Civil Liberties and the Referendum

Abstract

The defeat of the Australian government's attempts to outlaw communism in 1950 and 1951 was a significant victory for the protection of civil liberties. Yet for the Australian Council for Civil Liberties, which had fought a long battle against the measures, the result was not greeted with a sense of triumph. The campaign to avert draconian powers exposed a Council struggling to adapt to the Cold War, and revealed tensions in the Council's belief in democratic institutions and the popular opinion that underpinned them.     

Civil Liberties in Wartime

I have a simple thesis: In time of war—or, more precisely, in time of national crisis—we respond too harshly in our restriction of civil liberties, and then later regret our behavior. To explore this thesis, I will briefly review our experience in 1798, the Civil War, World War I, World War II, the Cold War and the Vietnam War. I will then offer some observations.     

Teaching Civil Liberties: The Missing Dimension

Abstract

What kind of existence do fictional beings have? What are non-existent objects? Neither logic nor cognitive science gives complete answers, but theology might help.     

美国内战时期联邦海军反干涉战略探析

联邦海军在美国内战中担负着打击叛乱势力和防范外来干涉的双重任务。尤其是在内战初期陆上战局不利、存在明显外来干涉危险的形势下,联邦海军有效地发挥了其国防屏障作用和战略威慑功能,在遏制英国干涉图谋的过程中发挥了重要作用。及时把握住技术变革所带来的历史机遇,以技术创新弥补整体实力的差距,是联邦海军反干涉战略得以成功的前提,战略的内核则体现为立足本国国情、实施积极防御和有限威慑的务实路线。     

The Journalist as Historian: Anthony Lewis, Civil Liberties, and the Supreme Court

The genesis of the column that Anthony Lewis wrote for The New York Times between 1969 and 2001 was a red face—not Lewis's, but that of Arthur Ochs Sulzberger. The Times ' publisher offered Lewis the column as a consolation prize after outgoing executive editor James Reston mistakenly informed Lewis that the job of deputy to A. M. Rosenthal, the new executive editor, was open and that Lewis was a logical candidate. ¹     

Gallican Liberties and the Catholic League

Summary

Theorists of Gallican liberty took as their premise the idea that France had an exceptional status amongst the national Christian churches. However, as contemporaries had noted, the precise definition of Gallican liberties remained at stake; Antoine Hotman noted in his treatise on the subject that ‘it is a strange phenomenon that everyone talks of the liberties of the Gallican Church and, most of the time, very few people know what they are and cannot account for their origins or for their progress’. Within the context of French reactions to the papal excommunications of Henri III and Henri de Navarre, and reception of the Tridentine decrees, the question of how to define Gallican liberty was an extremely pertinent one. This article examines the treatment of Gallican ideas in Catholic League treatises as they negotiated a balance between arguments for Gallican independence and indirect papal power. Despite accusations from their contemporaries that they were attacking the Gallican church, Leaguer discussions of Gallican liberty frequently proved to be an integral part of the argument that Catholicity was a ‘fundamental law’ of France.