Hi there YEBIGA...

Some of what you say is right. We've probably not had a really decent government in Canberra for half a century. True Whitlam bought in Medicare, a huge step forward for those without means to pay for private health care.

I wonder though whether we can always blame government for our failings ? Several folk on this topic have run businesses, REHCTUB described how, out of around twenty odd apprentices he trained, only two made it through their apprenticeship (the butchery trade). Ostensibly, the other eighteen or so lacked the personal discipline to see out their training ? Is this the fault of government do you believe YEBIGA ?

On this issue, I believe in part, it may well be a contributing factor ? Our education system these days doesn't wish to inculcate this personal quality, of discipline into the minds of students. Rather they spend time telling these kids about all their rights, rather than instructing them about their responsibilities to themselves, their parents and to society at large ?

The last fifteen years or so I worked, I had these young thugs/punks, (many still in their late teens) regularly telling me where to 'get off' or threatening to do me in, or some other laughable ultimatum or other ? The point is, at this critical age, where they should be thinking of consolidating their careers, pursuing higher tertiary education, saving-up for a car, they were wandering around threatening the coppers ? Is this not symbolic of a complete absence of personal discipline (a lack of self-control) ? The teaching of discipline begins firstly at home, with their parents. It should then progress through their entire schooling.

However, with so many broken homes, and bad parenting, most of these poor little buggers don't have much chance. School merely wishes to divest themselves of these irritating agitators. Agitators the schools themselves, helped create ? Their only notable mention, is after they secure their release from a stint in Long Bay Gaol. Then, for all but a very few, crime is the only competence they'll ever possess ?

....Is this the fault of government do you believe YEBIGA ?

Well, depends how far you want to go, because after all, it was governments that took corporal punishment out of schools and stopped parents (in many cases) from disciplining kids and, above all else gave kids rights they never really had, so I guess that's a large portion of the blame. ( I wrote this before I read your second paragraph)

The other one that amazes me is that most students these days seem to think that when they leave school (grade 12) that they have worked so dammed hard that they deserve a few month, or even a year off to recover. Fair enough if they achieved a HSC of one to three, but seriously!

They also have this feeling that the world owes them a living and, if they find a job for three shifts a week, they are employed.

Which ever way you look at it our youth is not performing as well as they need to if we are to prosper from their leadership, much of which is our own fault because we made life to easy for them. Well, at least the do-gooders did.

Imam proud to say that my wife and I have two fine young adults, hard workers and motivated .

That's what really does matter to me.

PLANET3,

Seriously?

You think that we should turn Australia into a Second World type Economy?

You wish to lower standards, wages, etc., etc. to a point where Australia can actually compete with other Third World economies which are driven by the Greed of the world and inherently corruption in these economies where such massive slave-worker forces are normal.

How is that a good thing or even a viable option? Europeans went down that stupid road of slavery, serfs etc. But our society’s put a stop to all this over the next 2 centuries.

This is why today I get very distressed when I see that the same 1st world cultures losing sight of those great historical lessons that took centuries for Europe to develop through before the term “1st World” was even a possibility, and flocking to all these super cheap happy go Slave markets of Asia to GREEDILY get the best deal.

“BUT IF WE DON’T USE CHEAP ASIAN LABOUR WE CAN’T COMPETE!” – they typically claim as escuse.

We have the choice and always did, to get together with all of the other first-world type nations who have developed culturally such that their own citizens in their own nations could never again be bent into such submission . . . . . . . to get together and to stop this global menace which threatens to destabilize the world and all of the achievements the west made in human rights etc.

Why did the US and UK etc. bother fighting such menaces in WWII if they are not willing to now perhaps use force if required to subdue these economies into realizing that such mistreatment is illegal and we are not going to allow it?

Sure now with many third world nations now possessing nuclear arsenals, and this is why the west should have foreseen this after WWII and “nipped it in the bud” back then.

Still the matter needs attending, and the longer we leave it we merely leave it to some future generation who will have an increasingly harder time the longer we let it go.