[Benjamin_Dobell]

Putting this bill in the same basket as gun control seems a bit rich. However, comparing it to public health care is well off the mark. Medicare was first introduced in Australia way back in 1975, 35 years before the US. Access to affordable health-care is widely considered a basic human right, and Medicare in Australia widely considered a smashing success.

Actually, so are our gun control laws, and they were motivated by mass shootings on our own soil, namely the Port Arthur massacre, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Arthur_massacre_(Australi..., this wasn't some ploy by the US or the Five Eyes. The Australian public wanted this, and absolutely still do, myself very much included.

[adiusmus]

Actually my point was that the US gets changes after they are tested elsewhere. You didn’t address that.

So by omission you’re saying that the US won’t be getting these encryption laws. And that Australian style gun laws won’t arrive in the US either.

Ok then.

[Benjamin_Dobell]

> So by omission you’re saying that the US won’t be getting these encryption laws.

Wait... what? Do you always structure your arguments by putting words in other people's mouths then argue against things they never said. In doing so you're wasting your's and everyone else's time.

Not only are you wrong in you assertion. If you'd paid even the smallest amount of attention to the context in which you're posting you'd realise this. I'm the OP for this sub-thread, I suggest you read what I wrote.

Now that we've got that aside...

> And that Australian style gun laws won’t arrive in the US either.

Just stop.

We're talking about the Assistance and Access Bill. Stop trying to validate some totally unrelated belief you hold by loosely latching on to valid arguments that myself and others have made here. The reason I responded to you is that I want to make it perfectly clear to anybody reading this...

I do not hold your views. These are not related issues.

[fit2rule]

The Australian public worship war and are utterly ignorant of the graves they live upon. Are they really your metric for how it should be?

[Benjamin_Dobell]

I'm not sure where the "worship war" idea comes from. I've never heard anyone state something like that before. What are you referring to specifically?

However, Australians are far from perfect. In particular being isolated geographical means lack of exposure to other cultures and leads to a significant portion of society being "casually racist", which sucks. All our modern political parties are a joke as well, and due to our small economy we are in many ways a puppet of the US i.e. this bill.

So no, I don't think we're a metric for how it should be. But the really depressing part is that with all the negativity I've just listed (and there's certainly more), we still have our shit together more than a lot of other countries. That's far from being a reflection on Australia being "good", rather it's a reflection on how bad a significant portion of the world is.

P.S. One positive thing about Australians is that the majority of us aren't particularly patriotic. So we will happily admit to how big of a disgrace our country can be!

[fit2rule]

Count the war memorials in your city. Now count the memorials to the Stolen Generation, and try to find anything that acknowledges Australias own ethnic cleansing history.

[Benjamin_Dobell]

> try to find anything that acknowledges Australias own ethnic cleansing history.

Where do you live? You're very clearly entirely ignorant about the issue you've raised:

http://museum.wa.gov.au/explore/articles/national-apology-st...

Our Prime Minister issued an official apology for the abhorrent acts that took place and led to the term "the Stolen Generation". That doesn't even remotely make those acts okay, but to suggest that it's not even acknowledged by the Australian people is just outright ludicrous.

EDIT: By the way, there's also something called "National Sorry Day", which is kind of a big deal in Australia, I suggest you Google it.

[tekknik]

Medicare was introduced in the US in 1966.

[Benjamin_Dobell]

Woah, my apologies, thanks for the correction.

I had meant to compare Australian Medicare to when something equivalent was introduced in the USA. However, I really don't know much about the US system. I had very much incorrectly assumed that the Affordable Care Act had introduced legislation bringing in changes making it fairly comparable to Australian Medicare. Alas, that doesn't seem to be the case, they're still extremely different systems.

Also, a little extra research tells me that what I consider to be "Australian Medicare", wasn't actually introduced until 1984, which is when our healthcare became universal.