Emotional detachment is always a fine thing. Except when it gets people killed. You may want to go back to 1939 and 1982 and reconsider your position, O Grumpy God.
And in fact it's irrelevant to my concise argument about the Aussie election. I'd trust Bowen to collate the numbers better, but I lived there for a year, and I know what the bloody place is like, come election time. It's a horrible cross between Tammany Hall and the Oxford Union.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but most of the heroes of modern democracy, as epitomised by a varied selection from Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine through the Chartists and Lloyd George (1911, if not after) and the Bevan/Bevin twins, and the little man down the village Post Office that closed who still sits on the parish council ...
... None of those people give a shit about your "emotional detachment."
The very fact that any political party is able to put up a "Stop the boats" argument anywhere on their silly, balloon throwing, hey-there's a barbie-next, comfortable little middle-class rally dooms these Ocker fuckers to purgatory, as far as I'm concerned.
I'm not remotely in favour of uncontrolled immigration (although I should be, because I'd be back in California right now, and fuck the lot of you). However, I object to political irrationalism (Australia really doesn't have a current immigration problem/issue) combined with a sordid appeal to the past (they're not talking about "immigration," they're talking about "boat people.")
"Boat-People" is a nasty little trigger issue in Australia that started off from Vietnam (with that country's wonderfully stupid decision to throw out 10% of the population just because they were Chinese) and had knock-on effects in the new host countries (mostly Australia in the '80s and '90s). But it's no longer relevant.
This isn't political discourse on a Power-Point presentation. It's basically a combination of ignorance, terror, and fascism.
I'd go with your mates from 1939 and 1982, if I were you. Fuck emotional detachment. Get real.
Argument from lack of authority
Emotional detachment is always a fine thing. Except when it gets people killed. You may want to go back to 1939 and 1982 and reconsider your position, O Grumpy God.
And in fact it's irrelevant to my concise argument about the Aussie election. I'd trust Bowen to collate the numbers better, but I lived there for a year, and I know what the bloody place is like, come election time. It's a horrible cross between Tammany Hall and the Oxford Union.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but most of the heroes of modern democracy, as epitomised by a varied selection from Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine through the Chartists and Lloyd George (1911, if not after) and the Bevan/Bevin twins, and the little man down the village Post Office that closed who still sits on the parish council ...
... None of those people give a shit about your "emotional detachment."
The very fact that any political party is able to put up a "Stop the boats" argument anywhere on their silly, balloon throwing, hey-there's a barbie-next, comfortable little middle-class rally dooms these Ocker fuckers to purgatory, as far as I'm concerned.
I'm not remotely in favour of uncontrolled immigration (although I should be, because I'd be back in California right now, and fuck the lot of you). However, I object to political irrationalism (Australia really doesn't have a current immigration problem/issue) combined with a sordid appeal to the past (they're not talking about "immigration," they're talking about "boat people.")
"Boat-People" is a nasty little trigger issue in Australia that started off from Vietnam (with that country's wonderfully stupid decision to throw out 10% of the population just because they were Chinese) and had knock-on effects in the new host countries (mostly Australia in the '80s and '90s). But it's no longer relevant.
This isn't political discourse on a Power-Point presentation. It's basically a combination of ignorance, terror, and fascism.
I'd go with your mates from 1939 and 1982, if I were you. Fuck emotional detachment. Get real.