Our political conversation must shift away from
the mass, infantile finger-pointing that now
pervades it.

It isn't the "Left," or the "Right," the "Progressives," or
the "Regressives," who are ruining this country. It is the
tendency on so many people's parts to think that their way
is the right way and that people who disagree with them, are
"bad."

It doesn't matter so much how we degenerated into such a mass
of disrespect for the rights of others to hold opinions
different from our own. What does matter is that we need to
commit to fixing this problem.

Anyway, I've had my say on this discussion.
For me it has now run its course and I bid you
all a good-day.

onthebeach, do you think the ABC should only let the tough questions be put to those you disagree with? Or do you think it should avoid the tough questions altogether?

The suggestion that the Minister missed an opportunity to respond reasonably to Snaky disregards the fact that people like the insolent Snaky take reasonable behaviour as weakness.
It is not their religion that makes people like Snaky undesirable immigrants. It is their low intelligence. They simply do not have the capacity to take advantage of the golden opportunity which the Australian community offers those with the brains to take up what is on offer. Snaky will always be a duplicitous troublemaker, and will no doubt come to the disastrous conclusion that his arrogance will attract.

Foxy,

Mallah's veracity may be taken with a grain or two of salt.

The religion that he espouses says that it is OK to lie to infidels.

So how do we know when he is telling the truth?

Leo Lane,
"The suggestion that the Minister missed an opportunity to respond reasonably to Snaky disregards the fact that people like the insolent Snaky take reasonable behaviour as weakness."
Even if that dubious "fact" were true, you're disregarding the observed fact that it was hostility, not weakness, that triggered his reaction. You're also ignoring his valid point (yes, even idiots like him make valid points occasionally) that alienating people makes them far more likely to side with our enemies.

I have a question that should be asked of all Moslems who whine about the fact that people shun them and leave them with a feeling of isolation which makes some of them to cross the world to rape and massacre their betters. As there are no Moslems on this thread, the question can instead be asked of Western apologists who admonish the community for shunning the Moslems and leaving them isolated and “picked on”. The question is this:

What is it about the Moslems, throughout the civilised world, that they have to suffer this mass underlying hostility and increasingly draconic “national security” laws targeting them? Why not the Buddhists? Or the Popists? Or the Presbyterians? Or the Jews? Or the Sikhs? Or the Irish? Or the Greeks? Why no other “minority” whom such a large number of people dislike?

I have my own answer, and it is as set out in the excellent account provided by onthebeach:
http://www.centerforinquiry.net/isis/islamic_viewpoints/the_totalitarian_nature_of_islam/ , which nevertheless didn’t say whether this cult is “left” or “right” though it contained an observation of Bertrand Russell that its claims of being the one true faith had structural similarities to Bolshevism (as it also has to the Church of Rome)