//Any country who's population is not racist will not long be a country.//

Ya reckon? Because people used to be very racist towards the Irish, but then they stopped.... and continued to be countries for years afterwards, right up to the present day in fact. I call BS.

//The answer is conservatism.//

OK, but how far back should we wind the racism clock? Just back far enough to make it acceptable to put a 'No Blacks, No Dogs' sign in your window, or far enough back that you can go the whole hog and make it 'No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs'?

Because if it's not OK to be racist towards the Irish just because they share the same skin tone as civilised folk like Swedes and Russians even though the Irish are all drunken degenerates, well then I'm sorry, but it's no kind of proper racism at all... so why bother with it? If something is worth doing, it's worth doing properly.

Jayb- See link

http://caldronpool.com/nine-news-poll-against-senator-fraser-anning-backfires-big-time/

Channel Nine will need to consider its options. Nine is in a difficult position- it could affect its advertisers- for them it comes down to money- I suspect they'll avoid reporting the figures- or only give a very brief report.

But at least the commercial stations are less biased than the ABC.

We should give them the benefit of doubt as to their motivation.

Toni Lavis- You could even go back to the Scots and the Welsh- but that doesn't mean that culture is irrelevent as you seem to be implying.

//their policies are still adopted by the Labor state governments, within the departments, in the media (especially the ABC).//

Oh yes? Do you have any specific examples, or am I just meant to take that on faith?

I'm pretty sure that the Labor party are capable of formulating their own policies, and even more certain that adopting those of the Socialist Equality Party would be political suicide... there's a reason those clowns don't poll well. In short, I think it's a pretty far fetched claim that the Labor party are plagiarising the policies of the SEP and without any hard proof I will file it in the 'amusingly ridiculous hypotheses' section of the attic.

////but that doesn't mean that culture is irrelevent as you seem to be implying.//

What? Where did I say that?

Of course culture is important. Think about it for a minute, CM: if took six white, ginger men - a Scot, a Norwegian, a German, an Englishman, a Frenchman and an Irishman and put them in a line up and told you 'right, point out the Irishman'... how would you be able to tell except through cultural differences?

Answer - The Irishman is obviously the one swaying and drooling slightly, his eyes unfocused and bleary and his shirt stained black from Guiness vomit - it's easy to spot when you're familiar with the cultural nuances, but you can't tell just from crude metrics like skin tone and facial structure.

Toni Lavis- You seem to be overly focused on the Irish- look I understand you are Irish- I don't have a problem with your bias- I even feel that certain events between the Irish and the English were perhaps unfair to the Irish.

I think that perhaps we should aim to create a world where all cultures feel safe within their own nations. Where one culture can't feed off others. This isn't a Liberalist solution. And there is always the problem of a culture creating harm to themselves by bad decisions.