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paternalism

The Bill of Responsibilities for the youth of South Africa

The Bill of Responsibilities for the youth of South Africa

Posted March 23, 2011 by Jacques Rousseau

The Bill of Responsibilities, being launched in South Africa today, is a list of purported responsibilities that flow directly from the Bill of Rights. But they don’t – it’s an aspirational, paternalistic, religion-infused list of virtues and values that could have been written by Oprah, and which in some cases run completely counter to the commitment to liberty enshrined in the Constitution.

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Is freedom of the press that important?

Posted May 5, 2010 by Jacques Rousseau

While we lament the fact that the press is perhaps not as free as we would prefer, we should not forget that for many of our citizens, merely being able to have this concern is a privilege they can only dream of.

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