From: Clyde.Spencer@f223.n143.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Clyde Spencer)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns
Subject: Re: Aussies
Date: 10 Apr 92 21:47:00 GMT
Organization: FidoNet node 1:143/223 - The Paul Revere Net, San Jose CA

BR>From: brian@coombs.anu.edu.au (Brian)
BR>Date: 9 Apr 92 23:24:07 GMT
BR>Organization: Computer Services Centre, Australian National University
BR>Message-ID: <brian.702861847@coombs>
BR>Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns

BR>Clyde.Spencer@f223.n143.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Clyde Spencer) writes:

BR>>In the course of reading the give-and-takes between the Australian and
BR>>American posters it has occured to me that there may be a historical
BR>>explanation for the difference in attitudes.

BR>>Most of the American Forefathers were risk-takers who came to the New
BR>>World to escape oppression -- being told what they could or couldn't do.
BR>>They arrived in an untamed wilderness with no one to depend on but
BR>>themselves.

BR>>The Australians on the other hand, were forcefully removed to a penal
BR>>colony against their will.  There they found themselves being controlled
BR>>by their captors, who told them what they could do and what they
BR>>couldn't do.  If they went along with the program they survived.  If
BR>>they didn't they may not have.  It seems being taken care of by their
BR>>captors has become institutionalized there.

You did edit out my acknowledgement that the above was a bit
tongue-in-cheek.

BR>        Oh, well, another American shows a total lack of
comprehension about conditions in colonial australia.  Tell me, do
you think that the convicts were kept in nice stone prisons and under
close supervision the entire time they were serving their sentences?

No, actually I don't believe that.  But correct me if you didn't
actually have prisons that were used as initial holding sites and might
have been resorted to if those released got into trouble.  The essence
of the thesis is whether or no initially the supervision was more so
than in America and whether restrictions imposed on those "released on
their own recognizance" was greater than the Americans experienced.

BR>        Do you believe that Australia is some sort of benigne piece of
BR>countryside where fruit grew from the trees and animals layed down in front
BR>of you so that you could slaughter them?  Do you think that the Kooris were
BR>willing to simply sit still and see their land taken away from them?

Although probably not totally germane, you did not have the equivalent
of North American wolf packs, certainly nothing like the NA grizzly
bear.  It is my impression that the North American indians, particularly
the plains indians, were a great deal more war-like, and with their
rapid adoption of horses introduced early by the Spaniards, were a more
formidable adversary than the Kooris.  The first Vikings (not exactly
soft and easy going) to discover "Vineland" were apparently exterminated
by the native indians.

 BR>        Australia and the people transported to Australia were
everything you said about America Clyde.

Except the reason for being there and hence the conscious decision to
take a risk to be free.

 BR> More so in some cases, its climate is much
 BR> harsher than the North American continent

Not so.  In the area in which the colonists landed, particularly New
England, winter temperatures of -30 C are not uncommon with a meter of
snow on the ground for up to six months.  One can survive in the desert
with little shelter and clothes if water is available.  However, to
survive in the New England climate, shelter, fuel and adequate clothing
is a necessity.  That takes a peculiar industriousness to prepare for
winter that has won international acknowledgement for "yankee
ingenuity."  Most of the Eastern United States similarly has a snowy
climate that is not exactly benign.

 BR> and it is much, much more arid (its the driest continent in
the world).

If total area of aridity is somehow important (most of your population
after all lives in coastal cities) than the point is well taken.
However, if we are concerned with extremes and the challenges brought
about the necessity to cope with hardships, I will simply ask if you
have heard of Death Valley?  Actually, much of our Western interior from
the Rocky Mountains to the Sierra Nevada is extremely arid and while it
doesn't get quite as hot as Australia in the summer it get considerably
colder in the winter.  It is a hostile environment!

 BR> Remember, also a large proportion of those transported
here were hardened city bred criminals as well, so they were neither
prepared or understand what farming entailed (and most European
farming practices were found to be outright wrong for Australian
conditions and had to be unlearnt fast).

Farming didn't seem to be the strong point for the first New Englander
colonists either.  The story of our "Thanksgiving" holiday is how the
local indians saved the Puritans from starvation the first winter.

BR>        The major difference you don't allude to though, is that because of
BR>the very nature of the shore on which they were marooned (no return from
BR>transportation rememeber), Australians decided instead of competition to
BR>ensure survival, that _co-operation_ was the way to go.  Co-operation has
BR>worked for us for over 200 years.  Its allowed us to literally build a
BR>nation from nothing in a much shorter time than your own.

BR> Competition has done the same for yourselves, but at what cost?

Well, for nearly 200 years it has made us the envy of the world with
numerous peoples of various ethnic backgrounds wanting to immigrate
here.  It has earned us the moniker of "melting pot of the world."  It
is perhaps however that very thing that causes you to be critical of us.
We are splintered by various factions who suffer real and imagined
prejudice; we have groups demanding special privileges.  Our school
systems are turning into Towers of Babel as English becomes a minority
language.  We have perhaps become the victims or our own success as many
people have lost the will to work hard and excel.  You are smug in your
self-righteousness about your superior culture.  Yet you do not carry
the burden of the complex problems we have inherited from our past
successes.  Again, I repeat and old Indian saying: "Do not be critical
of another man until you have walked a mile in his shoes."

 * SLMR 2.1a * What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly.


3
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Clyde Spencer
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