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thumper 04-May-25, 17:10	Up until '96 I thought Australia was pretty solid. What happened?
bobspringett 04-May-25, 17:53	Thumper 17:10 <Up until '96 I thought Australia was pretty solid.> What do you mean by 'solid'? I'll do my best to answer, once I understand the question.
thumper 05-May-25, 11:26	I withdraw the question. It was meant more as rhetorical than an actual question to be answered.
bobspringett 05-May-25, 14:50	Thumper 11:26 A rhetorical question works well when the answer is obvious and undeniable. Not so well when nobody knows what you are talking about. As Monty Python would say, "Nudge, nudge. Wink, wink. Say no more!"
dmaestro 05-May-25, 22:54	Thumper being pro NRA is probably upset about the 1996!response to gun violence injuryprevention.bmj.com Stay strong and don’t let Trump and the MAGAs here push you around.
bobspringett 05-May-25, 23:47	DM 22:54 Perhaps I'm overly suspicious, but I've seen two different reasons for this "Never mind!" response when asked to clarify a question. 1. The person asking doesn't mean anything, but wants to create an atmosphere of "I know something that you don't!" But in fact, the person asking knows nothing. 2. The question itself, if actually put into words, betrays gross ignorance or prejudice, and would shame the person asking. I hold Thumper is higher esteem than to place him into either of these categories, so I assumed that his question was genuine but I was unaware of which of many events in 1996 he was talking about. If you are correct in linking Thumper's question to the firearm reforms, I should point out that these reforms were NOT some soft-centred 'woke' scheme, but were INITIATED and COMPLETED by John Howard, arguably the most conservative Prime Minister of the last 50 years. No ideology involved, just intelligent legislation which the Opposition at the time fully supported rather than trying to make political capital out of it. (That's what good government looks like, just in case you ever get to see anything like it in the States.) No party since then has suggested winding these restrictions back except for the 'Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party ', which picked up less than 1% of the national vote in the 2022 election (still counting in the 2025 election). Our system of preferential voting allows such protest votes for niche policies, with the preference flowing at full strength to the real preferred party; but even so, less that 1% supported this policy even 'in passing'. Reforms like that are indeed 'solid'. It is the absurd situation in America which is flakey.
dmaestro 06-May-25, 00:27	His reply is classic Thumper hit and run tactics to me when he doesn’t run the club. And his NRA supporting views are well known. But then by now I couldn’t care less what he thinks or he me. Maybe he will explain further or not, not my concern, he should IMO, but since he opened the door to speculation I can speculate based on his posting history.
bobspringett 06-May-25, 15:18	An interesting breakdown of how Australians voted... This article takes a slightly different approach to the election, looking at macro-statistics rather than sample polling. What I find most interesting is how it identifies key factors that I would expect to be much the same in USA as in Australia, but how Labor focusses on them while the Democrats in USA focus on more 'aspirational' and niche issues. www.abc.net.au
aussiespud 06-May-25, 20:32	Pretty powerful and compelling set of stats.
apatzer 07-May-25, 17:20	"Democrats in USA focus on more 'aspirational' and niche issues." Because Democrats are their to give the illusion that someone somewhere is trying to solve the problems of the common person.
bobspringett 07-May-25, 17:31	Patz 17:20 I remember some years ago, when I was working as a leaflet distributor on a polling booth. The various workers for different parties all chat with each other in good spirits here in Australia, except for the most extreme wackos. I mentioned to the Labor guy that Labor should cut its ties to the Union Movement. Historically, the ALP has been the political wing of the Union movement and still appoints members to various Labor committees. This would enable it to broaden its appeal to professional and sub-professional voters, now that the percentage of unionised workers has dropped to a fraction of their former strength. He said that was a temptation he would resist to the death. "As soon as we break with the wage worker, we will lose compassion for those who can't afford to unionise. The unions keep us grounded." I disagreed at the time, but I'm starting to see the wisdom of that position.
bobspringett 12-May-25, 21:54	At the election a couple of weeks ago, the 'Liberals' (in Australia, that's what the Conservatives call themselves!) had their own Leader lose his seat in Parliament. So they had to sort through the rubble to find a replacement. Angus Taylor (a rabid Right-winger who has a high level of skill when it comes to saying rubbish with a straight face) faced off against Sussan Ley, who is called a 'moderate' but would have been considered hard-right only twenty years ago. That's how far Right the Conservatives have gone since the turn of the century. The Party Room had the sense to say 'no, thanks!' to Taylor. Ley is also unelectable, but not as bombastic. Meanwhile their Coalition partners, the Nationals, retained their current 'moderate' leader in the face of a challenge from a hard-right challenger. 'Moderate' in the context of the Nationals means that he supports nuclear as a way to reduce CO2 and most of the other right-wing shibboleths, but doesn't insult people as much. All it takes to get rid of these wacko right-wingers is a good election defeat. America should try it a few times. But then, they ARE Americans after all...
lord_shiva 12-May-25, 23:12	We Can’t Quit Them We elect someone halfway decent and turn right back to the bad, again and again. Except lately we’ve doubled down on awful, as though playing Russian roulette with the nation.
lord_shiva 23-May-25, 04:45	Changes in the Military Freedom of speech is being curtailed. Commenting negatively on Groper will be a crime. www.youtube.com
bobspringett 23-May-25, 05:57	Shiva 04:45 There is one constant rule in society. That is, that the culture determines the structure. Stuff Marx, saying that the means of production determine the society; Marx was too naive by a long shot! (I think that means I'm not a Marxist, but in fact I never have been!) That is why the Right have been so focused on Culture Wars; most of their spear-carriers wouldn't have known this consciously, but the culture at the top usually determines the culture all the way down unless the People themselves stand to confront it. Trump's authoritarian model is not the cause of this current abandonment of Due Process in America. It is the result. Since forever, America has said with its lips that "All men are equal" and "Justice for all", but that has never been the truth. The most obvious examples are antebellum slavery and postbellum Jim Crowe; but even aside from that there is the McCarthyist blacklisting and so many other contradictions, all of them accepted virtually without question by the average man in the street as "Well, isn't that just common sense?". America has a popular culture that cares for rights only when their own rights are breached. Back in the early 1950's, the Australian government legislated to ban Communism. The High Court ruled that to be unconstitutional. The Government then tried to amend the Constitution to allow the ban to stand. Here in Australia, changes to the Constitution are NOT decided by state legislatures, but by a referendum to the People themselves (we call it 'Democracy'. America should try it sometime.) The popular vote, even at the height of the Cold War, said 'No!' In other words, the Australian People drew a line in the sand to defend even those hateful Marxists, because even they had a right to voice their opinions. The American People, in contrast, voted for a 'Law and Order' President who wipes his arse with the Constitution.
lord_shiva 23-May-25, 20:24	I Din’t Know Whyl ost Australians are smarter than Americans, but then what nationality isn’t? Almost everyone of notable scientific accomplishment isn’t American. And yes, we went all in on fascism. The UK had Boris Johnson, but our version is much stupider.
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