david f,

"....from the site: Elected officials must commit to closing gaps in the current regulatory system, including those that enable felons, minors, persons with mental illness, and other prohibited persons to access firearms, and those that allow the trafficking of illegal guns."

What's different in Australia?
Criminals here get guns as do persons who are suffering mental illness and are prohibited from legally having a gun, Monis being the most recent case in point and trafficking goes on all the time; the police admit that most illegal handguns are unlawfully imported.

Whereas the Greens claim that most illegal pistols are stolen from licenced owners and make such claims without any evidence.

Steele Redux,

"Is Mise rolling out the farmer's wife with the shells in her apron again, along with perfunctory “Greens” bashing that OSW gleefully joined in, with makes a mockery of the countless times we have canvassed these same issues. Back we go to “redundancy, cliches, and karma whoring”

The farmer's wife is still in that position regardless of "redundancy, cliches, and kharma whoring".

Don't you have a solution to her problem?

The Greens, despite the obvious unfairness of her position still wish to saddle her with even more restrictive rules and regulations, there is no way to get past that point.

She is, of course, legally allowed to defend herself against unlawful attack, she just isn't allowed to plan to have anything with which to defend herself.

Let us just suppose that the fox doesn't attack the chooks but the baby who is playing on the back verandah?

What then?

Dear davidf,

Thank you for another considered reply.

You wrote;

“How does one argue with a person who one basically disagrees with. The answer: with your hat. You put it on and walk away. You are not going to prove them wrong and yourself right except in your mind.”

Totally agree but that is not quite how I see the situation here. We are on an open 'opinion' forum and when aberrant and toxic views are presented without challenge those many people who I assume read these posts without contributing themselves may well get the impression that such views are mainstream when they are most certainly not.

However I am more than happy to concede that a discussion in good faith, that explores a topic like this without rancour, is extremely worth while.

I also concede I have a nasty habit of writing people off and find it difficult to get past my knowledge that Jay of Melbourne is a real live Holocaust denier or that onthebeach has a history of harassing female posters on the forum. The fact that you can is an inspiration and I will try harder.

Also it is not Green bashing per se that I am objecting to. A favoured tactic in Australian politics at the moment is to attribute something to the Greens which in reality is a universal value held by the majority of the population. I am convinced the majority of Australians don't want torture done on their behalf not do the want a return to pre-Port Arthur gun laws. But what the likes of Is Mise and o sung wu do is to attach these values firmly to the Greens so they feel they can attack it as fringe think.

Which is why I raised Senator McCain who is not a green but a right wing politician of a country condemned for wholesale torture who spoke very forcefully against it.

I'm sure even within the Green membership there are those who see a role for torture in some form.

O Sung Wu - I wonder if you might be able to answer a question I have regarding the way the police handled the siege.

Once the first hostages were released and interviewed the Police would have known for certain that he was acting only. They also knew exactly who they were dealing with and it was highly unlikely he would give himself up, only to face terrorism charges as well as the murder of his wife and molestation of 40 women. Why didn't they simply use one of the snipers to take him out when they had a clean shot whilst simultaneously storming the doors?

Do you have any professional insights from your experience?

Conservative Hippie,

The reason that the police marksmen with their high powered and extremely accurate sniper's rifles did not fire is because Monis was wearing a backpack and there was no way that they could positively tell that he was not carrying explosives and was not wired so that the shock wave (kinetic energy) from a hit would not detonate any explosives and kill all of the hostages.

The police were between a rock and a hard place.

Sorry Is Mise, that is rationalising to try to cover the fact that they stuffed up. They tried to deal with a Muslim ratbag they would deal with a non Muslim ratbag. A typical example of multiculturalism causing stupid mistakes.

When dealing with a ratbag dreaming if his 72 virgins, you have a different situation, & need to act accordingly.

The fool in charge was on TV tonight boasting they "preferred to talk them out, rather than take them out". Obviously the woman is a fool, who doesn't recognise the difference in attitude different ethnicity brings.

It is fair to chalk these 2 deaths up to the bleeding hearts, & their effect on education in our universities, giving us week kneed assistant police commissioners.

Dear SteeleRedux,

The Gettysburg Address: “The world will little note nor long remember what we say here.” That is from one of the most famous speeches in history, but Lincoln was right. It will eventually be forgotten. It applies even more to an evanescent discussion string on the net. The few people who come across this string will read many other things. I doubt that many of them are Holocaust deniers or have little regard for women. Those that do will find their views reinforced. Those who don’t will be repelled by those sentiments. I don’t think that what we say will make much if any difference.

I told onthebeach what I did and did not see at the Greens. Since that did not conform to his prejudices about the Greens he accused me of telling porkies. I assume that most people are not particularly interested in either my words or onthebeach’s words.

I really don’t think any of our words greatly influence anyone on the outside. I feel I am not writing to the multitudes or even to the ‘right-thinking people.’ (people who think like us) I am writing to you and the other individuals in our discussion string. When I get tired of it I will leave the discussion.

I also don’t think that most Australians want either torture or a return to pre-Port Arthur gun laws. Our major political parties are sufficiently aware of popular feeling so current gun laws will remain the same. Since neither our police nor our security apparatus will be adequately monitored the third degree and torture will continue.

Outside of Graham I doubt that anyone besides the participants in our discussion is following this string. Graham is probably not interested in the discussion but monitors it to see that no one exceeds propriety in his or her remarks.

I continue on this string as I would not meet many of the participants in my non-olo life. Possibly others on the thread may have the same motivation.

From “Patience”: The meaning doesn’t matter if it’s only idle chatter of a transcendental kind!