SM

You have asserted that child porn and paedophilia are instrinsically linked to only the Labor Party.

You provide a few examples of poor behaviour that can be found (unfortunately) with any organisation from scout clubs, religions or other political parties - such as the Liberal Party who have their share of appalling behaviour, examples of which have been provided by astute and long time posters such as Pelican.

It is you claiming that entire party is corrupt, therefore you who is obliged to provide evidence that every person affiliated with the Labor Party is corrupt - else you are simply continuing your tradition of a smear campaign against Labor. BTW I don't even vote for Labor, however I object to deliberate hate speech against any person or organisation.

FG

Your comment that there has been an overly emotional response to this thread's topic is another example of your capacity to 'spin'. Claims that an entire political party is corrupt IS a highly emotive claim to make and the responses have been entirely appropriate for such complete fabrication on the part of SM.

However, I do appreciate your input on this thread - you have revealed a great deal about yourself that your usually verbal and maze-like posts obscure.

I can see you now.

:)

Ammonite,

"You have asserted that child porn and paedophilia are instrinsically linked to only the Labor Party."

No I didn't.

I provided a few recent examples of criminal behaviour in ALP MPs. No one has provided examples of this in the coalition, at best a few examples of inappropriate behaviour, some a decade old.

Having claimed several times that this is not related to the rank and file ALP members, why should I provide evidence that every person affiliated with the Labor Party is corrupt? This is a delusion of your own making.

As even Robert acknowledged, the number of convicted paedophiles amongst former Labor pollies does seem unusually high. Is this just a string of unfortunate coincidences? and how does this compare to the other parties.

Do the maths yourself.

Sounds like SM is chanelling good old Protestant upper middle-class morality to me.

Fancy whoever it was using an "official" vehicle for his philandering - why, that misdemeanor would surely ratchet his sin up to a level 3 transgression in any Conservative appraisal.

Sorry, SM, it's a little too Victorian England in it's selective exposure of decadence. The upper middles were always trying to ape their "superiors" in deportment and attitude.
All those toffs bed-hopping at the country house parties, while simultaneously looking down their noses at the "immorality" of the lower orders.

Ammonite I've intepretted SM's claims as being more about the leadership than an assertion "that every person affiliated with the Labor Party is corrupt".

The lib's have had their share of bad behavior but so far no one has produced any evidence of a Lib politician who's being convicted (or even serious allegations) of paedophilia which in my view is a world of harm away from the very poor taste involved in sniffing a chair after someone has got up from it.

Comparing with organisations such as the Boy Scouts and church's (and Rabbi's etc) is counterproductive. Most have or had structural reasons for the rates of child abuse being higher than community norm's, easy access to children and in the past a high level of trust for those roles. Those factors would tend to attract child abusers. There has also been some interesting discussion about reasons why in the case of catholic clergy the official celebacy position may have been attractive to men who's sexual interest was not women.

Most of the debate has been around homosexuality but a vow of celebacy gives a good excuse to avoid a hetrosexual marriage in cultures with a lot of social pressure to be so.

I don't personally think that the ALP has structural reasons to attract paedophiles any more than any other party. I suspect that like most organisations there is a tendency for individuals and leadership to keep quiet if the allegations don't seem overly urgent and to try and downplay the incidents to minimise the collateral damage.

I do think that one of the downsides to our political system is that it attracts people with an obsession with power. To get the most power seems to require a lot of brutal and dishonest behavior.

It's hardly going to be surprising that we end up with people in politics that it's hard to respect or admire.

R0bert

Well said Poirot.

SM - as there is no such thing as perfection you will find both good and bad in any group - your focus on the Labor Party as totally 'bad' is pathological.

I have been disappointed in the Labor Party for some years now, but would never make the spurious claims about them you have. Apply your powers of deduction, such as they are, to your Liberal Party you will find as much muck - if not more, the Libs being 'born to rule' and the corruption of power.

Poirot,

I accused the MP of stupidity for using the official vehicle. It was because of this that he was caught. The same was the MP caught fiddling a few $1000 on the payroll. Pure stupidity brought about by a general lack of accountability.

Ammonite,

I have not claimed that the ALP is "totally bad". But from the information available they are by far the worst of a bad bunch.