Dear o sung wu,

I have witnessed none of it. I look up things and am wary about what to believe. I know some police are extremely prejudiced. I talked with one of them at the Strathpine RR station. He was an immigrant from South Africa and talked about the Kaffirs. I would not like to be a black man in his custody. I was in California riding in a car with my son. He was going hell for leather. A siren sounded, and a cop got us to pull over. "Did you know you were going way over the speed limit?" My son said, "I'm very sorry, officer. I didn't realize it." My son as well as I and the officer were all blond and blue-eyed. My son and the officer had a bit of a chitchat about sports. Then the cop told us to drive on and be aware of our speed. I had the feeling that were we black or Hispanic-appearing the encounter would not have ended so pleasantly. Maybe my feeling was not justified.

Few of us are angels or devils. Police are human, and some of them are bent. Many are not. Paul is molded by his experiences. Paul has a connection with the Maori. You are molded by your experiences. I am molded by my experiences. Let's cut each other a little slack.

I sympathise with Aborigines because I think they have had a tough time in this country. My mother was a teacher in the St. Regis Indian Reservation in the US. That was over a hundred years ago, and Indian kids were not supposed to talk in their language on school grounds. Aborigines have had a tough time in many countries. This country was settled with a war on the Aborigines. In the Australian War Memorial I don't think it is remembered. I think it should be.

I hope this isn't round 1, and we can discuss our differences without rancor.

Pauliar,

I guess that having got your drug habit in jail you are unable to stop, but it must be hard to fund on welfare. Maybe it is why you are illiterate as well. I said ALMOST as lax.

In NZ there is no ban on handguns and many of the weapons responsible for gun deaths in the US. If I wanted to buy a handgun, shotgun or rifle I could do so. And even before the ban on semi-automatic assault rifles, gun crime was never anywhere near the level in the US.

I guess the reason that you never mentioned New Zealand is because it blew a hole in your argument.

o sung wu,

"Clearly PAUL1405, I've upset you", No, I have no emotional attachment to you through your 'nick' what so ever, I neither love or hate you, so you can't upset me. My wife can upset me, my kids can upset, my grandchildren can upset me, even my friends can upset me. As you are in none of these categories, by definition you can't upset me.

From your posting history what have I learnt about you, a militarist, a copper, a boxer, is there a tendency towards violence here? Possibly, as a lad you may have been the school yard bully, not an unreasonable conclusion to draw, given your disclosed violent history.

You said; "when I was still with the detectives, a unique form of justice would prevail"

Steele came back with; "You (o sung wu) are of course not going to hear from me support for police delivering summary justice"

I added my opinion; "There is no excuse for the issuing of "summary justice" by police"

Then in a totally unprovoked tirade you unleashed on me; "Therefore PAUL1405, my loathing, my utter revulsion, and disgust for you, really has no bounds. Other than your blatant cowardice for dodging National Service for fear of being sent to South Vietnam. I dunno PAUL1405, Your craven conscience must be forever scarred. You truly are, an abominable human being." I don't know how you acted In Vietnam or in the police force when it came to dishing out your version of justice. As for mental health issues, I'm sure you have your demons, something that only you can deal with, but at 80 years of age it may be too late. You can find no malice in my posts towards you.

cont

cont

As for conscription, I was required to register by the end of 1972, as I was turning 20 in the first half of 1973. I had no intention of registering. I was a pacifist, I had a cousin killed in Vietnam, one of the 521 young Australians needlessly killed in an unjust war, and I was opposed to the Vietnam war, involving myself in protests many times. You say I was dodging conscription, in fact the opposite was the case, failure to register meant automatic conscription, by registering you stood a 1 in 8 chance of being conscripted. Mates of mine did register, although they opposed the war, in the hope they would be in the lucky 7. Fortunately Whitlam came to power in December 1972 and abolished conscription. The Coalition had been conscripting young men of 20 years of age, but refused to give them the vote at the same time.

Since the May 14th mass shooting at the 'Tops Supermarket' in Buffalo New York, by a white supremacist where 10 people were killed and 3 injured. There have been 38 mass shootings in the US, resulting in 62 deaths and 160 injured. NOTHING TO SEE HERE!

Paul,
There is something to see, the US murder rate is low, so why pick on them?
One would think that you’d be more concerned about people in countries where the rate is up to ten times higher and where they have much tighter gun laws.

PNG for example, our closest neighbour, where the murder rate is near twice that of the US and nine times our’s.