Soren wrote on Dec 24^th, 2015 at 10:38pm:

See, this is the problem, Soren. Rights are inalienable. Every person is born with them and they cannot be taken away from you.

Now, a government may not recognize your rights but that doesn't mean that those rights are not there, it only means that those rights are being infringed upon.

The problem with Australians is that they believe that rights are actually privileges and that the government, perhaps with the will of the overwhelming majority of people can infringe on those rights and stop people from exercising them.

The truth is however that those rights are still there, the unfortunate thing though is that Australians don't really understand them and won't to stand up to defend them because Australians have been handed everything on a platter. They didn't have to fight a revolution to no longer be a colony and you're still a part of the British Commonwealth despite the fact that in the 70's the Queen's representative, the Governor General sacked the democratically elected government.

As for my nation. I was born and raised in Australia but I consider the US, where I now reside to be my nation and I'd gladly die defending its system of government.

polite_gandalf wrote on Dec 24^th, 2015 at 4:30pm:


Which quote Gandalf? Please highlight the relevant bit for me.

Quote:


Do you support the Palestinians refusal to surrender and efforts to maintain hostilities as the more honourable path?

Quote:


I think Australians have a better understanding because Americans tend to confuse rights for what is written into the constitution. You say our rights were handed to us on a platter. Your thoughts are handed to you on a centuries old piece of paper, and you regurgitate them on command. NRA propaganda is a classic example of people trying to misrepresent rights.

freediver wrote on Dec 25^th, 2015 at 10:05pm:


reply #43 - Israel can live as good neighbours - by falah.

Human rights is a concept based on the Jewish and Christian doctrines that say that there is no social rank before god, no difference between slave and free, man and woman. From this comes the idea of equality before worldly the law (as above, so below) and from that comes equality (universality) of basic human rights equality before both worldly law and divine law wherever you are on this earth.

But there is no such equality in Islam, neither before god nor before worldly law and so the universality of equality before law because of the universality of equal human rights is also a strange concept for them.  There is no recognition of the equality of the infidel and the Muslim, or the equality of men and women because they are not equal before Allah and so they cannot be equal before sharia law.