Unfortunately the URL http://www.thomhartmann.com/blog/2009/08/thom-discusses-population-control-marc-morano-11-august-200 posted by Divergence leads to "Page Not Found". I haven't yet finished reading Hartmann's book and will no doubt get to what he says about population in a day or two. SPA's policies are not a cull in Australia - merely a door locked against entry, and Moslems and other racists and fascists or just the sea will finish the refugees off wherever they are trapped. To their eternal discredit the Swiss disposed of a lot of Jews that way during the war. A simple measure in Australia, not involving a cull either outsourced or otherwise, would be a baby bonus for the first child, none for the second, and an increasing baby tax for subsequent children to offset their socio-economic cost. But none of these social engineering mechanisms will do anything to confront the looming existential threat of what Hartmann has called the Great Forgetting and the Economic Royalists.

Meanwhile we require "now" policies not "fullness of time" policies to discharge as far as we can our responsibilities to people fleeing for their lives, and to the protection of our own country from spongers and Fifth Columnists. As for coping with increased numbers we could start by immediately ceasing tariff-free international trade (a weapon of Mr Greed to lower wages and living conditions in Australia) and concentrating on building public transport infrastructure and a restored state housing strategy. To fund this we could opt out of refugee-generating Yank colonial wars and massive weapons purchases from the Yank military-industrial complex. For a start. And we could tax the major predators who plunder the nation’s wealth.

Dear o sung wu,

Apologies for the tardy reply, a weekend of 4WDing culminated in me misjudging a very steep and very muddy hill and coming backwards down those suckers is usually something I avoid with a passion. Oh well, lesson reinforced.

You wrote;

“your extraordinary ability to gaze into the hearts and minds of others.”

Really it was nothing. I wasn't the only person here who adjudged JOM to be a racist. It would have been pretty clear to the vast majority who have spent time on this forum. In that you were one the very few who failed to see it does not make the rest of us extraordinary.

“I hadn't realized what a flawed individual I am ? What then would you have me do, eh STEELEREDUX ? How should I go about addressing these obvious imperfections ? Or more correctly termed, a real 'aberration' in my character ? Perhaps I never had any values in the first place ?“

Projection? All I asserted was that we had 'different values' making no assessment of the merits of either, you proceeded to take an extremely large dump on yourself. And it's becoming a trend.

Your compensatory manoeuvre is to use the label 'narcissist'; “Why is it you feel this unfettered urge or mania to engage in this absurd practice of belittling other contributors on this Forum ? From your obvious symptomatology you seem to suffer from another form of (yet undiagnosed) narcissistic psychosis.”

You should ease up on yourself.

Back to the topic. You've had an attitude toward those poor unfortunate people which was akin to someone driving past a car accident with the dead and injured lying around and thinking 'Geez, that's going to raise my rego insurance'.

I do note however, even if it was after 16 odd posts, you've acknowledged;

“Nevertheless ROBERT lePAGE, I agree with you, if these poor folk are starving and dying at sea, it's indeed a human calamity of dire proportions !”

There might be hope for you yet.

Emperor Julian,

Here is the link to the Tom Hartmann article

http://www.thomhartmann.com/blog/2009/08/thom-discusses-population-control-marc-morano-11-august-2009

Where is your evidence that the people in SPA are either racist or fascist? Point to some real evidence or admit that you lied. In their policies they reject selection of migrants based on race. Because the non-refugee, non-humanitarian component of our immigration is so large, they actually say that we could decrease the overall intake while taking more refugees.

Australia's fertility rate is slightly below replacement level and has been since 1976, although there is still a bit of growth from the demographic momentum that I discussed earlier. There is less and less of this sort of growth every year as we move to a stable age structure. About 60% of our population growth is from immigration. About a third of the remaining 40% due to natural increase is due to births to migrant mothers. With zero net immigration, our population growth rate would be about a quarter of what we have now and getting less every year. Refusing to talk about immigration is refusing to address the main issue, although the baby bonus is a bad idea for a lot of reasons.

According to the UNHCR as of 2013, there were 16.7 million refugees worldwide plus 33.3 million internally displaced people who could become refugees by crossing an international border. Then of course, there are all the illegal immigrants who stand to gain by posing as refugees if it will get them into a rich country, and they are often very difficult or impossible to weed out if we are taking boat people. How many do you want us to take? What do we do when that number is exceeded? The population growth back in their home countries, overwhelmingly the Malthusian trap countries we discussed earlier, will ensure that there are plenty more in the future.

In response to Divergence.

Thom Hartmann has come a long way in the seven years since 2009. Back then he seems to have been floundering about in the areas of AGW and population, and in that link he was arguing with someone who sought policies a i m e d a t p o p u l a t i o n – in particular to i n c r e a s e it. A crazy aim and an easy target. Now he has brilliantly tackled the real issues in a historical setting. The march of the predators. The Economic Royalists. And the fading memories and ahistoric mass education that open the way to them. He lays out the history and invites readers to take account of what it shows. Even back in 2009 he homed in on the relationship between population and justice to women which is patchy at best and denied at worst in societies ruled by predatory Economic Royalists.

There is no evidence that the SPA is either racist or fascist. That is why I have never suggested they are. SPA has a population objective (I call it a fixation) – to support policies that limit or reduce it and oppose policies which increase it whether that is the aim of those policies or merely a consequence. Australian population numbers are front and centre to their approach to all other problems. This includes the refugee problem. Fixation on population numbers colours their response to acceptance of refugees as it does to many other issues. Refugees not given sanctuary are left to the tender mercies of Moslems and racists and related fascists in their countries of origin and tribal savages around the detention centres in Nauru and New Guinea. The outcome is an outsourced cull.

The plight of refugees (real ones) is a pressing issue in its own right, not a mere part of a population numbers policy,

Good afternoon to you STEELEREDUX...

I thought for a moment you'd deserted my last thread in some sort of huff, for an imagined rebuff I'd unwittingly occasioned upon your tender sensibilities ? All the while you were navigating an impossibly steep incline in your 4wd ! For what it's worth unless a route upon which I choose to travel, has at the very least, 4cm of cured bituminous material, I'd take a train or stay at home ?

I don't believe for a moment any normal human being would fail to render immediate aid to save the life of someone found adrift at sea. That doesn't mean those people shouldn't be immediately repatriated to their homeland, and if that's impossible, safely conveyed to the nearest refugee centre to ensure their continued security needs are met.

It appears fashionable, by a brethren from the 'Left' to suggest these sad individuals should be immediately evacuated to a developed nation. A nation with a very generous welfare system. In so doing, it removes any further fiscal imposition, and the need of prolonged sanctuary, from the morally corrupt United Nations ? Surely you must see that STEELEREDUX ?

I was wondering too, perhaps there's a moral example for your most recent 4wd adventure ? Whereas your judgement momentarily deserted you, in your attempt to negotiate an incline, far too steep for your vehicle, thus it's traction went awry, causing you to inextricably 'backslide' down that slippery slope ? Perhaps that unfortunate experience illustrates the fundamental flaw in your reasoning, that I have this anomalous need to immoderately 'dump' (criticise ?) upon myself ?

Do you think for a moment, it's just possible that I was gently guiding your synopsis, entirely in another direction, whereupon you might just stumble upon another conclusion altogether ? A little something for you to muse upon at your leisure ?

Hope your experience caused you no physical bother too !

Dear o sung wu,

More than happy bunging around Outback desert tracks, once spending a very enjoyable 6 months doing just that. But mud is not my favourite surface especially the clay ridden stuff I was in Sunday. Having a play a week before a lot of these tracks are closed for Winter wasn't the smartest thing to do but hey, life is definitely too short. Plus the young nephew had a ball, even getting the chance to help strip down the left front to clear some pretty wedged in debris.

Being precariously stuck near the top of a slope and the only way out is down the way you came is pretty hairy. Took my time before going for it, even had just enough mobile signal to check on some tips from a favourite 4WD forum. This was the sage wisdom I found on the first link;

“Just try to steer for the ruts while your sphincter tries to suck the seat off its mounts.”

Pretty well exactly how it went.

You postulated the following;

“Perhaps that unfortunate experience illustrates the fundamental flaw in your reasoning, that I have this anomalous need to immoderately 'dump' (criticise ?) upon myself ? Do you think for a moment, it's just possible that I was gently guiding your synopsis, entirely in another direction, whereupon you might just stumble upon another conclusion altogether ? A little something for you to muse upon at your leisure ?”

No I didn't because you seem to do it so often, but then I'm happy to be proved wrong.

What I do know is that you have a degree of leadership with your cohorts on this forum and when you become more measured on topics it has a flow on effect through the ranks. While none of them have expressed any sympathy for the plight of those people who were so desperately marooned the fact you now have will inevitably serve to temper the bombast and rhetoric. So I do acknowledge that kind of 'gentle guiding' in 'another direction' and enjoy it when I see it.