Leigh, you've gotta feel a bit sorry for his daughter who's some sort of legal eagle with Amnesty and has publicly stated that she doesn't agree with her father wearing the Amnesty badge.

Now that I think about it, that was probably an overly optimistic use of the past tense. I cannot share the laid-back-ness of Oz--my moment will be over when they ship that gargoyle of a politician off to Antarctica in a dingy, where with any luck the penguins will have instituted a mandatory detention policy all of their own.

Edit: Mm, I hadn't heard that moonlit. Poor gal--I disagree with my father about a great many things but thankfully politics isn't one of them (which is a good thing for both our sakes since if I was anything other than leftist he'd probably disown me).

Leigh, I feel your pain. When the Tampa business happened I fired off a very disgruntled communique to both the cadaver (aka the minister for immigration imprisoning-asians) and the rodent (aka the prime minister miniature). In return I received full copies of our immigration and border control policies, riveting reading let me tell you.

prime minister miniature

Snerk.

I know it's petty but when people mock John Howard's size and/or his ENORMOUS EYEBROWS it makes me laugh.

I had to stop watching the news for a month after they won the last election. I was so fucking incensed that they not only pulled that rascist crap, but that it worked so effectively...it makes me inarticulate with rage even now. What gets me though, is the sense of self-satisfied entitlement which pervades the whole issue--we've got ours and too bad if you too would like the chance to live without being horrendously poor and/or shot at on a regular basis because we didn't go to all the trouble of being born in the right place just to let you waltz in here and demand a share. I just...there are no words.

is the sense of self-satisfied entitlement which pervades the whole issue--we've got ours and too bad if you too would like the chance to live without being horrendously poor and/or shot at on a regular basis because we didn't go to all the trouble of being born in the right place just to let you waltz in here and demand a share.

Are you SURE you're un-American?

bitterbitterbitterbitterbitter

The trouble is -- what is a reasonable way to deal with the huge flood of people who would come to the more fortunate countries, by any means possible, if you weren't tough about it? Governments fear chaos, voter backlash and big social problems. And to some extent, they're right.

Most Western countries now have a net population loss. Fewer children are being born. America's population is holding steady; the difference is immigration, both legal and illegal. As a result, not only is there an influx of new interesting people, but our tax base isn't as top-heavy (old-heavy?) as, say, Sweden's or France's.

I live in a state, California, that has enormous immigration from other countries. Walking down the street is an adventure -- Epcot without the Disney. My children's school lists have a salmagundi of non-Anglo-Saxon names, and they love it. Multi-ethnic societies have new challenges, most definitely including translation costs and school costs, but the one I live in is fizzy and exciting.

[Or, to be shorter-winded, chaos isn't an inevitable consequence of immigration, and there are social gains as well as social costs.]

I wouldn't dream of knocking immigration, per se. Everyone in the world practically is descended from someone shifting somewhere else to get a better life. What I'm talking about is uncontrolled immigration and the political difficulties of controlling it. How much immigration is good and productive, and how much is too much, and how do you control people smuggling and what do you do about illegal immigrants? America, Britain, Australia, all dice with these issues, as do any other countries seen as offering a ``better life''.

Well, there's a difference between controlling immigration and creating a non-issue by lying about the situation (They're terrorists! They throw their children overboard!) and encouraging fear and racism in the populace in order to win an election.

Mandatory detention does nothing but pile more trauma onto people who have arguably suffered enough trauma in their lives already if they're willing to take their children and climb onto a leaky boat and sail hundreds of kilometres across the open sea. It's not a neccessary policy, and it violates the terms of several international treaties on human rights (the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, just as an example) which we've signed.

I don't object to controlling immigration, I just strongly (and usually with a lot more profanity) object to how my government is currently choosing to 'handle' the issue.

Edit:

Are you SURE you're un-American?

Uh, just let me check...well, the Prime Minister says we're not so much 'UN-American' as 'concurrently-American' and his plan to have the entire country moved (perhaps atop of Canada, considering their current shameless lack of pandering to their illustrious neighbour) so that this is factually true is coming along swimmingly.