Schmuky..more.

Having said all that......

I don't mean to suggest we don't have "Italian" or'Chinese' or 'Vietnamese' resturants etc.

I just noticed your comment about a homogonous society being 'boring'.

In contrast to 'boring homogeneity' would you prefer war in the streets ? We had 'your' way in Cronulla.

But you don't have to be a 'full on Chinese Nationalist' to run a good resturant and know how to prepare Chinese food. You can do all that and have a homogenous Australian cultural identity /linkage also.

Why do you have to retain 'ethnically and culturally pure' Chineseness or Greekness or Italianness unless you regard 'Chineseness,Greekness,Italianness' as superior to 'Australian-ness' ?

On balance, I think a homogenous national identity is far more important than competing ethno/cultural groups. Make no mistake, the more we allow emphasis on 'difference' and sub cultures, the more we will see competition for control of resources of every kind BY those communities. (political/employment/welfare) We don't need to look further than the legal, financial and medical areas to see who figure most prominently in them.

I would worry terribly about potential bias, if 6 out of 12 Federal courts judges were Aboriginal and an issue of 'land rights' came before the court......

So, I totally reject the idea that a Greek comes to Australia to remain 'Greek'. As my Texas Instruments applications engineer who is Christian Lebanese, born in Lebanon says "I'm Aussie and my kids are Aussie". Amen and Amen to that !

I worry when I see immigrants arrive here from troubled spots. Watching the news, one sees mostly young men from countries where every quarrel is settled by the gun. I think these youth cut their teeth on a gun and that culture is totally embedded in them. It has taken thousands of years to have bred them to be so aggressive and militant.
Then they come here and are expected to act as we do.
Looking at Palestine where people rioted against their own government, they are a lawless lot. In Timor the same lawlessness, In Indonesia a rabid assasin let out of prison to a red hot welcome.
Yet our politicians allow these raving young men into this country and we are called 'racist' because we know they will make lousy immigrants. We should be able to sue our government for their dumb stupidity.

Redneck wrote "So many of them come onto this debate site with the apparent idea of “I will show these stupid oafs who are the smart ones around here” and they can get very angry and emotional when their ideological thinking is effectively countered by informed opponents."

Redneck, I've yet to read a succinct case from you rationalising and justifying racism. You spend lots of time writing about what you don't like about us anti-racists but nought from you on why you think racism is such a virtuous human condition. This is hardly being ‘informed’,

If anything, you are the emotional reactionary on these pages who feels compelled to defend yourself every time you see yourself reflected in the words and ideas of anti -racists who are busily describing racism and its banalities, its ordinariness, its everyday manifestations.

Indeed I feel you are so overwhelmed that we anti-racists have got such a good handle on you and your thinking. You should not confuse your own implosion with 'us' exploding. But this is what you do over and over again.

BD, i see you havn't yet realised you're own projections and desires for wanting everyone to be "Ausssie" as code for wanting everyone to be white and christian- just to keep you comfortable with who you think you are. Yawn or what

To Mr-Schmuck.

That is the beauty of high sounding moral declarations, they can mean just about anything that an entrepreneurial, ambulance chasing lawyer can want it to mean.

I see that you have cut and pasted the old “prejudice” argument. Have you ever bothered to think about the reasoning behind your own argument? “Prejudice” literally means “to pre judge”. Everybody, my dear Schmuck, does that all of the time. There is nothing wrong with pre judging people. Are you going to invite the Hells Angels motorcycle gang around to your daughter’s birthday party? No? Well, mate, you just prejudged. It is easy to prejudge groups of people and it is usually very accurate. Most groups make no secret about what cultural values they expect their adherents to uphold, so it usually child’s play to prejudge groups of people on their known cultural values.

I suppose you are going to say that people should not stereotype also, but I got you there too. People think by stereotyping. Think “duck”. What came to mind? A bird with a bill and webbed feet? You just stereotyped. To say “don’t stereotype” or “don’t prejudge” actually means, “don’t think.”

It is interesting, Schmucky, that social regressives like yourself have hit upon a new tactic that works just fine on some people. They tell the public that thinking is evil. Unfortunately, it does not work on me.

I think that black people in general are lazy and not real bright. I base my conclusion on observable reality, and the fact that the apologists for black failure just can’t think up an excuse for black behaviour with a reasoned argument that I can’t drive a bus through.

But I like you. You don’t think that us racists are nasty people, but I would point out that your opinion is in the minority with people who share your humanitarian views. They prejudge and stereotype us rednecks all the time. Not that I mind, of course, provided that the stereotype is accurate, and that the people who say “don’t stereotype” and “don’t prejudge” admit that they do it themselves

Dear mr redneck
You dont seem to be the sort of person who feels they can learn much from people with a different opinion, so I certainly don't want to waste yout time with useless argumentation. But I just wanted to ask you a simple question: who told you I was a Muslim? I am actually a born and raised Catholic.I mean you go and construct this grand classification of all anti-racists and make them neatly fit into your categories without having the slightest idea of who you are actually classifying. I know we all think in stereotypes but its good sometimes to think with facts as well. I am sure that this little fact will not stand in the way of your humble scheme of classifying people in a way that makes you feel you've got them all worked out but I hope you try and be a little more rigorous next time. ghassan