The Worlds gone bonkers

[Gotthammer]

Not quite - Howard lost support from the far right at times due to his occasional more moderate stances (gun control, sending troops in to East Timor against Indonesia, organising a referendum to decide on becoming a republic despite being a staunch monarchist etc) but also never got much extra support from the left for refusing to apologise to the Aboriginal people, LGBT rights and so on.
Basically he kept his mouth shut and did his job and seemed to actually know what he was doing (even if we didn't always like it) rather than his contemporary opposition who were changing leaders every few months and Abbot who just seems to be a complete moron and appears ruled by his personal politics.

On a party level Labor were in shambles and never quite recovered from ditching Rudd (though he needed to go) and then the Liberals hammered them on the carbon tax and spending issue so people just looked at them scrapping the tax without reading the fine print of "and everything else too"

[daboarder]

Not quite - Howard lost support from the far right at times due to his occasional more moderate stances (gun control, sending troops in to East Timor against Indonesia, organising a referendum to decide on becoming a republic despite being a staunch monarchist etc) but also never got much extra support from the left for refusing to apologise to the Aboriginal people, LGBT rights and so on.
Basically he kept his mouth shut and did his job and seemed to actually know what he was doing (even if we didn't always like it) rather than his contemporary opposition who were changing leaders every few months and Abbot who just seems to be a complete moron and appears ruled by his personal politics.

On a party level Labor were in shambles and never quite recovered from ditching Rudd (though he needed to go) and then the Liberals hammered them on the carbon tax and spending issue so people just looked at them scrapping the tax without reading the fine print of "and everything else too"

All this, basically we may not have liked howard, but we could damned well at least respect him (until the end)

[url]http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/john-howard-rebukes-tony-abbott-over-fairness-20140604-39jgi.html[/url]

[Mr Mystery]

I see what he did there....specific Govt.....not Government. That's a lot of weasel, even for a politician.

And I have to say, I'm genuinely concerned by the current rise in far right parties in the developed world..... It's all going to go horribly, horribly wrong again isn't it?

[daboarder]

I see what he did there....specific Govt.....not Government. That's a lot of weasel, even for a politician.

And I have to say, I'm genuinely concerned by the current rise in far right parties in the developed world..... It's all going to go horribly, horribly wrong again isn't it?

fall of the middle class. rise of the 1% always leads to turmoil and aggression.
Can I recommend this

[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_in_the_Twenty-First_Century[/url]

[Mr Mystery]

Well, this is all perfectly horrible.

Why is it always 'don't blame me mate, blame that foreigner'??

Let's face it. I'm not effectively shut out the housing market because someone moved to my country. I'm locked out because there's a bunch of greedy sods sat up the top of the pile wanting to keep things in the status quo - Limited supply, driving up the price, whilst they rent, rent, rent to all and sundry, making even more money.

Wouldn't be so bad if it was possible to join them with the ease they got up there, but the post-war generation had it all, took it all, and dragged the ladder up behind them.

Grr!

[Wolfshade]

Because we always do. Someone who is different is obviously a threat, this thought is primeval in origin and why tribes waged war rather than working together.

[Mr Mystery]

But we're so much better educated and informed these days. Yes, even those of us who squander their education.

We know that political extremists are lying through their teeth. We know Politics is essentially a game of obfuscation and misdirection. Yet we lap it up.

Look at 'Britain First'. Vile little party, but with a solid understanding of social media.

Man this sort of stuff brings me down.

[eldargal]

Because we always do. Someone who is different is obviously a threat, this thought is primeval in origin and why tribes waged war rather than working together.

We don't actually know that though, the oldest record of certain human violence dates back 15,000 years and opinion is split whether it is warfare or the murder of trespassers. In some areas of the world evidence of human-human violence appears in the archaeological record only 4 thousand years ago. Violence does seem to be an inherently human trait but we don't know when it became a Thing or how ubiquitous it was.

[Wolfshade]

Given the earth is only 6,000 years old, if reject your pre-earth theory

But more seriously, I do accept that we do not know when it happened, whether it was in response to external pressures on humans (i.e. we can only protect/feed our family/tribe) or internal (i.e. people who believe my ideology have a manifest destiny to x therefore all your base are belong to us). Without documentation we can only guess. I think the best we can hope for is observing the "uncontacted" and see how they operate, but even then they might be too "modern" to decide.

[Wolfshade]

But we're so much better educated and informed these days. Yes, even those of us who squander their education.

We know that political extremists are lying through their teeth. We know Politics is essentially a game of obfuscation and misdirection. Yet we lap it up.

Look at 'Britain First'. Vile little party, but with a solid understanding of social media.

Man this sort of stuff brings me down.

People in large numbers are stupid.

It is the "Dan Brown" narration, you start with a truth, people believe you, you then move onto a half truth, owing to the first people are more likely to belive you, finally, you lie, owing to the previous experiance, you believe them.

But there are people who do not understand this, look at the number of stupid [URL="http://www.buzzfeed.com/mrloganrhoades/38-yahoo-questions-that-will-destroy-your-faith-in-humanity"]questions people ask [/URL]or [URL="http://www.buzzfeed.com/daves4/people-that-will-make-you-feel-like-a-genius"]what they say[/URL]