Just before he turned 5 years old he was raped.
By his fathers brother, all his brothers and sisters went though that too.
At twenty his best mate lay in his arms and died a knife had been thrust into his heart.
The crime? he acts anti social, never can be relied on to be at work, is unstable.
He went looking fore help told of the dreadful pain of knowing almost every kid in his childhood village suffered what he did.
And he tried so hard to get himself back on track.
We even me, like to think self help is the best cure.
We look at the results and ignore the reasons.
This young Australian Aboriginal did not find enough help he was found dead , a self inflicted wound, what is the answer, how do we change the past.
We must understand we never can,, but if we dream of changing the future we just may do it.

Life is about choices. You and me make them every day. If you consider someone's history as reason - not excuse - for making bad choices that not only affect them but devastate the lives of their victims then you dismiss the morality and judgement of those that try to do right. The victims are generally people who're preyed on because they make good choices no matter their history.

I believe the stats regarding victims of abuse of some description is something like one in three - I didn't look it up. That means you might reasonably expect 7 million people in prison as result of people giving up on being prudent based on being a victim then turning to victimising. I don't believe there are seven million people in Australian prisons. The difference between victims of serious abuse and those with a reasonably normal upbringing is that it's SO MUCH harder to not be angry and step above the rest and lead by example, but by doing so they make themselves more valuable than the average punter because of what they can offer to other victims.

What makes me angry is these kids dying and being found in drains and people making excuses for the perpetrators. To moment you turn from victim to predator is the moment you sign off from any sympathy from me. Life generally sucks with splatterings of awesomeness. We all go through it, and the vast majority make good decisions. There are no excuses for bad ones, just reasons. Nobody else is going to make those good decisions for you.

Regardless of colour.

Ah k Belly, you talking about suicide?. I'm not sure. I took your post for reasons behind crimes. I still don't really understand the topic. I apologise for misunderstanding.

Does not matter STG I know enough about you to know you meant nothing by it.
It mate is a true story, one of thousands, and yes it ended in suicide.
I wanted to take a far different view than you, that surroundings, education, opportunity's do make a difference.
Let me be clear that child in the drain, no mate no excuses even if upbringing was awful the person who did that gets only evil thoughts from me.
But I live in a world that demands accountability from us all, but refuses to see some do not get a fair start in the human race.
Do you know kids 4 years old are picking up parents bongs and smoking pot?
Or
that every child in some school classes has nits in their hair.
Or that double figure percentages of those kids have been sexually molested by the time they are teenagers.
Life in Aboriginal out the back of town villages can be so very bad , we can linger on stolen generation talk claim they should fix it .
But how many of us understand what it must be like to be a child living like that?

I agree that surroundings, education, and opportunity make a HUGE difference to the lives of people in their younger years. No doubt whatsoever, but still - (lol there's always a but) - it's all still about choices. No one signs up for a life on soul breaking hardship and perception of hardship is relative to the individual.

I knew a woman (30's now) who was sexually assaulted as a child. Sadly, that event has defined her entire being. She is consumed by it and it totally rules her existence due to depression, blame, and justifiably being haunted by it. Now consider a guy called Dave Pelzer whose story is HORRIFYING beyond anything anyone could comprehend. His story came out in a book called: "A Child Called It", then followed on to other books. Comparatively - though not minimise someone's pain - you COULD argue this guy should be a mass murdering psychopath with no feeling whatsoever for anything with a pulse, but he isn't, he leads a relatively normal life.

Obviously that suggests environment isn't exactly the rule regarding outcomes in a personality. I'd suggest environment is part, choice is another, but there's something in the soul as well that helps people in hardship fight for themselves.

Belly
you made this statement

that surroundings, education, opportunity's do make a difference

One would have to ask what opportunities.

are these the type of opportunities that allow certain actions to hidden.

so one should really consider the moralty of the person and not just their lifetime situation

Psychiatrists, Prostitutes, Psychologists, resident Psychiatrists in every public hospital, Lifeline, Beyond Blue and HelpLines for males are available for perpetrators of murders and/or sex crimes.

However, for well over 20 years it has been my belief that a government funded group of medical professionals should be set up to counsel 'would be sex offendors' and more importantly, 'people who acknowledge their mental illness or psychopathic tendency to take another's life as a result of their negative upbringing/environment as a child'. Many of these people do in fact acknowledge their negative childhood as the reason for their mental illness.

I suggested this concept at one point to a govt body after losing a neighbour of mine however it was disregarded.

Well I have been called racist, red neck and lefty socialist dreamer,because of my views on Aboriginal and the poor lifestyles.
Yes I know, I have said it before, but I did come up hard and hungry, my dad worked himself to death at 54, he was no bludger, but we 16 of us ate pumpkin and potato for tea and the skins for breakfast.
We however had it easy, our parents loved us, went without even food so we could eat.
In saying you are what you make your self can you think what it is like to live among drunks? to not know if tonight you will have a visitor to your bed.
To know if you do not go to school few will care.
If you learn nothing it will not matter.
Or do people understand 14 year old Aboriginal kids go to prison or a boys home because they say it is better than home.
Do not talk to me of bludging, of welfare lifestyles.
Or stolen generations,
I had opportunity's and parents who drove me and my siblings to achieve even from such a start, no baggage came with me, I had a chance some will never have.
The sentence will be regarded as racist,,yet it is true,a whole village is condemning its next generation to life such as the thread starter one.
Drugs is the only industry they know, yes 4 year olds are given the bongs and by the age of ten?
Look behind the problem, see the hopelessness of it but change it please
TAPP I see a snide inference to those in my party who molested children in your post, maybe I am wrong but you have in the past inferred I am one if those get help mate talk to your doctor.
I without fear say ANY person who harms a child that way is not a human being, anyone who can find in such pain a weapon to flog others? you think about that bloke.
yes I should never have answered you addressed me knowing it was unwanted.

Well Belly
you did start this thread

So since you have referred to those instances

qoute
I without fear say ANY person who harms a child that way is not a human being
end quote

so how can one support a party that does these things.
members who do not stand up and let it happen

Those who in their ultimate wisdom attack others when a truthful response is required.

How can a person post such things without conscience knowingly know that these things are still occuring and yes they could do something.

This i would have to say is not just labor or the unions but all parties.

How do you justify these actions and still manage to vote for these inhumans.

All but Belly,seemed have missed the point. StG was correct when he said life is about choices but what he didn't say was those choices are determined by Available options and conditions more often than not out of the control of the individual. Sadly this young man was a point in fact he was doomed by forces conditions and lack of options beyond his control.

The question I ask is where does victimhood start and end?

Neither am I suggesting there is no such a thing as personal responsibility. However, we can make smooth/remove obstacles, improve options and conditions. His problems are or were potentially surmountable all it would take was *timely* and *appropriate* help, not further vilification/victimization.

This thread deserved much better.
We are talking about human beings.
Some I have known in my job some in my life.
I wanted to say we should leave the rubbish behind, including bleeding hearted fools who think it is just a problem whites made therefore should fix.
It is my strong view both sides have blood on their hands, real human blood.
I am sick of failure and excuses for it.
I have seen it too often, no one gets more true joy out of a success than me.
The current government scheme to employ Aboriginal youth is mostly, over whelming failing.
Yet in the hands of Aboriginals in the NT it works.
My words are not lies, the dreadful truth is tonight young kids, male and female will be raped.
I would like to stay, to try to stay on track, even develop the thread into one that looks for new ways to get it right.
Most know I will probably not stay, I should turn the other cheek.
But will until I die fight such as TAPP.
To use these horrible events we talk of as a club to club me in every thread is,,,,,,think about those kids to night the horror that comes and the day years away they too may look for a way to end such pain.
The blame? all of us share it culture? what part of that growing culture should be kept?

I for once find myself agreeing with Belly after seeing first hand much of what he says. Unfortunately as long as we suck up to the UN and deny the abhorrent cultural practices still in place more and more kids are going to suffer and die. There has been a number of cases where kids were rescued into loving homes only to be sent back to abusive cultures. Any one with half a brain can see that having 5 or 6 year old kids roaming streets at 2am is the result of neglect at best. IN most Regional towns parents if white kids would be charged for this kind of neglect.

I agree with Runner on this one.
Why is it that Aboriginal children are left in abusive homes for 'cultural reasons'?
As far as I know, child sexual abuse was never a known part of Aboriginal culture, so why is this crime tolerated more readily by the authorities who deal with such crimes in the wider community?

Why is it that the courts seem to 'forgive' or 'explain' the predatory behaviour from Aboriginal paedophiles because of their deprived childhoods or their addictions to alcohol?

There are many people who are alcoholics from all the different cultures in our world, but do all of them suddenly 'turn into' paedophiles when they drink?
Of course not, and neither do Aboriginal paedophiles.

We need to treat all paedophiles and their victims equally, no matter what culture they come from.

All children deserve our protection, including Aboriginal children.

Both those posts are true, well we are not sucking up to the UN runner, we most of us,know we need to do better.
We just maybe, are hiding behind that term Aboriginal culture.
What culture? what future, what end are we looking for?
I am not speaking of an outback #mission#
I am talking in truth about one, it could be ANY, suburban community once a mission now a shambles.
Once, even now some who lead us want a gentle merger of these people into mainstream.
Other speak of Aboriginal culture as if it alone is the pathway to a better life.
Do we see these villages as culture? can we believe true remain out back tribes are better of staying in the out back forever.
Rented cars arrive from city's drugs are the cargo.
At least in this village, white Australians bring the stuff take back the cash, much of it is welfare money.
I am sorry, for the past.
For today, on behalf of both sides.
And for our continuing failures, we will have them.
Look at the problem, see the squalor, but tell me we need not change it now, at any cost no matter what the effort.
Watch also for those who will say my wishes are paternalistic, know them for what they are, an enemy to improvement in the dreadful lives of our first Australians
Noel person should me in charge of this country's Aboriginal improvement not air wasting politicians.