It is perfectly reasonable to object to any group or individual infringing your rights. When that happens, civilised people call the police. If the police don't respond as you wish, then there are avenues of complaint, all the way from your local police station to Federal parliament. It is also reasonable to protest peacefully about your concerns.

It is not, however, ever reasonable to tar every member of a particular group (lebs, gays, women, feminists, christians, muslims, aboriginals, refugees, teenagers or cronulla surfers) with the same brush and blame all of them because a few behave badly. Name me any group of people, indeed, any family, in which no-one ever behaves badly? It is also never reasonable to turn vigilante and take the law into your own hands, no matter what the perceived provocation, in a democratic society like ours. And violence is always the refuge of the thug, and there are plenty of thugs in every ethnic and cultural group.

The tone of sulky, aggrieved Pauline-Hansonesque whining that appears in some of the previous posts (to paraphrase; "its not fair, we aren't the bad guys, they are.") is just plain silly. There are bad deeds and good deeds on both sides, as there are good people and bad people, in fact, there is no "us" and "them", there is only ever us. It is heartening to see sensible members of the community reaching out to one another and presenting an example of the right way to behave, at last, rather than the opposite.

Enaj & R0bert - keep up with the reason. We need every bit we can get at present.

I have been heartened over the weekend by the various peace rallies. Hope and pray that we can learn from all this and work out ways to get along.

Cheers m'dears

Scout, of Sydney's population of about 4 million, approximately 3,900,000 DO get along! Peace protests are great for showing solidarity in opposition to stupid and expensive overseas military ventures, but for stopping drugs and arms trafficking, and violent crime, they do this much: 0

You said, 'Hope and pray that we can learn from all this and work out ways to get along.'
I get along fine with most people - don't you?

Scout, peace protesters hay;
Every Communist: Far Left and Kaiser, Hay and the Useless Idiots conglomeration, Between them all and what they worship, body counts to hundreds and millions of tortured and Murdered soles, and that’s your peace march protesters? Protesting against peace hay?
Well done. Quite a few pathological egos’s gathered in one spot, Psychopathologist’s supermarket. You are so funny.

Exactly, I really love it when people assume no one else gets along except for themselves and those people at the marches etc.

We dont feel the need to march for people to all "get along" thats intrinsic in anyone's logic and we certainly do not need to be told that "racism sux", racism shouldnt apply now seeing as we are "all australians".

Once people step foot in this country and pledge their allegiance to this land mass then they ARE australian too, therefore theoretically then shouldnt be a division, yet there is....... and on the race topic aren't we ALL a race of AUSTRALIANS? Yet its not ok to show our flag in public, the flag so many people have sworn on?

I wonder why... maybe because they didnt mean what they said in the first place and pass that onto their children or in alot of cases even understand it because they dont speak or can be bothered to speak the national language.

We want OUR civil liberties to walk down a street and not get hassled or mugged BY ANYONE IRRESPECTIVE OF ANY GENETIC OR CULTURAL DISTINCTIONS.

Leigh,

The multicultural society we now have was started by Gough Whitlam and Al Grassby neither of whom were part of the Fraser Government.

Gough Whitlam and Al Grassby were part of the Labor government that was in before the Fraser Liberal government. Gough was Prime Minister.