Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2016 December 28

= December 28 =

Gillian Triggs and recent controversy
Hi all, in a recent edition of The Australian, the editorial cartoon featured Gillian Triggs and her Australian Human Rights Commission, and made fun of the (allegedly) minor offences they will seek redress for. This was, maybe, on December 24. I can find plenty of controversy surrounding Ms. Triggs, but can't find anything recent enough to account for the actual cartoon. Does anyone know? I could ask someone here, but when I do, I get all this corrosive criticism, when I just want the facts. Youse are much more peaceful, oddly enough IBE (talk) 06:10, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Wouldn't assume there needs to be some fresh "controversy" for a paper of the ideological bent of The Australian to publish a cartoon attacking someone of the ideological bent of Gillian Triggs? Tip: check through both that day's edition of the paper, and the day prior. If they had a fresh saga to attack her over, there will almost certainly be an article about it in one of those two days' editions. (Cartoonists are sometimes "a day late", but seldom longer). Does this help? Eliyohub (talk) 07:03, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I don't have access to those editions, although I could conceivably go to a library. Just a long task, in order to find there's nothing. I was assuming there would be one, and someone from Oz would know it offhand. But come to think of it, you might be right, it might be a general swipe at her. If she's in the crosshairs anyway, it would still be current enough, for a Christmas cartoon (the cartoon featured the AHRC taking complaints about getting the wrong present, or no penny in a pudding, etc). IBE (talk) 07:09, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Despite being an Aussie, I don't know anything fresh about her offhand. May indeed just be a "seasonal swipe". She is definitely not The Australian editorial staff's most favourite person (although if attacking her sells papers... not sure, they may ideologically despise her, yet see her as good for business). But if you're already a library member, you can often log into their website and access some "newspaper article database", and see if any new mentions of her come up in the last week or two. I assume you've tried Google news already? If she says or does anything controversial, it tends to be pretty public. The AHRC's website may be another useful resource as to her latest activities, speeches, and statements. Eliyohub (talk) 07:29, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
 * was also published on the 24 but I can't say it's clearly related. Considering it seems The Australian has been at war with her since October (well I'm sure before, but it seemed to really heat up around then), I have to agree with others above there's a fair chance it's just a random swipe. Nil Einne (talk) 12:10, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks, that one is behind a login screen, but no matter. Yes, if there's an acknowledged, ongoing war, then it is very likely just a response to that. I didn't know about the war, but it seems it began around October, as you say, with the QUT case . This makes the most sense. I don't follow the news, for reasons like this (too toxic), so I need WP to fill me in, sometimes. IBE (talk) 14:02, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I read the article Nil Einne linked to, by finding it through google news, which somehow bypasses the paywall. Nothing seems related to this cartoon that I can see. In my mind, the cartoon you describe sounds more like a general attack (alleging that Triggs gets too serious over petty complaints), than related to a specific recent incident. I am unaware of any recent controversy of this particular sort - an issue with Triggs involving a complaint decried by journalists as petty. So I agree with my previous statements, probably more related to Christmas than anything recent with Triggs. Searching the AHRC website showed nothing recent of note that I could see of this nature, nor did google news show anything similar. I was hoping to at least find a Christmas wishes message from Ms Triggs on the AHRC website which might include something perceived as controversial, but no such luck. Eliyohub (talk) 14:24, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Thankyou, Eliyohub (and Nil) IBE (talk) 09:14, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Royalists/Tories v Roundheads/Labour - and Brexit
Is there a map of Britain showing areas that were broadly on King Charles's side, versus those that backed Cromwell, and how those political choices aligned with 20th century voting patterns? I'm sure I read an essay about this, but it was a very long time ago. (My memory of the essay seems about as distant as the English Civil War.) And how does this compare to the Brexit vote? There are a million intervening factors, I know, not least the Industrial Revolution and urbanisation and the Scottish union, but still, if any historian or geographer has examined these parallels, I'd like to know more. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 17:45, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Interesting question. I'm not highly versed in British political history, but from a political science standpoint I'd think it'd be unlikely to find any meaningful statistical correlation between the Royalist-Roundhead divide and voting 300 years later, controlling for other factors. Any similarities would probably be just as attributable to rural-urban and socioeconomic divides. Hopefully someone much more knowledgeable in this area than I will come along with an interesting analysis in hand, however. But that's my initial impression as someone who's done empirical voting analysis. Tyrol5   [Talk]  22:50, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Agreed, there's no correlation. See English Civil War support maps and 2010 General Election result map. The Civil War was as much a religious conflict as a political one; the heartland of Puritanism was East Anglia and London, the usual theory is that these areas had closer contacts with the Calvinists in the Low Countries. East Anglia is now strongly Conservative, with Lib Dem a distant second place. It's really only London which might be said to fit your hypothesis; however London only consisted of the Cities of London and Westminster and Southwark at that time, and guess what? the Cities of London and Westminster (UK Parliament constituency) has returned a Conservative at every general election since 1950. Alansplodge (talk) 16:40, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Governments
Why are governments around the world increasingly being run more like businesses? 2A02:C7D:B937:6300:B46E:5B0E:8B82:3412 (talk) 21:14, 28 December 2016 (UTC)


 * That's a broad question, and I'm not sure the observation is true as a blanket statement. But accepting the premise, business-like behavior is linked by some to "rational" economic decision making, i.e. maximizing profit (or GDP), and this has been the case for some time. But business-like management of government is a charged political question and some attribute business-like, profit-driven governance to corporate lobbying and its influence over policy makers. This article may be of interest: Corporatization. Tyrol5   [Talk]  21:34, 28 December 2016 (UTC)


 * In the case of large, bureaucratic corporations, it might be the reverse. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:36, 28 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Because governments were convinced the disastrous Chicago school of economics was good idea, and abandoned sensible Keynesianism. As to why that happened? A lot of business interests prefer this style of government and money talks (corporatocracy). 86.28.195.109 (talk) 23:13, 28 December 2016 (UTC)


 * When did governments ever adhere to "sensible Keynesianism", rather than behaving as if the economy is always in recession and therefore the time to stop deficit spending never comes? —Tamfang (talk) 03:57, 30 December 2016 (UTC)


 * In government, there are agencies which are supposed to make a profit, like the Internal Revenue Service, in the US. Running such agencies as a business may well make sense.  For example, going after people for $1 owed in taxes isn't an efficient use of resources.  For other profit-based agencies, like those that lease out federal land for lumber production, mining and oil drilling, running it like a business may also make sense, but only so long as that business had a very long-term concept of profit.  That is, you have to preserve the resource for future production, not destroy it to make a quick buck.  The same is true of agencies that regulate fishing and hunting quotas, farming, water use, etc.  But, alas, corporate-owned businesses don't have a good record of looking to the long term, as they are run by CEOs and boards that may just take their quick profits and leave, before the shit hits the fan.  The same can be true of political appointees running agencies during a particular administration (or "government", in the parliamentary system).  Long-term career employees may tend to take the long view, similar to family-owned businesses.


 * Now we come to agencies which are designed to distribute benefits, rather than make a profit. For example; police, fire departments, schools, jails/prisons/penitentiaries, road/port/airport construction, health care, national parks, etc.  Running those like a business may mean minimizing benefits to keep costs low.  That may not be a good thing, depending on how low they cut those benefits.  And the short-term problem can also come into play here, for example by stopping all major infrastructure repairs and just putting in patches, knowing that the system will completely collapse at some time in the future, as a result, but hopefully after you've left office.  The Flint water crisis is an interesting example of where trying to do things "on the cheap" came back to bite them in the ass while they were still in office.


 * So, if you have long-term oriented career employees making decisions, then running government agencies like a business may be a good thing. If you have short-term political appointees in charge of the agency, then that's asking for trouble. StuRat (talk) 05:41, 30 December 2016 (UTC)