“At times I feel like I am caught in some sort of weird ‘Alice in Wonderland’ scenario.”
Hear, Hear.
We now have a choice between 2 self-confessed staunch Christian leaders, both of whom are “rich” by any normal or average standard, despite both following a God who told them it would be IMPOSSIBLE for a rich man to pass through the gates of heaven.
George W. Bush was another staunch Christian, taught by his God to “turn the other cheek” and “forgive those who trespass against him”.
Explain that to an Afghani or Iraqi.
The Christian, Jewish and Muslim holy books include the exhortation from their God: “Thou shalt not kill.”
Murder is illegal, -unless a Prime Minister or President -who you probably didn't even vote for- hands you a specific set of clothing and says it's okay.
We have a common perception that drug pushers are worse than drug users. More people day on the roads each year than from drugs, yet it is legal to sell cars capable of 2 or 3 times the legal limit, and the car manufacturers have exactly the same defence as the drug lords: “we don't force anyone to use/abuse our products”.
We don't admire greed and selfishness in our children, family or friends, yet we worship the those who are most successfully greedy and selfish (some people actually get paid millions for chasing balls around, while nurses battle for a pay rise; and the court jesters are richer than kings).
We grow more than enough food for everyone, yet half the world goes hungry while the other half throws food away.
And we have posters on this thread blind to the symmetry of their own arguments:
It is rather funny when we have a brahmin caste of people like Lego who think that they are intellectually and morally superior to everyone else, who can not see the self evident danger of forcibly imposing their moral imperatives on others, because they cannot separate actions from words.
Let the one who is without sin, cast the first stone.

You got me all wrong, Gill, I am a former Housing Commission kid who crawled up into the working class while a lot of my teenage friends thought that I was crazy. Why work, when you can get on the dole and surf every day?

What I got fed up of, was so many people who were not only born with a silver spoon in their mouths, they got the whole damned silver service. And these privileged elites seem to have developed this attitude that it is fashionable to always sneer at their own people, and to always oppose their own people's interests.

Plato once said that "the highest morality, is the defence of ones own people." THAT is a philosophy I absolutely agree with, because I saw with my own eyes as a kid, that the Australian government was more interested in helping foreigners than their own poor (deserving) people. My philosophy, is, in Australia, Australians come first. If you don't agree with that, then I do not regard you as an Australian, no matter where you were born.

Now, you seem to be whining about the yanks doing over the Afghans at the moment. If the Afghans allow terrorists to use their territory to launch attacks on the USA, which killed 3000 Americans, what do you think that they are going to do? Sit around and cry? Or go after the bastards who done it? As for Iraq, I agree with you that the yanks should not have invaded the place. I don't care how many poison gas bombs Saddam Hussein drops on his own people.

The Asians have adopted our western ways and are giving us some real competition. But the Arabs? We got enough competition now, so we want them to stay Muslim and keep buggering everything up. Just as long as they stay in their own countries and don't invade mine, by jumping on the nearest fishing boat and arriving with the expectation that Australians are going to keep them, while they wait for Allah to solve all their problems for them.