Grr-owl

Was going to open a thread myself....

Cheers, I'll take look.

No need to be aggressive to me, Nev. If you aren't willing to help me with a reference, then I'm walking blind in the library and more likely to go past the stack. Never mind, I'll help myself...

This doesn't have to be a personal thing. Just having a discussion. Sowell has been criticized in the manner that you say, but that doesn't mean he is wrong. He also accuses his critics of failing to provide evidence. For me, the jury is out on Sowell. His politics have a sniff of libertarian about them, which is a bit suspicious. But then it's not his identify that needs to be discussed, but his writing. Maybe rather than make assumptions about me, you could direct me to a source on the history of slavery with a bit more integrity.

Yep. No truth in it?

I get it. Do you get my point?

Wow, that is stunning. The underlying assumptions reinforce powerlessness. A concrete ceiling, so to speak. In that case, what's the point of expending energy on trying to improve life for people? Everyone is eternally trapped. The ideology underlying those ideas is theistic. Beware.

Quite a list. Disgraceful, to say the least. On the positive side, though Indigenous people won the right to vote in 1967, where I live the last slave market closed in 1968. As bad as the Australian list of abuses is, it isn't worse than other civilizations, and it is better in one extremely important respect: There is a list. That is to say, while the rest of the world pretends that such abuses as those above existed only in the West, and while almost nobody knows the history of something as significant as slavery -- Australians are acknowledging that abuses have happened and are grappling with racism. No need to beat each other up about a past that can't be changed. Deal with it and make the future better. That's kind of a football way of handling things...

It was even here before white people, because there were people here. By writing, "We Whites" you are being racist. There is no 'we.' You are attributing a characteristic to the color of someone's skin. Apparently, I am not worthy because my skin is white. It is not true. I am worthy and my skin color has nothing to do with it.

We are not. Some are. They are the [censored]. Thomas Sowell may be interesting regarding apologies, reparations and other such ideas, though in an American context. Sowell's conservatism irks me, but he makes a solid argument. Try it here: https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/thomas-sowell-on-the-legacy-of-slavery-vs-the-legacy-of-liberalism/

Yeah, you've read me the way I intended. The fact that we are grappling (good word) with it distinguishes us.

Character is built through education. People around us guide us through experience. If a young human received the 'education' that Adolf Hitler did, becoming a tyrant is entirely possible, though not necessary.

I've been living overseas for 18 years and Australia is not racist. Even the fact we recognize what racism is and are confronting it distinguishes us positively. Of course, there are racist Australians, of all colors, but to say the country is racist is absurd when you take into account post-war immigration. I mean, just check out to see if immigration to China or the Middle East or other places outside the West is even possible...

Yeah. It must be a trope. They just roll it out.... Add to the impression that MFC isn't serious in confronting its shortcomings. Automatic dishonesty. I mean, the last thing I want to hear is that they are ignoring the noise. There's a lot of truth in that noise, and ignoring it is dumb.

I think you're mistaken. We are all people, and as such we are capable of understanding each other. We could all be St Francis or Adolf Hitler given the right, or wrong, circumstances. The idea that we somehow can't speak for others is not accurate in my experience. To assume it is places people in boxes marked by their identity, and surely that is the opposite of what we are trying to achieve when confronting racism.

I can't give you specifics as there is a risk that my children would be persecuted for it. Not sure how I've defeated my own point....

Is this thread about the footballer or a new Robert Ludlum novel?

What did I say?! https://www.melbournefc.com.au/news/740602/demons-ignore-the-noise-as-they-aim-for-sydney-reset

Mate, this is bollocks. And it is racist and sexist. Look what you have said - a male human with white skin is fundamentally incapable of understanding X. [censored]. I have been living overseas for eighteen years, nine years in one major civilisation and the other nine in another, and the news is not good in terms of racism. The rest of the world -- I mean, not the Western world -- is committed to racist thinking. Racism is an issue only in Western societies. We are trying to do something about it. In the rest of the world people don't even recognize it, or, if they do, they don't say anything about it because that would be to upset the apple cart and you get persecuted for that. In the societies in which I have lived, I have been excluded from political power, from employment, from welfare because of my whiteness. I have been told that when females see me coming down the street, they see their rapist. I could go on. It has been assumed that I am a Christian. It has been assumed that I want to take over the world, to kill people of a particular religion. I am not joking. The longer I live overseas, the better Australia seems. Every time I go back I am astonished at how unracist it is. This in no way excuses the person who vilified Harley -- I mean, [censored] grow up, [censored] -- but bigotry and prejudice exist everywhere, and targeting particular groups such as white males with equivalent bigotry and prejudice isn't going to help Harley. It just makes those people feel persecuted, and they will fight back against that, as they are. The simple solution in a case like online vilification of Harley is that everybody who signs up to use social media has to have valid ID attached to their account.

With OMac in, Lever looked more the player he was at Adelaide ie. a good one..

Thought Weid was good today. Sure, dropped a couple e shoulda taken, but he can look at himself in the mirror tonight and feel good. Play the boy the rest of the year and give ‘I’m a fair dinkum run at it..

Dunno. I’m guessing not. He’s a midfielder and obviously we have no room for more midfielders. But he’s big and strong and might do a better job than Melky who seems to have lost interest in being a footballer..

Yeah, stacks of spot on comments here this week, like all weeks. Still, too many errors, but general improvement. They looked a better balanced team with the talls and Benell. All we are saying is give Weid a chance. Maybe bring in Sparrow for Melksham.

A great man once said, "I'll predict anything except the future." Well, okay, he wasn't great, just my colleague, an aging Scot with German roots who enjoys fish 'n' chips as much as any Aussie. Even so, I'm going to have a go: At some point in the next few days, in a media conference, it will be brought to Simon Goodwin's attention that this week there has been a lot of discussion in the media about the MFC. Simon will reply that moving into the hub has helped them to "shut out noise" or words to that effect. Oh, and there will of course be "learnings," "looking to the future," and other glib phrases which signal that he is failing to deal with the issues which he has been dismissing in this way for a very long time. A quote I would like to hear from him is this: "Never again!"

Yeah, I think he is. Just we need another tall closer to goal. Has to be Weid. Get him in the team and tell him it's now or never. It's time to step up.