Snowden probably caused the deaths of many agents of his country in the field which is treason and deserving of a capital sanction
They were not “desperate” people they were arrogant and greedy people who gambled their lives and lost The world is a better place without them, its as simple as that.
guffawer
The ALP wont win an election promising another Tax on energy that was rejected not 3 years ago. The ALP wont win an election when Chris Bowen demonised anyone who negative gears
think the policy is all about shoring up their primary vote by trying to lure back those who have defected to the Greens the problem is that there are far more who will defect away to the government than will return to the fold over this.
They don’t like it up em!!!!! fro those who don’t get johngood123456’s allusion
Don’t assume that criticizing the carbon tax proposed By Shorten means that anyone has to endorse or defend “direct action” both are bad but Shorten’s new scheme is going to be orders of magnitude worse by any measure that matters.
What would delight me more would be you ceasing to cut and past big slabs text from elsewhere instead of commenting properly like the rest of us
voltron1966
Especially with your mate, murdoch, spreading lies and misinformation for you flat-earthers. Hopefully, he’s too busy with his new succubus, I mean wife.
Murdoch certainly does not have the sort of power and sway that you imagine he has.
Helicalgroove
Its still a return to the Carbon tax
No it isn’t. I’m not going to repeat what Doomglitter has already told you, but no it is not.
As far as the voting public are concerned if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck then its a duck no matter how much you and your ilk claim it is some new species of bird.
Thanks for illustrating what I was referring to with my comment about Liberal misinformation though.
I am being utterly truthful here
markingstar
BHP revealed it paid $4.25 million to the Minerals Council of Australia to help its campaign against the mining tax in 2010. You will be delighted.
That is utterly irrelevent
thefinnigans1
Direct action has a carbon tax/price
Well I don’t support that scheme either frankly we should do nothing rather than waste money on futile actions. That said it is a lesser evil than the Carbon Tax but not by much
DoomGlitter
The Clean Energy Act of 2011, which established the emissions trading scheme as a mechanism to deal with climate change, talks about a “price” on carbon, not a tax.
The Gillard government typically referred to a “carbon price” when communicating its policy.
You can hide behind semantics in your comments as undoubtedly the Labor party will hide behind semantic during the election campaign but taht won’t change the public perception that this is still a Carbon Tax being proposed by the Labor party. Its a poisoned chalice filled with climate change Kool Aid.
an amount so small that it can not be measured…………. this is an attempt to raise the Carbon tax form its well deserved grave and the public will reject it in greater numbers than they will welcome it
Its still a return to the Carbon tax and while that may play well to the “Greens” demographic the rest of the country will refuse the poisoned chalice in droves even with out a government campaign against it.
A sneaky Carbon Tax is still a carbon tax no matter how Labor try to dress it up in almost impenetrable complexity. And no matter how complex the Lab0r party make its New carbon tax it will still make absolutely zero difference to the climate.
Like you Murph73 I have long favored the idea of creating a separate legal instrument to meet the needs of same sex couples, but sadly the activists are unwilling to accept that because of their fallacious idea that apples are precisely the same as oranges when everyone knows that you can make a pie with apples but you can’t do the same with oranges even though both are fruit.
coppersmith
While I share the concerns expressed in this article, I wonder if reflexive intolerance isn’t a normal, even necessary, part of the dialectic of social change.
two wrongs do not make something right More importantly behaving badly to others no matter how much you feel it is justified hinders rather than enhances your cause no matter what it might be.
Marginalised people and there supporters who are on the verge of achieving a hard-won victory over conservative and reactionary forces in society are likely to see that success as fragile.
How they feel simply does not matter
Shaming people for expressing dissenting views may be quite deliberately silencing debate in an effort to ensure that their acceptance is firmly entrenched as part of “the new normal.”
That is just a form of bullying and its often counterproductive as well
While I don’t like to see reasoned debate on an issue shut down, I would be very willing to have critics of transgender people (or Islamic identity, or aboriginal peoples, or what have you) loudly shouted down in the public square until we stop seeing video of people on busses loudly abusing some minority that they are personally offended by.
How very totalitarian of you !
Look if people don’t have the freedom to offend then they have no freedom of speech at all. And if they don’t have freedom then you won’t either.
Maybe a rule of thumb: When vile prejudice if no longer acceptable on the political right, then we’ve reached the point where the left needs to be ready to ease off the knee-jerk response. On many of these issues, we’re just not there yet.
That is ridiculous. under your regime we would never be there, just as it was under Stalin
coppersmith
While I share the concerns expressed in this article, I wonder if reflexive intolerance isn’t a normal, even necessary, part of the dialectic of social change.
Marginalised people and there supporters who are on the verge of achieving a hard-won victory over conservative and reactionary forces in society are likely to see that success as fragile. Shaming people for expressing dissenting views may be quite deliberately silencing debate in an effort to ensure that their acceptance is firmly entrenched as part of “the new normal.”
While I don’t like to see reasoned debate on an issue shut down, I would be very willing to have critics of transgender people (or Islamic identity, or aboriginal peoples, or what have you) loudly shouted down in the public square until we stop seeing video of people on busses loudly abusing some minority that they are personally offended by.
Maybe a rule of thumb: When vile prejudice if no longer acceptable on the political right, then we’ve reached the point where the left needs to be ready to ease off the knee-jerk response. On many of these issues, we’re just not there yet.
laclem
Also, what are the arguments against same sex marriage that aren’t based in bigotry and homophobia? Genuine question, as I haven’t heard one yet.
There are quite a few of us out there who are for individual liberty to have any kind of sexual relation ship with another consenting adult that pleases you but have reservations about changing the definition of marriage to include same sex couples.
PDGFD1
I see no ‘problem’ there. As long as the discourse doesn’t descend into abusive language.
Maybe that is because you feel the advantages of politicla correctness within the bubble of your fellow minions of the left here where contary opinons are so very often denounced or disallowed even when they are presented in a polite and respectful way.
IF ‘tother side will brook no opposition at all, or claims any and all criticism is ‘intolerance’ then you are dealing with someone who isn’t capable of civilised discourse.
Actually it is your side of the arguments who do that Just look at any thread about feminism and you will find tons of comments removed , supposedly for violating community guidelines but what they have really done wrong is disagree with the prevailing orthodoxy here. Its things like that which does the politcally correct team no favors.
Yes even readers like me agree with the thrust of this article
JohnTiler
its no more biased that the sources you cited and no matter what its bias you can not deny what it says about your citations which is that all of the ‘research about same sex parenting has a faulty methodology caused mainly by having a rather small and self selected sample rather than a larger more randomized selection and a suitable control group.
John
I can google studies that support my opinion as well:
In his study, published earlier this year, Sullins examined the National Health Interview Survey’s results from 1997 through 2014. The survey, which has been done since 1957, gave Sullins 1.6 million people as his total sample size, including 207,000 children and 512 same-sex couples raising children.
Sullins said that the size of his study gave it a specific strength that other studies on the issue lack. He pointed to 47 studies that say children raised by same-sex couples are not worse off than children raised by opposite-sex parents, all done prior to 2010. “The mean sample size of all of these studies was only 39 children.”
“Only four studies used a probability sample….And the largest of these probability samples was only 44 female same-sex families,” said Sullins. Sullins cited Canadian researcher Doug Allen, whose work has famously showed that children are better off when being raised by parents of the opposite sex, to highlight another flaw in those studies — that the participants are often recruited through the LGBT community via ads and other methods, and therefore have tremendous biases.
The results of Sullins’ study are clear — 7.4 percent of children raised by opposite-sex parents have emotional issues, while 17.4 percent of kids raised by same-sex parents have similar issues. Similarly, 10.2 percent of kids raised by opposite-sex parents have ADHD and other emotional issues, while 19.3 percent of kids raised by same-sex parents have the same issues.
More than 10 percent of opposite-sex parents get their children treated for emotional issues, while more than 17 percent of same-sex parents do the same. And 6.9 percent of kids raised by opposite-sex parents are prescribed medication, compared to 21 percent of children raised by same-sex parents.
“Parent education and income makes no difference” in how children turn out, said Sullins, nor does “family stability” or “age, race, and sex of the child,” or emotional issues that parents have.
Sullins also criticized the popular idea that the children of same-sex parents are bullied and otherwise ill-treated compared to their counterparts raised by opposite-sex parents. He pointed to the National Health Survey (NHS), which he noted has “several good measures” related to such matters. When he looked at the NHS survey, Sullins found that children “with opposite-sex parents were stigmatized at a higher rate,” and that “the differences were augmented — it didn’t explain the differences, it aggravated the differences.”
Source
As i said same sex couples can certainly do an adequate job of parenting but lots research has found that children raised by both of their biological parents do better in life and as such that is the model that we should support and encourage.
JohnTiler
the day that a same sex couple can produce offspring without the intervention of technology and a third party gamete is the day that I will endorse Gay marriage…Gay couples can also adopt, foster and become legal guardians for children.
Which is both admirable but irrelevant to the point you are trying to counter here
Gay marriage would therefore endorse and strengthen this social endorsement of an enduring pair-bond which has been a foundation stone of human society (your criterion).
No it wouldn’t because a same sex pairing is not the same as heterosexual pairing when it comes to raising children it can be certainly be adequate in a functional sense but children do better when they can experience both male and female examples while they are being raised .
Try again Iain, this really is getting tedious.
Well I enjoy the journey of a discussion as much as its destination.
John
the day that a same sex couple can produce offspring without the intervention of technology and a third party gamete is the day that I will endorse Gay marriage, until then I will continue to argue that instead of co-opting marriage same sex couples should be seeking a separate legal instrument to meet their need for pubic affirmation of their relationships. A separate legal instrument solves all of the political problems and achieves the desired endgame of legal recognition without alienating those in our society who so strongly believe that marriage is only possible between a man and a woman.
JohnTiler
Really? that must surely give the Christians, who by and large are tolerant of homosexuality the moral high ground then.
No matter how much some individual church people opine against homosexuality the reality is that most Christians are not advocating for it to be criminalized and if you ask them privately they will admit to a “live and let live” attitude. That is tolerance, heck that attitude is evident even in Australian Christian Lobby leader, Lyle Shelton.
Perhaps your definition of tolerant is different to the rest of the world?
My definition of tolerance does not require anyone to like that which they will tolerate, in fact accepting something that one strongly disagrees with is by definition “tolerance”
JohnTiler
Because marriage is a heterosexual institution for the continuation of the species
It’s a real wonder our species managed this continuation prior to us ever inventing the institution of marriage.
Marriage, or a social endorsement of an enduring pair-bond has been a foundation stone of human society for as long as we have been a distinct species because it takes so long to bring our offspring to maturity.
rattis
Aggressive, sharp, arrogant responses.
And why is that a problem?
Your dissection of everyone’s commentary demonstrates how much you’re enjoying arguing your point, regardless of who you offend.
Yes I enjoy the process here and I am unmoved by the possibility that someone might be offended in the process because I assume that all here are grown ups.
Like a true bully, your thriving on a knowing that regardless of who you harm, you can hide behind a simplistic ideology that in a way excuses your prejudices.
Commenting here is entirely voluntary and given the fact that those arguing for your side out number the other by orders of magnitude its a bit rich to claim that I am bullying anyone.
As I mentioned to another individual who constantly looks to battle via this issue, I’d bet anything that behind the lines, theres a perfect stereotypical fit of somebody who thoroughly enjoys offending the gay community- middle aged, white heterosexual Christian male (someone who hasn’t had to fight for an inch of social justice because they’re the @ssholes who have dictated notions of social normality for centuries).
Sorry to disappoint you but I am a life long atheist, I am a bit past middle age and I have absolutely nothing against the concept of homosexuality per se. In fact I have repeatedly argued for every individual’s right to copulate with any other consenting adult regardless of gender.
And gay marriage is just another social change that further diminishes your position of power at the top of the class.
You see I reject the “hierarchy of victimhood” that is implicit in your claim above and the very last place that I would be is “top of the class in a position of power” I’m just putting the argument I believe in in an open forum, just as you are.
rattis
Iain, you clearly have more time than me to argue a point.
Not by an measure a crime to have more time as far as I am aware
I’m no longer interested in your rant.
Sorry to bear that you have been an interesting interlocutor
But you should know that in the midst of your discussion is a message being sent to gay people that you believe their relationships are not worthy of marriage.
Its not a matter of “worthiness to marry” as much as its a case of a same sex relationship does not meet the necessary prerequisites for the institution.
This in turn suggests you consider them inferior.
Not inferior just different
This is a message that hurts people who are born different to you.
engaging in our polity on any issue is not for shrinking violets ratis and if someone is ‘hurt” by disagreement then they need to toughen up a bit
I can walk away from this debate knowing that all I am hoping for is an inclusive society that finally recognises the value of a gay relationship and that the law of the land finally embraces same sex relationships as equal.
Well I think that forcing the latter in pursuit of the former may well backfire
You have to live with the thought that you’re campaigning against the rights of a minority who want nothing more but recognition in the eye of the law that who they love is acceptable and meaningful. And I don’t think your determination is doing anything for your cause.
The thing is I believe that you have a substantive acceptance of homosexuality in this country and I am very pleased that is the case its just that I believe that changing the definition of marriage is a bridge too far.
SeanoQ
Burke: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men should do nothing.”
Yes I take that as a personal mission statement.
In response to BulbousAlsoTapered
BulbousAlsoTapered
the moral imperative to yourself is to demonstrate to those people how to do tolerance properly.
Which has been my practice of a life time
A starting point would be to support SSM and Safe Schools.
No that does not follow
Joshua Monkie
Intolerance exists on both sides. Singling out only progressives for this seems pretty intolerant in itself.
I’m not saying my side of the argument is entirely blameless but my experience has been that the progressive side is somewhat worse.
rattis
So Christians are ‘tolerant’ of homosexuals.
In our country they largely are, it seesm to me taht your vision of Christianity would see them all from the same mould as the Wetsbrough Baptists when taht si simply not so in this country
Do they consider them equal?
I don’t speak for them but I would say that the vast majority think that all people are equal in their humanity
Why is there a broad movement by the Church to remove the safe schools program (designed to teach acceptance of difference) from state funded schools?
Because the content of that program is as you progressive like to say “problematic” on a number of levels and it does not actually teach acceptance as much as it teaches a “social justice” orthodoxy that is of questionable virtue.
And why is there an aggressive push to ensure the gay community are locked out of the concept of ‘marriage’?
Because marriage is a heterosexual institution for the continuation of the species
Why? Because Christians ‘tolerate’ homosexuals but they do not consider them equal.
No because a same sex couple can never create children without the intervention of a third party
They never have, and they will continue to campaign to supress them.
We live in a pluralist society and that means that Christians do not have to like or approve what you choose to do, they simply have to let you do as you please as long as you hurt no one else in the process. It seems to me that you are desperate for their approval and that you will hate on them until they give it to you.
You are supporting a movement of bullies.
No I’m not supporting your side of the argument who are the real bullies here.
FatzKatz
So, you are saying Christians are bigots by default Iain?
Certainly Not
Not very clever at this intellectual jousting are you?
Better than you, by any measure though…
laclem
By which you mean criticism of Christians, of which you are intolerant. #irony
You and everyone else here is entirely welcome to criticize Christians and I’m just as free to point out when you and your pals commit precisely the same sins that you accuse Christians of.
In response to Davesnothereman
Davesnothereman
Yes Iain, I am intolerant of bigots and will make no apology for it.
Really? that must surely give the Christians, who by and large are tolerant of homosexuality the moral high ground then.
rattis
What, intolerance of bigotry and an intolerance of Chrustians who refuse to tolerate homosexuals as equal?
If Christians* were being intolerant (which the clear majority certainly are NOT intolerant) then surely the moral imperative to yourself is to demonstrate to those people how to do tolerance properly.
Christians playing the victim is utterly absurd. If you want to be tolerated, all you have to do is accept others for who they are.
As Jesus famously said “let those among you who is without sin cast the first stone” The point that John Haldane was making about a lack of generosity in debate is clearly evident in your own comment firstly you mock Christians with unnecessary sarcasm (* above) and then you demonstrate precisely the sort of behavior you are complaining about from Christians.
And before you denounce me as a Christian I will tell you that I am an atheist.
You can bet london to a brick that there will be lots of evidence of intolerance form progressives in this thread
iBreed
So as long as our troops were better than our enemies, we should not be critical of our troops at all, even a century after the fact?
We should not be “critical” of them in a way that implies a general sort of bad behavior that was not actually the case.
He is a stupid stupid man who fails to put the very few incidents into the proper perspective, namely that such behavior by Australian troops is/was considerably more rare than it has been by the totalitarian enemies that this country has fought wars against. There was not “comfort women” for Aussie soldiers as there were for the Japanese. and any Aussie bad behavior has always been subject to the military justice system.
Exactly right Linda flirting is one of the things that puts a sparkle into life and its not something that anyone should have got upset about.
Mike
My argument is not at all about “ideology trumping science” its very much about putting what you claim is “concern” and “dismay” into its proper social context. I think that you are simply letting your confirmation bias see the public opinion of this issue through a distorting lens.
58656e
I think you are completely wrong about the public’s feelings …
No doubt you do. However when your perception is so jaundiced, as to allow you to describe the very real concerns raised by the best available science as ” [t]he sky is falling millenarian rhetoric of the AGW panic merchants,” your credibility as a witness is impugned to the point that no reasonable person can take you seriously.
On the contrary I make a point of having a very wide and diverse social circle
ratehr than just the latte sipping echo chamber that you obviously inhabit. None the less you do raise an important point when you talk about concerns, as IO pointed out in my reply to MikeFlanagan the public’s “concerns” are directly proportional to the immediacy of the threat so something that is claimed to be a disaster this afternoon is far more worrying that something that is predicted to be an issue in 100 years. We have had about decades of dire predictions and that has put this issue very much into “the boy who cried wolf” territory. Frankly if anyone is living in a bubble its you. Most of the people I meet pay lip service to the AGW orthodoxy but they don’t have any heart in it.
I put it to you that beliefs rampant in the denialist bubble you appear to inhabit do not necessarily reflect the views of normal society.
You see this is a matter of science so why do you use the language of faith? Maybe its because the whole climate change industry is really a misanthropic Millenarain cult which is terrified of heresy.
And you forget or ignore the fact that a lot of people are subscribed (as I am) just to see what the other side are doing.
I took a good look at the 2014 survey and form that its pretty obvious why they dropped the whole deal. Its a very vague and rather unfocused effort that really does not tell us much.
Frankly to use the term “dismay” in relation to the public’s level of concern is, well hyperbole. Dismay is what you feel when your life is in immediate danger or your child is very ill. Even if the AGW proposition is correct its impossible for the public to feel a sense of threat after so many dire predictions that have not come to pass (Tim Flannery and Al Gore can take a big bow on that score) and on top of that the public understand that nothing they can do is going to make much of a difference anyway. So the natural consequence is that people down grade their real concern about the issue accordingly. When people are powerless tpo change something they cease to worry about it in any real sense , sure they may do things like be more energy efficient, recycle or even keep chooks “for the planet” but they are still rather sanguine about the issue. You see I am a Boomer and that means I spent my formative years under the shadow of the Cold war and the MAD doctrine and try as you might the vague possibility that the climate may change in a way that is bad for humanity simply does not have the same urgency as the very real fear that the bombs may obliterate us.
Mike
I think you are completely wrong about the public’s feelings about climate change they are simply over the endless The sky is falling millenarian rhetoric of the AGW panic merchants. They will happily accept things like improved energy efficiency. But they reject the hair shirt policies of the extreme Greens.
Lesm
Technology has been around for the last two hundred years and has been used at different times by employers to replace human beings with machines.
Actually Len its been around since long before the industrial Revolution
Those instances were the proximate causes of various revolutions in some countries, and Parliamentary reforms in others of a more democratic bent.ve continually, with minor interruptions, to a more civilised society
Maybe so but neither are likely in contemporary Australia there is simply a total lack of awareness of the implications of things like self serve checkouts in supermarkets and even our public libraries, Personally I refuse to use them and I try to spread the word to all and sundry. Never the less So many of you socialists simply don’t seem to get it that if self serve checkouts are too successful then there will be fewer jobs in retailing, not that you lot generally care about such low status jobs
. In the end these are matters for decision by the people in a democracy and the people will ultimately decide, in much the same way as they have over that last two hundred years, to protect the rights of human beings over machines. As someone so wisely said, “machines are good servants, but bad masters”.
The machines have already got a very decent foothold and in fact it may well be too late. But you are wrong to imagine the machines becoming our masters what they are going to become are willing slaves who will compete with those workers who are now getting double time and a half on Sundays. And as you yourself point out machines make VERY good slaves, they never ask for more pay and they never complain about working longer hours.
You forget the one thing that this will drive more than any other and its already a problem, namely businesses will simply get machines to do the job instead of a casual, or haven’t you noticed the self serve checkouts at the supermarket ?
droverscat
Part of these Fair Work powers wold be to ensure employers did not have the right to just ‘seeya’, in the same way that would ensure ‘phoenix’ companies would be banned.
There are way around it if you are that keen/desperate.
The Greens haven’t peaked – they’re about to increase their influence substantially
The public are rapidly tiring of their far left thought bubbles
bestusername
Plenty of businesses already offer 3 month casual contracts as a trial period. The Greens are simply trying to make it a standard contract across the board in order to boost permanent job numbers.
You simply can not wind back the clock to the time before widespread casual employment because all of the service focused businesses, your food and retail businesses would not be profitable without casual labor.
You’d know this if you did something other than sit on your computer all day trying your damnedest to channel Andrew Bolt.
On the contrary I have been hunched over an angle grinder and Mig welder for most of the day. That said YOU would not run the line you do here if you had the slightest inkling about how business works, Hint it has nothing to do with socialism.
MarekBage
Thankfully the Greens have peaked and we will never have to deal with this stupid policy but if it did happen all that would happen is that at the end of the qualifying period employers would say See ya and employ new workers.
That said I agree that the banks need to lift their game when it comes to the way that they view workers like your wife when it coems to getting a loan but this proposal won’t do it.
I wrote my blog for a decade ant that particular obsessive made it her mission in life to harass me for most of that time.
And no its not doxing to know more about the person harassing you, the fact of the matter is that I could have “doxed” her but I chose not to even though she thoroughly deserved to have the world know all about here secret internet hobby.
For blogging to be truly civilized I think that you have to give up any notion of anonymity because then all players tend to behave better knowing that they can be held responsible for their deeds. You see over the course of that decade of blogging I have had every sort of threat that you can imagine, (yes even rape threats) I have had hate sites devoted to me created, my children threatened I have had fake Gay dating profiles created and had my face pasted into bestial pornography. I have been repeatedly misquoted and attacked for things I did not say or do. Its simply too tedious for words these days which is one of the reasons I am so sanguine when a woman complains because someone has been unkind to them on twitter
. The internet is simply not a “safe space” and it never will be you just have to know that and be tough if you want to play there no matter what you have in your trousers.
My children are quite a bit further along than yours but it may be something you are familiar with but she was never a “girly girl” and she was not consciously channeled into what would be the traditional role for a girl either, For a start I was always the primary carer for my children changed most nappies provided all of the nurturing when they were small, it has always been me they come to if they have scraped a knee or need emotional comfort so their family is not traditional. Even so certain gendered behaviors have emerged anyway which is why I am fairly convinced that those must be innate (for the most part) as for the crying thing well I council both of my children to be tough and stoic because I reckon that has very good survival value for both genders. But at two expecting a boy not to cry is a bit much.
I don’t know about the claim that “boys need more care” Both girls and boys both need care but what each needs is not always the same you have to feel your way through it and just do the best you can, frankly don’t sweat it too much try to persuasion rather than being a domestic dictator and most importantly no matter what they throw at you stay calm because if you don’t they will lose respect for you authority.
Frankly all of the tough stuff is ahead of you and gender will be the very least of your worries.
Third time lucky
I say that online bullying is a problem for all users, both male and female and I personally don’t think there is substantially more of it directed at women then is directed at men, but I do think that women are more likely to complain about it than men are which would skew the figures somewhat.
I am absolutely certain about her identity, little things like her posting from the same IP address is a dead giveaway as are straight out admissions when I caught her out but no matter what name a person uses they can’t disguise their rhetorical style, or even things like them making the same typos under different personas. But like all liars what trips them up is the lack of consistency in the lies they tell and when you have them commenting at your blog on a daily basis its easy enough to keep track of what they say.
I wrote a political blog for a decade and was often abused for doing so and the worst offender was a woman who kept inventing new personas every time I banned and told her to go away.
steerpike82
I do have one of each, with such small age gap they might as well be the same age. I’ve seen the difference in treatment. But thankyou so much for your condescendence, it really is s breath of fresh air.
Unless your children are fraternal twins there must be a minimum of nine months between then and that is not an insignificant gap in terms of their development. I find it hard to believe you when you claim to have seen ” difference in their treatment” because you as the parent would have to be the primary source of their socialization. But if you mean that you noticed that each child had different aptitudes consistent with the expectations that we have for each gender maybe its just their different natures being perceived and reinforced by the adults around them.
What our children become is obviously derived from both their innate qualities and the things that we as parents teach them.The notion that its all about nurture rather than the nature of individuals just does not stand up to any sort of close scrutiny.
In response to Aussiealltheway
Aussiealltheway
That’s likely – not. Ian Hall is just a very angry, obviously humiliated person. Let him have his little sook. Boo hoo hoo.
I am neither angry nor do I feel humiliated
steerpike82
They aren’t treated equally though.
When you have one child of each gender as I do you may kid yourself that you can make them the same by the way that you raise them but reality soon knocks that silly idea out of your head. As much as I wanted to teach my daughter about the use of my workshop she was having none of it where as my son LOVES making stuff. As a parent you can and try very hard to treat them equally but that does not equate to treating them the same.
Wizzby
No the theory is sound but often poorly understood by those who would rather it didn’t require so much effort.
If the gender theory that claims all identity is a construct rather than an expression of innate qualities then it would not be so hard to mold individuals according to the theory.
In response to Aussiealltheway
Aussiealltheway
Clearly, you do not.
As it happens I have a 16 year old daughter and an an eleven year old son which is why I know that that your wild gender generalizations are utter bullshit. Neither I nor any of the other parents I know treat their children as you suggest.
GRP2015
On line bullying of women is still on ongong problem and is getting worse.
It isn’t actually and it does women no good service to pretend that disagreeing with what they may say online is bullying.
Unsupported allegations against women by online bullies who are afraid of influentional women is getting worse.
No it isn’t
It is totally unacceptable when even Ministers of Govt engage in such activities.
Like what?
One has to ask just what is wrong with these people.
Sadly too often people like you ,make such claims (while anonymous) without a shred of evidence
Are they so frightened by these women that they have to resort to unsupported claims against such women.
I still think that you are mistaking robust online “debate” for bullyingNo doubt the Guardian will investigate their activities and hold such people to public account.
We await the Guardian’s response to defend women from such online bullying.
Peter
Legislation is only a small part of an MP’s duties
The LNP were the kings of obstruction in opposition, they are now merely reaping what they have sewn.
I saw not one needle and thread in the hands of the LNP in the run up to the 2013 election, sorry but I could not resist :o)
TheotherClaw
You rebel you!
I’ll take that as a complement
That’ll learn them, they’ll shaking in their boots when they find out your sharing your strategy.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who takes advantage of the system
Eileen Kelly
You are fortunate to be able to “pay it off in full at the end of month”.
We live within our means and take this as our mantra:
“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen [pounds] nineteen [shillings] and six [pence], result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.”
Unless the cash to make those monthly pay-offs is coming from under your mattress though, you are still holding funds in a bank account somewhere. Fees and charges will apply to holding accounts and your credit card. In my eyes the banks are still the ones sticking it to you (just slightly less than they’re gouging some others).
Our account is always in the black and as such it does not attract “fees” I also make sure that I don’t use ATMs that are not owned by my bank.You can avoid most of the fees if you make the effort.
equalsfortytwo
you’re almost as smug as mal, it’s a trait people don’t appreciate.
just a free tip for you
Sigh……………
bestusername
Shows just how useless the LNP is when they can’t pass legislation with a majority in both houses and a cross-bench mostly made up of conservatives.
If the government had a majority in both houses (which they don’t) then the leanings of the cross benches would not matter
Peter Mitchell
Iain they’re paid to pass legislation, failure to do so is a failure to do their job.
No they are paid to represent the voters in their electorates, legislation is only a small part of the job.
Politics is about knowing when to compromise, the Liberals see that as a sign of weakness but by not doing so they are ironically powerless.
Tell that to the cross bench who have been ridiculously obstructive
moveonover
The Gillard minority government successfully passed 561 bills through the parliament
.
That did not save them from being our worst government in living memory and don’t forget that their most contentions legislation like the carbon and mining taxes were quickly repealed because they were so bad.
I would suggest it is the ideological poor quality that constipates the coalition legislation , most of which I might add is still sitting in parliament and is reflected in their budgets.
and you would be wrong in that suggestion
dargie
Yet strangely , when a Labor govt. has a hostile Senate the Coalition thinks it’s quite ok to thwart them. Bit of logic please.
I think that a hostile senate is bad no matter what
ID0423880
Wrong. They haven’t been able to pass legislation because the legislation they have put up is ideological crap that’s not in the national interest.
No you are just too incline towards the left to realize that having an obstructive senate (no matter who is in power) does the country a great disservice.
The cross bench aren’t the problem, it’s the governments policy.
Frankly I think that giving six nutters the power to block legislation is profoundly undemocratic
Delusional to think otherwise.
Our senate is a profoundly undemocratic institution and you only have to see how many votes it takes to elect a senator in Tasmania and compare it to how many it takes to elect a senator in Victoria to see why.
RMcC63
It’s a theory and a bloody good one, you might feel uncomfortable thinking about it but deep down you know it’s true.
If you believe that then have I got a deal for you on a slightly used bridge…
karmapolice
We vote for policies and parties here, not a president- that’s the fatal mistake Turnbull also made.
Actually we vote for MPs who then elect a PM However the Government will be bringing down its budget shortly and that will contain more than enough “policy” to make any one happy.
MikeTaree
Iain, even if Turnbull just scrapes in he will have lost many of the backbenchers in marginal seats who supported him in his coup over Abbott.
I really don’t think that will be the outcome
To quote Gandalf at the end of the Two Towers film “Sauron’s wrath will be terrible, his retribution swift”.
And clownshoes will be back on his rampage.
Tony Abbott is simply not Kevin Rudd no matter how hard you want pretend that he is.
Wheelspinner
Your last, best hope is that the people will find the Leader of the Opposition more objectionable than your lot when they go to the ballot box.
On the contrary I think a lot of people are sick of change for its own sake and they will appreciate stability. especially if a DD cleans out the cross benches or gives the governemnt a more workable senate
After almost 3 years, there is no policy platform to stand on, no record of achievement to point to and no future direction for the country. Nothing.
“Steady as she goes” is pretty good for most folk, except you minions of the lefty who want to constantly reinvent everything even when its not broken.
ID0423880
And somehow Turnball has made the genital herpes option attractive.
Go figure.
Only to those who attend “conversion parties”
Stephen Prowse
Not any more, we need to get the “least worse” (to paraphrase FDOTM) and at the moment our PM is performing very badly. The ALP has credible policies on the table.
Only in the eyes of those like you who would NEVER vote for the LNP under any circumstances.
I’m not wrong, Under labor there were leaks form the Gillard and Rudd camps
Really? We both know that for the ordinary generally nu-engaged voters its the personality of the leader that matters and Shorten is as popular as genital herpes
Actually being able pass their legislation will make a biog difference to the government and its the reason that they have not, as you put it , been able to do the job they are paid for.
No it won’t because the alternative is Bill Shorten and that is a most unpalatable choice indeed.
If you want to stick it to the bank then do as I do buy everything with your credit card and pay it off in full at the end of the month…
Iain Hall's SANDPIT 