Right wing disinformation mill in full swing

Gracious me, yes.

Australians live in a pretty well-designed state, ethnically speaking. Your poor wretched Aborigines are kept in subjection through your welfare program for them, and are too few and at far too low a cultural level to pose any threat to your society anyway. And in spite of dropping the 'white Australia' policy, I think you're pretty cautious about who you let in. You have a very high proportion of immigrants, but mainly they're skilled, and more importantly, they're a good mix of people from all sorts of nationalities, which is exactly the right way to do it. 2% of this, 3% of that, 1% of the other, and you'll avoid the terrible ethnic wars that always seem to occur when you start getting 20/80 or 30/70 mixes. If fifteen million Pakistanis applied for citizenship, no doubt even you would vote no.

That's not the American case, unfortunately. We may fail in our melting pot ideals, which have now been rejected by the Left -- cultural appropriation and all that.

So we must look to the future. It could be very bleak indeed, with the death of the liberal democratic non-racialist order that America was finally started on the road to establishing 50 years ago.

No country that has undergone extensive inter-communal violence is like any other: Yugoslavia was different from Cyprus which was different from Palestine which was different from Iraq which is different from Aghanistan which is different from Rwanda which is different from Zimbabwe which is different from Myanmar and on and on. If it happens in America, it will have its own unique features.

Americans tend to be arrogant and complacent ... they cannot imagine their country, sitting at the top of the world, descending into some Third-world bloodbath.

But it could happen. And, with respect to "fear", to quote a dead white male of whom you no doubt have no knowledge, "Ay, do you fear it? Then must I think you would not have it so".

And I wouldn't. Even the most favorable outcome of a divided America, from my point of view, would be a huge setback for liberal democracy around the world.

But our choice may be between bad outcomes and really terrible ones. I think separation is probably inevitable. So even though I would not have it so, I want to alert those who will listen to the possibility, and, since failing to plan is planning to fail, to begin planning for it.

 

Yes, sure.

Now look. You can do your part to counter us terrible gun-loving nuts.

Raise your voice among your fellow liberals and leftists, and urge them to lead by example: get rid of your guns! All of them.
Do it ostentatiously and publically.

Most of you probably don't have any of the horrible nasty things, but there are some people on the Left who do -- remember the John Brown Club in Washington State, that the rightwing Republican who attacked the immigration center in Tacoma was a member of.

Find these people, and demand that they live up to their principles: not just high-capacity magazine weapons, but any firearm.
They all can be used to murder innocent children! So set an example and give them up.

We will certainly help in any way we can.

LIBERALS!!! DON'T SHILL FOR THE FIREARMS INDUSTRY!!! GET RID OF YOUR GUNS NOW!!!

 

I think you're not very familiar with American politics, especially the politics of the South when it was solidly Democratic territory. In that place and in that time, probably not one person in a hundred thousand knew about 'classical liberalism'. They did know about, and supported, the New Deal.
It was not an uncommon observation by political commentators, that while the white population of the South were racial segregationists, and thus opposed to a major plank of liberalism, they were also in favor of liberal ideas about government intervention (just the opposite of 'economic liberal' as you and various libertarians would use the term).
It's obviously not clear to you, but I would bet that to anyone else who knows anything about American politics, the somewhat paradoxical observation that the Republican voting base are 'social conservatives but economic liberals' makes perfect sense.

You have the right to be obtuse, but it is not necessary to abuse this right.

 

Asking for repetition isn't cheery. Economic liberalism is a term that isn't country specific. You can dress yourself up as George Washington or spend your day licking Trump shaped yellow ice cubes; its irrelevant. It is a right wing term that refers to free markets here, there and over yonder.

 

Well, when I'm discussing issues with potentially a wide audience, I try to use the terminology that I expect they use. Otherwise we're getting into crank-world, with each fervent ideologue insisting that the rest of us conform to his private vocabulary.

It's like the word 'socialism', come to think of it. Some people (five or six) want to use it to mean a society of enormous freedom, perfectly democratic, in which the means of production are owned by the workers, not by a state, and the market determines production rather than a Central Plan.

And they don't mean just that this is what they want, but they insist that this "is" the very definition of the word itself, despite the fact that 99.99% of the world has a range of other definitions for it, all of which involve greatly increased power of the state. It's an attempt to seize the vocabulary before seizing state power. But to be successful in this endeavor you have to do it in the other direction, as our mutual friend George Orwell illustrated: Oldthinkers unbellyfeel Ingsoc, therefore so much the worse for the Oldthinkers.

 

You have to dumb down to connect to the right wing rabble? Wow, that's a claim and a half.

I couldn't possibly agree with that. The idea that the right wing are dictionary monkeys, incapable of understanding accepted worldwide definition is way too aggressive.

Let's accept the obvious. You go for quantity and not quality; accuracy is of course always sacrificed on the high altar of 'do what we say' right wing authoritarianism

 

Comparing Australia and America is quite interesting, if you're interested in what shapes 'national character'. Every American should read The Fatal Shore -- if we think we sometimes had it bad under the British ... whoa! The very violent past of the two countries must also have shaped their characters. The huge differences, of course, are American slavery and its aftermath, and American post-War world hegemony which has burdened us with 'the sorrows of Empire'. I would also add the fact that our working class never achieved the level of class consciousness that yours did -- it was too ethnically diverse in the 20th Century, and in the 19th there was always the frontier with its 640 acres of free land. But there's a lot in common: Americans enjoyed James Bond but they really loved Crocodile Dundee.

It's interesting: when I have visited Australia, I have stayed with Left wing friends there -- mainly people who were various species of Marxists fifty years ago ( and some of them still are), and their adult children. But culturally, sitting around talking and arguing about the world, I have always felt more 'at home' with them, than when at a dinner party with English conservatives, nice as the latter are.

You really are 'the lucky country', and I suspect, as America retreats from your part of the world, you'll work out a mutually-satisfactory arrangement with a rising China. I could even hope that Chinese Australians will be infection vectors back into China, carrying the example of how a free people can govern itself.

 

Please see our founding documents as that is my source.

 

You certainly don't know the party you support. That is a pathetic post. I could give many quotes from your side calling for bans.

 

Whereas Trump's hateful rhetoric was found in the El Paso shooter's screed, and Sayoc's defense team noted Don's rhetoric's influence on Cesar............... http://www.politicalforum.com/index.php?threads/cesar-sayocs-defense-was-bizarre-or-was-it.559934/
.......................either you cite something Warren said to inspire violence or your post will go down as yet another example of a Trumper ineffectually using a false equivalence to defend the Hater-in-Chief.

 

There is no equivalence. The shooters are responsible. A defense team will use whatever defense they can to save their client. Their defense has little or nothing to do with reality.

 

Always, Trump wants it both ways, meaning he has no core beliefs. He believes whatever is politically expedient at the time. On national television, in front of students from Parkland, Fla., Trump told them and the nation he wanted background checks. That was a year and a half ago. Nothing was done.

On Monday, Trump tweeted that he wanted background checks. A couple hours later, he spoke to the nation and said absolutely nothing about background checks.

Trump, speaking to reporters Wednesday before visiting Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, where weekend shootings left 31 dead, said there “was great appetite for background checks” amid an outcry over government inaction in the face of repeated mass shootings.

Following the slaughter of innocent civilians, two mass murders committed by white supremacists influenced by the President's hate-filled rhetoric, Trump let it be known that he has repeatedly told lawmakers and aides in private conversations that he is open to endorsing extensive background checks in the wake of the mass shootings. In a way his ham-handed approach is almost comical. He lacks both imagination and discreetness.

Trump's comments prompted a warning from the National Rifle Association, and there were concerns among White House aides. They need not worry. Trump cannot be trusted. He will say whatever is politically advantageous at the moment, and he should never be taken seriously.

The NRA opposes the legislation sponsored by Sens. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.) and Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.). NRA chief executive Wayne LaPierre spoke with Trump on Tuesday after Trump expressed support for a background check bill and told him it would not be popular among Trump’s supporters.

Trump's sycophant in the Senate, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), said he would not bring any gun-control legislation to the floor without widespread Republican support.

Trump knows that will not happen. So, all his talk and tweets about background checks is no more than phony rhetoric designed to win votes and counter his inflammatory statements that encouraged the mass murders in the first place.

Barring another mass shooting, which is entirely possible because Trump defends his rhetoric, this time next week there will be no further talks about background checks. That is what happened after Columbine, Sandy Hook, San Bernardino, Parkland, and Las Vegas, and that is what will happen now.

This source helped with this post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...f82060-b92d-11e9-a091-6a96e67d9cce_story.html

 

Not only that, when the House passed two bills in Feb. this year aimed at enhanced background checks the WH announced if they passed in the Senate (McTreason blocked a vote on them) Don was going to veto them.

 

You completely misrepresent him, he is speaking out against Totalitarianism, not Constitutional Conservatism, the Conserving our US Constitution is the solution, not the problem.

Of course he does. Trump's not the problem. Wait until you see how many of these mass shooters have a history of heavy pot use at a young age and are overflowing with signs of mental illness. Have you seen how much one's risks of severe mental illness spikes with Pot use, and it's dose dependent, the more you use it the worst your risks?

I think we are more focused on solutions, for the problems we have now. Something terrible is occurring in some of our young men and we have to roll up our sleeves and get solutions in place.

Yes, very insightful, he should have demanded his tax returns.

NOT JUST PRONOUN-POLICING: Last week’s Democratic Socialists of America convention debated and approved a resolution to work more closely with Antifa.

Antifa is on a downhill sprint toward murder, if the Dayton Killer wasn't the first Antifa mass killer.

 

Trump is in trouble

If he remains loyal to his base he will never win because that base is simply not large enough, not with the millennials coming of age. Every child (nearly) that has grown up learning how to hide from a mass shooter wants change



Even some Trump supporters may swing on this

Unless he does something spectacular he is NOT going to recruit new supporters. The reason for that is that he is not just disliked by those who do not support him, he is LOATHED

 

We did have slavery google up “blackbirding”

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09...story-of-kidnapping-pacific-islanders/8860754

And the “stolen wages indigenous”
https://www.theguardian.com/austral...n-wages-settlement-from-queensland-government

But thanks for the rest mate!

I think it is probably more likely we will cement the ASEAN ties



Pity the Trans Pacific Partnership was ripped up by the idiot in chief as it would have done more to put a check in China

 

Yes, I read about 'blackbirding'. Astonishing. Also something that a lot of people don't know about is your history of violent class struggle,
and repression of the Left by the government and its courts. A friend of mine's father was editor of the CP newspaper The Guardian (nothing to
do with the papers of that name today) in the fifties. He was the victim of an attempted frame up, trying to get him charged as a child molester. It was totally
untrue and he finally beat the charges. I think the perpetrators were fanatical Roman Catholics for whom the end justified the means. Disgusting people.

If you would like to see some more advertisements for Australian quality, see here. These upset one of your countrymen, but I don't think he is typical of Australian men.

 

Really? You got a source for that, Lee?

 

No core beliefs? He is doing what he has been talking about since 1988.

 

Describing neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and members of the KKK who participated in an armed invasion of Charlottesville, VA, Trump said, "you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides."

Describing four women of color who are members of Congress and known as "The Squad," Trump said, “Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.” All four are American citizens. Three were born in the U.S. The fourth came to the U.S. as a child.

Elijah Cummings is a black member of the House of Representatives from Baltimore, and he is chairman of the Oversight Committee. Trump described Cummings' Seventh District as a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess,” Trump added “no human being would want to live there.” Trump has engaged in a week long attack on Cummings, each tweet becoming more vile than the last.

A mass shooting occurred at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in Gilroy, California, on July 28, 2019, at 5:40 p.m., resulting in four deaths—including the gunman—and 12 injuries. The shooter, Santino William Legan, was a white supremacist.

The suspect, Patrick Crusius, in a deadly mass shooting at a shopping mall in El Paso, Texas, yesterday was widely identified on the internet as a young white man whose social media activity showed support and sympathy for Trump’s apparent white nationalist agenda.

 

And the damn fool is too dumb to realize that. Trump does nothing to expand his base. The very opposite is true. He drives voters away. His trade war with China is going very bad and there is no end in sight. Now this, two mass murders and the two shooters were clearly motivated by the President's white supremacist rhetoric. The third shooter seems to be a leftist. He was a copycat killer, so Trump bears some responsibility for him, too.

 

I didn't think he was talking about the people who participated in the "armed invasion".
"you had some very bad people in that group. But you also had people that were very fine people on both sides. You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down of, to them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name.....I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and white nationalists because they should be condemned totally."

 

Don't get too carried away with the 'fatal shore' view of our history. It is an important component, but less so than others. I am descended from a number of convicts on one side of my family (including a First Fleeter) and free settlers on the other. The role free settlers played in the evolution of Australia's character & institutions was vitally important, perhaps more so than any other.

I'm not sure I'd agree with that. Your working class gained a great deal of 'class consciousness' but within a different political & social order. Ironically your system, explicitly founded on notions of equality, offered less protection for workers than ours, founded as an act of the Parliament at Westminster.

'Dundee' was the moment Americans finally discovered that Australians existed as actual (if slightly fictionalised) people. I visited the US some years before Dundee. At one point my parents were complimented on their proficiency with English. I think they just smiled & said thank you. We weer quite the novelty.

While we combine aspects of British (and I mean the whole lot of them) and American characteristics, with a big dollop of Irish thrown in, I think we get on better with our American counterparts (well, the sane ones). We share some of the same new world mentalities and we have a similar sense of space. Those qualities we also share with our Canadian bretheren, though they seem a bit polite compared to us.

The sort fo folks you spent time with here sound a lot like the sort of people I've spent a fair bit of time around. They are very good company, even if some of their ideas on the world don't bear close examination.

I'm not sure if you are aware, but the term 'lucky country' was actually coined in the 1960s as a critique of Australia - an attack on the way our wealth of resources allowed us to wallow in mediocrity in so many other vital respects. The adoption of the term as a proud national description seemed to confirm the thesis of the book. Since then, however, our mentality has changed a great deal, mostly for the better.

Sadly I don't share your optimism on China, and especially our potential role. I knew a few Chinese Australians or Chinese citizens who live here. I don't see us doing much to change China. At this point I'll be happy enough if China doesn't change us.

 

Thank you for PROVING me to be 100% CORRECT again with respect to your erroneous CHERRY PICKING.

 

Thank you for proving me to be right again!