Hi there INDIVIDUAL...I understand my friend, anyhow it was all such a long time ago now. And beside, these old memories are best left forgotten, and should be consigned to history otherwise far too much enmity is left unresolved or remains in doubt.

521 Australians died needlessly, along with millions of Vietnamese, Americans and others, in a bloody unjust war, is there such a thing as a just war, I know of none. History has not judged the aggressors in Vietnam kindly. To remember is to learn from such mistakes, to forget is to relive those mistakes.

521 Australians died needlessly,
Paul1405,
Considering that they were sacrificed so that undeserving drug abusing no-hopers & characters such as yourself can now live in comfort & security without any personal effort whatsoever which are a result of others dying for us, then yes, their lives were wasted.
I'm thankful that there are others with a sense of compassion & appreciate the sufferings & efforts of those who built what this ungrateful crowd now condemns because of some misguided brainwashed ideology.

Ideology indoctrinated people don't give it a second thought that they live in comfort today by what past peoples' efforts have created.
Today's efforts will be the base of the future. Think what's in store when you observe the goings-on now !
By all means, those who call themselves Australian, go & spend your money overseas but don't be surprised at the contents of the coffers when you decide to return with all your money spent & not having contributed while you were away !
The people who filled the coffers in the past are now dying off from old age & there aren't many to take their place ! You can only sell so much to China before they've bought everything you have to sell.
Your skills won't be worth anything if you based them on ideology !

On ABC TV right now, this bloke was waffling on about wages not going up despite an increase in demand for workers ??
Why on Earth should wages go up just because there are more jobs available ??
It's this idiocy from the unions that ruins everything economy related !

individual: "Ideology indoctrinated people don't give it a second thought that they live in comfort today by what past peoples' efforts have created. "

With this kind of statement and similar others you've made previously it seems that you are under the delusion that the wealth of our society is the mostly the result of the present retired generation. This is utter rubbish!

The reality is that the standard of living and the level of the country's infrastructure development that we currently have is mainly the result of those CURRENTLY working. And its been then way at any given point of time for a very long time.

This is because the population expands exponentially, the economy expands exponentially, science and technology increases exponentially and productivity per hour of human input increases exponentially. And when you combine this with the fact that typically the most productive years for a member of society is between the mid twenty's to their early fifties*. The result is that the contribution to society by those are have retired is *relatively* rapidly diminishing. Ie., the older a retired cohort of the population is the less of the percentage of the current wealth of the country they have created.

A perfect example of this is buildings: the majority of the population of Australia lives in buildings built (or extensively renovated) by people who are not elderly retirees but by younger folk.

Another example is the very computing device that you a reading this post on: the majority of the technology and engineering behind it is mostly the result of those still currently working.

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