Snake Pliskin said:
Those are our Christian values you are trashing here mate!
We have rights in this country like the immigrants do. We have a secular christian culture; anything wrong with that? No, just like immigrants we have our own values and religion. Government and religion are not connected, but our politicians have values based on what they were brought up on. If you hate Australians so much feel free to leave and go to a handout nation. But guess what, you won't find one out there because it is all here - freedom, welfare, work, the ASX. Yes it's all here for you to enjoy though trashing it is the theme of the times.
Snake
Until very recently Australia was NOT based on fundamentalist Christian (or any other religious) values but rather the concept of decency and a fair go for all. Religion played a part but not religious fundamentalism.
It is our political "leaders" and not the majority of ordinary Australians who are leading us down this dangerous path of intolerance.
A casual walk around any city, suburb or town on a Sunday morning will reveal that the overwhelming majority are NOT particularly religious. They may well have an underlying faith but they are moderate in their adherence to that faith. That's fine and we can all live happily together regardless of race, gender, skin colour, age, sexual orientation, marital status, size, shape, religion and so on. We did in the recent past without too many problems.
A very small minority are intolerant towards those who choose not to believe in their religion or other beliefs and they are a problem. But since when did throwing petrol around help put fires out? We have a problem with people who are intolerant of us and use this as an excuse to blow us up. So we respond by spreading intolerance thus fuelling the fire. Just like stamping on a wasp nest.
But why stamp on a wasp nest? Isn't it more sensible to just leave them alone and deal with the one or two wasps which might cause you a problem rather than stamping on the nest and having the whole lot out to get you?
If some other culture wanted to blow Australia off the map then they've had decades to do it. Why is it only now that we have this problem with terrorists? SOMETHING must have changed in order to cause this situation. Surely the mature, sensible response is to look objectively at the problem and ask ourselves as a nation what, if anything, we have done, or not done, which has lead to this situation.
We have, after all, sent an awful lot of money to those nations where most of the terrorists are alleged to come from. The Western world is sending far more to those nations now than it did prior to September 11. Surely this must have some impact?
There are a lot of very complex issues involved here. The whole idea that we run around and catch each and every individual terrorist before they do something crazy sounds very much like trying to fight a major bushfire with a watering can in my opinion. The smarter way to put bushfires out is to contain them and just wait until they run out of fuel. It's a lot easier and a lot more effective.