Boaz, with the greatest respect, you have avoided addressing any of the points I raised. This is not a trivial issue, lives are at risk here, and the situation cries out for clarity, practicality and above all honesty. None of which is displayed in your post.

The Flints and the Stones of our small corner of the world are advocating the cleansing of our society of people whom they dislike. They couch this dislike in self-righteous terms, basically describing the folk as un-Australian, lacking the Australian culture and out of step with the Australian way of life.

For clarity's sake, I am asking that someone defines to me what this consists of, in terms that can be understood - not by a crowd on a street corner, or the voice of talk-back radio, but in a court of law.

For practicality's sake, I am asking how, exactly, would our government go about implementing such policies if they were to be introduced and ratified. After all, this is a democracy, and I would expect to be consulted at the ballot box on such a major restructuring of our liberties in this country.

For honesty's sake, I am asking that you don't hide behind parables, or refer to articles on intelligent design, but stick to the question - and by "you", I mean the entire team of Flints and Stones who believe we can simply generalize our way out of this mess. It easy to stand on a soap-box and pontificate about how the world should be. But we deserve honesty when it comes to turning their wish-list into some form of reality.

My reference to Mosley was to illustrate how easy it is for intelligent people to press the racist button when the population at large feels itself under threat. The problem in the thirties was unemployment, and the button pressed was the Jews. The problem today is terrorism, and the button being pressed is Islam. In neither case is the target anything more than a rallying cry for bigotry.

Pericles

Your a worry, you seem to have ignored my question about my emails.. a much better place for me to put my UNrestricted wordlimit views on such things where I can use more than 350 words.

Sooo.. have my emails been REACHING you.... ? sorry for the shout, but I’ve asked at least twice.

LINE 9 of the previous post. Did u read it ?

1/ RESEARCH Australian culture is ‘defined’

2/ EDUCATION Curriculum changes introduced and if needed new subjects or chunks of existing subjects which will convey the values, history and social structure of the so defined culture.
The introduction of teaching of our culture in all religious schools, by acredited people.(compulsory) (applies to Christian schools also, but would not be a problem for us as we would have some input to the definition)

3/ IMMIGRATION. Laws would be introduced which ascribe points to people based on a number of specific criteria, related to social cohesian, cultural compatability, and political stability.

4/ LEGAL. The removal of any law which specifically favors religious groups who hold to teaching not considered compatable with our values or culture. (as defined in point 1)
(stamp duty, burial, free speech)

All of the above in the framework of attitude epitomized in the parable which I referred your attention to. (A story is much better than a monologue)

In summary I’m basically saying, “we” decide issues relating to our country, not the UN or any other body. The world is moving in this direction these days. The idealism of the UN was washed down the international toilet as it demonstrated impotent supervision of various genocides, and showed how particular countries can and will seek to undermine its independance in their own interests, including minority lobby groups in the ‘sexual orientation’ field.

Hope to see u on the new threads..exciting stuff

Boaz

>>Sooo.. have my emails been REACHING you.... ?<<

No.

>>RESEARCH Australian culture is ‘defined’<<

How do you propose this should come about? Who should be in the list of "[a]nthropologists, and historians, sociologists and theologians" you talk about? How many should there be? Who gives them authority? Are they elected by the people or chosen by politicians? What happens to their conclusions - do we get to vote on them?

>>EDUCATION Curriculum changes introduced and if needed new subjects<<

Once again, who is going to formulate these changes, who is going to ratify them, will the Australian people get to vote on the changes etc.? Is a picture emerging here?

>>IMMIGRATION. Laws would be introduced which ascribe points to people based on a number of specific criteria, related to social cohesian, cultural compatability, and political stability<<

And the measurements of these "qualities" will be?

>>LEGAL. The removal of any law which specifically favors religious groups...<<

I notice that you use the US spelling of "favor" - are you lifting this from one of those fundamentalist web sites, by any chance?

Boaz, what is needed is clarity, not waffle, and you are simply waffling.

PERICLES

Firstly, re emails.. I used the reply address on the one you sent to me before.. mind sharing your new one ? ==> jdrmot@tpg.com.au

Secondly.. spelling ? Fundy sites ? no, I’m just a bad speller.. too much time in machine shop practice at Aspendale tech and our English teacher hated me and I him.

-Posts are original

You’re asking me to ACtually develop policy. (cringe)

Your questions are all very fair, but better put as a submission to a working group on such a topic.

The idea of the selection criteria for such a body is clearly something which would be the subject of considerable debate and the target of interest groups.

I think Government should be pro-active on this, and raise some issues for debate, with terms of reference which can be tossed around the parliament, the media, fine tuned, and as much of a consensus achieved as possible. Would probably take a year to knock into shape.
A Bipartisan approach should be taken.

As long as specific ‘race’ or ‘denominational’ issues were not pushed too hard, a broad consensus should be achievable.

So, perhaps Submission/terms of reference/working group/debate/narrowing/selection ?

It would not matter ‘who’ was selected for such roles, they would by default become the target of smear campaigns by disgruntled groups who feel disenfranchised by it.

The first step in something like this is to have the idea floated, in broad terms.

You may be quite correct in assessing such a thing as a ‘dream’ –be that as it may, my world would not collapse if it did not get up :) My citizenship is not of ‘this’ world... remember ?

While recognizing the authorities as ‘God given’, (Romans 13) and the responsibilities of earthly citizenship, my ultimate hope, is in Christ and His kingdom, both for the here and now, and the there and then.

In the meantime, I think its quite democratically appropriate to participate meaningfully in shaping the community of which I am a part. So, I’ve emailed Coalition and Labor about this.

Did you hear BrendanNelsons speech today ? “VALUES”

Boaz

>>You’re asking me to ACtually develop policy. (cringe)<<

[patiently] No, I am not asking you to develop policy, but I see absolutely nothing wrong with you sending your views to politicians, short of spamming senators a la GetUp.

My suggestion is that you think through the practicalities of what you are suggesting, and what Messrs. Flint and Stone are agitating for. What you propose is certain to be divisive, disruptive and to cause a distinct increase in racist activity in the community.

Let's imagine for a moment that you have put together your proposals, and are also in the position of being able to put them into practice. What would happen?

The first thing you would have to face is that not everyone shares your rosy-hued idealism that we can all live together in religious harmony. You may have noticed this from some of the remarks that follow your posts - none says "aha, Boaz, you have shown me the light", some say "Yay Boaz, you tell 'em" but others say "Boaz, that's a crock." I can see this being representative of the public at large, which would suggest some resistance to your proposals. My question remains: what would you do?

How would you stop those people who agree with you from taking the law into their own hands, and "implementing" your policies of ridding our society of people whose views you disagree with, through violence? That is what happened in Europe - particularly in Germany, but also in the East End of London - when people thought that their political leaders had given them some form of permission to beat up the Jews.

Getting the picture?

Did anyone watch Andrew Denton's Enough Rope on Monday night? Where he had Lea Purcell, indigenous artist/actor on spilling her guts rather eloquently about how her and her family had been treated, followed by a typical Islamic "moderate" husband and wife and how they are treated on an everyday basis. I think, before we decide on who should come in/have legal status, we should decide what behaviour by us "bona-fide Austrayans" they should be subject to. I was very ashamed that both parties had been subject to racial abuse and contempt and I am very much aware it happens.

I agree with Boaz when he says that people do feel threatened when it's a majority thing they perceive. There has always been a measure of hostility from the groups that are already here to the newcomers. But in the past, the governments have supported the groups that seek to pursue a better life here.

This govt sees a political advantage in exploiting and shaping prejudices and the obvious outcome of that is a fundamental shift away from the position of all political persuasions that in the past resulted in new cultural groups being integrated into the Australian way of life - and the economy! and generally accepted by a country that was able to hold up to the whole world how a multicultural society could work. This is going down the gurgler.

For multiculturalism to work and flourish properly, it needs tolerance and understanding of other cultures and a good long look at our attitudes (and our Govt's). I grew up in a blithely patronising, racist, classist family (don't ask me why, we were hardly the creme de la creme of the society we lived in) and it took me a long time to learn to think outside the safe little white-bre(a)d surburban square. Which is not where I ever want to be again.