LEGO,

Your argument is based entirely on the assumption that there is intentional discrimination against white people on the basis of their skin colour.

That's simply not true and so it renders everything that comes after it invalid.

Some people with light skin experience bad outcomes, but it has nothing to do with their skin colour. Some people with dark skin experience bad outcomes too but unfortunately it is often because of their skin colour, which you seem to find a desirable state of affairs.

Whatever your own circumstances might be, to the extent that they are not to your liking, your skin colour has nothing to do with it. However, to the extent that they might be more comfortable than average, then your skin colour is a contributing factor, given that you are apparently an older gentleman who would have benefited from being a white man in a culture that was based on antiquated ideas of race that went back to the British Empire. The fact that some special consideration has been extended over the years to people in poor circumstances who happen to have a different skin colour to yours is not discrimination against people with light skins, it is a common sense approach to the problem of helping people to become self-sufficient.

Hi Craig,

Back to work :)

You suggest: "How many Muslims have been killed by non-Muslim Australians since 2001 do you reckon? Of course, the vast majority of those have been killed in their own country by Australians wearing a uniform, so that makes it OK..."

Yes: they are Taliban and Al Qa'ida terrorists, on the whole, who are being killed by, and who are killing, Australian soldiers. Yes, that makes it okay, on the whole: I don't know enough about this recent case of cold-blooded killing to comment.

"The boys who were arrested "on their way to behead someone" (except that the police had been watching them, which shows how few people there are like them) .... "

The little bastards were out to kill someone, it didn't matter who. It doesn't necessarily mean that there are very few of them. We'll see.

" .... were explicit that their motivation was revenge for the killing of Afghanis by Australian troops. In other words, it had nothing at all to do with Islam .... "

No. They are common-or-garden thrill-killers, certainly justifying their simple desire to kill someone with the precepts of the Koran. Now why's that ? But undeniably they were using Islam as their sanction, believing that they would either survive (they're young and stupid, after all) or pretty soon get their hands on those 72 white-breasted raisins.

As for " .... everything to do with the screwed up management of geopolitics that has been such a feature of the last 30 years", do you mean since the Russian invasion of Afghanistan and the religious-zealot opposition to that ? No, I don't agree that Russia should have invaded Afghanistan, and I'm not surprised that the resistance to it inevitably turned reactionary and religious, 'cultural' if you like. After all, Russia also represented the outside world, just as the US did later after the 9/11 provocation.

Beneath me ? I don't think so. I yam what I yam.

Joe

Hi Joe,
Let's face it, if Australia was occupied by an invading army for years, regardless of the pretext, there would inevitably be some people who took action against the invaders and just as inevitably they would be regarded as heroes by a large part of the Australian population.

I think it's a tribute to the pacific nature of the people who have come here from Afghanistan and Iraq that so few problems have occurred.

Hi Craig,

Occupied, do you mean before 9/11 ? When the Taliban was sheltering Al Qa'ida ?

The refugees from Afghanistan to Australia are, after all, refugees from the Taliban, isn't that so ? If they were so afraid of or wild with Australians, why didn't they simply seek refuge in Pakistan ? Why Australia ? Because Australia is where the Taliban isn't, and they are happy to be wherever the Taliban isn't. Most Afghan refugees, it seems to me, are Hazara, Shi'ites persecuted brutally by the Sunni Taliban, and protected by Australian and other troops.

A high proportion of Iraqi refugees are either Christian (Chaldean and Assyrian), Yazidis, Mandean, Baha'i or from some other brutally persecuted minority.

I'm very happy to welcome Hazaras, Iraqi Christians, Yazidis, Mandeans, Baha'i and other persecuted minorities to Australia. I'm confident that they will make a wonderful contribution to Australian life. Sunni, with their notion of rightful hegemony over all Muslims and therefore the world, I'm not so sure about.

Cheers,

Joe

Hi Joe,
As I said, regardless of the pretext.

The Afghani people have been resisting invaders for centuries. They have a culture of resistance fighting.

If the Taliban had stayed around and tried to impose a regime that didn't suit the people they would have soon found themselves booted out. Instead, they have been able to leverage resentment at the Western forceful imposition of a puppet regime. the same thing can be said of Iraq.

Sure, there are people who are happy with the changes, but there will inevitably be those who aren't.

We have invited these people into our country and to a very large extent we've not lived up to the promise of a much better life. They have been cut off from their native cultural support structures and they are sexperiencing genuine discrimination - not the version that lives in the imagination of people like LEGO. If he and those like him can become so resentful at what they perceive as a failure of the social model in this country, how much worse must it be for those who are never allowed to forget they are strangers and unwelcome?

We ordinary people need to become willing and enthusiastic participants in this great social experiment. We need to make our new arrivals feel welcome, in a nutshell. If we don't we are creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of tragedy.

Hi AJ

I did re write my original argument because it is so good. What I have is a very strong, cohesive argument, whose various components cross connect, makes perfect sense, and conforms to observable reality which ordinary people can relate to. That is why you are losing badly. People can not even consider your argument because you refuse to even post one up, and that is a big negative so far as gaining audience support. All you want to do is to oppose everything I say, and most people can see that is a very weak position. I have the initiative, you are entirely defensive.

You stated previously that I did not explain to what degree environmental factors were more important than genetic factors in crime. Hey, that's your job, mate, not mine. I thought that you might at least have tried to write 350 words on your implication that imported ethnic crime is the result of bad post codes, bad parenting, and bad nutrition. But if you had, I would have easily countered it by saying that dumb people live in bad postcodes, are bad parents, and eat rubbish. And most of our audience would have nodded in agreement.

Your reply was the usual gibberish where you chopped up parts of my post and tried to get some mileage out of the bits. There were the usual hot button "links" which nobody bothers to click on. Very weak. (yawn) Next, you stood on your dignity about me using the word "denote" in the trite saying "correlation does not denote causation" which just happens to be the way the saying is usually expressed. Another collective yawn. Next came "definitions" and the audience was starting to nod off. 10+ for obfuscation and red herrings, and 0 for reasoned argument. Perhaps you think that if you manage to write 350 words on any rubbish it counts as an argument?

I have submitted a reasoned argument which makes perfect sense. Unless you can do the same thing, then your opinion has no credibility.