://thenihilist.tumblr.com/post/236652028/the-united-states-legislating-morality

I’d love ya’ll to check out the rest of my blog too.

One of Paul Romer’s staff very kindly offered an encouraging response and offered this link

http://chartercities.org/concept#australia

to a ‘hypothetical Australian charter city’, which itself raises some interesting problems to consider. This quote stands out – “Australian citizens and firms would be able to pass freely between Australia proper and the new charter city.”

What of the non-citizens?

I also received a response today from the Office of Senator Bob Brown pointing to the Greens Policy D7: Immigration and Refugees

http://greens.org.au/node/780

and to this Australian Greens perspective on immigration from Sarah Hanson-Young

http://sarah-hanson-young.greensmps.org.au/taxonomy/term/95/all

Finally, the national city planning criteria announced by Kevin Rudd today seems timely.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/10/28/2725885.htm?section=justin

I’d be very interested in continuing a dialogue on an alternative to detention centre policies. I’ve included links to to important essays by Arendt and Agamben. Arendt’s article: “The Perplexities of the Rights of Man“. Agamben’s article: “We Refugees“.

Article 15 of the declaration of human rights states that – “Everyone has the right to a nationality”. To say that human rights are not to be equated to those of the citizen is to deny the right to a nationality! I see your point though. Maybe that right to a nationality should be challenged.

If the charter city concept can be developed into a platform for the ‘current’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it will deal with human rights as human rights simply by conferring citizenship upon all those who seek it.

That said, I am intrigued by Romer’s proposition on Charter Cities. I have to agree with Michael that there does seem to be the underlying issue of capitalism. Despite Romer’s argument for Charter Cities, it still does not tackle the increasing problem of human rights qua human rights. As Hannah Arendt and Giorgio Agamben, thought no doubt many other have shown, the problem of human rights is that they equated with the rights of the citizen. Especially after 9/11 has this never been more enforced. For some reason refugees, asylum seekers are targeted as some perceived threat to any country on the premise that they have come to that country illegally. That threat could be of national security, Mexicans jumping the border to “take away American jobs from hard-working Americans”, the list could go on. I’m afraid that until human rights are dealt with as human rights, and not those of the citizen, then such notions of charter cities are bound to see a similar fate as those poor prawns in District 9; they will inevitably be relocated to District 10 until a messiah figure comes to rescue them.

The bad rules that I would like to highlight are the ones that keep people like Nelson out of our country. I think the vision I have presented here can encourage high levels of growth on a global scale without demanding a global economy. Furthermore, it can grow our dignity.

Thanks again, Michael.
Cheers.

I didn’t make it to the end of Romer’s presentation, but his vision of the charter city seems like a mix of those desires that drove American foundations in protestant modernism, and more of the same sort of breathless neoliberal globalisation that we’ve been hearing for the last decade. A charter city? Try having an Australian local council with an independent planning scheme, or try an independent zone that has laws which operate outside the rules of global financial capitalism. Romer’s horizons are those of global finance capitalism, and its vision of never-ending growth. What we need are some rules outside of those.

The discussion of asylum seekers is, however, interesting.

The drug czar’s Rx for prison fodder costs dearly, as life is flushed down expensive tubes. My shaman’s second opinion is that psychoactive plants are God’s gift. Behold, it’s all good. Canadian Marc Emery sold seeds that enable American farmers to outcompete cartels with superior local herb. He’s being extradited to prison, for doing what government can’t do, reduce U.S. demand for Mexican.

Only on the authority of a clause about interstate commerce does the CSA (Controlled Substances Act of 1970) reincarnate Al Capone, endanger homeland security, and throw good money after bad. Administration fiscal policy burns tax dollars to root out the number-one cash crop in the land, instead of taxing sales. America rejected the plague of prohibition, but it mutated. Apparently, SWAT teams don’t need no stinking amendment. Father, forgive those who make it their business to know not what they do.

Nixon passed the CSA on the assurance that the Schafer Commission would justify criminalizing his enemies, but it didn’t. No amendments can assure due process under an anti-science law without due process itself. Psychology hailed the breakthrough potential of LSD, until the CSA shut down research and pronounced that marijuana has no medical use, period. Drug juries don’t seat bleeding hearts.

The RFRA (Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993) allows Native American Church members to eat peyote, which functions like LSD. Americans shouldn’t need a specific church membership or an act of Congress to obtain their birthright freedom of religion. John Doe’s free exercise of religious liberty may include entheogen sacraments to mediate communion with his maker.

Freedom of speech presupposes freedom of thought. The Constitution doesn’t enumerate any governmental power to embargo diverse states of mind. How and when did government usurp this power to coerce conformity? The Mayflower sailed to escape coerced conformity. Legislators who would limit cognitive liberty lack jurisdiction.

Common-law must hold that adults are the legal owners of their own bodies. The Founding Fathers undersigned that the right to the pursuit of happiness is inalienable. Socrates said to know your self. Mortal lawmakers should not presume to thwart the intelligent design that molecular keys unlock spiritual doors. Persons who appreciate their own free choice of path in life should tolerate seekers’ self-exploration.