Wow, I didn't know how angry you all could get for simply being white and privileged! Lots of different responses here, most of them defend their privilege. Are these economic, nationalistic, political and xenophobic defences sustainable -- given only 20 percent of the world’s population is white?

Should we non-whites start to lobby for policy that sees integration of white people into the rest of the world, nation, and neighbourhood?

I think its the least we could do.

Dresdener: "Certainly explains your 'racists under the bed' psychosis."

No, but it explains why I know racism when I see it - besides which, I doubt that you're actually under your bed, even though you're up at 4am ranting about immigration. And you call me psychotic!

"...would you care to explain your thoughts on Gore Vidal's speech?"

Sure, if you'd care to provide a link to the full speech, instead of a twice copied single paragraph from it. The nearest I can get is to that single paragraph, originally cited on some nutjob Irish anti-immigration site, where it is quoted without context as some kind of obviously hyperbolic dog-whistle.

Interesting how readily you respond to those whistles, old chap.

Since you referred us back to that previous discussion, how did you get on with the Anderson and Kapferer books that I suggested for you, in order that you might sort out your evident confusion about notions of nation, state, ethnicity and race? While there's a few big words in them, I'm sure that even you are capable of understanding them with a bit of effort and a dictionary.

Lastly, I note that you're silent on your error concerning Kosovo's historically dominant religion.

Wizofaus “you said you were Libertarian...so why are you concerned over trying to maintain ethnic identity”
nothing I wrote suggested or implied any racial bias. Nothing I have written denies my libertarian preferences.

Anyone applying to Australia and being accepted for migration should be welcomed. However, those who do not respect or intend to respect (if not adopt) existing Australian values would be better off staying where they are, for their own sake as well as the rest of us.

Rainier “solipsistic” - now that is “‘soft centred’ jingoisms”.

It sounds like a word you found when attempting to describe yourself in as few syllables as possible?

CJMorgan” Col's only a libertarian to the extent that it doesn't conflict with his Thatcherite world view”

Dearest Margaret Thatcher was more libertarian them you give her credit for.
Her objective and success was to extricate UK citizens daily life from the strangle hold of previous socialist government interferences, which was choking it to death.

Same in the USA, Ronald Reagan was the President who advocated less government, not more.

But your lack of understanding of such things is no surprise, filling your post and presumably your head with the “convenience” of leftist drivel, keeping faith with the old Leninist mantra, “tell a lie often enough and it will become the truth”.

As for “I think that Australia would be better off if Col buggered back off to the Old Dart”

I wonder what septic tank would accept you back? – I guess it will not be the one Rainier peers out from, his “solipsistic” tendencies would find even you too much for him.

All these stupid accusations of "racism", how unintellectual! how stupid,theatrical, so shallow.
Everyone is Racist, particularly those who are so terribly antiracist.
Why shouldn't whites be privileged? If it is they or their forbears who made this wonderful country what it is, they deserve the privilege.
If I earn my wages, why should some interloper be entitled to demand part or all of it?
If I pay for my house who has the right to demand livingspace in it. ..Unless I decide to share it, then they must live by the house rules.Same with my wages.
If they refuse to live by the rules, they must go.That is common law, common sense.
It is better to have immigrants who share our culture than have those who's culture is so opposite our own .Why import trouble?

Many years ago, in the early 1980's a friend suggested that Geoffrey Blainey might have had a point in his opposition to multiculturalism. I am not exactly sure what it was that Blainey had said, but he was immediately accused of being racist by a second (female) friend, who I will call Jean. As all of us had left-wing convictions and moved in left-liberal circles, he saw no alternative but to humbly recant and he never uttered those thoughts while he was alive. (He was killed tragically in a car accident a few years later).

Then years later in the late 1990's, Jean found herself, living single in one of the suburbs of Sydney that had formerly been predominantly Anglo-Celtic but which had been changed demographically so that, by then, it was predominantly inhabited by Arabs, Turks and Vietnamese. As a single white female, usually alone, she had to confront daily the misogyny of many young males from the Arab community who assumed that an unaccompanied European female was fair came for sexist abuse. Even where nothing was said, she found the constant stares from them more than she could cope with, and she sold her house and moved to another part of Sydney, in which Arabs were less dominant.

Given the frequency of rape and violence perpetrated against women by males from Islamic cultures as chronicled in books like Paul Sheehan's "Girls Like You", I would suggest her move was well advised.

She put to me that it is easy for those politically correct European professional females, who can drink their coffee freely outdoors in the street-side cafes of Balmain without having to confront the reality of the culturally-derived misogyny, to judge those who do. Although I did not think to raise the question at the time, I would assume that she has, at some point, reflected upon her own past role as a policewomen of political correctness.

I don't intend now to weigh into the debate about how many Sudanese refugees should be allowed into the country, but I think a ...(tobecontinued)

(continuedformabove)... more honest and objective consideration of this issue is needed.

The need to help victims of the Dharfur conflict needs to be weighed up against the likely effect that it will have on established communities in this country and on the ecology of this dry fragile continent.

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On a broader level, we also need to consider that if we increase the numbers of people consuming levels of natural resources comparable to those that the rest of us currently do on this continent, as Divergence has pointed out.

In reality the practical consequences for the world's poor of open borders would be far worse than would be the practical consequences of closed borders even if we were to assume that the motives of those advocating the latter were racist.

Whilst the motives of many advocating open borders are sincere, I believe the motives of many are not. I believe that they are indifferent not only to the plight of the poor in their own national communities, but also to the plight of the vast majority of poor in the Third World. I believe that the motivation of many are the unearned profits they derive from real estate investments and the ability to be able to cheaply hire domestic servants including nannies as is commonplace in the United States (see my comments at: http://candobetter.org/node/216).

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CJ Morgan,

Nice try.

It's pretty clear to me what Gore Vidal intended to say. I can't imagine how a broader context would alter the fundamental meaning of his words. I can't find the complete text of his speech, but I would expect that, if Vidal had been misquoted or had been taken out of context, we would probably know by now. Even if it could be shown that the words had not been uttered by Vidal, I fail to see how that negates the essential point.