Hi Steele,

Thanks so much for striving to reach the limits of your analytical abilities.

Cheers,

Joe

My understanding of history, is that every single grass roots reforming organisation that has ever existed, will eventually turn extremist. The reason being, is that the overwhelming majority of people simply are not politically active. Where circumstances exist where the majority of people rise up and demand action against an overbearing superior ruling caste, extremism always follows moderation. This is because the ordinary people soon tire of being politically active, while the extremists never do. What results is the gradual removal of moderates from power and the replacement of these people with extremists, who look after their collective interests and become the new oppressors.

There exists within the western world today people who think that democracy is a real impediment to the sort of idealised world they envisage for the future. Refusing to acknowledge that the western democratic, free market culture just happens to be the best form of government ever invented, they seek it's destruction by any means. They are convinced that because western culture can not solve every human problem, it is therefore fundamentally unsound.

To destroy the west, they use the natural apathy of the pleasure loving populace against themselves. They use immigration to dilute the cultural bonds which are the glue which holds any nation together. They champion illegal immigrants as a way to increase the number of welfare dependent people who will vote for them in elections. They claim that all races are equal, when quite demonstrably, they are not. They look for any excuse to set indigenous or imported minorities against the white majority. The laughable claim by well paid indigenous footballers that their race is oppressed, by one word in the national anthem, is an example of that.

It is also a repeat of the same sort of behaviour exhibited by millionaire African/American NRL footballers in the USA, who refused to stand for the US national anthem. When faced with such stupidity, ordinary, usually apathetic members of the population begin to get angry and hit back. Thus we get Trump, Brexit, and anti immigration parties gaining ground in every western country

https://www.facebook.com/senatorbriggs/videos/338652323486058/
Yuri,
He has a point but, being just as bad & even more hypocritical than those he accuses makes the whole argument pointless.

Graham,

Well put.

>>If such a small issue can create such a disproportionate response it is a sign of just how fractured our society has become under pressure from grievance merchants and left- and right-wing identitarians who want to give special privileges to particular groups. ... The cards have fallen where they are, and we must all play our best game with what we have, not try to reshuffle the deck.<<

This can be applied to many situations throughout the (Western) world, where remedies for PAST grievances (real or just as seen from a 21st century perspective) suffered by this or that minority, are being sought in “reshuffling the deck”.

Maybe that 1/3rd of players don't know the words! Me neither.

But more seriously "I AM AUSTRALIAN" beats all http://youtu.be/jD3SkTyXzcE

and should replace the Girt Song.

Pete

Lego.

I think you shot yourself in the foot.

At th beginning you describe extremists as oppotunists capitilising on apathy.
At the conclusion, you describe extremists as those same apathetic waking from slumber.

Which is it to be, extremists as the apathetic, or extremist as the oppotunists?

Dan.