To The Australian        The claim by Stuart Andrews ("Court ruling on Ridd raises some questions", 24/4) that there is no "unfettered right to denigrate or offend" in public discourse can be disputed. One person who did so was T. S. Eliot who, in his 1931 essay on Charles Whibley, observed with regret that few people any longer claimed "the free speech to call a knave a knave, or a fool a fool." Eliot noted that "invective is a form of writing which varies at different times and in different countries according to the customs and laws in vogue at the time and in the place." He added that some people deplored the decay of the language of abuse as a literary loss. Perhaps one symptom of a healthy society is its capacity to tolerate language that vilifies and to admire vilification that is also witty. By contrast, a craven kow-towing to limitations imposed on discourse by commissars is then a sign of cultural ill-health.
  Nigel Jackson, Belgrave, Vic

     Come now; how can a sensible white person not feel just a we bit uneasy in the privacy of their study, nervously drinking wine:
  https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2019/04/10/new-nus-president-has-said-thatshe-wanted-oppress-white-people/?li_source=LI&li_medium=li-recommendation-widget

“The incoming president of the National Union of Students has said that she wanted to “oppress  white people” and have an “Islamic takeover”. Zamzam Ibrahim, 24, from Greater Manchester, also described the Government’s counter-extremism strategy as “disastrous” and “racist”. Using the hastag #IfIWasPresident, she wrote on Twitter in 2012: “I’d oppress white people just to give them a taste of what they put us through!” She signed off the message by writing “LMFAO”, which in urban slang is short for “Laughing My F***ing Arse Off”. Responding to questions online about what book everyone should read, she said: “The Quraan. We would have an Islamic takeover!” In another question about friendship between men and women, she wrote: “I've had this debate with many friends! Maybe in some cases but Islamically it's incorrect for girls to be friends with a guy anyway! So I'm gonna say NO not the kind of friendship they can have with the same gender there is always boundaries.”

     People form crime gangs, naturally enough, and that shows social integration, I suppose, if one kept to the letter of Durkheim’s sociology:
  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6901271/Judge-ruled-Turkish-criminals-gang-membership-showed-socially-integrated-Britain.html

“A Turkish national convicted of a string of offences was allowed to stay in the UK after a judge ruled his gang membership showed he was 'socially and culturally integrated'. Tolga Binbuga was convicted of a string of offences including robbery, burglary, assault and a criminal damage. He was also jailed for  a year after pleading guilty to burglary in 2013 after he stole a Mercedes car key along with £3,000 worth of electrical goods from a house in Enfield, north London. The 29-year-old came to Britain when he was nine and never applied for UK citizenship. Binbuga was also convicted of cautioned for drug possession and shoplifting. He joined the north London-based Get Money Gang which the Met Police say are the second most dangerous groups in the country. When the Home Office tried to deport Binbuga his lawyers appealed saying he was a 'home grown criminal', according to the Sun. In 2016 Judge Evan Ruth ruled Binbuga's gang affiliation proved he had 'socially and culturally integrated' into British culture and he was allowed to stay in the UK, the newspaper reports.

     Here is the typical special pleading to increase immigration, this time from the United States. It has the same structure as the articles that we get tossed at us by the media here. Why do they bloody bother, since they will do what they will with a dopey population who have zero resistance? And, who are these articles addressed to since the elites who might read them agree anyway? Why waste data? So many questions, so few answers.
  https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/liberty-vittert-america-must-increase-immigration-or-risk-economic-disaster

“We have unprecedented levels of low unemployment in America. It could even be said that we really have too many jobs and not enough people to fill them. While this currently isn’t a problem, it will soon have devastating impacts on our nation’s economic stability, and the only answer is to increase immigration to America. In the past 60 years, the birthrate in the United States has decreased by over 50 percent and is only falling faster. This is not by design. There are multiple factors contributing to this trend: people are getting married later and having kids later in life, women are focusing on their careers more than ever before, and contraception has become more effective.

     Here is the typical special pleading to increase immigration, this time from the United States. It has the same structure as the articles that we get tossed at us by the media here. Why do they bloody bother, since they will do what they will with a dopey population who have zero resistance? And, who are these articles addressed to since the elites who might read them agree anyway? Why waste data? So many questions, so few answers.
  https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/liberty-vittert-america-must-increase-immigration-or-risk-economic-disaster

“We have unprecedented levels of low unemployment in America. It could even be said that we really have too many jobs and not enough people to fill them. While this currently isn’t a problem, it will soon have devastating impacts on our nation’s economic stability, and the only answer is to increase immigration to America. In the past 60 years, the birthrate in the United States has decreased by over 50 percent and is only falling faster. This is not by design. There are multiple factors contributing to this trend: people are getting married later and having kids later in life, women are focusing on their careers more than ever before, and contraception has become more effective.

     Over to New Zealand, where we find Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister of the land of the long white cloud, has simply not got the memo:
  https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/386125/winston-peters-won-t-apologise-for-muslim-comments

“Winston Peters isn't backing down over comments he made about Muslims during a 2005 speech titled The End of Tolerance. In that speech, he said New Zealand has always been a nation of immigrants, but not of Islamic immigrants. "In New Zealand the Muslim community have been quick to show us their more moderate face, but as some media reports have shown, there is a militant underbelly here as well," he said. "These two groups, the moderate and militant, fit hand and glove everywhere they exist. "Underneath it all the agenda is to promote fundamentalist Islam. "Indeed these groups are like the mythical Hydra - a serpent underbelly with multiple heads capable of striking at any time and in any direction." In that speech, he also suggested asylum seeker Ahmed Zaoui must "chuckle at the naiveté and innocence of his supporters who clearly have no understanding of radical Islam." Mr Peters told Morning Report the comments were made in the context of recent terror attacks in London and that Imams around the world were saying the same thing. "I was talking about extremism and I don't resile from that."

To The Australian        How can the Liberal Party regain strength and impetus in our national affairs? Michael Sexton analyses problems ("Liberals face decline amid shifting public priorities", 23/4), but does not provide ideas for reform. The greatest mistake the party can make, as Malcolm Turnbull has helped show, is to turn itself into a second centre-left party. Rather, it must "go right", but this must be done in an intelligent manner. What does that require? Firstly, a new effort must be made to build a narrative of Australia as a great nation with further greatness ahead of it. This means celebration of the British settlement, our roles in two world wars and several minor conflicts, our pioneering history and our construction of a modern free nation based on an outstanding constitution which it is difficult for the left-wing zealots to erode. Secondly the party needs to associate itself strongly with sacred tradition - not just Christian tradition and certainly not "old-fashioned" Christian practice. Leave atheism and rationalism for the ALP and the Greens. Thirdly, and most painfully, the party must detach itself from the "anti-racism" zealotry that has done immense harm to our sense of who we are and where we can go. This, especially, will call for gallantry and honesty; for there are very powerful interests opposed to such necessary reform.     And fourthly the party must not allow its identity to be primarily tied to business and economic issues. These lack glamour and have been over-emphasised in recent decades.
  Nigel Jackson, Belgrave, Vic

*Responsibility for electoral comment authorised by K. W. Grundy 13 Carsten Court, Happy Valley, SA.

A personal opinion from Viv Forbes
who takes responsibility for any electoral comment.
23 April 2019.

     This is not meant to be a statement of Saltbush Club policy – our members have enough sense and experience to make up their own minds. But I believe these guidelines will help to achieve Saltbush policies. It also explains the background for my how-to-vote opinions.

A Quick Summary:
     Hold your nose as you enter the polling booth. Then -

     I love science because there is always weird and wonderful stuff coming out. I do not know how much of it is true, but does that really matter now in our post-truth world? What counts is entertainment, and science supplies that in plenty. Take this one:
  https://www.livescience.com/65125-mosquitoes-dont-care-for-skrillex.html

“In a blow to dubstep fans everywhere, a team of insect researchers has found that female mosquitoes listening to Skrillex had less sex and sucked less blood than mosquitoes who spent 10 minutes in silence. The authors of the new study, published March 25 in the journal Acta Tropica, wanted to test whether loud music could be used to manipulate mosquito behavior as an "environmentally friendly" alternative to insecticides. Because mating and blood-sucking are the main means by which mosquitoes transmit deadly diseases like Zika virus and dengue fever, interrupting those behaviors with obnoxious noise could also mitigate the spread of disease, the authors wrote.

     Surely this is false news, Brunei imposing the death penalty for gay sex? I must run this pass the socialist group in the shopping mall handing out leaflets to let in the refugees; they will know the truth and set me right.
  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6872465/UN-condemns-Bruneis-new-inhuman-laws-impose-death-penalty-gay-sex.html

“The United Nations has condemned Brunei's new 'cruel and inhuman' laws imposing death by stoning for gay sex, and amputations for theft. UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet said in a statement that the country should maintain its long tradition of not applying the death penalty - which it has not imposed since 1957. 'I appeal to the government to stop the entry into force of this draconian new penal code, which would mark a serious setback for human rights protections for the people of Brunei if implemented,' Bachelet said. Bachelet also stressed that international law imposes very stringent restrictions on the use of the death penalty, which can only be applied for the crimes of murder and intentional killing, and only after all due process requirements have been met. 'In reality, no judiciary in the world can claim to be mistake-free, and evidence shows that the death penalty is disproportionately applied against people who are already vulnerable, with a high risk of miscarriages of justice,' Bachelet added. 'I urge Brunei to maintain its de facto moratorium on the use of capital punishment.'

     It is truly amazing how things work. On day one, Julien Assange is kicked out of the Ecuador embassy, then the next day the IMF approves a giant 4.2 billion dollar loan for Ecuador. An amazing coincidence, and we can be sure that nothing went on behind the scenes, because, well, that would be conspiratorial wouldn’t it?
  https://www.enca.com/business/imf-approves-42bn-loan-ecuador

     And Facebook, which is  supposed to any censor white nationalists and horrible anti-vaxxer people, has now blocked the Facebook page of Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa, who is neither, but still a pest to the globalists:
  https://www.rt.com/news/456366-rafael-correa-facebook-blocked/

To The Australian        If the ALP does win the coming elections, it is to be hoped that common sense will trump fanaticism in the management of Aboriginal affairs ("Dodson under pressure to deliver", 20-21/4). Expectations that "Labor would deliver a first-term referendum on a 'voice to parliament'" will need to be disappointed. All models of "constitutional recognition" involve an innate inequity and capacity to divide, not unify, the nation. Most Australians will not be fooled out of seeing the obvious, so any referendum proposal looks doomed to failure and that is as it should be. Moreover, a failed referendum would see strengthened international pressure put on our government. That also is an ill that should be avoided by common sense and fair play.
  Nigel Jackson, Belgrave, Vic

*Responsibility for electoral comment authorised by K. W. Grundy 13 Carsten Court, Happy Valley, SA.

To The Age        Denny Meadows says that the Uluru Statement from the Heart "was outrageously dismissed out of hand" (20/4) by the government, but the truth is that the rejection was wise, because the attached proposals are inequitable (contrary to the interests of most Australians) and separatist (leading towards a loss of our national unity and security). There is no likelihood that any "constitutional recognition" proposal will succeed in a referendum. Holding one would be a waste of public money.
  Nigel Jackson, Belgrave, Vic

     Maybe if young people skipping school to protest about minor things like climate change really wanted to be scared, then they should start paying attention to geophysical threats, which have the potential to cook life, and in fact, have in the past. Things like the weakening of the earth’s magnetic field and likely reversal of the poles:
  https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-04-12/weakening-earths-magnetic-field-has-greatly-accelerated

“Earth’s magnetic field is getting significantly weaker, the magnetic north pole is shifting at an accelerating pace, and scientists readily admit that a sudden pole shift could potentially cause “trillions of dollars” in damage.  Today, most of us take the protection provided by Earth’s magnetic field completely for granted.  It is essentially a colossal force field which surrounds our planet and makes life possible.  And even with such protection, a giant solar storm could still potentially hit our planet and completely fry our power grid.  But as our magnetic field continues to get weaker and weaker, even much smaller solar storms will have the potential to be cataclysmic.  And once the magnetic field gets weak enough, we will be facing much bigger problems.  As you will see below, if enough solar radiation starts reaching our planet none of us will survive. Previously, scientists had told us that the magnetic field was weakening by about 5 percent every 100 years.

To The Age        The argument of Gillian Triggs and Julian Burnside in favour of stronger legislation to prevent events such as the Christchurch massacre ("We need stronger laws to deal with hate speech", 15/4) is fraught with danger for the principle of free speech, which is so vital to the wellbeing of the open society, such as we currently enjoy in Australia, but which millions of human beings in closed societies around the world do not. Their plea in fact looks like a carefully manicured proposal for the political censorship of views they happen to dislike and disagree with. This is suggested by their thoroughly misleading description of Senator Fraser Anning's commentary on the massacre. In his open letter to the Prime Minister dated 27th March the senator wrote: "My statement unequivocally condemned this heinous act of murderous violence. After putting the immediate blame where it belongs, I looked for contributing causes." There is thus no justification for the description of his comments as "a vile response" that "constitute an abuse of free speech."
  Nigel Jackson, Belgrave, Vic

     Sex, gender, and all of your values are all social constructions, even social constructions are social constructions, making them meta or higher order social constructions. For this philosophy, we need go no further than Teen Vogue:
  https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2019/04/01/video-teen-vogue-idea-body-male-female-wrong/

“Teen magazine, Teen Vogue, is at it again, diving headlong into contentious politics and calling it “science” — this time with a video titled, “5 Common Misconceptions About Sex and Gender” that proposes that “binary is bulls**t.” The video features a group of speakers telling teenagers that traditional gender roles are not “scientific.” The speakers scoff at the idea that a person with a penis has to be a boy and a person with a vagina is by nature a girl. Some of the sage comments include that of Belgian model Hanne Gaby Odiele, who is seen saying, “I’m here to tell you that binary is bulls**t.” Next up, author Katrina Karkazis sneers at the idea that “sex typically refers to your biological traits.” But Karkazis goes on to insist that gender is not about binary sexes but is instead about “ideas” about sex. “Gender is about your identity, your expression, and it’s often based on ideas about sex.” Another segment warns the young target audience that “This idea that the body is either male or female is totally wrong.”

     First it was banning doctors and nurses from saying anything critical of the vaccination industry. Then there were Facebook bans. But the U Decay (UK), now ramps up the volume, as the young people say (if they still do):
  https://www.naturalnews.com/2019-04-13-health-freedom-alert-britain-to-ban-everyone-from-discussing-vaccines.html

“Facebook has already implemented a plan to weed out information that is critical of pharmaceutical companies and their vaccine policies. For example, groups on Facebook may share information on measles, but they cannot share information on vaccine adverse events because this might cause “vaccine hesitancy.” “Hate speech” policies are now used to censor “dangerous” ideas – ideas that certain people just don’t agree with. Information that criticizes the Democrat party is now deemed “disinfo” from Russia, and can be censored out of social media using filters and algorithms. The Russia collusion hoax has led Twitter to shadow ban conservative ideas, as they claim to “protect American democracy” from foreign interference.

     In my local newspaper this week (the Ferntree Gully Belgrave Mail) the front page story (“Cross of Easter”) deals with an art installation at the front of nearby Tecoma Uniting Church which is said to draw “parallels between Christ’s crucifixion and the treatment of asylum seekers in Australia”.

     Described as “confronting”, the work shows three figures representing asylum seekers hanging on crosses. The artist, the Reverend John Tansey, is reported as stating that his art work reflects “the crucifixion of the human rights of asylum seekers”. There is no reason to doubt his sincerity or compassion for detainees on Manus Island, Nauru and Christmas Island – or the church’s good intentions or those of its minister, the Reverend Matt Cutler.

     Conventional Christian theology holds that Heaven as a wall, and gates, if only metaphysical and metaphorical. Not everyone can get in. Presumably, the Pope holds to this, for otherwise why bother with all of the stuff Catholicism requires you to do? If anyone can get into Heaven, then eat, drink and be merry, and care not about anything at all. And, Hell is really easy to get into as well, having basically open borders. If one simply lived an anti-Christian life, then one is in.  Now, how can the Pope be against borders between nations, or at least, once white Western nations? Surely to be consistent he will need to go the way of liberal Christianity and have open borders for Heaven. That means that immigration critics, and champions of walls will get into Heaven, to annoy him in the afterlife for all eternity! Cheer up, Popey.
  https://www.breitbart.com/immigration/2019/04/07/pope-francis-praises-multiculturalism-migrants-always-bring-riches/

     Migrants always bring riches? So, Trump was wrong about migrant crime? Ok.
  https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-42557828

     Here is an example of how mass immigration, a policy to serve the dual purpose of the demographic displacement of whites (always denied by the media, even though the declining white population is celebrated by them from time to time), and to make short term profits.
  https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/04/10/population-of-london-to-hit-10-million-within-a-decade-driven-by-immigration/

“London’s population is set to exceed 10 million for the first time by 2029 with net migration a primary cause, statistics show. The figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show the dramatic findings in which the population of the capital, currently standing at 9.1 million, will rise to over 10 million in 10 years time with the population reaching nearly 11 million by 2041. This would be a population increase in London alone of over three times the total population of Sheffield in just 22 years. The population rise is, in part, due to high numbers of international migration to the city, with an estimated 172,000 international migrants arriving in the capital each year. Other cities in England, too, face large population growth due to immigration, with Greater Manchester seeing an average of 22,000 international migrants arriving each year, Birmingham 13,000 and Liverpool 7,000 according to the government figures. The population is due to rise sharply all across England, from 56.5 million this year to almost 64 million by 2041. This is largely due to an estimated average influx of over 450,000 international migrants every year, roughly the population of Cardiff, with a net annual migration of over 200,000.”