Thursday 22 December 2011

General Roundup

1) Thanks to this article at news.com.au, we have the news that thousands of Greeks are seeking to leave their country for sunnier economic climes, meaning Australia. This is all to the good - the Greek community has a large presence and a long history in Australia with no glaring problems; and a new wave of Greek immigration should have no trouble integrating, especially if (as the article indicates) they are mostly educated, skilled workers. I make no secret of the fact that I would rather have 40,000 educated Greeks emigrating openly than half that number of unknown, undocumented "refugees" of uncertain educational standard who bring a set of cultural and political values that is at severe and almost irreconcilable variance with the West.

The only problem is that at the rate we're going, by the time those 40,000 all arrive, the spendthrift Labor government Australia currently has will have turned it into a carbon copy of the economic basket case the Greeks left behind them.

2) Here is one solution to cutting down the time needed for security scans at airports. Potential travellers are advised to have a very high embarrassment threshold and no fear of spilled hot coffee. Ouch. Plenty of advice is also available for where to go and what to do when you get there.

3) What is it with the Left and hate? Why do these people never get mentioned when a Left-wing government talks about manipulating the media in response to a supposed lowering in the tone of political discourse?

4) Robert Manne is desperately realigning his position on asylum seekers. Lots of "mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa" from Latrobe University's Professor of Politics, which in my mind has less to do with the renewed functioning of his moral compass and more to do with reinventing himself to ensure his political survival. As I see it, the political and intellectual environment which sustains and nurtures him is due to come to a crashing halt the minute the Australian Government is obliged to call an election, and with the progressive and systematic failure of the Fairfax Press (both financial and intellectual), his mouthpiece is as doomed as his patronage.

As much as he tries to subtly bite the hand which has until now fed him, in the hope that future generations will not associate him with that politically gangrenous limb, the simple fact is that he cannot wrigge away from the disgustingly two-faced and intellectually bankrupt mode of thinking that forms the core of his being.

There is no possibility of finding a solution to the problem of asylum seeker boat arrivals that will not be seriously morally, legally and politically flawed.

This is Professor Manne's straw-grasping attempt to claim the moral high ground. In fact, all he is doing is calling a pox on both houses, sitting on the fence until he knows which way the chips will fall. The trouble with fence-sitting, as a friend of a friend once told me, is that if you do it long enough or often enough, you stand a high chance of getting splinters in your scrotum.

Nothing will work except making it clear to undocumented arrivals that the best they can hope for is a trip behind razor wire for three meals a day, a bed and clothes until their status is confirmed (if it is; otherwise, immediate deportation as a lying scumbag), and then a visa good only for themselves and only until the situation in their home country has resolved itself. Nobody who has arrived illegally in any country should ever be allowed to become a citizen there. Ever. They have broken a basic trust, and deserve nothing less than eternal suspicion.