Perhaps DB missed the good samaritan story.

Some comments make a good point - ignoring this or pretending it didn't happen in no way holds our public figures to account. We have failed as a nation to make our officials accountable to us, as they are supposed to be, and instead are happy to make ourselves accountable to them

bushbred:

"Keep it up, Marylin, the world needs so many many more like you."

I agree.

Col Rouge:

" LIAR.

Here is your chance, Prove me wrong, prove to us all you are not a low down lying scumbag who is deluded by the extent of your own corruption! "

Exemplary eloquence. Temperance, humanity and reason personified. The words of a worthy citizen.

Boaz:

"If I allowed myself to feel compassion for every hard done by individual in this world, I'd be an emotional wreck."

I guess that's what differentiates me from you, old mate. Some of us can feel compassion and just get on with trying to do something constructive about it.

Those who can't do that, preach.

And more directly on topic:

Many thanks to Tony Kevin for this article, and for his original efforts in alerting us to this most shameful episode.

I truly can't comprehend the sheer inhumanity implicit in some of the more callous comments above.

Well said CJ.

What saddens me about some of these statements is that they imply that compassion is selective, limited and based on dubious circumstances.

To say that because these people (including children) were acting immorally they somehow deserved to die in that way.

If our government was indeed complicit in this sad affair it also means that if the boat actually reached the mainland and the passengers were then all executed without trial, then that would be OK too. Same motive, same result, slightly different method.

Marilyn,
Good on you! Never give an inch and never back down! I sometimes suspect the detail but never doubt your integrity and humanity.

BD - I dont know that seeking to enter into another country as an immoral act as you describe it - and even if it it was I certainly would expect to be treated with a degree of humanity - whxih at present they are not.

If a drug smuggling sailor(with a history of peadophilia)jumped ship near Queenscliff, was washed ashore and in an attempt to stay alive killed an ate a blind returned soldier AND his guide dog who were on their way to church - the Korean would get a fairer deal than an asylum seeker.

I trust the view is clear from up there on the high horse.

With kindest regards - the Sneekemeister -

If Australians sank SIEV X (for which there is no convincing evidence), it was a monstrous crime, and unnecessary to boot, as detention can provide adequate deterrence. On the general issue, I agree with DB that compassion has to be selective. We have 6.5 going on 9 billion people on a planet that can sustainably support perhaps 2 billion in modest comfort *if* we do everything right. I accept that First World elites are responsible for some of the mess the world is in, but not all or even most of it. It was the much maligned US that also sponsored the Green Revolution that has doubled food production since the 1960s.

If the other Third World countries had followed the example of Taiwan and South Korea they would be in nothing like the mess they are in today. Instead they chose to use the gains to "feed more hungry people, rather than feeding hungry people more". Many of them clung to customs that had become dysfunctional, some of them in violation of basic human rights, and supported corrupt and incompetent leaders. We can (and should) give them some help to fix their problems, but most of the effort will have to come from them. Allowing them to export their dissidents and their surplus population to us is not part of the solution. Reform is happening in places like Brazil and Venezuela but not in Mexico where unemployment and other problems can be exported to the US.

The difference here is not between those who have or lack compassion, but on whether we believe we have special obligations to fellow countrymen, given that there is not enough to go around. The "internationalists" don't care particularly about disadvantaged Australians, provided that they are better off than African peasants. The rest of us do.