Personal Responsibility
Holes in the Crown case against Assistant Commissioner Clint Rickards and two former police colleagues are too great for any jury to convict the men, the High Court at Auckland was told yesterday.
Lawyers for Rickards, 45, Brad Shipton, 47, and Bob Schollum, 53, gave their closing addresses to the jury of seven women and five men, saying the complainant, , had lied and fabricated events and the Crown case did not come within a “bull’s roar” of what was required.
This case will be judged by the philosophical view of the men and women on the jury. I have kept a close eye on this case as it represents to me, and I’m sure to the feminists, how society interprets the actions of woman in relation to men. Louise Nicholas has claimed that she had non consensual sex with the three men. Yes, she admits that she didn’t say no or complain at the time but claims the justification was intimidation. She therefore feels she was not responsible for her actions. Feminists and the like need to heed the words of Yasuhiko Genku Kimura
In public discourse we hear more about the violation of individual rights than about the abdication of individual responsibility. Yet it is the abdication of individual responsibility that leads to the violation of individual rights, because it is intrinsic in the nature of responsibility that responsible individuals respect and honour the rights of others. Today we live amid a pandemic of irresponsibility — irresponsibility within governments, business, education, the media, the arts, academe, and other sectors. In this culture of rampant irresponsibility, responsibility as such has become almost a forgotten ethical value and moral virtue. However, it is the responsible action that alone carries with it the requisite integrity that brings about real change. Therefore, unless we can transform the present culture of irresponsibility into a culture of responsibility, social movement of any kind, including peace movements, will bear only bitter fruit, if any.
