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[Sheb]

Also btw
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_marriage_in_the_United_States

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

In e.g. New Hampshire the minimum age of marriage is 13. Half the states don't even have a minimum!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/02/10/why-does-the-united-states-still-let-12-year-old-girls-get-married/

Unchained At Last, a nonprofit I founded to help women resist or escape forced marriage in the United States, spent the past year collecting marriage license data from 2000 to 2010, the most recent year for which most states were able to provide information. We learned that in 38 states, more than 167,000 children — almost all of them girls, some as young 12 — were married during that period, mostly to men 18 or older. Twelve states and the District of Columbia were unable to provide information on how many children had married there in that decade. Based on the correlation we identified between state population and child marriage, we estimated that the total number of children wed in America between 2000 and 2010 was nearly 248,000.

...

In this way, U.S. lawmakers are strongly at odds with U.S. foreign policy. The U.S. Global Strategy to Empower Adolescent Girls, released last year by the State Department, lists reducing child, early and forced marriage as a key goal. The strategy includes harsh words about marriage before 18, declaring it a “human rights abuse” that “produces devastating repercussions for a girl’s life, effectively ending her childhood” by forcing her “into adulthood and motherhood before she is physically and mentally mature.” The State Department pointed to the developing world, where 1 in 3 girls is married by age 18, and 1 in 9 is married by 15.

...

Most states did not provide identifying information about the children, but Unchained has seen child marriage in nearly every American culture and religion, including Christian, Jewish, Muslim and secular communities. We have seen it in families who have been in America for generations and immigrant families from all over the world

So rather than attacking muslims specifically over this, just be aware that if a nation's law allows such marriage every religion and even atheists get in on the act! Underage marriage is in fact pretty normal in America for example.

... tl;dr = all the marriages we're upset about in Australia would in fact be 100% legal in the USA and occur quite often among all religions.

... and if you look into it. We did allow marriages of girls in Australia as young as 14 with a court's approval, up until reforms in 1991. Which is not that fucking long ago. If there's another culture allowing marriages that we ourselves might have allowed up until 25 years ago, then we have absolutely zero right to demonize them, say they're 'backwards' or 'medieval'. Because we aren't really so far ahead of the curve to make that judgement.

Oh, come on, no one said anything about demonizing people yet, which was refreshing for a forum post bringing stuff done by muslims.

[Jimmy]

To be fair, any culture that accepts middle-aged men marrying pre-teen girls isn't one I will tolerate. Traditions like this don't go away on their own. It's a responsibility of anyone wanting it changed to clearly express they will not accept it. Turning a blind eye and saying 'well, we used to do it too so it's not so bad' merely gives passive support to exploitation of children.

[Descan]

Besides, if there's *any* argument for benefits of globalism, it's that philosophical ideas from one area can be read about and considered everywhere else. Like the idea of, say, not marrying people who can't consent to it? Or that children are, like, people, deserving of rights and consideration of their inability to know wtf is going on maet.

Like, sure, 25 years ago, [some] Westerners were in the same boat. But the people still doing this kinda shit *know* that. They're *aware* of the arguments about not marrying children, it's not exactly hidden knowledge. Same thing for things like anti-queer laws and such; Yeah they were on the books pretty recently in the West, but it doesn't take *that* long for knowledge to propagate in the world today. There's ignorance of something that took the West hundreds or thousands of years to get over, and then there's willful snubbing of basic human rights they *have* to be aware of by now.

[martinuzz]

The Australian government decided to invest 280 million euros to fight the fire ants, on top of the 300 million already spent.

Fire ants are now called the worst invasive species to ever enter Australia. Even worse than the rabbits.

Ever since the first fire ants were spotted in Australia in 2001, environmentalists and government have been fighting the animal together, to no avail. No matter how hard they try eradicating the animal, they keep popping up again someplace else.

Researchers fear that if the fire ant continues to spread, entire ecosystems will collapse, because the fire ants eat plants seeds, and wipe out native insect species that are crucial for pollination.

[Sheb]

Well, we need to breed ant-eating rabbits.

[Reudh]

The Australian government decided to invest 280 million euros to fight the fire ants, on top of the 300 million already spent.

Fire ants are now called the worst invasive species to ever enter Australia. Even worse than the rabbits.

Ever since the first fire ants were spotted in Australia in 2001, environmentalists and government have been fighting the animal together, to no avail. No matter how hard they try eradicating the animal, they keep popping up again someplace else.

Researchers fear that if the fire ant continues to spread, entire ecosystems will collapse, because the fire ants eat plants seeds, and wipe out native insect species that are crucial for pollination.

Yeah, compared to our local ants, the fire ants are horrific. Bull ants and meat ants will at least leave you be.

[smjjames]

I suppose you need some natural predators of fire ants. Of course though, you've had bad experiences with trying to control invaders with their natural predators.

[martinuzz]

Kill it with fire bears?

[scriver]

The worst part about fire ants is their natural Fire Immunity, making the standard creep response of KILL IT WITH FIRE ineffective.

They have a weakness to I've, though, so all we have to do is move Australia a bit closer to the South Pole.

[martinuzz]

The Australian government could fall.
Barnaby Joyce, the vice-PM of Australia, discovered, to his dismay, that he has a double nationality.
Australian constitution forbids anyone with a double nationality from holding any public function.

Joyce's father migrated to Australia from New Zealand in 1947. Back then, Australia and New Zealand were still the same country, to be more precise, they were part of the UK. His father never thought it nescessary to register himself as Australian after Australia and new Zealand separated from the UK and each other.

Now, after all these years, Barnaby Joyce found out that his father's New Zealand nationality was automatically passed onto him, making him a person with double nationality.

It is unsure yet if he will be forced to resign. If so, it will collapse the government, because they only have a majority of 1 seat.

[smjjames]

Wasn't there another case of that like, a month or two ago? There may have been two other cases of that this year.

Sounds like a minor constitutional crisis is happening over there.

[Reudh]

The Australian government could fall.
Barnaby Joyce, the vice-PM of Australia, discovered, to his dismay, that he has a double nationality.
Australian constitution forbids anyone with a double nationality from holding any public function.

Joyce's father migrated to Australia from New Zealand in 1947. Back then, Australia and New Zealand were still the same country, to be more precise, they were part of the UK. His father never thought it nescessary to register himself as Australian after Australia and new Zealand separated from the UK and each other.

Now, after all these years, Barnaby Joyce found out that his father's New Zealand nationality was automatically passed onto him, making him a person with double nationality.

It is unsure yet if he will be forced to resign. If so, it will collapse the government, because they only have a majority of 1 seat.

I will elaborate on this.

Lately, under our constitution, people have realised that there's a section that prevents dual-nationals from holding federal office. Thus far, those affected are:

Scott Ludlam, of the Greens Party; widely popular with the under 30s, especially that of the left.

Spoiler: Ol' Luddy (click to show/hide)

Larissa Waters, also of the Greens Party; the deputy leader of the party behind Richard Di Natale.

Spoiler: Larissa Waters (click to show/hide)

Matthew Canavan, of the Liberal Party; his removal is of more interest to this argument. Canavan is the "Minister for Resources and Northern Australia", which basically amounts to "hey bro you good with talking to miners?"

Spoiler: Matthew Canavan (click to show/hide)

These three were found to have:

Ludlam: New Zealand/Australian dual citizenship, born in NZ, left NZ aged 3 with his family, settled in Australia age 8. Ludlam discovered his dual citizenship status and voluntarily resigned from the senate, prompting numerous members to make clarifications on their status. Ludlam had previously taken a period of convalescence from the Senate after suffering from depression and anxiety.

Waters: Canadian/Australian dual citizenship, born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and emigrated to Australia quite early. Shortly after Ludlam's resignation, many of the Greens checked their statuses, and Waters found she also possessed dual citizenship, and voluntarily resigned from the Senate.

Canavan: Italian/Australian dual citizenship, born in Australia to an Italian mother, who told him he had Italian citizenship on the basis of being an Italian citizen abroad in 2006. As he was unaware of this decision, the Government is choosing to believe he is not stricken from the record under Section 44. The High Court will decide on Canavan's issue.

Joyce: New Zealand/Australian dual citizenship, born NZ, lived in Australia most of his life. Joyce is a controversial figure, the deputy Prime Minister, head of the Nationals Party, which is a junior partner in the Liberal-National Coalition; the Nationals are ostensibly a rural-focused party for the farmers, but tend to be filled with arch-conservatives who do little.

Regarding Joyce's migration: Australia and New Zealand were not the same country in 1947. Provisions were made in Australia's constitution to allow NZ to join at any point as a state equal in level to the other colonies of Australia; while there was initial interest, it faded quickly.

Australia federated in 1901, NZ has no fixed true independence day, but the date given is varied between the New Zealand Constitution Act (Britain) of 1852, which while still being a colony, made NZ for all intents and purposes its own independent nation; 1919 saw NZ given a seat at the League of Nations; 1926's Balfour Declarations defined Britain's colonies as "equal in status"; the Statute of Westminster in 1931 saw initial hostility from Australia, NZ and Newfoundland (later Canada), though Australia and Canada both made it law later on; NZ did not adopt the Statute of Westminster until 1947.

Until 1958, Australians and New Zealanders (and I believe Canadians, though I'm not certain) were eligible to claim British citizenship. Australians and New Zealanders until about 1970 considered UK to be "home" or the "mother/fatherland"; and indeed at around this time, there were movements to reduce Britain's ability to legislate with regard to us even further.

Anyway; Joyce's status has also been referred to the High Court, if either he or Canavan are removed by the High Court, then the Labor Party or Liberal Party must find members to assist in forming a minority government, as has happened several times since the first election of Rudd in 2008.

If Canavan's status is found to be valid as he was unaware of being made a "citizen abroad", then the country will watch with bated breath to see what happens to Joyce. Joyce's status is considerably less clear-cut than Canavan; while we have numerous free movement laws between NZ and Australia, Section 44 still considers them a "foreign power" for purposes of federal office.

[Reudh]

Wasn't there another case of that like, a month or two ago? There may have been two other cases of that this year.

Sounds like a minor constitutional crisis is happening over there.

Double post but: yeah basically our government is able to dissolve at a moment's notice if certain things fail to occur: if a bill fails multiple times, or if a party loses a majority.

We don't have a shutdown, we have a double dissolution election, where the "cards are shuffled". Similarly, we elect a party rather than a member of that party; the current leader of the party takes the position of Prime Minister if elected.

Internal party machinations allow for the PM to be removed if the Party feels they are not up to standard: this is a very common occurrence, and is known as a "leadership spill". In the last ten years since Howard was defeated by Rudd, Labor removed Rudd and replaced him with Gillard, then promptly did the same again.

Abbott attacked the perceived instability within the Labor Party and rode in on that to power.

Turnbull turned over Abbott as it was found that while he was a superb attack dog, he was a generally incompetent prime minister. There have been internal rumblings once again against Turnbull, as while he's a "small L liberal", or a "not-quite-as-conservative" liberal, or as he puts it, a "Menzian liberal", (though Menzies would probably disagree), Turnbull seems generally incapable of actually leading, as he requires the factional members of the arch-conservative parts of the Liberal party to retain power, instead of governing from his generally slightly less right wing area.

[smjjames]

The US doesn't have any restrictions regarding dual citizenship in Congress. The only time citizenship ever comes up is for the Presidency, and perhaps the Vice Presidency as far as succession goes.

Sounds like the Canadian/Australian and NZ/Australian citizenship is a whole lot less clear cut than the Italian/Australian one. Although, since the Italian/Australian one was born in Australia (which would be the equivalent requirement for the US Presidency), wouldn't that have been less of a problem than it was made out to be?

And arg, that second post needs to be split into paragraphs.

[Descan]

... So why can't they just renounce their second citizenship and be done with it?