sladeb,
Wake up man you are in Australia now. Christianity is the dominant culture. Since you state fundamentalist Christians are just as inflexible as fundamentalist Muslims I would ask you on what street in Australia do you fear the terrorist activites of fundamentalist Christians or Jews.

The very fact that you have identified these people as different and inflexible indicates you see them as the "other" so you are just as much as inflexible as you claim others to be. Wake up and identify those who might easily kill you as part of a religious jihad. You may pretend to be tolerant of all - but there are those who are indifferent to your attitude of tolerance - because you will tolerate anything. Sentimental but not realistic. There needs to be an internal attitudinal change and forgiving enemies, as Jesus taught, this still remains the only answer.

Arguing about which particular religious/cultural tradition you prefer is equivalent to arguing about which pianola roll/wax cylinder you would like to hear playing in the saloon of the unsinkable Titanic. What you SILLY people don't seem to realise is that you are on board the Titanic and the captain has just given orders to run ALL the engines FULL SPEED AHEAD. Against his better judgement. He knows better than anybody that what he is doing is suicidal, but the madman who owns the ship wants to break the record for the transatlantic passage. To get good newspaper coverage. To get more dollars. I am totally disgusted with the b.s. that has been flying around over the last 24 hours about cultural traditions, can't you realise that this sort of petty bickering is completely irrelevant to what is actually happening?

As for Andrew Bartlett, I challenge him to listen to the argument of Al Bartlett (http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/lectures/461) and refute it with intelliegent argument.

The poster who said the Democrats would have a chance of saving themselves from total political oblivion by presenting the Australian voting public with a choice is right on the money. At present voters who would like to see population stabilisation have no-one to vote for because the entire political apparatus appears to have been captured by the property developer/infrastructure/real estate bandwagon and parliament merely serves to give the illusion of democracy so that the plutocracy is free to continue to line their own pockets at everyone else's expense.

Mr Bartlett says the Australian population will stabilise with 100,000 net migration. I challenge him to find any evidence for this. He can search high and low but he won't, because it is absolute moonshine. Professor Don Aitkin might also try educating himself some time. he says Mr Bartlett's piece is "well reasoned and thoughtful". How can you say that, Professor, when Mr Bartlett has come up with a piece of mathematics that is completely ABSURD? Australia's population WILL NOT stabilise with 100,000 net immigration. This shows just how stale, flat and unprofitable is the title "professor".

It is interesting to read Friedrich and Jolanda's contrasting posts.

Jolanda: you have the right to speak as you please and if you believe that I am trying to attack you personally, my apologies but have not tried to. What would be the point? If you want to read a personal attack, then look at Friedrich's posts.

What I am attacking is racism - both the belief and the prejudice that results from the belief. It's your choice whether to own the label. It's your choice whether to defend racism or reject it.

A few people have responded to Jolanda's post with the argument that fundamentalist Christians, like many Muslims, believe their religion to be superior. I don't think that counter-argument is any more valid than Jolanda's argument.

When it comes to religion, there is the invitation to be converted. A Christian hopes you will one day become a Christian. A Muslim hopes for you to become a Muslim. In Judaism it's not as simple as that, but one can become Jewish.

Racism is different. An X-type person is neven acceptable to a Z-type racist. Just another reason why racism abhorent.

meredeth, first some assumptions
- Islam comes in different strengths and approaches.
- We have a substantial number of muslims in Australia already and they are not likely to go away.
- Extremism for the mass market does not exist in isolation. There are things which encourage it's growth and things which hinder it's growth.
- A desire to encroachments on secular freedoms and issues like homophobia are not limited to hard line muslims but are shared by most religious fundies and some others.

I believe that our best hope lies in ensuring that we don't provide fuel for the extremists to whip up support. Rather we provide the tools for moderates to show that muslims are treated fairly. Continual picking on muslims and talk of singling them out only provides ammunition for extremists to whip up support.

- The thing we most need to be doing is breaking down barriers where ever we can do so without surrendering our freedom. More resouces into SBS and the like, use it for propaganda to promote core values in a manner that enthic peoples can understand and relate to.
- We also need to ensure that unpopular opinions can still be heard. What proportion of One Nation voters voted for them not because of credible solutions but because of disgust at the attempts to silence Pauline Hanson? I suspect a significant proportion. Are there concerns which extremists can use to whip up support that we can address without harming others. Would we take the wind out of their sails by having some cover up beaches just as some states have clothes optional beaches.
- We need to support moderates as far as practical, do whatever we can to ensure that the voices muslims in this country are hearing are those willing to find a muslim way of living within this great country. I'm not sure how to do this without making laws about religion or leaving the more radical ones feeling shut out (leading to stronger radical views etc) but we have some clever thinkers in this country.

That's a start
R0bert

"Wake up man you are in Australia now. Christianity is the dominant culture. Since you state fundamentalist Christians are just as inflexible as fundamentalist Muslims I would ask you on what street in Australia do you fear the terrorist activites of fundamentalist Christians or Jews."

Philo, sladeb said that both were as intolerant as one another, in that he is correct. Obviously, as your mob these days preach the "jesus loves you" story, they can't burn heretics at the stake like they used to.

Get used to it, Aus is now a secular culture. 90% don't bother to go to church, football, sport etc are far more important in their lives.

Yup the Xtian fundies are just as intolerant. They want to tell us how to live our lives, they try to use politics as a weapon. Who is campaigning against RU 486 right now? Well the churches of course!

"But if we were to double our refugee intake within a total immigration intake of not more than 35 000, the net drain on Australia from immigration would be reduced to about a third or less of what it is now."

You might have a point except that immigration is not a net drain on Australia. Only the humanitarian and family reunion strains of immigration are a net loss. Other forms of immigration are a net gain for Australia. A sensible person would try to maximise the beneficial types and minimise the detrimental.

"Similarly, you see only the apparent short-term benefits of taking more skilled migrants, with no thought of what skills we really need"

The skilled migration intake actually does take into account what skills we really need, and people who possess those skills are given first priority.

"why we aren’t concentrating on training up our own citizens with these skills"

Because 1.) it's much cheaper to import skilled people than to train them themselves. 2.) to even have people worth training we would have to first pay people to have more babies, and then later pay those babies to study. This is a double cost to us.

"what it means for the skills base in countries where these people come"

Who cares? Immigration is supposed to benefit Australia, it's not some global goodwill program.

Our immigration intake is not "ridiculously high". Our immigration intake increases at an inverse rate to our natural population growth rate. As people have fewer kids, we allow more net migration. The total population growth rate of Australia has been pretty constant at around 1.5% per year for the last decade.

"So what is really dumb?"

You are, by the looks of things.

"This sort of terribly narrow perspective."

The barrel of a rifle is also narrow. Narrow and accurate.