Dearest Col,
Oh ya! such British aggrandising selective use of the facts is stunning.
Do I mention the "ship of shame". How about the prejudice that was about in England about the Jews for what was it 400 years?
The ONE Jewish born PM was a lapsed Jew.

Let's get real, the British weren't there to save the world... Just Britain. which is ok I guess, but the pretense is ludicrous.

In two world wars and incompetently so. Remember Gallipoli ? how about Singapore...and oh yes the statement 'England first then Australia'.... The common denominator... Winni the poo.

Excuse me if I don't get out the Union Jack and wax lyrical of his praise.

Do we then praise the Brits for their duplicitous actions in the the middle east and Asia all the pain/deaths etc?

By the way where in the world is/was there ever a real socialist government.USSR? Cuba? nth Korea? (perhaps you should read a bit more.) it wasn't socialism that created the problem it was the dictators.

Facts trump the "seductive(?) waft"(sic) of Baroness Botcher's oops sorry (Thatcher)immortal shoes.Who? and/or who cares? most of us may well ask.

Oh yes your assumptions about being better off under 'liaise Faire Economics' (caveat emptor), the illogical assumption that survival of the least empathetic' and or most ruthless is a real chuckle headed piece of chauvinism. Prove it!

And the real lulus that everyone has the same skill level and I especially love the notion that poverty is only in the mind. The logical extension is that the poor are feeble minded but don't need protection from the predatory for the sake of society. What a load of prejudice and irrational tosh.

But, I forget Society doesn't exist.... because... BARONESS goddess said so. Well then that it then isn't it.

It's good to see you haven't lost any of your hyperbolic arrogance and you call me names?

NB I attack what you say not you personally

I have chosen the forty six lawyer types in the House of Representatives, because any one of them, at any sitting of the High Court of Parliament, has the right to raise a matter of privilege, and by the Statutory Rules of Parliament, Parliament must stop, until the contempt of Parliament is purged. They have been privileged to be given a great education, and be chosen by a majority of the people in their electorate, to carry out a noble trust.

Parliament has abolished slavery in Australia but it continues unabated as the premier punishment for all crime. Parliament has made enslavement the subject of the most condign punishment, 25 years imprisonment, but not one Lawyer Member, has stood on his feet and asked why, since the 16th October 2001, not one prosecution has occurred.

I have chosen the fifty five highest unelected public officials, give or take a few, who inhabit the Federal and High Courts, because they are the ones who should be prosecuted, and have their salaries turned over together with their superannuation, to the poor they have caused to be abused by State Governments. There are none so blind as those who will not see, and once upon a time, in the fairy tale Kingdom that was Australia, there were no homeless on the streets to act as the conscience of those in high public office, because the system was working.

These 100 should remember Our God, is a forgiving God, not a vengeful one, and as lawyers should understand we used to have the Lex Misericordiae, the law of mercy, not the Lex Talionis the claw for a claw and eye for an eye, philosophy of the Old Testament. Because the media is mostly bloodthirsty, and loves gory stories and horror tales, they promote vengeance over forgiveness. The 100 poorest people could become saviours. They choose

The poorest 100 in Australia would still earn (receive) much more from the dole than the vast majority of people in the world. IN the middle of the biggest mining boom in history where we had to import thousands of skilled and unskilled workers we still had the unemployable. The problem is obviously a lot more spiritual than physical. Very sad really but you can only blame successive Governments who have created a poverty mentality where people feel the world owes then grog, drugs, food, housing, free transport, free health... No wonder we have so many poor.

Col,

You remind me of the hard British soldier character in the movie "Rob Roy" who wanted to ethnically cleanse the Scots.

And you have the cold, incisive intellect of Avon and Orac in "Blakes Seven", not to mention a wide Calvinist streak.

In an absolute, puritanical sort of way you are right. People in poverty are to some extent responsible for their situation. But, sometimes the things they suffer are way out of proportion to what they are responsible for. The thing is, as they get more and more marginalised, it becomes impossible for them to get back into the mainstream even if they wanted to change their ways. It's to these people that compassion should, and in fact must, eventually be extended.

Examinator “Oh ya! such British aggrandising selective use of the facts is stunning.
Do I mention the "ship of shame". How about the prejudice that was about in England about the Jews for what was it 400 years?
The ONE Jewish born PM was a lapsed Jew”

You seem to have a “racists” problem with the British. Kindly leave your small minded prejudices out of the forum.

Maybe you have a problem with the Jews too. Remember Disraeli was PM of Britain at a time his fellow Jews were being persecuted across Europe

I fail to see what your addled mind is attempting to contrive but it is pretty feeble substitute for rational thought (or any thought)

“NB I attack what you say not you personally”


Then why do you go on about my forefathers?...

As to the facts.. tell me what did I “selectively use”

Deal with this fact..

Australia was settled by the British, It was, for many years a British Colony and still benefits from the stability of many historic British institutions, customs and values.

I am not sure which far flung cesspool of deprivation you were vomited up from but I can see wherever it was, Brit-bashing seems to be a local sport

So get this sun-shine…. This Brit by birth (Australian by choice) bashes back

ROBp “who wanted to ethnically cleanse the Scots.”

Are you implying I have suggested ethnically cleansing anyone RobP?

If you are, say it and debate the point

Don’t bother to post riddles and innuendo disguised as “opinion”, it shows you as a coward who lacks the courage to stand behind your views.

Regarding “The thing is, as they get more and more marginalised, it becomes impossible for them to get back into the mainstream even if they wanted to change their ways. It's to these people that compassion should, and in fact must, eventually be extended.”

Yes and I feel compassion is a human virtue which cannot be assigned or bequeathed to government.

"Compassion” treats each person as an individual but government can treat people only on an equal basis.

David the last set of posts have highlighted yet another poverty, a poverty that I suspect we all share and rarely escape. The poverty of understanding, empathy and compassion.
Often when I post something the responses remind me how difficult it is to write accurately and precisely. We tend to treat these posts like real conversations the problem is that the many non verbal cues that make the spoken word intelligible are missing. As a result what started out as a harmless response becomes a cutting jibe, a personal attack.
Yet when we respond in that manner, when we lash out angrily, we are demonstrating that the greatest poverty that we all have is the difficulty in accepting the right of others to their opinion. When we are insulted and afronted we respond by countering in kind. Yet had it occurred in conversation we would have had the good sense to check that we understood correctly.
I guess none of this would matter if we could label those who indulge in verbal attacks as being atypical; I suspect that far from being atypical this is the one flaw we all share. Hence my suggestion that it may well be the true test of human poverty - our inability to consistently act with charity and compassion to one another regardless of what we may personally think about their views.