The internal/local debate gets pretty vicious and sometimes I have wondered how close I have gotten to getting thumped for calling people out on their anti-American bigotry. (most of my debate occurs online so there's no opportunity for physical violence).
Regardless, I hereby open up Australia for debate - you are welcome to give me advice on how to deal with my political enemies and achieve my political goals so that I can live in the country I want to live in, rather than what I actually live in. I've already tried logical debate. That seems to be a non-starter on my pea-brained enemies.
Also, I want to state from the outset that I am in no way comparing my suffering with Iraqi men having their tongues cut out by their own government. My problems are like a tropical paradise in comparison. I am posting for a different reason (above). I also realise that yes, if I have a way of convincing 50.000000001% of Australians to not be complete and utter dickheads that I can get all my problems fixed, so yes, I realise that there's no way that we can just have an external invasion to install democracy since these problems are all related to the people being idiots not lack of allowing idiots to vote.
So here goes.
1. Between 1967-1985 I did not have the right to vote. Worse than not having voting rights - which I fully realise are no guarantee of human rights - I didn't have anything resembling protection of my human rights. I was able to be persecuted at both institutions at which I was forced to attend as well as at home which I also didn't have any choice in. No freedom of association. No judicial process. Nothing. I was instead subjected to aribtrary unrestrained physical violence for any infraction of an arbitrary set of laws. I wanted the right to ring the cops and have my parents arrested for assault and battery (something I can do as an adult if they ever try it again - of course, now that I weigh 100 kg they're less inclined to try it on now - plus the fact that I'm more than 1000 km away from them - plus the fact that they now realize how deeply they traumatized me and realize that was inappropriate). So when I hear about Aborigines getting the right to vote (and presumably the right to be jailed for failing to turn up to a jury duty summons too) in 1967 (passed by 90.77% of the non-Aboriginal population - in a country where referendums are rarely successful), my reaction is "that's great - now what about me?". And if I were an Iraqi man who had had his tongue cut out, I would have a similar sign "fuck the Palestinians - what about me?". Why is the plight of Palestinians, or Aborigines, so important, when there's a gross lack of protection for children (or Iraqi men!)? And yes, sigh, I know other people had it much worse. I said so already. Being told stories about greater injustice does not satisfy my desire for justice. The fact that I was watching my watch as it clicked over and I turned 18 and quite literally jumped (in my dormitory at Uni) for joy with a big smile on my face as I got my freedom and equal rights tells you all you need to know about me. Oh, and the fact that I also jumped when Saddam's statue fell. And the fact that I am listening to Tunisian revolutionary music as I write this exact sentence.
2. The previous Australian Prime Minister (Rudd) apologized for various crimes against Aborigines. If he believes he has committed crimes against Aborigines, he should just go to the police and confess and serve his time in jail. As a taxpayer I do not mind paying for Rudd's jail cell. What the hell has that got to do with me? I don't want people apologizing on behalf of the Australian people. I lose my voice in that pigswill. There is something he actually did, and which he should be apologizing for. That's what I wanted to hear from him. "I apologize for withdrawing Australian troops from Iraq before the job was completed, abandoning our Iraqi allies as well as our US/UK allies. It was a cowardly act, and ironically I wasn't even in any physical danger - I just didn't want to hear nasty words from the anti-war morons who voted for me in the first place". Now that would be an apology worthy of a Statesman, which Rudd isn't. Rudd is a gutless wonder pandering to the lying left-wing. Also this whole "stolen children" meme is not ever giving another side of the story by interviewing people who were previously being abused and appreciated the change. Much like the media didn't show the pro-liberation demonstrations in Iraq in December 2003. Very few people even know that the most important demonstrations in human history even occurred. Talk about disenfranchisement - why do only terrorists have their pea-brain opinion heard?
3. When Aborigines commit crime and go to jail, it is reported in the media not as "good grief - why are there so many Aboriginal criminals - is it perhaps the permanent victim mentality and grievances that the commie media carefully inculculates so as to try to 'prove' that capitalism doesn't work? Maybe we should stop doing that and tell them what's going wrong". It is instead reported as "poor Aborigines - when they are born the system is stacked against them - from the day they are born they are 20 times more likely to end up in jail". It's not helpful to their victims, it's not helpful to them, and it's not helpful to the Australian taxpayer to keep this cycle going (it's been like that for as long as I've been alive).
4. The media/government continues to portray whites as racist who are holding Aborigines back (when if you bother to actually ask 10 white Australians whether they personally want to keep Aborigines down, you will be sure to get 10 answers of "no" to that (the 9.23% who voted against the 1967 referendum have long gone) - although mixed answers on the root cause of the problem, since no-one is honestly analyzing the problem to put the onus on Aborigines themselves). This article came out a couple of days ago:
http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/latest/883 ... ial-groups
Notice the careful framing of the question. They want to portray whites as racist, so need a figure that backs up that meme. But they can't simply say "would you be willing to be friends with an Aborigine to the same extent as any other race?", because that will get you 99.99% yes, which is useless. They can't even say "do you trust Aborigines", because that will get a response of "trust which particular Aborigine to do what in particular?", since 99.99% of Australians judge people as individuals when push comes to shove (Americans will notice the same thing when they come upon an anti-American Australian) - hell, I don't even trust my own sister to protect Iraqi men from having their tongues cut out by Saddam - but that doesn't mean I don't trust myself to do exactly that, even though both my sister and I are nominally in the same race. So the devious commies instead asked "do you feel there is a good level of trust between the two racial groups?". First of all - god only knows what that means - how exactly does one group trust another - what's the context when we don't even operate in groups? So people cannot give a "yes" response to something they don't even understand. And even if you have a warped brain that understands a question like that - you've been asked to comment on something regarding other people. Of course there are no polls on this question - especially not on hand - so you can't look up the figures and say "based on certain assumed definitions, the data shows that the trust level is 7.3, and that is considered good as per previous agreed terms of reference". So they've somehow managed to find 9% of Australians who are big enough fruitcakes to not realise that this is a loaded and stupid question. In 1967 there was a similar figure of 9% fruitcakes. So great. We've replaced one set of fruitcakes for another group of fruitcakes. In 1990 polls showed only 90% of Australians supported the Iraq war too. Sometimes at those anti-war etc demos I go close enough to the fruitcakes to find out if they're serious or just taking the piss out of us.
5. This whole anti-white meme leaves me somewhat disenfranchised. Despite being born here, I am considered a second-class citizen. In fact, there are literally places I can't go because I'm not Aboriginal. ie in law! Sure - mainly whites made up those discriminatory laws, and sure, I theoretically have a non-violent way of reversing out those laws, but at the end of the day, the very fact that I would need to fight against discriminatory laws (and be berated as a racist by the media along the way, rather than an "activist"), is a sign that Australia isn't free. Also, this whole meme of "a white baby is born with blood dripping from his hands" is like - a really really cruel thing to do to a child. But that's hardly the first cruel thing done to a child.
6. I really wish I could stop talking about Aborigines for 5 seconds, but it continues I'm afraid. Some largely-non-white Australians did a skit (no-one knew they weren't white at the time), and the (foreign) media fell over themselves calling white Australians racist:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jackson_Jive
"He also identified himself as having Sri Lankan ancestry and the other performers as an Indian-Australian, a Greek-Australian, an Irish-Italian-Australian, and a Lebanese-Australian."
The one Aborigine I have contact with reported it to me and asked for my opinion. I thought Connick was taking the piss out of us (Australians), but my "online friend" (a rare instance where I happen to have also met him in person because of a Japanese girl I met in person wanting to meet some of my Australian friends in person, not aware that I have more friends in Iraq than Australia, and so the best I could dredge up was some friggin Labor supporter who badgered me from time to time and that I'd never even met in person myself) ensured me he was serious. He also reported that all (about 4) of his Aboriginal friends that he asked (and that had watched it) were not at all offended and thought it was funny (as did I - it was all one big long piss-take). But this is the real killer line that he said to me:
"10/10/2009 10:46:40 AM Labor_supporter Paul aboriginals at my uni found it hillarious, not one was offended. so i hate guys like him giving indigenous australians a bad name"
That is exactly correct. When I hear about Aborigines being permanently offended by everything that whites do, I'm wondering just how many of them are in fact racist and looking for any excuse to attack whites. But I am old enough to know the media's insidious game (trying to turn members of capitalist countries against each other so that they can introduce communism as the cure), and familiar enough with the scientific method that I know that they would need to do a statistically valid poll for this meme/statement to be tentatively valid, and that's a lot of effort, and they're not quoting from one because they don't have one - ie it is just a bunch of left-wing white people completely making up crap as usual. But not everyone in the free world understands that the media in western countries is just the internalized leftovers of a horribly successful Soviet psyop, so it's inherently creating racial conflict where none would otherwise exist.
7. Finally we leave race. This complaint has largely been bypassed with the internet, but pornography was banned to some extent in my state (NSW), and people had to order pornography from another state (free trade allowed this). The whole concept that something that is legal to physically do is illegal to even WATCH is something I consider to be a gross injustice and a violation of freedom and human rights and condescension from a bunch of slippery weasels who managed to get themselves elected by greasing the right palms. But now the government has or was going to censor the internet (I don't follow Australian news unless it makes international headlines usually). Of course no worse than what they do on paper. But what they should have been doing is noting that when the internet allowed open slather, the crime rate didn't skyrocket as a result, which undermines their whole (completely untested) basis for being draconian pricks in the first place. The proper thing to do is test these claims using the scientific method before even making a decision to violate freedom/human rights.
8. There are blasphemy laws on the books. While no-one has been prosecuted under them for a century or whatever, the fact that they even exist is offensive to me, and perhaps this influenced laws preventing Sunday trading decades ago that caused me grief while living under a totalitarian boarding school that only let you escape on Sunday. I know that has been terminated too now, but let's take the lot out and put the sorry history of religious intolerance behind us. Why can our 3rd longest serving Prime Minister be an atheist and we still don't get rid of that crap? The worst thing about it is if other countries point to it and say "we'll have some of those too", not realizing that these things are only there in name. No-one ever gets charged, much less hanged!
9. Victoria prosecuted some people under "hate speech" laws. We don't have a Bill of Rights to protect against slippery politicians like that. I used to think that the politicans could be trusted, and that the Australian people would slit politician throats at night if they interfered with our freedoms. I was wrong on both counts. As much as I hate Americans boasting that their system is superior to all other democracies, after having done an unbiassed survey of a grand total of exactly 1 country, well, maybe they're right about this bit. Not maybe. Definitely!!! So if some Iraqis/Tunisians/Germans would like to invade Australia and install a Bill of Rights, go right ahead. I sure as hell won't be picking up arms to stop you, and so long as you do it in a way that gives me confidence you're just going to install a Bill of Rights and leave, I'll be cheering you all the way (I wouldn't be brave enough to pick up arms to go against my government though). If I see my government resisting a Bill of Rights after you point out the Victorian atrocity, I'll know who is good and who is bad!
10. Cigarette smoke stinks. Really stinks. When cigarette smoke goes up my nose it's like a hot poker being shoved up there violently and against my will. That makes the streets of Sydney unsafe, since it's not illegal to smoke on the street. If I can get into a train (just being at the train station isn't good enough), I'm safe. But I need to run the gauntlet to get there. Also I can take refuge in a restaurant (that protection of my human rights only happened a few years ago). Also work is safe (I can remember when I used to go outside because arseholes were shoving hot pokers up my nose inside). Apparently the goons in power in Canberra haven't heard of the concept "your rights end where mine start". I guess things could be worse. It could be legal to carry around a dead animal's carcass in public. I've smelt one of those before, and it is even more horrific than cigarettes. But as before, I want justice, not worse examples of injustice.
11. I am required to pay for socialized healthcare. But when I try to avail myself of that service, I have been required to wait for about 14 hours (I can remember having watching Magic Johnson or someone whinging about having AIDS for 14 hours straight and if I had a gun and lived in the US I would have put him out of his misery after that marathon). When I see TV reporters in Africa talking about how people had to queue all day for treatment, I think "fuck the Africans, what about me?". Admittedly they do do reports on Australia too, but it doesn't result in mass sackings and privatization.
12. Our courts do not follow the law. They follow their personal opinion. As such, Howard (from the party that I "support") got it in his mind to attack a company I held shares in (it grew trees/crops) and managed to make it illegal by somehow getting a court to declare corporate tree-growing illegal. The company did manage to appeal the decision, and have another court point out that the original judge just completely made that crap up, but the end result was that I was financially devastated. Other crap that courts make up is that the Australian Constitution has an "implied" right to freedom of speech. While having such a human right is great, I do know that they completely made that crap up, because unlike them, I actually read the Australian Constitution and there's no such thing. You may as well say that the Koran has such an implied right. Hey, there's a thought. Maybe they set it up that way in preparation for turning us into an Islamic State? The fact is that you can quite literally point to a line in the law and say "this says xyz" and the courts will completely ignore that and instead put whatever they want, with some rationalization they make up on the spot. Yes, it's true if you spend enough effort you can bankrupt yourself appealing such a decision and then the judge just goes "oops" - hell, doesn't even do that - and continues on as before instead of being thrown in jail for causing gross human suffering.
13. We have speed limits in Australia. No-one has ever bothered to test abolishing speed limits and seeing what the natural flow of traffic produces. At least not here. Where it has been somewhat tested, the results I have seen are that the natural flow produces fewer crashes/fatalities. But they're not the slightest bit interested in safety or standard of living. They're interested in an additional income stream from fines. This is the only situation where ordinary (decent) members of the public find themselves on the wrong end of the law. I think that is way more exposure to the police than required, and undermines the whole integrity of the system that is meant to catch thieves etc not hustle money out of the public.
Anyway, I've spent a lot of time gathering this info which I know is ultimately of no direct usefulness. If it's a choice between me not being forced to smoke, or Iranian women having the right to not be raped by their own dictator (because they have a liberal democracy) - I'm with the Iranian women!!! And as far as abuse against children is concerned, I believe there are now more opportunities to get your arsehole parents in jail (and get adopted into a family that actually wants children - even children who don't drink, smoke, take drugs and study and ace exams - even if they do end up as adults who write ridiculously long forum posts) than there was before.
However, maybe I've got some wrong concepts? Maybe there was protection for children all along and all I needed to do was click my heels and say "there's no place like foster care" and it would have been a done deal? Therefore the root cause of the problem was that children weren't educated about the magic phrase - which they were in fact trying to teach me at school, but because I was sick that day it was just an honest mistake?
So Egyptians - whachagot for me? Either tell me where I've incorrectly observed being beaten without a fair trial, or tell me why my perspective is wrong (note that my own sister disagrees with my perspective - more-or-less completely dismissing that I suffered at all - but then I also don't notice any outrage from her about Iraqi men having their tongues cut out, so I guess if you've been insensitized to tongue-chopping and institutionalized rape, then your brother's complaints are indeed trivial). OR. OR. OR - help me achieve my political goals in Australia. Currently we have a hung parliament. There are two right-wing independents who are currently rubbing shoulders with the left-wing allowing them to stay in power. Those two crossing over to the right-wing party will bring down the government. I've already emailed them, and of course, they couldn't give a shit about my human rights either. Actually I emailed them asking them to liberate Iran, not me personally. But if you tell me what I need to say to get things done, tell me what to do. E.g. when they were talking about censoring the internet, I did in fact make the effort to email politicians telling them to fuck off, but if I got a response, it was a canned response. Certainly didn't get anything like "thanks for letting us know - after reading your email we realized what a bunch of dodos we were and have changed our policies to match up with yours". Thankfully thanks to preferential voting (STV) I can at least vote for a minor party first and put the fear of God up their arses at election time. If I didn't hate Labor so much I would in fact preference against sitting members.
Tell me. Please. I won't call you condescending bastards for helping secure my human rights and help achieve my goals. I do want a factual science-based response though. Otherwise I'll have a few choice words for you instead.
And Americans, no need to write in and say "you need to pick up a gun and kill random Australian security forces and install a Bill of Rights 'just like we did'" - there are one or two practical barriers to that, one of which was when I went to one of these exhibition things, they allowed you to shoot a (secured) gun and they spent 5 minutes explaining how it was dangerous and you needed to keep your thumb away from the thing that goes backwards very fast otherwise you will lose your thumb but by the time I came to fire it I had forgotten about that rule since I have the attention span of a goldfish. Fortunately they still call me two-thumb Edwards, but that was more due to luck than technical prowess, but I've since chosen a celibate life without non-biological things that go bang.