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[Max White]

Oh, and I'll bother with our politics when they all stop arguing like children. ("You said this, you said that. Blah blah blah")

Protip: You will never, ever care about politics.

[Mech#4]

I know! It's great! I feel like I'll never get old and boring! 

[Reelya]

It's much easier to grasp when you remember that Australia is opposite-land.

It's actually America which is opposite-land. The Australian Liberals are using the European definition - economic liberalism. Only in America, does Liberal ONLY means social liberalism (i.e. welfare state liberalism).

Here's a paragraph from Wikipedia describing "Classical Liberalism"

Enlightenment philosophers are given credit for shaping liberal ideas. Thomas Hobbes attempted to determine the purpose and the justification of governing authority in a post civil war England. Using the idea of natural law, he constructed the concept of social contract and concluded that absolute monarchy is the ideal and just form of society. John Locke, while adopting Hobbes's idea of natural law and social contract, nevertheless argued that when the monarch becomes a tyrant, that constituted a violation of the social contract, which bestows life, liberty, and property as a natural right. He concluded that the people have a right to overthrow a tyrant. By placing life, liberty and property as the supreme value of law and authority, Locke formulated the basis of liberalism based on social contract theory. To these early enlightement thinkers securing the most essential amenities of life—liberty and private property among them—required the formation of a "sovereign" authority with universal jurisdiction.[71] In a natural state of affairs, liberals argued, humans were driven by the instincts of survival and self-preservation, and the only way to escape from such a dangerous existence was to form a common and supreme power capable of arbitrating between competing human desires.

Hobbes fits the Australian Liberal Party to a "T", but they blend it with Neoliberalism.

[Max White]

Plus dem darn yanks drive on the wrong side or the road, can't spell 'colour' and don't know how to use the damn metric system!
Grrrrr! Patriotic rage!

[Darvi]

Let's talk again when you get your seasons and day-night cycle straight

Also I'm pretty sure Americans drive on the right side of the road.

*rimshot*
 

[Max White]

Darvi, you haven't lived until you have enjoyed new years fireworks on a warm summer night before the rest of the world gets the chance.

[alexandertnt]

It's much easier to grasp when you remember that Australia is opposite-land.

It's actually America which is opposite-land. The Australian Liberals are using the European definition - economic liberalism. Only in America, does Liberal ONLY means social liberalism (i.e. welfare state liberalism).

In Australia, America bests Europe (and Australia) when it comes to comparing stuff. So we are opposite-land.

[Jimmy]

One thing I will say for the Australian politicians: they got healthcare right. I thank the gods I'm not stuck with the US healthcare system. Ours might not be perfect, but it's damn better than many others, especially pharmaceuticals.

[Blargityblarg]

Yeah, it's amazing how little of the good shit we already had in force the recent squabbles in Canberra have ruined.

[Sheb]

Well, the US is so broken, there is no real point in taking them as a comparison (if you're a developed country). How do Australia compare with, say, Denmark?

[Reudh]

Well, the US is so broken, there is no real point in taking them as a comparison (if you're a developed country). How do Australia compare with, say, Denmark?

Going by the Human Development Index, slightly ahead. Coupla points behind Norway.

[Reudh]

X-Posted from my facebook.
There were two Rise Up Australia people on the train handing out leaflets... I think I frightened them by saying "No thankyou!" so emphatically.

Anywho, because I know that Rise Up Australia is just ultra-far right wing racists, I found it very interesting when six young muslim girls hopped on at Dandenong... and sat near the two Rise Up Aus people, who visibly squirmed.
I sidled up to the part of the carriage they were in so I could listen in on their conversation; as predicted as soon as the girls hopped off the guy started (quietly) ranting about how muslims ruined Russia (?) and turkmenistan and tajikistan and 'all those other stans'

Standing a metre away was very amusing, the amount of tripe I heard was intense.

[Max White]

It is a little sad hat in a nation where we pride ourselves on giving the 'fair go', we really don't give a lot of people a fair go.

[alexandertnt]

Muslims ruined Russia? I thought, you know, that rather nasty dictatorship did (and the Soviet Union too)

[Max White]

No see it was clearly the Muslims, on the basis that they are all terrorists.
Clearly anybody wearing face covering has something to hide, because tolerance be dammed, right? Freedom of religion means you respect me and I fuck you.


^{I'm going to assume the sarcasm was blatant enough.}