Edelweiss
The Sound Of Music is obviously dangerously left-wing.
Australia's celebration of its glorious new leader has been soured by a federal government “anti-radicalisation” education kit that lists alternative music and environmentalism as signs that a youngster is on the way to becoming a danger to society. Launched this week by justice minister Michael Keenan (who also glories in the …
The reason we have to label "alternative" music, left wing views, etc as extremist is because our government seems to be scared to point out that the threat we face is from Islamic extremism. The whole point of this anti-radicalisation toolkit is to combat the phenomenal amount of people with extreme Islamic beliefs who leave this country to go fight with IS, Al-Nusra, etc. A person of Islamic background is more likely to go fight in Syria than to join the Australian Defence Force!
Once that intent gets filtered through the political correctness filters and bureaucratic round-tables, whitepapers, green papers and what not, this is what it ends up looking like, a totally ineffective programme that will only serve to target the wrong section of our society and do nothing to stop the Islamic extremism we ar actually trying to stop.
Another one for the PC crowd, good work fools!
"The reason we have to label "alternative" music, left wing views, etc as extremist is because our government seems to be scared to point out that the threat we face is from Islamic extremism."
This highlights an interesting dichotomy; that left-wing views are held to be a cause of extremism given that it is the political Left who advocate for Islamic immigration in the first place. It's particulary surprising since one of the most fundamental tenets of the Left is "intolerance of intolerance." Thus we have all these buzzwords - racist, sexist, misogynist, homophobic, xenophobic etc - to identify the various forms of intolerance that they tell us must be opposed.
But Islam, generally, is intolerant of other cultures. Yet by saying this I will be accused of being intolerant - "Islamophobic" I believe is the word. But the evidence is there for anyone to see. Simply look at the social conditions that prevail in any country in which Muslims are a majority of the population. Look at the laws imposed on those countries. I challenge anyone here to name one country in which Muslims are a majority, that allows women to dress as they wish, to consume or sell alcohol or pork products, to eat, drink or smoke in public during Ramadan, and to promote any religious beliefs other than Islam.
I've done a lot of looking into this sort of thing, and I am very wary of both pro-Islamic and anti-Islamic agendas here. I no more trust, say, the EDL or Take Back Australia as a reliable source of information than I would trust an IS or al-Qaeda site. Mostly my sources are government travel-advisory websites, such as smartraveller.gov.au, legal institute websites such as austlii.org, and news events examined across multiple sources ranging from al-Jazeera to the BBC.
Without exception, smartraveller.gov.au provides warnings such as "women should dress modestly in public", "it is illegal to eat, drink or smoke in public during daylight hours in Ramadan", "possession and sale of alcohol is illegal", "public displays of affection may cause serious offence", and "homosexual relations are not socially acceptable / are illegal and may attract the death penalty," among others. These warnings are given in relation to every single country in which Islam is the predominant ideology - without exception.
And all this is on a neutral, unbiased, government travel advisory website. What other inferences can possibly be drawn from these observations, other than that Islam is generally intolerant of other cultures and ways of life wherever it has gained majority?
I know that I will likely cop a lot of downvotes for saying all this. But I'm not being hateful or racist here; I am not advocating excluding Islamic immigrants or suppressing Islam, I'm merely pointing out that all the facts indicate Islam being intolerant of other cultures despite claims made by some of its adherents that it is a religion of peace and tolerance. The observed facts do not back up the claims. So if we are to allow this ideology to take root in our democratic countries, it must be unequivocally made clear to its adherents that intolerance of our way of life, our freedoms, will not be tolerated, now or in the future.
So I find it paradoxical that the political Left, which claims to be intolerant of intolerance, so vehemently defends a clearly intolerant ideology - to the point where it would sooner alienate a sector of its own supporters rather than point the finger at Islamic extremism. And the obvious whitewashing of this issue in the pamphlet referenced in the article, while plainly referring to Islamic religious radicalism yet avoiding unequivocally naming it, merely highlights this very paradox.
Another one for the PC crowd, good work fools!
What it really shows is the unreasonable nature of the anti-radicalisation programme. Of course "Karen" has done nothing wrong and should not be discouraged. But think about what that means for the young Muslims targetted by the programme: most of them have done nothing wrong either. Finding out about IS, or even writing articles in support of them, is not a crime.
The whole programme needs to started again from scratch. What it needs to target is not "extremism" but violence. No more and no less. The programme must be focused on targetting people who propose that violence is the answer to their issues. Whether those are neo-Nazis burning mosques, animal rights protesters threatening owners of cat farms, pro-life protesters threatening abortion clinic staff, or Islamist terrorists attacking artists.
In a way they have a point. Not a good one, it must be said, but the truth of the matter is that people who don't care about anything don't bomb churches or sabotage logging equipment or even go out and protest.
Of course, most people care about something or other but most of them don't care enough to violently break the law for the cause.
And that's really the key here - violence. Most of those who would break the law for their cause would do so in non-violent ways - vandalism and blocking whaling ships and so forth. So yes, someone who is very passionate about the environment may indeed end up breaking the law for that cause. But most wouldn't and those that would are likely to do so in a non-violent manner.
So the question is whether it is worth targeting a whole range of people who aren't very likely to do anything actually dangerous. The sane answer is, of course, a resounding 'NO'.
"Australia's celebration of its glorious new leader has been soured by a federal government “anti-radicalisation” education kit that lists alternative music and environmentalism as signs that a youngster is on the way to becoming a danger to society."
They're right. There's already a goverment party comprised entirely of people like that - The Greens. Completely, absolutely, looney tunes, whackadoodle crazy the bunch of them.
Oh, and not agreeing with me doesn't make them any less crazy.
"Shit, things are so bad in The Land Of The Free that I have to listen to bagpipe music with headphones!"
I'm sure you'll find that applies anywhere in the World outside of Scotland.
I seem to recall N.W.A. sang a lovely ditty which was something about police. Would that qualify as a suitably anti-establishment song?
The genuinely funny thing is: that song was banned from being played on Triple J, so some wag at Triple J edited a sample from the song into the news intro jingle... resulting in the ban being broken many times a day for years. It's still in use now.