Well yeah, maybe, or maybe its just cause I can't be assed.

I realise I'm off the thread a bit but I want to pursue the crime/ethnicity thing with Redneck: This is a difficult one because if the ethnic population are going to be living in these "ghettos" together, and there's a lot of crime in those ghettos, then it can't be attributed to the ethnicity - it's also the poverty that's an inherent part of the ghettos.

I have no doubt that there are many black americans in US jails. I also know that on a racial percentage basis, the ratio of white:black americans living in poverty is <1. What I'm saying is that I believe there is a correlation between poverty and crime that can't be ignored when studying ethnic crime. Another factor: I've no doubt that black americans are targeted by policemen, just like aborigines are targeted by australian policemen.

Re death penalty: I've always had issues with the fact that a person may be charged with a crime they didn't commit and get the death penalty. Plus I'm not satisfied as to the infallibility of the decision as to which crime or how bad the crime should recieve the death penalty. Redneck you have said yourself that we're not like Star Trek Vulcans, we're humans that think emotionally and not rationally. And I would not be the person that injects the needle - would you?

I think Tony Smith confuses existing Australian law with universal fundamental rights and wrongs.
Capital Punishment is not law in Australia because our democratic parliaments have decided such. Whatever he personally thinks of the death penalty (which in fact is rather obvious) he has no right to claim that Australians, more or less unanimously, hold it as an inherent wrong in the same manner that they hold, for example, democracy, freedom of movement or freedom of speech as inherent rights.
Mr Smith might respectfully be reminded that the issue has never been to a plebiscite or referendum or for that matter has it been on the platform of one major party at an election while not on the other. The reason for this is not to difficult to figure out bearing in mind that most polls generally record a roughly 50/50 split on the issue.
To imply that practically all Australians are morally opposed to the death penalty because it happens to have been outlawed by the Parliament is like saying Australians support the fundamental principle of abortion and are aghast at countries who forbid it merely because at the moment the number of federal MPs who support it barely outnumber those who reject it.
Do we also wholeheartedly support the basic principle of compulsory voting and encourage our ambassadors to do what they can to oppose the barbaric practice of voluntary voting wherever it may be forced on innocent subjects? What about all those European democracies who don’t practice trial by jury, or other democracies where judges can be removed by popular vote?
The Australian government has a duty to ensure that, for the moment, capital punishment is not practiced within this jurisdiction, but after that it should do no more than respecting the laws of other democracies just as it expects other nations in turn to respect the laws of Australia