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Turning back boats, the new normal?


Harpodom

do you agree with 'turning back' asylum seeker boats?  

40 members have voted

  1. 1. do you agree with 'turning back' asylum seeker boats?

    • Yes, I'd actually go further than that.
      4
    • Yes
      22
    • No, it's morally repugnant.
      14
    • I don't care, so long as they don't bother me with their problems
      0


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Guest Guest66881
what does turn back mean I wonder ?

 

From whence they came perhaps.

 

 

Too easy as the builder said to the home owner:wink:

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Don't be a drama queen.

Use your loaf, I know you find it difficult, but try.

 

I don't think you or your little chums have thought this through.

 

Where do they go, now that Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, Sri Lanka and presumably India won't accept them? Back to persecution in Burma, or just a slow death at sea from dehydration, starvation, drowning etc?

 

What I don't understand is why don't the navies of these respective countries just kill the asylum seekers? Why make a pretense of concern for their safety, by giving a bit of food and fuel?

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So, no news story relating to animals should be given any air time, because there are always more important things happening to humans?

 

And anything to do with Australia's quarantine laws is an irrelevance?

 

Your words not mine. I have no concern for celebs and even less for their pooches. I'll leave the fretting on that issue to you.

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The poll is showing 75% in favour of boat turnbacks which is probably similar to the general community attitudes I would think.

 

You know I think the Swedes, home of the second largest refugee intake in Europe, may just take a dim view of using their colours, while promoting such an anti compassionate/humanitarian stance in every posting.

 

Fact is all too many are baa baa sheep and easily led. With successive governments demonising and name calling in place of statesmen like governance is it any wonder the baa's feature as such in some poll you refer. Put the wording another way and the White Australia Policy would be back in place tomorrow.

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I thank you Tony Abbott. We all know the boats never stopped, but at LEAST he stopped them coming HERE. What a guy!

 

This is a sick world we live in, where stateless Rohingyan refugees with no home to go to are being bounced around SE Asia, as if in a game of refugee ping pong, and left to die in the ocean.

 

I have a horrible feeling the EU will start doing the same very soon.

 

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/14/malaysia-turns-back-migrant-boat-with-more-than-500-aboard?CMP=soc_567

 

[h=1]Malaysia turns back migrant boat with more than 500 on board.[/h]

 

This is just the beginning of a human crisis ...its now a trickle ,but it will grow.

In relation to these poor people from Burma ....what are their muslim brothers and sisters doing for them ?....where is Indonesia ? ...saudi Arabia ? ...islamic relief ?.....why is the west supposed to pick up the tab.

Something must be done ,so the Islamic countries should be stepping up.

It reminds me of the hypocrisy over Palestine ....everyone jumps up and down ...but there are palestinians in Syria...iraq...jordan and across the middle east that no one wants .

I saw a large group on t.v in Syria,who had been living under canvas for 20 years,constantly being moved on

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There are a number of people on here that are shooting down every reason for turning back the boats, yet I don't recall seeing them come up with a solution to the problem except to say each time that people are heartless (or worse). So if you disagree with turning back the boats, what would be your solution to the worldwide refugee problem?, and keep it practical, not pie in the sky wishful thinking.

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Guest Guest66881

Why here though, everyone knows it's not going to happen for them so why not aim for other countries instead?:wink:

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There are a number of people on here that are shooting down every reason for turning back the boats, yet I don't recall seeing them come up with a solution to the problem except to say each time that people are heartless (or worse). So if you disagree with turning back the boats, what would be your solution to the worldwide refugee problem?, and keep it practical, not pie in the sky wishful thinking.

 

Exactly the point really. Easy to take the moral high ground and snipe backwards and forwards with the few right wing posters at the other end of the spectrum but the silent majority recognise this is a complex issue and that actions that end up actively encouraging hundreds of thousands of other asylum seekers or economic migrants to risk their lives on ocean crossings would be an even worse act of inhumanity because eventually the western countries would have to stop taking them in - by then the oceans would be full of boats with hopeful migrants.

 

I cast my mind back to the 70s and 80s when plane hijackings and similar hostage taking was happening. Ultimately the states and their citizens who were willing to negotiate prisoner releases, cash, safe passage for hijackers were increasingly targetted. A difficult decision had to be made not to conceded hijacker and hostage-taker demands and the problems reduced. A terrible policy decision for the individual hostages concerned but the correct one. Sometimes the tougher course is the correct one.

 

The people who create this human crisis are largely ignored by some who see only the short term immediate need of a particular boat-load of people.

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There are a number of people on here that are shooting down every reason for turning back the boats, yet I don't recall seeing them come up with a solution to the problem except to say each time that people are heartless (or worse). So if you disagree with turning back the boats, what would be your solution to the worldwide refugee problem?, and keep it practical, not pie in the sky wishful thinking.

With all due respect, turning back asylum seeker boats to sea isn't actually a solution is it?

 

The current approach of refugee ping pong might appeal to you but I don't see it as a very intelligent one. The solution lies with the international community, sharing the burden of refugees.

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Exactly the point really. Easy to take the moral high ground and snipe backwards and forwards with the few right wing posters at the other end of the spectrum but the silent majority recognise this is a complex issue and that actions that end up actively encouraging hundreds of thousands of other asylum seekers or economic migrants to risk their lives on ocean crossings would be an even worse act of inhumanity because eventually the western countries would have to stop taking them in - by then the oceans would be full of boats with hopeful migrants.

 

I cast my mind back to the 70s and 80s when plane hijackings and similar hostage taking was happening. Ultimately the states and their citizens who were willing to negotiate prisoner releases, cash, safe passage for hijackers were increasingly targetted. A difficult decision had to be made not to conceded hijacker and hostage-taker demands and the problems reduced. A terrible policy decision for the individual hostages concerned but the correct one. Sometimes the tougher course is the correct one.

 

The people who create this human crisis are largely ignored by some who see only the short term immediate need of a particular boat-load of people.

 

And plane hijackings back in time have exactly what to do with the subject on hand? Why would you or any other poster consider those aiming at compassion and respect for legal agreements have any grand solution to the entire mess largely brought into place by western intervention?

Very unfair to expect a complete solution from an individual when no government has of yet stumbled upon anything of note to solve the issue. That in no ways impacts on the correct treatment of people with the decency and compassion we would hope to receive ourselves put in such a situation.

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With all due respect, turning back asylum seeker boats to sea isn't actually a solution is it?

 

The current approach of refugee ping pong might appeal to you but I don't see it as a very intelligent one. The solution lies with the international community, sharing the burden of refugees.

 

The solution as I have long suggested can only come about through international agreement and consensus. I don't think anybody has suggested it being easy. But together the world must find a way forward while maintain the core values that make us what we are.

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And plane hijackings back in time have exactly what to do with the subject on hand? Why would you or any other poster consider those aiming at compassion and respect for legal agreements have any grand solution to the entire mess largely brought into place by western intervention? .

 

I thought it was a fair analogy. Not giving in to a hostage takers demands for money or prisoner release could be consigning the innocent hostages to death. Therefore not compassionate. Giving in to demands leads to many more hostages being taken but would be the compassionate thing to do.

 

We all feel for the desparate people on the boats but the aim has to be to stop others from doing the same, not encouraging them.

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With all due respect, turning back asylum seeker boats to sea isn't actually a solution is it?

 

The current approach of refugee ping pong might appeal to you but I don't see it as a very intelligent one. The solution lies with the international community, sharing the burden of refugees.

Harpodom

I didn't say refugee ping pong appealed to me, so don't assume it.

What is this solution the international community is supposed to come up with??????.

Sharing the burden of refugees? Please explain how that would work and who would organise it.

Again, another answer without really a solution.

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