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talaniman · Mar 11, 2014, 06:11 PM

I know its none of my business, but what if one of your states or territories voted to ignore the Australian government? What would happen?

How about if it was that state that produces a lot of oil?

smoothy · Mar 11, 2014, 06:15 PM

We had a really bloody civil war the last time that was tried here.

paraclete · Mar 11, 2014, 06:27 PM

Originally Posted by talaniman

I know its none of my business, but what if one of your states or territories voted to ignore the Australian government? What would happen?

How about if it was that state that produces a lot of oil?

Firstly we would like a state to produce a lot of oil, but our mineral rich states serve as a proxy.

We do have states who have not gone along with federal policies, I think WA decided to opt out of the funding changes associated with the Gonski education reforms, the result they got less funding. The mining tax targetted the mineral rich states with the result that some increased state royalties which would reduce federal tax revenue, we didn't have a war over it, but the present government will abolish the tax allowing the state to keep the extra revenue anyway.

What you fail to understand is we take a less confrontational approach to solving our problems with the result that a consensus can usually be reached. We don't need to keep referring to constitutional powers to get things done. With our democracy there is a clear divide between Federal policies and state implementation with the federal sphere responsible for big picture items and the states for local boots on the ground stuff. So the federal government decides on how much funding and the states provide the inferstructure

Unlike yourselves we haven't added any states since federation so we don't have the same crop of local issues, we also are not localised in administration to the same extent simplifying a great deal

smoothy · Mar 11, 2014, 06:44 PM

Except your constitution is written in pencil... and easily and frequently changed by a minority that get in power. Ours can not be changed by any minority. Not even Obama... though he seems to believe otherwise. Strange since he has Claimed to have been a Constitutional Law professor....something thats never been proven to be true...and his actions which clearly prove it could never be true. When the average middle school student understands the Constitution better than a sitting president does (not to mention half the Senate).

paraclete · Mar 11, 2014, 06:59 PM

Originally Posted by smoothy

Except your constitution is written in pencil... and easily and frequently changed by a minority that get in power. Ours can not be changed by any minority. Not even Obama... though he seems to believe otherwise. Strange since he has Claimed to have been a Constitutional Law professor....something thats never been proven to be true...and his actions which clearly prove it could never be true. When the average middle school student understands the Constitution better than a sitting president does (not to mention half the Senate).

And where did you get that piece of propaganda from? our constitution has rarely changed and it is a difficult process for it to be changed requiring a majority of voters and a majority of states to agree. Most attempts to change it, including our becoming a republic have failed. Since 1901, 19 referendums have proposed 44 changes to the Constitution; only eight changes have been agreed to

smoothy · Mar 11, 2014, 07:02 PM

Oh that's right... you never had the constitutional right to self defense... we do. Few people in the world actually do.

If we were essentially unarmed like you are and Canada...I have ZERO doubt Obama and his minions would have pulled a Hugo Chavez here...

paraclete · Mar 11, 2014, 07:49 PM

I have told you before we are not unarmed, we can own weapons but certain weapons are prescribed

No doubt the propaganda you were subjected to a a child told you that americans have superior rights to others, but the fact is that we have the same rights as you do, since they stem from the same english law dating back to the magna carta.

Unlike yourselves we have not found it necessary to engage in armed conflict to enforce our independence or confiscate the lands of preexistant peoples, our colonies were self governing in the 1800's culminating in federation in 1901 under a constitution based on your own, suggestions we don't enjoy the rights of free men are rediculous

smoothy · Mar 11, 2014, 07:53 PM

Really... I seem to remember there were people already living there before England turned Australia into a penal colony, and like most places...the original inhabitants weren't treated too well. Much like England was when the Romans were there. We engaged in Armed Conflict because the Crown couldn't grasp that we were serious when we told them to get stuffed. It took an armed conflict to get the message across.

paraclete · Mar 11, 2014, 08:06 PM

Originally Posted by smoothy

Really... I seem to remember there were people already living there before England turned Australia into a penal colony, and like most places...the original inhabitants weren't treated too well. Much like England was when the Romans were there. We engaged in Armed Conflict because the Crown couldn't grasp that we were serious when we told them to get stuffed. It took an armed conflict to get the message across.

Most people don't respond well when told to get stuffed by a bunch of backwoods colonials. That little skermish you had over there you won principally because the british had other things on their mind at the time and were unable to commit the full weight of their military. An expanse of water makes a formidable barrier and we have learned from your experience. As far as the original inhabitants of this land go they were treated no worse than the original inhabitants of your own land, however we did not engage in open warfare with them with the intent of stealing their lands, but then we are once again speaking about the british and not the Australians since the nation of Australia was not formed until 1901 and we do not appropriate the acts of those people as our own

talaniman · Mar 11, 2014, 08:17 PM

Must be nice to deny what your founders did.

paraclete · Mar 11, 2014, 08:59 PM

I am descendent of free settlers who had no bad relations with the natives, what the british did was establish a colony and explore a land that was largely uninhabited, much of it remains similiarly uninhabited today. There were no boundry markers, no discernable settlements. They carved a settlement out of a wilderness and survived a harsh environment just as your own early settlers did. If there are apologies to be made it is only that no price was paid for the land unlike the beads given for land in the americas, how do you pay someone who has no concept of ownership?

smoothy · Mar 12, 2014, 05:22 AM

By that same token I am a descendant of immigrants who came to the USA after 1900 from Ireland, Scotland and Germany. Nobody in my bloodline had anything to do with anything that happened here before that time as well.

paraclete · Mar 12, 2014, 06:18 AM

THe both of us do not have blood on our hands by reason of walking over the land and dwelling in it. You see I am over this guilt trip of how we took something away and therefore we owe somebody something and I do not acknowledge the traditional owners, custodians or whatever they think they are today. The only indigenous people I see are blowins from somewhereelse.

So therefore we do not need to lament the sins of the forefathers, grevious they they may have been, we have taken noones liberty away, and we don't have to be more than fair in our dealings with all comers. I am part of a stolen generation here, not because I am indigenous but because some ning nongs in a church thought a single parent should not be allowed to raise her child alone, noone apologises to me for the harm they did.

smoothy · Mar 12, 2014, 06:39 AM

I never had to get over a guilt trip I've never had either... I've never opressed anyone, my relatives haven't either... and have no responsibility for anyone else that has. And quite the contrary... my grandaprents were victims of oppression, my Irish grandfather in particular ( the old Irish need not apply thing that used to happen here)... but that's all in the past, and the past is the past. We all live in the here and now.

talaniman · Mar 12, 2014, 07:14 AM

You seemed to have assimilated better than the former slaves that built the wealth and fortunes of this great nation. One could wonder how well you would have faired if your entire language and culture were replaced and not allowed to ride with the dominant group or drink from there fountains, or kept in your place that another had assigned to you.

Glad your family thrived and survived, and you overcame the obstacles of birth, and hatred, but the struggle continues for many without the obvious advantage that allowed you to fit in. You never lynched a fellow, I got that, but don't dismiss that a fellow was lynched either.

You should enjoy your freedoms and rights, but stop looking down your nose at those that still struggle, while you thrive. Naw you didn't come to hurt nobody, and haven't, but you talk about 'em like a dog, so its easy to see whose side you took when you got your own freedom. I mean how many a$$ whumpin' can you take tough guy, after they replaced the whips and chains with MONEY?

smoothy · Mar 12, 2014, 07:42 AM

The whiners need to get over it... anyone that was an adult when the Jim Crowe laws were repealed is retirement age now... that means everyone younger is just lazy looking for excuses to get a free ride.

And sorry... exactly what former slaves built great wealth here? What weath that may have existed then was pretty much completely spent during the Civil war...

The hatred that's been happening the last 40 or 50 years are from people that blame things that happened generations earlier for their own laziness and lack of ambition... or for accepting their own responsibility for the choices they make in life.

I didn't get one IOTA of help because I had the misfortune of being poor and white... while lazy bums like Obama got free everything handed to him for no reason but his skin color while others got fast tracked ahead of more qualified people also just because of a darker skin color.

WHat I talk about happened roughly 35 years ago... so despite being handed everythig on a silver platter... exactly what right do they have to be complaining because they screwed up the opportunities specially reserved for them?

Nope... no sympathy here... I paid my own way through college because my parents couldn't afford it and I had the wrong skin color to get a free ride... I didn't get a free ride via scholarships because I wasn't at the top of my class... I worked hard increacing my skillset and changing jobs to slowly climb my way up the ladder... again without any special assistance many people in certain ethnic groups feel they are entitled to for some reason. Incidentally... I work with a number of people from that same ethnic group that think exactly as I do... the opportunities are there if you apply yourself. Nobody is entitled to a free ride.

My wife on the other hand works with a few that think a different set of rules should apply to them (they are in their 20's)... just because of their skin color. And those same few criticize one other person in the same office of the same ethnicity (same 20 something age group)... because they have a strong work ethic.. and a drive to get ahead. Because they aren't "Black" despite their being even darker skinned than the others doing the complaining.

Lazy and irresponsible isn't an ethnic trait of any group... its a character flaw... way differnent thing.

talaniman · Mar 12, 2014, 08:22 AM

Jim Crow was rejected but his son James is alive well and thriving. He thanks you for your help and support through your resentments, and perpetration of hard core intransigence. Sorry you have not achieved the easy ride you thought you were entitled too. But glad you had an opportunity for your hard work to pay off.

smoothy · Mar 12, 2014, 08:47 AM

Care to offer up any proof it exists anywhere but the minds of the people that feel they are entitled to free rides over something that happened long before they were born?

I resent the lazy bums that think they are entitled to free rides... they don't deserve anything they don't go out and earn.

They all have MORE opportunity than the majority had thanks to reverse discrimination being pushed by the liberals and Democrat party.

Sorry... but they get ZERO sympathy... they can work hard and earn it like everyone else has to do. If they won't.. then they only deserve what they did work to earn, not one thing more.

I know far too many people who came here knowing real poverty in their home country... had none of the benefits one specific minority gets. Didn't have the benefit of English being their mother tongue... and in some cases do it as a single mother.. getting no child support or government handouts.. raising several kids... AND becoming quite successful through hard work and ethical behaviour.

THOSE are the people I have respect for... not some group that thinks baggy pants hanging around their knees... that dropped out of school... blaoming everything on something that ended over 160 years prior... Some of them who don't even have bloodlines that go back that far in this country.

WHich incidentally... is another thing... I'm tired of people whining about what happened here like it only happened here or started here...

Who built the Pyramids in Egypt? SLAVE labor... the short amount of time we had slavery was a brief moment in time compared to the thousands of years it existed and still does exist in Africa and the Middle East.

Everyone here has an opportunity... if they choose to squander or not use it is on them, not the rest of us.

And coincidently....I know more than a few people of that same ethnicity....that feel exactly the same as I do about the class of whiners that expect a free ride, no matter what ethnicity they are..

And this may be a shock....but my coworker, who happens to be black, and a Democrat....is even tougher on that group than I am. And he is in his mid 60's.

talaniman · Mar 12, 2014, 09:08 AM

That's a slight misconception for those who have been going through the fallout of what happen through their own experience. May I point out that the issue as I see it is not separating the individual, as you vilify the group? The lack of as much opportunity as there was back in the day is common to MANY groups today.

smoothy · Mar 12, 2014, 09:54 AM

No its not... bad choices are that persons own responsibility.

If there are no job to be had where they are living... they move to where there are.

I've done it... many other have done it... they can do it too. I'm not from the area I live... and its not exactly where I want to live... I'm here because its reasonably nice and I have job opportunities in my field I don't have where I grew up. Or other places I have lived... or even the other place I have property.

I could be living on the Italian Riviera right now... I have an apartment there... but the economy sucks there and job opportunities aren't exactly to my preference. I could have a job literally the day after I get there... but if that went sour... I wouldn't have a backup plan... I always want a backup plan.

SO I am back in this area working... because I have options... and because unlike certain groups of people... I know life is what I make it... and I'm not entitled to a free ride.

I don't disagree there is a lack of responsibility in other groups as well... the differenece is THEY aren't using the same lame excuse. Blaming it on something that happened to their great,great, great granparents.

If it wasn't for British oppression and the Kaisers in Germany.....my grandparents would have never left Europe....but what happened to them has no bearing on responsibility of the choices I make...good or bad. And I've made my share of bad choices over the years. I don't have the Midas touch....I've just learned to make more good choices than bad ones.