Rights are not something that seem popular within the political community these days. I think back to when we used to protest the treatment of workers in third world sweatshops. Well now the powers that be have engaged on a race to the bottom, who will be there to protest our loss of rights. I mean, it has been well documented before that our own rights, at home and overseas are not protected by our Government, and in fact they collude with vicious foreign regimes to incarcerate, and sometimes execute Australians.

Australia's place as a ethical light house, if it ever was, has certainly now been extinguished. At least the UK has spine enough to at least speak out against capital punishment, even if it doesn't do much to prevent it.

And the Hicks case is a perfect illustration of the lay-down-and-die attitude of the Australian Government, when it comes to human rights. I guess you can't call them racist on this one, they'll let anyone be the victim. Not too patriotic, but I would hope that someone would finally rise to power in Australia who is interested in raising the standards of protection for Australians. Once we raise the bar for ourselves we have a chance of helping others in situations of injustice.

As what now to appears to have been a CIA plane landed in Adelaide, it looks like the pollies have gotten a little carried away.  Yep, they did actually introduce new legislation to cover the Hicks return.  Nope, it wasn't passed in Parliament.  That's what the Democrats reckon, anyway.

How can they dare to treat us like this? 

Only because we permit it Richard; only because we permit it.

I suspect that, whilst the majority of awstraylens felt sympathy for David Hicks - not particularly because they believed he was innocent, but rather in response to his appalling treatment at the hands of the one-eyed bushit barbarians - sadly, most are not prepared to challenge the deceitful & criminal behaviour of our politicians, simply because they are so cynical & estranged from the political process & have no faith that one lot of politicians is any better or worse than the rest or, in many instances, are so consumed with living their own good lives in pursuit of little johnnee's fictitious "aspirational prosperity", that they won't make the effort.

We only have to reflect on the status of the indigenous peoples of this country to recognise the truth of that.

Political "leadership" in awstrayla, just as is the case in mose so-called "western, liberal democracies", is non-existent. Our "leaders" are charlatans; they are procurers, handmaidens, facilitators for the vested interests they truly serve ... the multi-nationals & their secret masters.

We need only look at the failure of the Democrats in the US to bring bushit to heel. Why have they bought into the evil adventure in the middle-east? Simple really .... it's about oil .... securing their own economic future ahead of the rest of the planet. And, the fact is, that the Democrats in the US Congress & Senate were long ago "bought" by the same economic interests that control the Republican party.

The "elected" representatives in the US Congress & the Senate are "captives" of the monied interests who fund their campaigns, intent only on securing their own privileged positions by legislating in favour of those who own them. The business of Congress & the Senate, just as is the case of our parliaments throughout awstrayla, is to conduct political theatre, so as to maintain the guise that we are all beneficiaries of a truly representative democracy.

That's why, as much as I despise Howard & the rest of his rattus crew, I find it difficult to believe that Rudd & the Labor boys & girls are really any better. In fact, I believe that the "party system" has proved to be the single most corrupting & damaging feature to arise under our so-called democratic system.

The original framers of our Constitution had quite a different model of democratic representation in mind than the one that we've wound-up with ... a model that was conceived around the notion of less government & not more; a model that was sensitive to the belief that ordinary citizens were capable of running our country & that politicians did not need to be "technocrats", lawyers or the scion of some shady political dynasty; a model that was created to operate on the basis that a citizen representative would be elected from each electorate & sent to Canberra to truly represent the electorate from whence they came, rather than as an unthinking, corrupted representative of a party machine that "endorses" their candidacy on the basis that they will be true first & foremost to the dictates of the party & its secret controllers.

David Hicks has been represented as a "reckless adventurer"; someone who "deserted" his family to become a soldier of fortune; a terrorist who conspired to bring death & destruction to awstraylens; an evil mastermind whose very existence threatened the survival of our country; a misguided fool, caught-up in events that he didn't understand or all of the above.

But, guilty or innocent of the "charges" laid against him, David Hicks possessed a quality that the majority of awstraylens will never have: a willingness to get-up off his freckle & seek-out his own "truth"; a willingness to travel to unsafe places to see for himself those things that our corrupted media owners don't want us to see; a willingness to fashion for himself a set of values & beliefs that were more in sympathy with those who our political princes would exploit, rather than those who would do the exploiting.

I'll probably never meet or know David Hicks but, if he is anything like his parents, he can't be a bad bloke, notwithstanding what the media & our politicians might say. Our politicians & the interests they represent are truly terrified of the likes of David Hicks. They must silence & discredit him. He is a threat to "the system", He doesn't blindly accept the lies & deceit heaped-on all of us by those who would deceive us & keep us enslaved.

Welcome home David & have a good life.