I got to experience this first hand after a few weeks in the US during the tail end of the Primaries and then flying into the UK in time for the EU referendum and subsequent clusterfuck
Well here's hoping the Australian government don't go all Brexit on us and make some absolutely moronic decisions in the hope of appeasing a loud minority who have no real understanding that what they want is impossible to deliver (i.e an end to immigration and everyone to somehow accept their place in an imaginary pecking order) and is likely to make things far worse in the meantime.
This all harks back to the 'fairy godmother' approach to social division and unease that Ms Kruger and Ms Hanson seem to believe in. That with one wave of a magic wand we wil be safe from terrorism because tens of thousands of fee and tax-paying overseas students, family members of existing Australian Citizens and skilled labour are blocked at the door. Oh and that the 400,000 muslims living here in Australia will happily accept this alongside the banning of their food, their clothes and being forced to live in fear of verbal and physical abuse whenever they leave the house
Aye, good onya Sonia
The most worrying thing about Nice and why it needs to have more focus from the media on just how much of a game-changer it is, is that the bloke had no history of extremism. Had only one previous conviction for road rage and managed to kill 85 people using resources that amounted to a driving licence and a credit card.
There is no way we can police that kind of thing. All the security surveillance in the world can't peek inside one mans head. Sure, we can restrict firearms. Monitor the purchase of chemicals that may be used for explosives and tap the phonelines of known terror cells but one man, a hire truck and a chip on his shoulder? We're buggered.
If we want to stay safe from that sort of (thankfully rare) extremist attack then we've really only got the choice of two courses of action. One is taking the approach of stopping all immigration and then registering every single Muslim in the country and subjecting them to round the clock surveillance in case they feel a bit pissed off about it. This probably won't go down well as from what I've seen of the Middle East, they aren't ones to go quietly in the night. In that likely case we'll just have to round them all up and place them in massive camps (like we do with Asylum Seekers)
I'm pretty sure we can do that without it turning into a massive insurgency and Australia becoming an international pariah. Hell even if it does become Yugoslavia II I'm sure Bazza and Dazza and the rest of the lads down the footy club would be able to make just as good a militia as Hamed and his mates who just got back from Syria.
Economically no doubt we'll have no problem in replacing all those cab drivers, retailers, doctors, lawyers and engineers that we've had to throw in the camps. and hey, there'll be jobs ahoy for all these new camp guard positions. Thats a golden career path right there. I mean there's just no way you'll end up in front of a human rights court 50 years from now.
The other option is for people to not be such a dick about things and actually think about the implications of what they are suggesting. You want to stop a kid from contacting ISIS over the net to be told to carry out a machete attack on circular quay? Maybe don't make him feel so alienated by ramming it down his throat in the media and on public transport that he's not welcome here. Might be an idea to stop hurling abuse at his sister too for wearing a veil. It's by no means a guaranteed success but it's probably better than the first option and it won't impact so much on my ability to get a kebab late at night.
