Posts by Steve Barnes
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a woman's virtue being like a castle
Rapunzel, let down your hair...
Ah.. erm... well it is Friday.
;-) -
I'll be back on Monday, or earlier, depending on how slow the internet is in rural Canterbury this weekend.
You're travelling by internet? giga megabits of cool.
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Cue cheap gag about 'getting it over the counter'...
Fnahh, fnahh.
Happy birthday indeed Sacha ;-) -
I blame Viagra. Is there another drug in history whose effects are quite so, er, measurable?
The only use I've found for Viagra is it stops me rolling out of bed during the night.
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I'm off to the pub.
What an excellent idea can nurse my hangover from the NewArtland launch. I must say it was a beautifully constructed hangover.
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Thought I'd post this as a reminder to those that thought Student Unions were lame.
Those were the days -
Good post, Steve Barnes.
Thank you Mr. Parks, welcome to the gang of Steves. ;-)
...it's a hell of a high threshold and applications (there are a few - I suspect from people, like you, who found the information by looking up the Education Act) are declined. It's not that students don't have to be members if they don't want to - they have to prove it would be demonstrably offensive to them on some moral, philosophical or religious ground.
I agree. There seem to be deliberate obstacles to the opt-out process but this should only be a matter of oversight, as to who this oversight falls to could be open to debate but I do not think that body should be parliament. It is, surely, a matter for chancery I would have thought.
it really rather grated that at best 20% of students would vote in any given election.
Considering student are mostly teenagers with better things to do than vote it doesn't surprise me. ;-) But as active membership is not a major part of the activities of a Student Union it seems more than reasonable.
There are good examples of Student Unions providing much more than just a service to students and managing to be part of not only the University but part of the greater community. Student Radio is a good case in point. By the use of supplementary membership, the BCard, 95BFM has managed to sustain a unofficial school for music related industry training and... er whatever.
I have heaps more I could say but I must sleep....zzzzzzzzz
Good night ;-) -
After taking time to re-read all the comments here I am now ready to offer my considered opinion.
First I would like to couch the argument in historic terms.
For clarity I propose to use the term "Student Union" as opposed to "Student Association" so the term "Freedom of Association" is not used to conflate two separate but related issues.Very few would argue that the "Oxford University Student Union" was not part of that esteemed collegiate.
Reflecting the collegiate nature of the University of Oxford itself, OUSU is both an association of Oxford's more than 19,000 individual students and a federation of the affiliated Junior Common Rooms (JCRs), Middle Common Rooms (MCRs) and other Constituent Organisations that represent all undergraduate and graduate students at the University's 44 colleges and Permanent Private Halls.
However.
Individual students can opt out of membership, though this is rarely exercised. Individual Common Rooms can also disaffiliate, and disaffiliation debates or votes are perennial fixtures of some Common Rooms.
This state of affairs is, I believe, one that you (Graeme) would not have a problem with.
The crux of the argument has two parts, part one is, to what extent should Government, in the form of Mr.* Douglas' amendment, interfere with the Governance of our universities? The second part is, does the Bill of Rights trump existing legislation?
The answer to the second part is a simple no. Part 1 Section 4So this leaves us with part one.
Mr. Douglas claims " The current legislation fails to guarantee individual students a satisfactory opportunity to withdraw from associations, and sets the bar too high for those who wish to make membership of a students association voluntary."
Ref
Section 229A states "A students association may exempt any student from membership of the association on the grounds of conscientious objection; and, if exempted, the association must pay the student's membership fee to a charity of its choice."I propose that the fee be refunded and the provision for a charitable donation either be repealed or held as an option. He, rather disingenuously infers that an individual should be able to cause a Student Union to move from Compulsory status to a voluntary one.
The procedure for Compulsory membership to be reduced to one of a Voluntary membership is already enshrined in Section 229B, part three states' "A request under subsection (1) or subsection (2) is not effective unless it is accompanied by a petition requesting the vote, signed by at least 10% (as calculated according to figures provided by the Ministry) of all students currently enrolled at the institution."
If Mr Douglas considers this "setting the bar too high" then I suggest he has no love for Democracy.To conclude,
I would say that with minor modification (the dropping of the charitable donation and the refund of the fee) the status Quo should satisfy even the most ardent Liberal Democrat and as such reduces Mr Douglas' amendment to nothing more that a puff of ill wind that would do no good and goes against his own principal of "Laissez-faire"How does that grab ya?
* I do not recognise the acquired Honorific. (Sir)
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he's not justifying torture, quite the opposite.
Well, yes I guessed that but the logic of the statement says otherwise.
I can't think of an exception which proves that the right to torture isn't absolute.
There is no exception which proves that the right to torture is not absolute
There is no proof that the right to torture is not absolute
therefore the right to torture is absolute.
Disclaimer, I do not support torture or Rodger Douglas. ;-) -
I can't think of an exception which proves that the right to torture isn't absolute.
That sounds suspiciously like George Bush. Do you want to rephrase that Kyle?.