Dear LEGO,

<<Your first premise, implies that a government which prevents it's citizens from drinking alcohol is a totalitarian government.>>

I didn't go as far as that, but a government that believes that it has a right to stop people from drinking alcohol, is on its way to stop them from doing other things. I do not drink alcohol myself, nor support the habit, but a snake needs to be killed while it is small.

<<that giving aboriginals the right to drink alcohol would cause social catastrophe for them.>>

Heaven forbid: I never suggested giving them such a 'right', only not to take away their freedom to do such foolish things.

<<preventing young people under the age of 18 from drinking alcohol is routine in every liberal democracy.>>

Again, here the state intervenes with private matters that should only be worked-out between parents and children.

Also, the 'age of 18' (by the Gregorian calendar, why indeed?) is arbitrary, artificial and does not indicate one's maturity or lack thereof.

Also, had the Australian electoral-system been democratic (which it isn't), Australia would be classified as "social democracy" rather than "liberal democracy", because its social element usurps the liberal element. However, democracy is wrong to begin with, because it asserts the right of the majority to oppress minorities.

As for aboriginal people, let them decide for themselves whether they are "adult" or not. If they prefer to be treated as "minors", then fair-enough both-ways, otherwise the only concern of the state should be that they harm no others.

I've been in South-Africa during the Apartheid and heard Afrikaaners claim, honestly and innocently convinced, that "Bantu" (blacks) are merely children and require the protection of the Europeans.

<<Australia was no longer a nation but something on its way to fragmenting into dozens of new nations states.>>

Australia was never a nation. It's cynical propaganda (and Gillard's favourite) to claim that all people who happen to live in the same continent and the islands surrounding it, form a nation, notwithstanding that most-of-us were never asked for our consent to belong to that particular bigger body.

An precisely how many court cases, seeking compensation by people claiming to have been 'stolen' as a matter of prevailing government policy been verified through the courts? Simple question, clear answer, anyone?

Yes Yuyutsu, in democracies, majority rules. The minority tail does not wag the dog. I am sorry if you think it should be the other way around. But few people in democracies other than tertiary educated pseudo aristocrats would agree with you on that. The people's parliament has the right to enact any law within our Constitution that it sees fit to maintain social harmony. Liberal democracies try to give their people as much freedom as possible, provided that individual freedoms do not conflict too much with other people's freedoms.

The Australian government, elected by the people, has the right to say which drugs are legal and which drugs are not, and to limit who can imbibe legal drugs, and who may not. The legal age to drink alcohol is 18 years of age and I would opine that the overwhelming majority of parents would support that law. No liberal is trying to change that.

It was a mistake to give aboriginal people the right to drink alcohol. If we can make racist laws directed entirely towards aborigines that are meant to benefit aborigines, and nobody bats an eye over that. Then why can we not ban them from drinking alcohol? Surely the principle that racist laws which benefit a minority is already a fact of life and this would simply be a natural extension of that logic.

Dear LEGO,

<<in democracies, majority rules.>>

I don't think there's a need to argue with the facts: the only point in contention is their morality or lack thereof.

<<The minority tail does not wag the dog.>>

Nobody suggested that - All I suggested is "live and let live".

<<The people's parliament has the right to enact any law within our Constitution>>

The "people's" parliament applies to those people who agreed to be part of that body-of-people in the first-place and to have any relation with its constitution - otherwise you could just as well count the bears of the forest in that majority.

<<Liberal democracies try to give their people as much freedom as possible>>

"Try" is not good enough and nobody needs to give anybody else any freedom - all you are asked is not to take away others' freedoms in the first place.

<<provided that individual freedoms do not conflict too much with other people's freedoms.>>

When somebody who has otherwise no agreement with you threatens you or tries to take away your freedom (in this context I also refer to your recent post in the other thread, against Muslims), then they are an enemy and you may legitimately fight them: you may kill them if necessary, but even then you have no right to take away their freedom, only to treat them as enemies and defend yourself accordingly.

<<The Australian government, elected by the people, has the right to say...>>

No, the proper word is 'might', not 'right'.

Nobody has a right to dictate how-to-live to others who have not accepted their authority in the first place.

<<If we can make racist laws...>>

Why not? Go ahead and make any laws you like, racist or otherwise, so long as you make them only for that group of people who consented to abide by your constitution and your laws in the first place.

You assume that you own this continent and have a right to subjugate all people who live here only because at some point in history England had better guns. That assumption is incorrect and immoral.

Yuyutsu and LEGO. A most fascinating and absorbing exchange, illustrating the extraordinary complexity, both legally and morally of the subject at hand. Many years ago I listened to senior law men in the wester desert (Jiggalong, Mantiltjarra mob), decrying the law that allowed alcohol, they foresaw the chaos it would create and lamented the demise of their authority within the community, particularly with the young (un-initiated) men. I also met and listened to the (rabbit proof fence) girls, (then women) and came to no particular conclusion, certainly not an 'answer' or 'solution' to the problem, merely a better understanding of what the problem is and the complexity of the interface between two vastly, monumentally different cultures.

Dear Yuyutsu.

You seem to be implying that it is "immoral" for the majority in a democracy to impose its will on the minority. Sorry, I can't agree with that. I would have thought that it was the other way around. Your next premise was more baffling, which seems to suggest that people are free to choose whether they are subject to government control? If I read that right, I would consider it too silly to even comment upon.

Your next premise, seems to suggest that governments are "not trying hard enough" to give their people as much freedom as possible. I can only shake my head in wonder at that. Total freedom is total anarchy. As one prominent US jurist once remarked "Freedom" means "to do whatever I damn well please." "Oppressions" means "stopping me from doing whatever I damn well please." No society can function without laws governing personnel freedom. Every freedom may infringe upon another person's freedom, and it is the right and the responsibility of governments to weigh the choices, and to give as much freedom as they can without causing social problems elsewhere.

Next you went right off with the fairies. You proposed that it is OK to kill people but not to limit their freedom. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. You haven't been cohabiting with DavidG lately, have you?

Your next extraordinary statement, appears to suggest that aborigines can do whatever they damn well please because they are a conquered people who have no obligation to take any notice of white governments. That is an interesting opinion, but could I point out something you are missing? That is, that liberals like yourself once wanted aboriginal people to live unmolested on "their" land with total self determination under an aboriginal flag. The result has been total anarchy. Child sexual exploitation got so bad on these reservations that a female prosecutor in the NT buttonholed PM John Howard at a function and told him just how bad things had become in that situation. Howard (to his credit) immediately reimposed the authority of the government on aboriginal reserves.