Unpopular Opinions you have (non-football)

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Scotland

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A very tiny part of me hopes Trump becomes President and then stops the Muslims coming
I'm sure such a move would win him many friends in the middle east and the fall out from it would be epic watching
I'm curious to know Trump's position on Syria.

Is he on the side of the Muslims? Or the Muslims? Or the Muslims? Or does he just align with whichever side(s) the minority Christian population fall on?

Playing the 'no Muslims' card is dumb when your nation is has important allies in majority Muslim nations. Arab Muslims (ie the ones the US is currently shooting bombs at) only make up about a quarter of the total Muslim population in the US anyway.

There are much more subtle ways to have a 'USA! USA! USA!' viewpoint on immigration.
 

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edgie

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I think if Trump gets elected you may get to see that vision
Trump is going to do this?



Cool.

I find Hitler's version for Germany and Berlin and the general infrastructure that was to be rolled out extremely fascinating, especially the work of Albert Speer.

Same goes for the Soviet Union. These really incredibly visions and projects. Meanwhile in Aus we can't even manage a ******* highway.
 

Scotland

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Unpopular Opinion:
A part of me is curious to see what Hitler's vision for a victorious post war Germany would turn out like had it come to fruition.
I don't know if that's an unpopular opinion. More a curiosity. I'd be fascinated to see a parallel universe where the Dutch or French settled here, or the Japs invaded in WWII, or the US stayed out of WWII, or Greg Chappell was sick on 1st February 1981...

People are horrified at the thought of Hitler's eugenics driven vision for Germany (among other things) but mono-ethnic/mono-cultural places are actually quite fascinating. And for another unpopular opinion an all white anything is treated very differently to an all black, all Asian etc. equivalent. Japan for example is a brilliant country and it's about as diverse as a polo club. If our immigration policy was anywhere near theirs we'd be derided as the most racist nation on Earth.
 

Scotland

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I just read this:

http://www.theleadermaker.com/hitlers-vision-for-the-future-of-the-world/



The world would be a scary place if a Nazi state controlled the area shown. If you think about how much power the US wields compared to a state that would encompass the EU, North Africa, the Middle East and the Eastern part of the US... scheisse! I guess there would be no Israel/Palestine conflict as they probably would've wiped them all out and demolished every manger and mosque from Stockholm to Somalia. Just imagine the entire middle East oil output in the hands of zee Chermans.
 

Barry_Badrinath

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Racial diversity is not beneficial. It's not bad, but it's not good either. If you look at the countries that have made the most progress since the 1960's (when the civil rights movement kicked off in the west), it isn't the Western countries that have raised their standard of living the most, it's countries like Japan, South Korea and China.
 

CM86

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Definition > no definition.

The definition will change, probably after the next election. Until then I'd rather we had an established position of who can and cannot get married rather than having marriages that don't mean anything due to legal uncertainty.

This is the amendment that you think was necessary:

"Marriage means the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life.
Certain unions are not marriages. A union solemnised in a foreign country between: (a) a man and another man; or (b) a woman and another woman; must not be recognised as a marriage in Australia"

All it did was specifically exclude same-sex marriage.
What part of that, do you think was essential?
 

Scotland

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Racial diversity is not beneficial. It's not bad, but it's not good either. If you look at the countries that have made the most progress since the 1960's (when the civil rights movement kicked off in the west), it isn't the Western countries that have raised their standard of living the most, it's countries like Japan, South Korea and China.
Agreed, but those countries (like many today) were aspiring to reach the level we already achieved.

The biggest benefit multicultural Australia (ie post WWII immigration) has provided has been the economic boost of population growth and hard working, cheap labour rather than any massive cultural shift. In more recent years that focus has shifted to cheap skilled labour.
 

Scotland

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This is the amendment that you think was necessary:

"Marriage means the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life.
Certain unions are not marriages. A union solemnised in a foreign country between: (a) a man and another man; or (b) a woman and another woman; must not be recognised as a marriage in Australia"

All it did was specifically exclude same-sex marriage.
What part of that, do you think was essential?
So was gay marriage legal prior to 2004 or wasn't it?
 

Gough

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So was gay marriage legal prior to 2004 or wasn't it?
Same sex unions were already legal in England, and Howard was nobodies fool, he saw the winds of change, and acted accordingly. The Act had never really been tested prior to that because the concept of gay marriage, is a very new one, even to gay people. Queer theory completely rejected marriage for a long time.
 

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Scotland

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Predictably you guys are focusing on the definition rather than the fact that a definition was introduced which was my original point.

IMO marriage (gay or otherwise) shouldn't be about 'testing' the law, which is exactly where we'd be now without a prescribed definition. I'd rather have a position and be willing to debate the issue than not have one and require people to go between courts and tribunals to determine if their marriage certificate means anything.

Anyway, this is the unpopular opinions thread and I've succeeded in providing that.
 

CM86

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Predictably you guys are focusing on the definition rather than the fact that a definition was introduced which was my original point.

IMO marriage (gay or otherwise) shouldn't be about 'testing' the law, which is exactly where we'd be now without a prescribed definition. I'd rather have a position and be willing to debate the issue than not have one and require people to go between courts and tribunals to determine if their marriage certificate means anything.

Anyway, this is the unpopular opinions thread and I've succeeded in providing that.
Don't have to be so defensive.

You stated you thought it was necessary, we were just asking you why.

I think you're just being stubborn. You wanted to be a little edgy and thought you had a strong point. It wasn't strong.
 

Run n Spread

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I'm curious to know Trump's position on Syria.

Is he on the side of the Muslims? Or the Muslims? Or the Muslims? Or does he just align with whichever side(s) the minority Christian population fall on?

Playing the 'no Muslims' card is dumb when your nation is has important allies in majority Muslim nations. Arab Muslims (ie the ones the US is currently shooting bombs at) only make up about a quarter of the total Muslim population in the US anyway.

There are much more subtle ways to have a 'USA! USA! USA!' viewpoint on immigration.
Why dumb? From my understanding Trump is playing the isolationist card. In which case why should he give a >>>>>> what happens in Syria. Granted I think some of his philosophies otherwise are screwed but that is a matter for US citizins to decide and none of anyone elses business.

US is not an Islamic country. If Trump chooses to divorce them from whatever factional wars going on abroad and chooses to remove US troops from harms way abroad that is actually his prerogative. He is under no obligation to pick sides in a Foreign Civil War.
 

Scotland

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Given that the US are allied with Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey and Egypt it's not the smartest move in the world to go whipping up anti-Muslim sentiment. Does his 'wall' not apply to Saudi royals, diplomats and oil barons who can fly their private planes over it?

He doesn't have to pick a side (he will, the US always do) but if (when) he does it won't be 'the side that the Muslims aren't on' because that's not how it works.
 

ioppolo

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I don't know if that's an unpopular opinion. More a curiosity. I'd be fascinated to see a parallel universe where the Dutch or French settled here, or the Japs invaded in WWII, or the US stayed out of WWII, or Greg Chappell was sick on 1st February 1981...

People are horrified at the thought of Hitler's eugenics driven vision for Germany (among other things) but mono-ethnic/mono-cultural places are actually quite fascinating. And for another unpopular opinion an all white anything is treated very differently to an all black, all Asian etc. equivalent. Japan for example is a brilliant country and it's about as diverse as a polo club. If our immigration policy was anywhere near theirs we'd be derided as the most racist nation on Earth.
You're only racist if you're white. Everyone knows this.
 

Barry_Badrinath

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I believe climate change deniers need to have their head examined, but I don't think we (Australia) should do anything about trying to fix it. We're responsible for 1.3% of global emissions. A 20% reduction in emissions would only cut world emissions by 0.26%. Enforcing a tax on polluters would make things even harder for an already struggling resources sector. We'd be harming ourselves for no benefit whatsoever.
 

chargers 09

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I think people are too harsh on the US. If you are world superpower you are bound to have enemies, and have a right to police the world and wield your power. To a degree.


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DaVillaBlues

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I think people are too harsh on the US. If you are world superpower you are bound to have enemies, and have a right to police the world and wield your power. To a degree.


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Bollocks, who trained Osama Lin Laden and The Tailban to get the Ruskies out of Afghanistan? Who helped put tyrannical despots and regimes to power in countries like Libya, Iraq and Egypt in the 70s and 80s etc ?

A lot of problems in the world today (ie Terrorists) are as a result of the USA and their flawed foreign polices, and I don't think they have the moral authority to act as the world's 'Super Police'

Trump was right in one thing saying the US should have never invaded Iraq (the second time around)

Global politics collectively speaking, The US have caused far more problems than anything good, since World War II.
 

Scotland

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I believe climate change deniers need to have their head examined, but I don't think we (Australia) should do anything about trying to fix it. We're responsible for 1.3% of global emissions. A 20% reduction in emissions would only cut world emissions by 0.26%. Enforcing a tax on polluters would make things even harder for an already struggling resources sector. We'd be harming ourselves for no benefit whatsoever.
I don't like the 'well we're only a small contributor, why should we do anything?' argument. If everyone said that we'd never get anywhere.

What I do agree with is that our token efforts will achieve nothing in terms of saving the planet. We should as a society use less energy, stop polluting our waterways etc. because it's just the right thing to do.

We're at 1.3% of total global emissions, or 14th out of all nations. We're about 4 times our share relative to population. Shame, straya, shame. If everyone lived like we do, well my childhood dream of having a hills property by the sea would probably be reality.

The problem is - we, and everyone else - are full of shit. Our prosperity isn't only dependent on being resource consumers, it's dependent on others doing the same and more importantly striving to do the same. Our CO2 emissions are 10-15 times more per capita than India and 2-3 times more than China. Their collective output is 30 times more than ours. From 2000 today China's CO2 emissions have nearly tripled. Yep, tripled. That's called a nation of over a billion people joining the developed world, or as we call it here a boom period for our economy. But as long as we buy imported solar panels and drive Prius' we're saving the planet. The fact that we export multiples of the amount of coal we burn each year to countries that are building coal power stations... that's good for our economy so we won' talk about that. And now China has cooled India is the new sleeping giant ready to industrialise. And buy all our coal, iron ore etc.

Besides, there is no point having targets for emissions when we don't have targets for population anyway.
 

The_Reaper

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I think if Trump gets elected you may get to see that vision
Nah.

Trump isn't Hitler

I'm curious to know Trump's position on Syria.

Is he on the side of the Muslims? Or the Muslims? Or the Muslims? Or does he just align with whichever side(s) the minority Christian population fall on?

Playing the 'no Muslims' card is dumb when your nation is has important allies in majority Muslim nations. Arab Muslims (ie the ones the US is currently shooting bombs at) only make up about a quarter of the total Muslim population in the US anyway.

There are much more subtle ways to have a 'USA! USA! USA!' viewpoint on immigration.
Pretty sure his position is that it isn't America's problem.

Which is sadly an upgrade on the current American position which is pretty confused and has no end game
 
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