- 33,155
- Hammerhead Garage
You do know that in Australia, the Liberal Party - Abbott, Hockey, Bishop, Pyne, Morrisom et al - are actually right-wing, right? It's one of our little idiosyncrasies; Liberal does not mean liberal, but right-wing.
And I fail to see how you can blame the previous government for the current situation. Their border protection policies might have been poor, but the bulk of asylum seekers arriving illegally were either Tamils from Sri Lanka or from south-east Asia.
But you're right - we can blame the Liberals. Just not the liberals. For example, look at George Brandis trying to change Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. We had a rich, white, older conservative male trying to change legislation to redefine what is considered offensive. In doing so, there was no community consultation. Nobody from any other racial, ethnic, religious or socio-economic background was asked whether they thought those changes were needed, much less what changes would be appropriate.
That was a small hiccup, maybe, but look at the past week. We've had Abbott commit us to military action in Iraq and possibly Syria, the terror threat level upgraded, widespread raids across two cities and now an attack on police officers. Look at it from the perspective of the Muslim community - the threat level was upgraded with no reason given, the politicians are divided over rapid escalation from providing aid to military action in Iraq, the terror raids were carried out with a police media unit in attendance and wall-to-wall coverage across the nation (which will make it difficult for the suspects to get a fair trial) and nobody in the media - especially the conservative private media - has bothered to report on vandalism of mosques or threats and abuse directed at Muslims. And in the middle of it all, you have ISIL, who have a widespread and effective propaganda and social media presence, are led by a man who claims a direct bloodline to the original nomadic tribes that first spread Islam, and have been smart enough to question in their propaganda what threat Australia poses to Iraq and Syria and why we are getting involved.
At every step of the way, the government has done things that have played right into the hands of the ISIL propaganda juggernaut. On that moment when the suspect in Melbourne pulled the knife, there was nothing more that could be done. But that was one moment in eighteen years, so obviously something had to happen to set him down that path. Surely a better question to ask is what happened and why, and more importantly, how it can be prevented next time.
But I find your comments extremely disturbing, because once upon a time, that was government policy. It was called the White Australia Policy.
How is mocking him playing into ISIL's hands?
as i'm pretty sure the Bible has similar laws and nutty concepts that christian countries do not implement, does that mean they should all be distanced from Christianity?
Racist! 
) I know Fox is one you can't trust.
