Bitter Australians

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Diary: It just never ends...

From Dec 6 2007: "AND a client might be finally paying their invoice ... 4 months late but still it's worth $300."

Well I still haven't been paid and it's causing major drama in my life. How I wish I could just go to work everyday, earn a wage and feel normal when I get up.

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Bitter Australians

The Bali 9 have asked that the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, not forget them. Most of them are sentenced to death for drug dealing in Indonesia.

I was reading the comments in The Herald-Sun and I was blown away by the bitterness and cries for blood from readers. So many readers were completely heartless and full of self righteous hate:

"Do the crime, do the time... I doubt many Australians feel much compassion for these fools"

"I'm christian and i have zero issues with them been put to death"

"They deserve the death penatly! Drugs KILL thousands per year"

"..Let them DIE"

And my favourite:

"They committed the worse possible crime, drug traffickers are mass murderers. They carry a tool that kills many. They must die. Death to them. I'm Australian and happy for them to die. I hope they get to see this also and understand very few Australians care for them"

All these mindless, uninformed trash seemed to blame these people for the drug misery in Australia. It is just incredible.

"they were ruining the lives of drug addicts so they deserve it"

"I say THEY DESERVE TO DIE and in the manner of the thousands of drug addits die in"

"...and when you see what drugs are doing to young people on our streets alone they all should be shot and forgotten about"

The other sickening trend was to use Howard's terminology, "sending a message".

"An example must be made, they must die. It's as simple as that. They have done the crime, now be an adult and take the punishment"

"I feel absolutely no sympathy for them, and if anything the fact that they got caught and are on death row / have long jail sentences means that less people will attempt to do what they did"

To sum it all up:

"I'd like to ask everyone where do we draw the line? We have people here who say drug trafficking is not a serious crime or that they made a mistake, but do we actually do anything to deter others with dollar signs in their eyes? We have all witnessed a proliferation of drugs/addicts on the streets, we have seen, heard, been, or know of victims of drug addicts who go to extraordinary lengths to get their next hit; are we just to expect this as the norm? The lack of law enforcement and a soft judiciary is played out before us daily and we have resultantly seen massive increases in crime throughout the country so again I ask, where do we draw the line? Do we just accept ever increasing crime as part of life, or de we do something to stop it? Unfortunately for the Bali 9, they probably will set the benchmark and hopefully will deter others from being tempted to run drugs. I think we as a nation need to harden up and re-introduce a tough stance on crime so that law abiding citizens can lead their lives without fear. Bring in mandatory sentencing"

I added my 20¢ worth (1200 characters or less):

"Before we condemn people to death, ask yourself, do you really know the facts?.

Why are so many countries now tackling the obvious problem ... people are always going to use drugs, whether it's alcohol, tobacco, marijuana or something else. No matter what the penalties are, people will always take something and addicts will feed their habit. No amount of law enforcement will stop them. It's been like that since the dawn of time. Some countries like Canada, Britain, Netherlands, Spain and Germany are now even giving addicts prescription heroin. The realisation is that problems caused by drugs is mostly because of the price and legal drugs like alcohol have far more problems including addiction. But alcohol problems are treated as a health issue and it is cheap so they don't have to resort to drug dealing to buy their drug.

So should drug dealers be executed? Should moonshiners face a machine gun? Should pubs that serve minors be hanged? Arguably they supply a drug that causes more damage than all illicit drugs combined.

Drugs are a problem but being constantly told by politicians and religious groups that it's O.K. to snuff out someone's life is barbaric."

What has happened to Australia? Am I just deluded that Australia hasn't always been like this? I am fairly sure that after decades of demonising drug addiction, it has paid off for the politicians and religious who need enemies to crusade against. I wonder has Howard's nasty Australia policy including "tough on drugs" helped to make us so hateful?

You can read this articles here:

Bali Nine begs PM: please don't forget us

PM to appeal for Bali Nine mercy