BOAZ: You go boy! I often disagree with you, and I don't come from the same religious perspective as you (though I do share many of the same issues with Islam). However, I do believe that you have the right to say what you want, regardless of whether people take offence to that.

Maybe you should become a stand up comic. They're exempt aren't they? Even if they're not, what we need more of is people laughing at these clowns. Why is it that everyone considers them off limits when they are incredibly ripe and long overdue for a good pisstake? Any other group in society that took itself that seriously would have been fair game long ago. There's a good Australian cultural value for you: taking the piss out of anyone who takes himself too seriously.

The double standard regarding free speech and how that's applied gets my goat.

I think it's outrageous that the best the police can offer you is to advise you to be sensible and not get involved. Why shouldn't you in this country just because some neanderthal mob might lynch you? I wonder how well a pro-Israel rally would go down by comparison and whether spectators would violently disrupt such a thing and be allowed to get away with it.

Also, regarding the socialist left, I can't help but see them as completely morally bankrupt when (as I've seen) side by side they'll have placards denouncing Bush or the War in Iraq (which is fair enough) but then have banners idolising Lenin, Stalin and Mao (who make the worst of the west look like complete amateurs). Having lived in eastern Europe and knowing a lot about what happened there under communism, it just about made my blood boil seeing such things. However, like you, I probably would have been lynched if I'd given them a serve.

Addressing Epithemeos’ original question….

Yes Australia is in for a large-scale conflict. It will be deemed to be about cultural/racial/ethnic issues but it will really about resource stress.

We all live together in relative harmony while life is good. But with stressed resources, ie – the things that prop up our quality of life / standard of living; not least rising fuel prices, we are going to see civil strife manifest itself. Interminably rising fuel prices will cause the prices of just about everything else to rise along with rising inflation, interest rates and unemployment. You can bet your last red cent that civil strife will rapidly increase. … and that it will be blamed on c/r/e issues.

The same resource issues are bound to see us come under threat from other nations as well, especially as we are perceived to have a small population in a large land and to be resource rich.

A strong defence capability is going to be very important. But most important is the necessity to get right onto a sustainable basis as soon as possible, by way of getting people off their dependence on oil and onto renewable energy sources… and declaring limits to population growth forthwith.

I think you're probably right to an extent, though I'm not sure if it will be that extreme. I think there'd probably be nationalisation of key industries, utilities and resources before there'd be a whole lot of infighting over them. Who knows though? The future is always hard to predict accurately.

I suspect some time in the next decade ratbag cultural groups will push their luck too much with the mainstream (especially if there's ever a terrorist attack in Australia by militant Muslims). In response, the mainstream will say enough is enough. I'm not sure that will mean much blood on the streets though unless there were something along the lines of 9/11. I could be wrong, but I don't think that's really the way here. If it ever looked like Cronulla x 100, the general populace would demand that the government sort both sides out in a fairly sensible way and there'd probably be laws widely supported by the general populace to nip any trouble makers in their proverbial buds.

Australia may certainly be viewed with covetous eyes by other nations but I think it's more likely that if it got towards that point, Australia would become a kind of colonial resource outpost for whomever our major ally/protector was (most likely America) and that we'd give them very "generous" trade deals.

Is Australia in for its own war?

Australia is a non- Muslim land. Islam is at war with you, and my land (America). Like it or not, Islam is at war with US, and we are not at war with islam. This has never been a war on terror. We can't wage a war on car bombs , planes as missiles. We are fighting the people that use terror, MUSLIMS.It's due time to drop the political correctness, that is getting us all no where. Australia and America both have some very bad house guests.

Jeff Davis

A very controversial message there. I think that you are placing a lot of blame, I mean there are people that are not Muslim that mean harm to both great countries and there are people that are not terrorist that mean harm to both countries. You cannot rush into putting blame or there is only more conflict

Then you should learn some Arabic, Dar al-Harb and Dar al-Islam. If you are Australian, you are Dar al-Harb. (House of war). All non Muslim lands are "the house of war" , until Muslims conquer them, and the land becomes Muslim land, and you become a Dhimmi, paying the Jizyah tax, and becoming a second class citizen.

Mohammed was a terrorist, this is why we have Muslim terrorists today. The Koran and the Hadiths teach terror, this is what Mohammed did after the Jews and Pagans denounced him. If we allow Islam into our lands, we are asking for death, and mayhem.

Jeff Davis