Its not like we don't have racism here. Christ, sometimes I think Australia is a bastion of racist nutjobs, particularly the national obsession with immigrants from Central Asia who arrive without visas by boat. You'd think there was a naval invasion of turban wearing terrorists underway.
You equate protesting illegal immigration with racism?
This is why I can't be seen in public with you Dave. People will think I caught LibHepAIDs retardation. And I just can't have that. Sorry bro.
In order to avoid an allegation of retardation, I'd better clarify. Illegal immigration by boat - at least here - is borne of xenophobia. Undeniably. Illegal immigration by air doesn't get any commentary whatsoever.
I use the word "xenophobia" rather than "racism" to clarify, and sorry for the ambiguity in terminology.
What's the difference, I hear you ask? Chinese and other Asian illegal immigrants can fly into Australia on tourist visas and disappear. No one cares, especially. But when a boatload of illegal immigrants - usually refugees - arrives, they are taken to detention camps on remote islands for processing.
Boat immigrants are usually the poorest of all illegal immigrants, because they can't afford a plane ticket. These people typically come from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, and Sri Lanka. Because they come by boat and so, oddly, present a bigger security threat than an air traveller, they are the subject of right-wing media vilification driven by xenophobia.
I don't understand the position in the US. I know this is an economic argument to allow illgal immigrants in certain States. I don't know much more than that.
As have writers like Samuel Huntington, Melanie Phillips, and Pat Buchanan.
Ah, I was following you until I hit these stumbling blocks. Huntington's book "The Clash of Civilisations and the Re-making of the World Order" is one of the most insidious and flawed things I have ever read.
