Leon Davis/Rex Hunt Issue

[weevil]

Weevil, I'm not going to play your little game. You telegraphed what you're up too far too obviously.

What your attempting here is what is known in the political world as "push-polling". That's a process where you ask people a series of carefully planned yes/no questions on semi-related subjects. Each question appears to have an obvious answer. When the final question comes, (the one the poll is really about), the person being questioned is forced to either give the answer the pollster wants, or contradict their earlier answers.

Let's save some time.

You want to ask a series of questions that will result in me saying that Men shouldn't hit women because men are more powerful than women...White Australians are more powerful than Aboriginal Australians...(and, after a few more questions no doubt)...It's acceptable to discriminate in favour of Aborigines. You're talking demographics instead of individuals.

I will agree that as demographics men are stronger than women and White Australians are more powerful than Aborigines. Only a fool would disagree with that.

The situation of many of the individual people belonging to those demographics is very different.Tell me weevil, how would you place these three Australians in order of power (as individuals)....

a) Cathy Freeman with her million dollar home and the ear of any media outlet.
b) Kerry Packer with his $multi-millions and multi-media empire.
c) The homeless white guy who lives on the street, sleeping on a doorstep under a sheet of newspaper.

Pretty obviously the order is b - a - c which proves that the power and need of the individual is not necessarily tied to their demographic.

I'm all for providing assistance to all people based on their level of need as individuals. With such a disproportionately high number of Aborigines being in great need they will gain most from that assistance, but individual non-Aborigines in need wouldn't be locked out the way they are when need is assessed according to demographics.

I’m not playing any game; I think the two situations are very clearly parallel.

I’m simply asking you questions to try to see how you justify your opinions. I now have a better understanding of where you are coming from.

I can flat out insist you are wrong about everything, and you can do the same to me if you would prefer?

...In an ideal world I think what you are saying would be very reasonable. The problem is that this is not an ideal world and in reality it would be incredibly impractical.

Obviously there are always individuals who go against their demographic trends. There are very, very, very, very rare cases of spousal abuse where it is the wife who is violent towards the husband.

But the facts are that in the massive majority of cases it is the other way around.

Many wives may indeed hit their husbands but virtually every time they do not have the power to make it really hurt.

There are thousands of shelters for battered woman all over the country.

Do we have to build the exact same number of shelters for men as well? Just to make sure everything is perfectly fair for both sides?

Or do we close all the shelters for females because if men don’t have them then woman shouldn’t?

...Or do you want to pay for millions of comities everywhere to continuously decide over every single aspect of ever single case on an individual basis?

 

[PieClive]

This is brilliant work kiddies.

The Davis/Hunt "storm in a teacup" has blown away and you've now managed to stretch this thread to 34 pages.

Keep up the good work.

 

[beatnik]

Re: Rex Hunt is a plonka!

Good enough:

Yes it is.

Reffo is short for refugee as Abo is short for Aborigine. Dago is a complete new word and is derogatory. I accept that such words were considered racist in bygone eras as there was much racism going around it would have been hard to distinguish which is which. But in the year 2005 the word Abo is a simple abbreviation and it's about time people stopped being so precious and realised the word for what it is. With people like you who refuse to make concessions we'll never be able to evolve into a progessive society.

We've already stood up and denounced such words as boong and coon and it's about time we stood up and accepted that Abo is nothing but a simple abbreviation. Of course this will take time but with people like you who refuse to accept any logic, it'll take longer.

that was unbelievable bunsen...

I'm just wondering whether you belong to the caravan park One Nation redneck category or the Young Liberal silver spoon xenophobe brigade - in either case you are breathtakingly short of life experience and/or grey matter

by your strange logic, the term 'n*gg*r' is somehow an innocent abbreviation of the term 'negro' - I would love to watch you make your case in person to Shaq or Lennox Lewis

the term 'Abo' is exactly what everyone knows it to be...a hateful, cowardly remnant of a time when the First Australians were poisoned, slaughtered, dispossessed, introduced to new disease and addictive substances, and even more embarrassing to the average Australian - they had their children taken away from them because their skin colour was deemed to make them unfit for parenthood (surprisingly not so long ago...do some research)

the point is bunsen, I used to think like you and then I learned to read...

I suggest you learn also and then go and do some study...once you learn some of the facts then you will distance yourself from your current opinions and possibly earn the credibility to comment on race relations

there is always hope bunsen, even for a numbskull like you...

peace