New refugee laws
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David 
to wish impossible things
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: the edge of the deep green sea
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How many people have to be mistreated, though? How many lives will actually be saved?
Look, I'm the biggest utilitarian out there, but the human cost of this policy shouldn't just be waved away because there's a (supposedly) bigger hypothetical benefit. In any case, I suspect that once you balance all the outcomes (including the fact of people being forced to seek asylum in poor countries that aren't signatories to the refugee convention), any human benefits would be well and truly negated.
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"Every time we witness an injustice and do not act, we train our character to be passive in its presence." – Julian Assange |
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Tannin 
Can't remember
Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Location: Huon Valley Tasmania
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I don't buy the "saves lives" argument. It's 30% hogwash and 70% sanctimonious bullshit.
(1) In the main, these boats don't suddenly sink miraculously after 30 years of surviving the worst weather South-east Asia can throw at them just because they have people on board instead of fish or drugs or rice or iPhones or different people. They suddenly sink because people deliberately sink them in the hope of blackmailing bleeding hearts in Australia and other places. Those aren't "lives lost", they are "lives thrown away by suicide" or, if you prefer, "lives lost during the unsuccessful execution of a crime (blackmail)". You have to feel sorry for the children who get drowned because of their parents' stupidity and selfish greed - not to mention that of the smuggling rings, which is almost as bad and would be worse except that they aren't drowning their own children only other people's - but it's pretty hard to feel any sorrier for the deliberate boat-sinkers who drown than it is for the American gun fanatics who are shot by their own children. Either way it amounts to a self-inflicted death, and we stopped regarding suicide as a crime 50 years ago.
(2) People daft enough or desperate enough or greedy enough (you decide which) to get on an unseaworthy boat are daft enough or desperate enough or greedy enough to do all manner of other dangerous things instead. take those lives "saved" and sprinkle them around as random lives lost elsewhere, doing other things. You won't come out too different in the end.
There are lots of good reasons for stopping the boats Rudd-style or Abbott style, and lots of good reasons for letting them come on in and live in Australia (despite my clear support of the Rudd policy, I recognise that supporters of the Abbott policy and the open door policy have good reasons - it's a thorny issue with a lot of right on all three sides), but amongst all these good reasons, "saving lives" at sea isn't to be found. If someone wants to drown, fish him out of the water if you can, charge him with littering the seabed with his blown-up boat, and send him home. If you can't fish him out, respect the freedom of the seas. Drowning was his own free choice, let him have his own way. (But if he tries to drown his children, charge him with murder. Then let him drown.)
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�Let's eat Grandma.� Commas save lives! |
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stui magpie 
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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| Tannin wrote: | | But if he tries to drown his children, charge him with murder. Then let him drown.) |
Can we shoot him in between the charging and the drowning?
Just in limbs and gut and stuff.
_________________
Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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think positive
Side By Side
Joined: 30 Jun 2005
Location: somewhere
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| stui magpie wrote: | | Tannin wrote: | | But if he tries to drown his children, charge him with murder. Then let him drown.) |
Can we shoot him in between the charging and the drowning?
Just in limbs and gut and stuff. |
Can I water board him first?
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You cant fix stupid, turns out you cant quarantine it either! |
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David
to wish impossible things
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: the edge of the deep green sea
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| Tannin wrote: | | (1) In the main, these boats don't suddenly sink miraculously after 30 years of surviving the worst weather South-east Asia can throw at them just because they have people on board instead of fish or drugs or rice or iPhones or different people. They suddenly sink because people deliberately sink them in the hope of blackmailing bleeding hearts in Australia and other places. Those aren't "lives lost", they are "lives thrown away by suicide" or, if you prefer, "lives lost during the unsuccessful execution of a crime (blackmail)". You have to feel sorry for the children who get drowned because of their parents' stupidity and selfish greed - not to mention that of the smuggling rings, which is almost as bad and would be worse except that they aren't drowning their own children only other people's - but it's pretty hard to feel any sorrier for the deliberate boat-sinkers who drown than it is for the American gun fanatics who are shot by their own children. Either way it amounts to a self-inflicted death, and we stopped regarding suicide as a crime 50 years ago. |
"Children overboard" was a lie, you know. Do you honestly believe that most of these boats are sunk deliberately? You'd want to, because it's a pretty low thing to say if it isn't true.
_________________
"Every time we witness an injustice and do not act, we train our character to be passive in its presence." – Julian Assange |
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stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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| David wrote: | | Tannin wrote: | | (1) In the main, these boats don't suddenly sink miraculously after 30 years of surviving the worst weather South-east Asia can throw at them just because they have people on board instead of fish or drugs or rice or iPhones or different people. They suddenly sink because people deliberately sink them in the hope of blackmailing bleeding hearts in Australia and other places. Those aren't "lives lost", they are "lives thrown away by suicide" or, if you prefer, "lives lost during the unsuccessful execution of a crime (blackmail)". You have to feel sorry for the children who get drowned because of their parents' stupidity and selfish greed - not to mention that of the smuggling rings, which is almost as bad and would be worse except that they aren't drowning their own children only other people's - but it's pretty hard to feel any sorrier for the deliberate boat-sinkers who drown than it is for the American gun fanatics who are shot by their own children. Either way it amounts to a self-inflicted death, and we stopped regarding suicide as a crime 50 years ago. |
"Children overboard" was a lie, you know. Do you honestly believe that most of these boats are sunk deliberately? You'd want to, because it's a pretty low thing to say if it isn't true. |
Think about how maritime law works.
If you're dumb/desperate/self entitled enough to spend thousands on a ticket on a boat that shouldn't be travelling more than a few hundred metres off shore, do you really think that disabling the thing or punching a hole in it in order to make sure you got picked up rather than towed back is that far beyond the pale?
_________________
Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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David
to wish impossible things
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: the edge of the deep green sea
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Refugees are "self entitled". FMD, now I've heard it all. 
_________________
"Every time we witness an injustice and do not act, we train our character to be passive in its presence." – Julian Assange |
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stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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| David wrote: | | Refugees are "self entitled". FMD, now I've heard it all. |
maybe what I was describing aren't refugees and maybe you should stop assuming that everyone who tries to come here by boat is a refugee.
I'd call someone who thinks that the rules don't apply to them and they can get what they want by just spreading money in the right hands, a self entitled twat.
Funnily enough, that description applies to those who pay smugglers to come here by boat.
That close up view you have of your own sphincter seems to be clouding your judgement.
_________________
Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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Tannin
Can't remember
Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Location: Huon Valley Tasmania
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| David wrote: | | "Children overboard" was a lie, you know. Do you honestly believe that most of these boats are sunk deliberately? You'd want to, because it's a pretty low thing to say if it isn't true. |
Are you serious? Who is talking about John Howard's "children overboard" lie? I certainly wasn't. I'm talking about the incredible number of refugee smuggling boats which suddenly, for no reason, completely by chance, just happen unexpectedly to accidentally-on-purpose break down, sink, founder or otherwise fuckup. Yep, the very same hopelessly unseaworthy tissue-paper boats that ignorant, poverty-stricken Indonesian fishermen had, by some incredibly strange stroke of pure dumb luck, just happened to sail for the 30 years prior all over the rocky, typhoon-swept waters of South-east Asia without ever needing any help or even getting their feet wet. Same boat: works perfectly for 30 years, then all of a sudden it sinks. Who'd a thunk it?
FFS.
David, fair dinkum mate, you ask the most daft questions sometimes. Don't you even try to follow the news? Until the new Rudd policy brought the flow of arrivals to a trickle, and then the Abbott policy stopped it completely, disabling the boat somewhere inside Australia's air-sea rescue zone (but outside Indonesia's zone, of course) was standard operating procedure, followed more often than not. Why do you think Abbott bought the orange lifeboats? Decoration? Was he planning to remodel one into an innovative funny hat? Nope, strange as it may seem, he bought the lifeboats so that any more people doing the usual deliberate sink-the-boat-slowly trick (or the more common leave-the-boat-alone-but-wreck-the-engine-and/or-"run-out"-of-fuel trick) would be given a brand new orange boat and enough fuel to get them home. And that's exactly what he did. The orange lifeboats killed the sink-the-boat trick stone dead.
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�Let's eat Grandma.� Commas save lives! |
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stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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^
100% correct.
However, when you give Abbott credit for anything, begrudgingly or even inadvertently, there's a very disturbing ripple in the force. 
_________________
Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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David
to wish impossible things
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: the edge of the deep green sea
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| stui magpie wrote: | | David wrote: | | Refugees are "self entitled". FMD, now I've heard it all. |
maybe what I was describing aren't refugees and maybe you should stop assuming that everyone who tries to come here by boat is a refugee.
I'd call someone who thinks that the rules don't apply to them and they can get what they want by just spreading money in the right hands, a self entitled twat.
Funnily enough, that description applies to those who pay smugglers to come here by boat.
That close up view you have of your own sphincter seems to be clouding your judgement. |
I don't think I'm the one with my head up my backside here.
Seeking a better life for yourself or your family isn't quite in the same league as throwing a tantrum because your parents didn't buy you the latest playstation. Even if you're not a refugee. Most of us here would do the exact same thing in their situation if we had the opportunity and thought it was worth the risk.
FFSS, the way you're describing it it's as if they're taking a luxury cruise to a holiday resort and sipping cocktails on the deck.
You want entitlement? Look at the xenophobic Australians, in the top 2% of people in the world by wealth if they're earning more than $40,000 a year, who are worried about people coming here from poor countries and living off their taxes. That's entitlement.
_________________
"Every time we witness an injustice and do not act, we train our character to be passive in its presence." – Julian Assange
Last edited by David on Fri Dec 12, 2014 9:27 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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Sorry to break it to you but, yep, you're definitely the one who's nose is nudging his prostate.
_________________
Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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Wokko 
Come and take it.
Joined: 04 Oct 2005
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| David wrote: | | stui magpie wrote: | | David wrote: | | Refugees are "self entitled". FMD, now I've heard it all. |
maybe what I was describing aren't refugees and maybe you should stop assuming that everyone who tries to come here by boat is a refugee.
I'd call someone who thinks that the rules don't apply to them and they can get what they want by just spreading money in the right hands, a self entitled twat.
Funnily enough, that description applies to those who pay smugglers to come here by boat.
That close up view you have of your own sphincter seems to be clouding your judgement. |
I don't think I'm the one with my head up my backside here.
Seeking a better life for yourself or your family isn't quite in the same league as throwing a tantrum because your parents didn't buy you the latest playstation. Even if you're not a refugee. Most of us here would do the exact same thing in their situation if we had the opportunity and thought it was worth the risk.
You want entitlement? Look at the xenophobic Australians, in the top 2% of people in the world by wealth if they're earning more than $40,000 a year, who are worried about people coming here from poor countries and living off their taxes. That's entitlement. |
I would call it entitled to think you can blow in to a country that has built itself up from nothing into a pinnacle of social democracy and assume you can then sit idly on the social welfare system set up by their parents and grandparents and paid for with their labour. Refugees who end up here because we decide to protect them deserve that, not through entitlement but through our own good will. Those who decide to leave their reasonably safe but slightly shittier home country by paying to come here, destroying documents and then forcing a rescue can go and get £$%$ed. |
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David
to wish impossible things
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: the edge of the deep green sea
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^ The concept that refugees and "economic migrants" come here to sit on the dole is baseless and offensively dumb. How could an intelligent person seriously believe that?
Stui, I can assure you that I am not the one conducting a visual inventory of my colon.
_________________
"Every time we witness an injustice and do not act, we train our character to be passive in its presence." – Julian Assange |
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Wokko
Come and take it.
Joined: 04 Oct 2005
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| David wrote: | | ^ The concept that refugees and "economic migrants" come here to sit on the dole is baseless and offensively dumb. How could an intelligent person seriously believe that? |
Considering refugees are not allowed to work, how do you suggest they're not dying in the streets? |
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