Untitled Blog Entry

I'm not entirely sure where we've gone wrong with this country, but I'm becoming increasingly convinced that we have, in fact, screwed up quite badly. Now, Australia might be dry, but it was a relatively nice place when we got the joint--well, stole it really, but I don't think the Aboriginals mind much after the centuries of mass murders, violent frontier incidents, the Stolen Generations and the disproportionate bias against them in courts that rival even that of South Africa during the apartheid regime.

But, ignoring the continued history of human rights abuses based on the colour of people's skin, Australia has managed to pull off this whole developed country thing pretty well. The education system sucks, but it's made plenty of people literate and we've got some decent universities. We have a system of universal healthcare, or at least we will until Tony Abbott ruins it. Cigarettes and booze are still legal and that's fine by me because I like cigarettes and booze.

I absolutely have to wonder where we've screwed up when we've managed to progress this far only to be still screwing over the Indigenous population, voting in a man who doesn't mind stealing from the poor and giving to the rich, and still have an incredible number of people who will deny scientific principles. How exactly do we justify this?

I'm not saying that to have an advanced society, we have to lay down the societal institutions and improve the cultural attitudes towards social justice issues. What I am saying is that surely there comes a point where we have to sit down and say, "We've got these institutions which can and are greatly benefiting the population, but surely we as a people should agree that we have to stop abusing human rights. We're not savages anymore."

I suppose most of the people who read this will be people who are going to essentially agree with me anyway. That being said, I have to wonder where Australia has gone wrong.
September 28th, 2014 at 02:52pm