Aerothorn on 22/6/2007 at 15:38
Quote Posted by SD
How have I made a fool of myself?
By posting.
LesserFollies on 22/6/2007 at 15:51
Hell, even I caught the sarcasm, and I'm a lowly sexual degenerate who wants knives thrown at her!*
*sarcasm
SD on 22/6/2007 at 17:08
Quote Posted by Malygris
Well golly-gosh, I don't expect you to have all the answers, or even any of them, but sooner or later just flailing around
against shit stops being good enough. You get some slack on this one because you don't live in a country that has to deal with this kind of bullshit, and I also agree with you that on the surface at least, this policy sounds pretty douchey, but your assertion that this is nothing more than a racism-fueled attempt at keeping the mud-people down is a bit over-the-top.
I don't think I was asserting that the Australians were trying to keep the "mud-people" down. What I do think is that it's sadly typical of the way these people have been treated over the centuries.
It's certainly racist, unless you honestly believe alcohol abuse, child abuse, unemployment and low educational performance are purely black problems.
So far as me getting some slack (gee, thanks) for "not living in a country that has to deal with this kind of bullshit" - I don't need to live in a shit-hole to know it's not particularly pleasant.
But I know my history. This country of Britain
used to be like that. That's one of the reasons Australia exists in the first place. Thousands of marginalised people deported to the colonies by a society which had no collective responsibility, that didn't want to address the root causes of the social problems that led to people having no jobs, no food, no hope and no incentive to raise themselves from the gutter.
Fast forward 200 years, when people should know better, and John Howard is advocating exactly the same lack of compassion and understanding.
So when you criticise me for not having all the answers, that's fine. But I have always felt that tackling the root causes of a problem is better than tackling the symptoms. Alcoholism and paedophilia are just the symptoms of a much larger problem. Let's not do what the Aussies do and try and gloss over the big issue, eh?
Swiss Mercenary on 22/6/2007 at 17:38
Quote Posted by SD
I don't think I was asserting that the Australians were trying to keep the "mud-people" down. What I do think is that it's sadly typical of the way these people have been treated over the centuries.
Sad. Residential schools, reserves, etc, etc. Certainly heartbreaking.
Quote:
It's certainly racist, unless you honestly believe alcohol abuse, child abuse, unemployment and low educational performance are purely black problems.
Question: If you are trying to catch fish, are you going to be casting your rod into a river that's got more lobsters and shoes then fish, or a river which is packed, back-to-back with them?
If on-the-street drug deals are a huge problem in, say, the East Hastings area, Vancouver, and let's assume for a moment that most of the people living there are Chinese, is it also racism to really crack down on that area in particular? Or should we institute martial law across the entire country, just to be fair? :rolleyes:
Or, is your approach going to be "Just let them do what they want, so what if there's a few stabbings there every night"?
The laws should be the same, across the country, of course. However, it makes a hell of a lot more sense to enforce them in an area where nearly everyone is breaking them.
Quote:
But I have always felt that tackling the root causes of a problem is better than tackling the symptoms.
So, how are you planning to tackle the 'root causes' of a problem, again? Because whatever it is we are doing here is not working.
Quote:
So how are you going to determine where the money they spend came from, and where it's going? That can be a very difficult problem (almost like following a specific drop of water through the ocean), even in the case where there are no other sources of income or liquid assets. For example, if you want to make sure that someone isn't turning money into alcohol (or porn, or whatever), you not only have to check expenditures, but also check that the goods and services purchased are actually being used by that person - there's no ethical way to do that.
Which is why instituting this policy across an entire country is non-sensical. However, stopping liquor sales in an area where 99% of the residents are on welfare (And hence, shouldn't be buying any) starts to make a lot more sense, now.
Quote:
I don't see any advantages either, and certainly none that would justify this cost.
In that case, can we write the fat cheque off, already?
Quote:
Furthermore, "they might use it to do bad things" is not an ethical justification for banning something.
So, there's no problem if people own machineguns, battle tanks, nukes..?
Quote:
"The absence of policing services in the Northern Territories in these communities is abysmal" - good grief, it's not like him being the
Prime Minister, he bears any responsibility for this?!
I don't know about Aus, but I'm pretty sure that here, First Nations police themselves, unless they have a special agreement with the RCMP (And most don't want to do so, because that removes their autonomy :rolleyes: )
Rug Burn Junky on 22/6/2007 at 20:33
Please tell me that the ban only extends to them watching porn.
How did I make it this long in life without even considering that I wanted to see aboriginal porn? The didgeridoo bow-chika-bow-wow soundtrack alone makes it compelling.
Why isn't there a market for this already?
Zygoptera on 23/6/2007 at 00:34
Quote Posted by Swiss Mercenary
Sad. Residential schools, reserves, etc, etc. Certainly heartbreaking.
Genocide, or at 'best' ethnic cleansing and repeated mass murder. Slavery, in the case of wage-sequestering or the child slavery some of the 'lost generation' were subjected to, which lasted well into the last century. Brain dead historical 'liquor bans' whose only result was the police controlling the illegal trade. Not so long ago it was legal to shoot aborigines, and an aborigine having sex with a white woman was automatically considered rape. Land confiscation, or actually rather worse than that since Australia doesn't even recognise that aborigines owned the land in the first place and have tried repeatedly to reinforce the
terra nullia myth. Mass seizures of children for forced adoption (with predictably appalling results including slavery, sexual abuse, other physical abuse). And a repeated refusal on some people's part to admit that any of it happened or to apologise for it. Followed up by self-righteous 'help thyself' cocksuckery, usually from those who have had a
very privileged upbringing and live their smug, self-righteous lives on land expropriated at the end of a rifle barrel and over the decaying corpses of those who lived there for tens of thousands of years previously. We may not always have treated the maori well here, but compared to how the aborigines were treated we came with frankensense and myrrh, bowing all the way from the mother country.
The really sad thing is that there is no solution. Most aborigines live in ghettos where there are no jobs and no prospects. That isn't going to change any time soon, and certainly won't because whitey decides to enact some arbitrary paternalist foolishness.
Anyone who thinks this sort of legislation will actually work is, frankly, naive to the extreme and has very little appreciation of how human nature itself works. Not that success is the point anyway- it is, at its core, just another cynical darkie bash just in time for an election, much like the last time.
Swiss Mercenary on 23/6/2007 at 01:40
Quote Posted by Zygoptera
Genocide, or at 'best' ethnic cleansing and repeated mass murder.
I'm talking about the past century, in Canada. I can't speak for Australia's history, but we have the exact same problems.
Quote:
arbitrary paternalist foolishness.
Hardly seems arbitrary to me.
Aerothorn on 23/6/2007 at 01:44
Well, SD (and everyone else) was talking about Australia. So it's only understandable that everyone will assume that that is what you are talking about unless otherwise noted.
Swiss Mercenary on 23/6/2007 at 03:01
Quote Posted by Aerothorn
Well, SD (and everyone else) was talking about Australia. So it's only understandable that everyone will assume that that is what you are talking about unless otherwise noted.
Let me rephrase that. I was not aware of what happened in Australia. However, at the end of the day, the two situations are not very different, even if we didn't have a century of Native Hunting Season here.
Muzman on 23/6/2007 at 03:52
On the plus side; this is an arch conservative, nu-school econmomic rationalist government making a big song and dance about stepping in to specifically address a minority's social problems. John Howard is saying things along the lines of "ideology doesn't matter when things have to be done" about this. He also doesn't scratch himself unless there's votes in it. This could mean Australians aren't as far up their own selfish arses as I have come to believe and could even set an expectation for government action that doesn't include propping up big business and lowering taxes and encouraging people to wave the flag and punch a foreigner, which might be a first for this lot. It could all go horribly wrong of course, but there's a glimmer of hope.
