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It doesn't require rocket science to understand how bad this is. It's like permission to arrest and jail anyone for no reason BECAUSE he may commit crime in the
by ezoe 8y ago
It doesn't require rocket science to understand how bad this is. It's like permission to arrest and jail anyone for no reason BECAUSE he may commit crime in the future.
- brian-armstrong 8y agoAustralia's inhabitants were sent there in punishment for crimes, so in fact everyone there is a criminal already (or descends from a crimefamily)
- threeseed 8y agoAbout 1/3 of Australia are immigrants. So no. Most of us aren't criminals or descended from criminals.
- toomanybeersies 8y agoHonestly, that joke's getting a bit old now. Most Australians are recent immigrants, only 20% of Australians are descended from a convict.
- lozaning 8y agoAny truth to what I've been told that it's a point of pride for those who can trace their family lines back to those that were criminals? I've heard it's kinda similar to the The Daughters of the American Revolution in the US.
- fineline 8y agoApparently it used to be considered something you would try and hide, back in the days of the cultural cringe[0], whereas now it can be seen as a bit of a badge of honour. My wife's family descends from a convict bloke whose free wife came out too and got her husband assigned to her. Convicts were assigned as essentially unpaid labour (other than food and a rough bed) to land owners at the time. Given that many were very petty criminals back in Britain (e.g. stealing a loaf of bread) some interpret the arrangement as not much better than slavery, as a means to provide free labour to grow the fledgling colony. Some of the tales of the worst penal institutions (think Tasmania) are truly horrifying. But many convict labourers were granted their freedom over time too. It also had an interesting effect on the labour market, with free settlers finding it hard to get decent pay as farm labour etc. One of the great statesmen, Henry Parkes, was in exactly that position when he first arrived in Aus as a poor settler, and got involved in the protest which eventually turned back the last convict ship ever to anchor in Sydney Harbour. He went on to be elected multiple times as premier of NSW, achieving lots of progress in the state (trained nursing, universal education etc.) before getting the heads of all the colonial states around the table to drive the process of joining to become the nation of Australia. If only we had statesmen / women of that calibre today ... but sadly not. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_cringe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_cringe
- Jedi72 8y agoI saw a very large bumper sticker that said "Convict stock" in the stereotypical tattoo-script style font in a particularly bogan part of Perth about 10 years ago.
- caf 8y agoEven the convicts were in many cases victims of the social and economic upheavals in Britain at the time, wrought by the industrial revolution.
- mb_72 8y agoPutting aside immigrants, this is ignorant of the indigenous inhabitants of Australia who have been here for some 10s of thousands of years.
- thewizardofaus 8y agoSouth Australia was founded by settlers that chose to move to Australia, not convicts.
- lsh 8y agorepresent
- fphhotchips 8y agoAnd were promptly greeted by food shortages requiring them to eat the breast meat of crows. Hence the nickname for the denizens of the state: Crow-eaters.
- mb_72 8y agoSouth Australian here - I was unaware of the origin of the term, so thanks for that. I have an interest in such history as my distant relative, one "Johann Heinrich Both" arrived on the Bengalee back in 1838: http://www.theshipslist.com/ships/australia/bengalee1838.shtml http://www.theshipslist.com/ships/australia/bengalee1838.sht... ... and was most definitely not a criminal.
- toomanybeersies 8y agoAnd the Australian Football team from the state capital, Adelaide, are called the Crows.
- lostlogin 8y agoAre you referring to the aboriginal population or the Europeans who followed thousands of years later, or both? The thread that you’ve started seems to have assumed you refer to the European settlers.
- dang 8y agoPlease don't post flamebait, and especially not nationalistic flamebait, to Hacker News.
- mantas 8y agoThis reminds me an old joke.. Police raids dude's house, finds torrent client installed and says he'll be arrested for piracy. Since he has tools for piracy. Dude says they should arrest him for rape as well. Why? Well, he has tools for that as well..
- krylon 8y agoPolice Officer: You just don't know when to shut up, do you? [Goes and arrests the dude for piracy and rape]