To Aiden

I apologise for saying that people with low intelligence are a parasitic class, because some of them are not. But generally, people with low intelligence are a real social problem. Most of our ever increasing welfare bill is aimed at buying the votes of this demographic, and the Labor Party in particular is foremost in purchasing their votes through increasing welfare. Labor also has a vested interest in increasing the numbers of people in welfare in order to provide a growing reliable constituency.

So it is no surprise that Labor under Rudd swept away John Howard's successful program to prevent boat people crashing Australia's borders in order to help themselves to our welfare system. Nor is it a surprise that in NSW, Labor's heartland has become the six largely Muslim electorates of Sydney with their high levels of welfare dependency and serious criminal behaviour. Nor is it surprising that Labor, once a staunch ally of Israel under Bob Hawk, has now reversed it's position to keep in sweet with it's new Muslim constituency.

Aiden, Australia is now $350 billion dollars in dept and our leaders can't keep buying votes by telling poor dumb people that if they vote for them the government will give them money. This is anathema to the social welfare professionals, who keep claiming that they can solve every social ill if the government just keeps giving them more money. And more money. And more money. Their record has been abysmal. 60% of the education allocation in the NT to produce 90% failure in NAPLAN tests? Your kidding. $430,000 to place an aboriginal in a job for six months? Your kidding.

Mr Laffer has conclusively proven that simply increasing taxes forever will result in ever lower tax revenue. This is definitely not what the bureaucrats and social workers want to hear. Fleecing taxpayers to finance their ever failing social schemes and build their empires is what they live for. Margaret Thatcher was absolutely correct when she stated that Socialism can never win, because sooner or later, Socialists run out of other people's money to spend.

LEGO you have my admiration. How you can have the patience to bother to try to show the truth to these people amazes me.

With so many, like this author, you could surgically implant the truth in their brains, but it would be a waste of time. They would still refuse to see it.

LEGO, what you should apologise for is basing your comments on your own prejudices rather than the facts!

While I don't dispute that there are problems associated with people of low intelligence, your claim about our "ever increasing welfare bill" is false. Pensioners are by far the biggest welfare demographic, both in cost and claimant numbers. Your claims about welfare spending under Labor are totally baseless; unemployment was lowest under Rudd. And the Howard government seem to have been more keen on welfare spending, though they tended to direct it at those who didn't really need the money.

Boat people were NEVER "crashing Australia's borders in order to help themselves to our welfare system". Apart from freedom from persecution, Australia's two biggest drawcards are the fact that we speak english and the opportunities for those who work. And just how "largely Muslim" are those electorates? I've been to Auburn, and while there are noticeably more Muslims there than most parts of Australia, it still seems to be a small fraction of the total population.

As for Israel, its own actions have made it unworthy of our staunch alliance. In Israel and Palestine there are those who want peace and those who don't, and the latter group are often in power. So if peace is our objective, our support must be conditional.

Australia has unlimited credit (as we own the RBA) so being $350 billion in debt is not a limiting factor. But this votebuying strategy of our leaders is not real; it only exists in the minds of rightwing bigots!

(continued)

The whole point of NAPLAN tests is to direct the money to address the failures. But it takes time.

If the RJCP has really spent $430 000 just to find jobs for Aborigines then there's something seriously wrong with it. But spending that much per person to train them to replace FIFO workers could be a good investment. Unless you look past the headlines and see what's really going on, your opinions aren't worth much.

Nobody, not even "the bureaucrats and social workers" advocates "simply increasing taxes forever". Technological progress means we will be able to do more with less in the future. Meanwhile the top tax rate is far below the revenue peak.

Thatcher didn't understand socialism, or indeed many aspects of money, and though some of her actions were good, many of her economic decisions turned out to be false economies.

I love your reasoning Aiden. My comments are just "prejudice", while your own opinions are of course not based upon prejudice, they are beyond reproach.

I lived through that part of Australia's history when welfare numbers began to increase exponentially. It began with the election of the Whitlam Labor government when almost an entire generation of working class and dependent class young people found that it was child's play to get on the dole and go surfing every day. People turned up at the CES (Commonwealth Employment Service) claiming that they were Lion Tamers and if the CES could not find a job for them, then they had to give them the dole. There was even a book printed in Britain entitled something like "How to Holiday in Australia at the Aussie Taxpayers Expense."

I myself once briefly worked in a CES office in Haymarket in Sydney and saw with my own eyes a block long column of Asians lining up for welfare benefits which I did not even know existed. I saw with my own eyes a Muslim woman in a full burkha with no eyes visible at all claiming welfare because she could not get a job as a receptionist. I could repeat a lot more, but with only 350 words per post, I am can't repeat all I saw.

But you claim this is just prejudice. No Aiden, it is reality.

I know that you desperately want to believe that you can solve every social problem on earth by spending money which simply falls from the sky, but I am afraid that your perception of reality is false. I know that you want to think that every boat person is a victim of persecution, but that is wrong also. Man Harim Monis, an Iranian criminal who murdered two of your own people after falsely claiming asylum in Australia and then engaging in massive welfare fraud while doing whatever he could to show his contempt for our society, was the result of your muddle headed thinking, not mine.

Post 2 to Aiden.

In 1965, 3 % of the working age population in Australia was on welfare benefits. Now 16 % of adults rely on welfare. In 1965 there were 22 taxpayers for every one person on welfare; now the number is 5. Extrapolate forward (bearing in mind that most baby boomers have yet to retire,) and unless you are suffering from intellectual impairment, then visions of Greece, Spain, Cyprus and Detroit should be materialising in front of your eyes.

The leaders of these countries were acutely aware decades ago what the consequences would be if they did not reign in their welfare spending to buy votes. But there must have been too many Aiden's and David G's among them whom refused to recognise self evident reality. That reality was once again defined by non other than Margaret Thatcher, a grocer's daughter with two university degrees, who said that "Every housewife knows that you can not spend more than you earn." Like irresponsible creditors with a new credit card, the leaders of these states borrowed until they could borrow no more, and they wished away their problems until the bailiffs arrived.

One definition of "Insanity" is "doing the wrong thing, over and over again."

With the spectacle of the social and economic theories of Socialism a clear and present failure, with the spectacle of countries who will never reign in their spending becoming insolvent and bankrupt, one would think that a person like yourself, Aiden, would quickly come to the conclusion that austerity and reigning in massive welfare fraud would be a government priority. But no, like a person told by a doctor that they are dying of cancer, your first reaction is Denial. It can't be happening. It is happening, Aiden.

As for NAPLAN, these tests have been opposed by the long haired men and short haired women of every education Department in Australia. They do not want unwelcome comparisons made between the educational success of certain ethnic groups and the academic failure of others. That would contravene their infallible belief that all races and ethnicities are equal.