Someone has corrupted the court. Must be those who assign the judges.

The concept of collective guilt is an interesting and valid one.

To begin with, those who most ardently claim that Muslims could not be condemned collectively for the actions of Muslim terrorists, have no trouble assigning collective guilt to Nazis, Ku Klux Klansmen, Hell Angels, or any other group whos values and behaviour that they may object to, and who commit outrages against other groups.

One of the identifying features of human beings, is that we form self protecting groups in which a generally agreed concept exists of what constitutes correct behaviour within the group. The acceptance of outgroups are usually conditional upon the degree of conformity the outgroup has with the ingroups values, attitudes and behaviours.

Outgroups who's generally agreed values are diametrically opposed to the ingroups will rarely be accepted, although tolerence can be achieved, provided that the outgroup agrees to largely conform to the ingroups laws, and that the outgroup does not threaten the ingroup legitimacy on making laws through immigration or birth rate differentials.

Where outgroup individuals commit acts of violence towards the majority ingroup, especially if they cite that they are defending the outgroup, then collective guilt will be assigned to every outgroup member, unless the outgroups leaders, and the outgroups people as a whole, clearly demonstrate through words and actions that they disown the actions of the people committing violence in their name.

Every one of us is part of a group (usually several at one time) and we can be very accepting of other groups that share our values. But we also identify other groups that we don't like. That dislaike may be based upon race, religion, social position, political opinion, values, behaviours, sexual orientation, level of intelligence, ethnicity, nationality, or club membership.

To claim that human hostility between groups can be legislated or wished away, is like saying that population control can be achieved if teenagers simply refrained from being interested in sex.

It ain't gonna happen, baby.

EmperorJulian - Someone has corrupted the court. Must be those who assign the judges

the judiciary, like all virtually entities conceived by humans, are primarily about power, ergo they are naturally inclined to be corrupt

Interesting article.

"In short, they have been found guilty of being Croat."

Collective guilt should be anathema to Western standards of criminal liability which are based on individual liability.

In special circumstances where there is a JCE then various criminal offences can be designed to accommodate that such as the range of conspiracy offences.

Alternatively the Nazi example is instructive; here we had a culture which permeated every aspect of German society. No doubt many Germans were not Nazis or did not support the war attrocities but the crime was so large and so widespread that a collective guilt is appropriate.

More locally the Catholic church is bearing the brunt of outrages committed by some of its clergy. These clergy and their horrible acts thrived in a church wide culture; again collective guilt is appropriate.

Then there is islam and the many barbaric acts committed in its name. Isn't it time a collective guilt were applied to it rather than this namby pamby apologist appeasement offered by the 'moderate' muslim to excuse islam from its crimes?

cohenite - Then there is islam and the many barbaric acts committed in its name. Isn't it time a collective guilt were applied to it rather than this namby pamby apologist appeasement offered by the 'moderate' muslim to excuse islam from its crimes?

:) :) :) :) :)

Cohenite, how would you 'apply a collective guilt' to all Muslims then?

A mass thrashing or jailing of all Muslim men, women and children?
Ban them all from Australia?
Why are you tarring them all with the same brush.?

Maybe we should also be suggesting that all people who are anti-Muslim are KKK-type racists then?

To date, Australia has been EXTREMELY fortunate that the various islamic cliques have avoided attention-seeking ativities, with most events involving different islamic groups rather than outsiders / infidels. Eventually however someone or something will unite the factions & then islamic angst will no longer be a matter of sunni vs shia or shia vs wahabbi (or whatever), but islam combined vs infidel. Not good.

Hi Susie.

Your prejudgement that all Ku Klux Klan members should be condemned as racists applies, the principle of guilt by association to all Ku Klux Klansmen.

Thank you for confirming my original premise.

And thank you for also confirming my premise, that people such as yourself who condemn all KKK members, have double standards, and develop a case of acute myopia when anyone suggests that the same principle can be applied to Muslims.

Lol Lego, you are certainly clutching at straws there.

KKK members would have to be pro-white, anti-black, anti-Jew, anti-Catholic , anti-gay etc in order to actually want to join such an organisation as that.
Look it up before you make such allegations towards me.

I would be very comfortable in pronouncing members of KKK as racist, whereas you lumping all the different Muslim cultures and countries and people together is a huge stretch...

Belonging to the KKK is a personal decision, a commitment to racist hatred. Being born in Croatia is not a personal decision and one cannot be responsible for it. Punishing people for being born in Croatia will not deter anyone from doing so. Duh!

No woman in her right mind would support islam.

I would ban the burqa immediately.

I would enforce all the minor inroads islamic arrogance and belligerence is making into the social and legal structure:

Muslims before the court would be jailed for contempt for refusing to stand.

There would be no public facilities for islamic use only.

I would instigate a Royal Commission similar to that one currently into the Catholic church dealing with islamic connections with terrorism.

I would put a standing watch on mosques and 'backyard' preachers.

I would seek declarations from islamic leaders that their allegiance is to Australian law.

I would introduce laws similar to the anti-bikie laws and apply them to islamic groups which are known or suspected to be or have connections with known terrorist groups.

I would ignore any and all attempts at political correctness in discussion about islam such as people comparing other people who have reasonable and well-based concerns about islam to the KKK, and treat such people as the fools they are.

Cohenite you have made your racist position on the subject of Islam very clear.
Even a 'fool' like me can see that...

Since we are a secular society, and have every intention of remaining so, with due separation of Church and State, every individual's primary allegiance should, indeed MUST, be to the State (ie to the Nation of Australia). Anyone or any organisation of persons not willing to strenuously apply and conform to this primary allegiance should not qualify for Aust citizenship, nor a residential visa of any kind, and should be considered only as a visitor (if on holiday or a business visit) or else either as an alien or persona non grata - with relevant limits on stay and mobility.
Such an allegiance provision should and MUST apply to all seeking residence, including refugees and asylum seekers who seek temporary protection or any other form of residential visa.
To do less is to damage and weaken the established fabric of our great society and nation, with inevitable detrimental consequences.
Everyone may deserve a reasonable chance to demonstrate such allegiance, but with second and third chances strictly limited.

We also offer and try our best to ensure freedom of religion and of religious practice, but this can not and must not infer or confer precedence over allegiance to the nation, its Constitution and its laws.

Nation first, religion a long-way second (and keep God out of it altogether, please).

We appear to be shaping up as a 'soft target' as a nation, and it is well past time that we got 'real'.
Without wishing to be 'phobic' about anything, I sense that we are treading a fine line with our strenuous commitment to multiculturalism, and need to take greater heed of where we may be heading - particularly with regard to specialised religious-education institutions and 'special' provisions for persons and workers of particular ethnic or religious groups or 'identity'.
(Unfortunately this may also apply somewhat to special provisions for our own indigenous people - for if one makes exception for one group, then why not for all?)
All Ozzies, one nation, one credo.

As for Bosnia, I thought Serbs and Serbia were the primary protagonists.

LOL (whatever that means) Susieonline.

Then your premise appears to be, that it is OK to prejudge individuals according to their group memberships, provided that their membership is voluntary, and not culturally acquired?

I am sorry, but I can not accept that. To begin with, it presupposes that all extreme views can not be culturally acquired through family insistence, or that members who have culturally acquired views are not free to think for themselves, and to leave an organisation which propagates extreme views.

Of course, your position does have some validity with Islam, because Muslims do believe that any person who is a Muslim apostate should be murdered. So, I will grant you that small point. Although such a position could conceivably also apply to Nazis and KKK members who leave those organisations and become critics.

On the basis of "Equality", that sacred moral principle, so beloved of the social climbing socialist brahmin caste, what applies to one group of people must automatically equally apply to another. If it is fair to prejudge individual Nazis, KKK members, and One Nation supporters according to their group associations, then that principle must apply to everybody else. Or the entire moral principle is invalid. It is immoral to advocate a moral principle which only applies to the people you like, and which can be disregarded with the people you despise.

Could you please tell me which Major branches of Islam are not as extreme in their views as the KKK and the Nazis, in that they believe in female equality? The separation of church and state? That ecclesiastical law should not trump secular law? That spreading Islam by violence and terrorism is unacceptable? That apostates should not be murdered? Or that Muslims are one thing, and every other person on planet Earth is something else?

Because if such major Muslim sects exist, then I will give them a free pass.

Looking forward to your answer

your obedient slave

LEGO

cohenite

Its difficult to imagine any woman wanting anything to do with islam but then women are strange cattle at the best of times. Maybe its just the less attractive ones who welcome the opportunity to cover up. A woman I knew years ago had everything going for her except in the face. Her approach was to promote her good features (and she had no shortage of those including brains). Worked for her and she never had any problems meeting men she liked (no she wasn't loose). My guess is that islamic women & those in favour of gurkhas / hijabs are not exactly Miss World candidates. The little bit one sees doesn't suggest the rest is particularly photogenic. Now lets see the feminist do-gooders start screaming crap :) :) :)

I must agree with the rest of your comments however, its clear that islamic idealogies conflict with every other on the planet, they will never, or more to the point, they CAN never integrate. My biggest concerns however are the birthrate & the problem we will encounter when the shia / sunni / wahabbi factions stop fighting each other and start on infidels. At least one source has already noted that is inevitable.

"Cohenite you have made your racist position on the subject of Islam very clear.
Even a 'fool' like me can see that..."

Islam is NOT a race.

What else do you see?

In addition to the list already provided I would seriously consider banning any tax or legal benefit given to religions. I would also get rid of any exemption religions have from not being covered by any discrimination acts remaining after the Abbott government gets in and the worst government in Australia's history is booted out.

No, you are right Cohenite, Islam is a religion not a race. I apologise.
I will change that sentence to say 'bigot', which means a person who is intolerant of any ideas other than their own views, such as on religion, politics, or race.

Like Christians, followers of Islam take the meanings of their holy book in different ways.
Not ALL consider everyone else as infidels, and most live peacefully and happily in Australia, with no thoughts of a mad 'takeover' that some radical Muslims do.

I totally agree that tax concessions should not be given to ANY religious organisation here in Australia. I believe they already have plenty of funds for themselves to spread the 'good' word.

As for your excitement at the thought of Abbott getting in after September, I would watch what I wish for. He is a religious bloke who may well advocate for more religious tax reforms and dispensations than you may want!

"I will change that sentence to say 'bigot', which means a person who is intolerant of any ideas other than their own views, such as on religion, politics, or race."

This is the point.

I support an individual rights based secular democracy. In such a society all religions are free within the usual contraints governing criminal, commercial and political parameters.

Religions to a greater and lessor degree prescribe individual rights. Islam more so than any other.

Opposing a prescriptive ideology which seeks to get rid of the social structure which gives it the freedom to exist is not the same as islam wanting to perpetuate its creed at the expense of everything else.

As for:

"Not ALL consider everyone else as infidels, and most live peacefully and happily in Australia, with no thoughts of a mad 'takeover' that some radical Muslims do."

I'm sure the same can be said about catholics; but their religion and its structure has to wear the blame for what has happened in its name. Maybe then some change and progress will occur.

There is no internal impetus in islam for it to address the monstrous acts done in its name; so external pressure needs to brought.

Until those "peaceful", moderate muslims come out and decry their religion as many christians do then your description of "peaceful" muslims is delusional.

Have you seen many muslims leaders supporting gay rights, female liberation or indeed equality of women?

No. Islam uses our freedoms to press its anti-freedom beliefs.

To deny otherwise is to deny reality.

Cohenite is absolutely right. Religion, like sex, is strictly for consenting adults. If I had my druthers I would bar all schools devoted to ensuring that children hear no world-views outside their parents' particular superstitions. With all the talk of a tolerant Australia, how about tolerance of intolerance? Like intolerance of unbelief, or of blasphemy, or of apostasy, or of impiety? Intolerance of these things is bigotry, especially where enforced, and tolerance of bigotry and of those who seek to enforce it is not tolerance of a race.

As a settlement established by armed invasion and unjust incarceration and racism, Australia was not founded on the values of the Enlightenment - reason, democracy, justice, individual human rights - but we have inched forward substantially over the past three centuries. We need to rebuff uncompromisingly any anti-Enlightenment demands and their throwback authors. Throwbacks are not a race, and whoever they are they have engulfed unwary civilisations before.

EmperorJulian - As a settlement established by armed invasion and unjust incarceration and racism, Australia was not founded on the values of the Enlightenment

Would you care to nominate any society that WAS 'founded on the values of the Enlightenment' ??

"Would you care to nominate any society that WAS 'founded on the values of the Enlightenment' ? - Praxidice

America 1776, France 1792, Australia 1901. Many others grew from pre-Enlightenment days to base themselves on the advances of the Enlightenment and are founded broadly on those values today. Not many (if any) countries today are unmixed with and unaffected by throwbacks. Moslem countries are run by throwbacks though Turkey is trying to slough them off.

EmperorJulian

In previous posts you have stated specificially that you do NOT consider Australia was 'NOT founded on the values of the Enlightenment'
To copy verbatim from an earlier post As a settlement established by armed invasion and unjust incarceration and racism, Australia was not founded on the values of the Enlightenment' Furthermore, since the US was also the subject of armed invasion (the bvarious indian tribes certainly would have thought so), unjust incarceration (slavery) and racism (KKK), I suggest that it likewise does not fit your 'Enlightenment' criteria. As for the frogs, If my history is correct there was no shortage of head-amputation done circa 1791 - 1792, whether that fits with the Age of Reason is questionable.

To Praxidice

Some English words have two or more distinct meanings. It's not all that hard to select the meaning from the (usually grammatical-structural) context.

The clue to "found" is the tense - was founded, is founded.

*To found as an event (like the settlement of Australia) or as an initial state of being, Australia 1789 and for many years thereafter maybe to at least mid-19th century .
*Te be founded on something as an existing state of being, or a currently accepted set of laws, procedures and constitution. Culture. Australia now.

The key to Enlightenment values as distinct from those of the ancien régime is the recognition that nobody is born to rule. That is a point of reference. I think I may be at my allowed limit for posts in one thread so you'll have to figure the rest out yourself.