On Fri, 13 Dec 2013 16:16:02 Tim Josling wrote:
There is a lot of talk comparing Australia's practices around the arrival of boat people and such to the Nazi holocaust, saying it is insane, that Asian countries are shocked by our callousness and inhumanity, and so forth. (I am paraphrasing here.)
Of course you are paraphrasing (actually making things up), anyone who reads what others write will note that it's quite different from what you claim.
I tried earlier in a gentle way to suggest that such comparisons are not a good idea. Let me try again.
Such comparisons are
a) Over the top.
If someone can really make a case that our immigration policy is reasonably comparable to the deliberate slaughter of millions of people from racial,
Fortunately no-one here has said anything like that. What has been claimed is that the practice of deliberate ignorance of government inhumanity is a commonality.
political, and sexual minorities, I have not seen it. These sort of stretched comparisons just discredit those making them. As a part-Jewish friend put it to me, even a comparison to the repatriation of refugees by England to Stalin's Russia after WWII would be stretched, let alone a comparison to Hitler's extremination campaigns.
I think that when government actions are similar to things done by Nazi Germany then we should spread the news and vote accordingly. If you do nothing until the comparison with Nazi Germany is clear in every aspect then it will be too late. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law You REALLY need to read the above Wikipedia page. Because you seem to lack reading ability I'll quote one of the more relevant sections below: # The law and its corollaries would not apply to discussions covering known # mainstays of Nazi Germany such as genocide, eugenics, or racial superiority, # nor, more debatably, to a discussion of other totalitarian regimes or # ideologies, if that was the explicit topic of conversation, since a Nazi # comparison in those circumstances may be appropriate, in effect committing # the fallacist's fallacy.
b) Counter productive.
Making such over-dramatized comparisons just makes it easy for people to dismiss your arguments. Why should people take seriously those who make such inaccurate comparisons?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man That's the whole point of the "straw man" attack which you are using.
c) Dangerous.
You run the risk of seriously offending and demeaning those who were impacted by the events of WWII, by implicitly diminishing the scale and horror of their tragedy.
Are you seriously suggesting that we should ignore German history and silence Germans who know it well in the hope of protecting your Jewish "friends" from offence?
Further, if you make such comparisons without proposing an alternative policy, and showing what its realistic implications would be, you also lack credibility. What is the alternate policy?
That's what they always say when advocating a policy that's indefensible. I think that we should start by only considering policies that are humane, legal, and comply with the international agreements that Australia has signed up to.
That anyone who shows up and claims to be a refugee can stay? Surveys suggest that 40% of the third world's population would move to a western country if they could. What would be the implications of this? Among other things it would make our current welfare state impossible to sustain. Forget Medicare. Forget aged pensions. Forget unemployment benefits.
Saying we should be more humane to claimed refugees is not a policy proposal. The Greens' 'policy' falls well short and does not analyse the consequences. They are silent on the question of what happens to those not found to be refugees.
The claim that money is more important than human lives is the root of most genocides. The previous policies regarding refugees worked well. When we had refugees from the Vietnam war migrating to Australia there were no such prison camps for them and things worked out OK. Also one massive policy change that could be made is to stop messing things up in developing countries. Prevent corporations from exploiting developing countries and stop giving them "regime change" and people won't want to leave.
Some libertarians do say that they support the right of unrestricted immigration. They acknowledge the consequences.
The difference is that Libertarians DESIRE the consequences that you expect. But that's another topic.
I do respect this to some extent. But when I see these statements without any actual concrete policy proposal, and without acknowledging the consequences of such a policy, one might begin to suspect that what we are seeing is not much more than moral posturing.
But you want direct immoral action instead. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/