Reply #13: I've been there twice and New Zealand once. I take it you are a

[Joe Chi Minh]

right-winger, maybe far right. Just let me know when you come across a far-right winger who shows any concern for his own people in the sense of racial type, will you, never mind compatriots of another racial origin. I'd be intrigued to hear about it.

As for Rudd's policies regarding the aborigines, I defer to no-one in my admiration for the Aboriginal people, but I'm sure that if they are rights that Rudd is removing, your definition of freedom and mine with regard to them would differ. Alcohol has always caused major social problems with the Aboriginal people, as it has, I believe, with the native Americans in your country. Or so I was told on here by a native American poster.

If I remember correctly an article I read in a UK newspaper, the combination of alcohol and pornography has led to a particularly disturbing level of paedophilia in Australian aboriginal families, and violence generally. Vices that are, of course, far from confined to the Aborigines, but as I said, it is the level involved that has evidently caused Rudd to treat the matter exceptionally.

Many thousands of years of living in the harshest environment imaginable followed by a sudden requirement to adapt to our venal, materialistic values has evidently led to immense stresses for them, and the vulnerability of character of the weakest among them under the influence of drink is surely something only an irresponsible national leader would ignore.

Since we were created according to certain specifications, freedom in such matters is basically religious in its nature, and as the derivation of the word, religion, indicates, it implies being bound by responsibilities. A mother's duties towards the children she loves are surely very onerous, but it would be farcical if mothers raised Cain that their personal freedom was being prejudiced by them, wouldn't it?