drgibbon

Had this nagging feeling I'd forgotten something today... hopefully cya all next time!!

I'm in, see you all there.

Will make the next one.. and finally bring "Saucer Wisdom" back

Bogus, I can't make tomorrow yet again.

Oh ok, yeah it's been out for a while.

Hey has everyone seen this? It's seriously awesome. The guy has been on TV since, haha.

It's a full on, double complete rainbow.

Heh, yeah I was kidding. I was surprised to hear they are using it to "get in tough with their inner selves" from the Sarge. I don't know about anyone else, but that sounds like an extremely dangerous substance to me

Love the use of single quotations.. it's always 'sacred', 'sacrament', and 'church'. These damn DRUG USERS will say anything to get away with BREAKING THE LAW!! ;)

Heh, nah just vaguely reminds me with the accent. Actually I thought it wasn't going to be very good, cos I've heard some shoddy amateur raps out on the net, but I was impressed!

Haha cool man, sounds a bit like Jovanotti?

Fair call, maybe I am coming across holier than thou. I just think that we really are lucky to live in Australia (compared to a lot of other places), and it kind of upsets me when people talk as if we've got nothing here (the government ONLY wants to rip you off, the cops ONLY want to harm you, etc, etc).

This is not completely related, but I like to think there's patterns in the world in how things happen, so I'd like to relate this little story of mine. A few years back I was involved in a community, I don't want to say exactly what, but it revolved around some activity. Now, there was the 'old guard' who used to run everything, and were responsible for pretty much everything that happened in the community. The new breed were coming through the ranks, and were talking about a lot of problems in this community, in-fighting, people dropping out, people complaining of injustice, corruption on the boards (involving money), all kinds of stuff. The new breed (of which I was a part of), took on a sort of revolutionary air, we had all these great ideas, if only we could get rid of the old guard, they were the ones holding us back and were responsible for everything that was wrong! We knew how to fix it and we were going to make everything better. The path we went down was essentially one of division. Us vs Them. We felt we had a righteous cause, but our method was basically fueled by negativity, mistrust, and hatred. Well, in the end we won. The old boys disappeared, and there was a new dawn. Fast forward two years. Can you guess what happened? Nothing. Nothing changed, in fact, maybe things got slightly worse. The old boys had to come back and take up the reigns again because the new guys didn't do a thing. We all just disappeared. It was almost like all we really wanted was a fight. Once the fight was won, there was nothing left to fight for. The only thing left was hard work. But... we didn't sign up for that.. Well, that's my rambling story, but what I say the world needs is god damn good vibes from people all around. All that stuff about how the world is controlled really marginalises people, it makes people feel like they've got no power and they're at the mercy of some terrible force that they must struggle to fight. We're all in this together, we need people doing real life things to help (enviro people, engineer people, medical people, artists, whatever), but every single person can help by just trying to make each day better for themselves and everyone they come into contact with. Categorising all police as brutes and coming at them always with negativity in your interactions (advocating spitting at them etc) really does a disservice to our community. I think it's useful to keep in mind that however misguided people in positions of power may be, they are also human, they live on the same planet as us, and ultimately we all want to live somewhere good.

Right, so the government is controlled by a corporation, that allows the government to act as a government so no one finds out??

Interesting video on the admiralty law thing, but do you put automatic faith in the information in that video just because it appeals to what you'd like to be true? We're talking about the law, wouldn't you need to talk to some lawyers at least? I've been on Centrelink a few times yea, it's a pain in the arse, but the difficulty more or less comes from the bureaucracy, not because the company controlling Centrelink is conspiring to keep people out to cut their losses. Failing to get Centrelink usually means you failed the means test, meaning your parents have too many assets/income (or you do). Of course I'm not saying no one has ever been wrongly imprisoned, no one has ever been wrongly convicted, but the level of paranoia about the police in this thread seems totally unwarranted to me. Sheather: Your feeling unsafe around police would be pretty natural if you have a negative view of them. That doesn't mean they are all actually dangerous thugs out to get you. Of course, your personal experiences might tell you otherwise, and I can't argue with that at all.

I triple guarantee you that your life will not be more relaxed by telling the cops to get stuffed Are you all really being regularly harrassed for no reason by the police in Australia? I don't watch much TV or read the papers, so I'm just going on what I see, but to tell the truth I don't see a hell of a lot out there. Haven't talked to any police for yonks, haven't seen any cops bothering anyone actually for quite some time. Then again, I don't go out on Saturday nights (and I'm sure there's a fair bit of action there with alcohol being rather influential), and I hardly ever drive (bus or bike mostly). I don't doubt that it does happen (and has happened to me at certain times), but from reading this thread you'd think we're being savagely oppressed!

Rim is cool too. Dunno why, but I wanna hear it get chopped up and go mental near the end

Sweeeet. Really good sounds. I wasn't expecting the first track to cut loose like that, nice work

I partially agree with what you're saying, but I think you've grossly exaggerated the situation. You really believe we just need taxes because politicians are milking the country??? We use taxes to fund public services, such as building/maintaining roads, healthcare, public schools/libraries, centrelink etc. If the government were solely interested in making money (i.e. a commercial entity), why would they provide services such as Centrelink? Why would there be medicare, why would there be public transport? Why would the government provide various services which don't actually make money? If they were truly a commercial entity, they'd shut down all unprofitable ventures. The public sector is not the private sector. I realise they may at times be in bed with each other, but to state that public sector = private sector in Australia is just incorrect. Show me a business that literally gives away money to the entire nation (Centrelink). Show me a business that pays for all the nation's students to go to university, with the repayments only being indexed for inflation (where if you never make much money you NEVER have to repay it, where there is no interest charged, where there is zero profit motive). Show me a business that exists simply to let people read books, use the Internet for free, and hire out DVDs and music CDs (public library). There must be many more examples. You only need to give this thing a little bit of thought, the government in Australia–as a whole–simply does not function in the same manner as a commercial entity. This sounds a rather flaky. Ok, so some guy is racing around the street at 180km/hr, doesn't have a drivers license, but he hasn't hurt a soul (yet). The cops pull this guy over, and he gives them the sovereign man line. Now under your definition of common law, there's no case against him. He hasn't hurt anyone, he doesn't intend to hurt anyone, and he doesn't consent to the "contract" of the road laws, so off he goes. Can't be correct. The cops can simultaneously exist to generate revenue for their department and to maintain a measure of peace and safety within society. Why does it have to be one or the other? We don't live in America folks! You can't just read stuff about how the American system works, and go, "yup, just the same here". In regards to the public sector being bought wholesale, see the above points. Why do these public services still exist? I'm not saying there's no corruption, whenever there's money involved there's going to be greed for sure, but that's hardly the same thing as being a business outright.

Interesting, but still, wouldn't you have to have broken the law? I might be ignorant, but I thought the police represented the government, what's the commercial entity you're talking about? Not saying they don't do things for revenue building, but the public sector is not the same as private, right?

Well, I was trying to draw a distinction between the two. I.e. things like that happen in US, but I've not heard of it here. Made sense to me at the time. Just a misunderstanding.

Ok, but the original poster is talking about his issues in Oz yea? Problems other countries have with their police force shouldn't effect how we view ours?

People just driving/walking around in Australia are randomly getting picked up and taken in as political prisoners ??? I'm not sure they're all stupid and dangerous, but what does "they will win" mean? If you tell a cop your name / address / where you're going or whatever, and that's it, did you "lose" ?? I mean look at lofty's story, if it's going to come down to violence, there's not much you can do about it (considering they have weapons). 15 years old and some police thugs beat you up, that's bullshit, but you can't argue your way out at the time. Like he said, in court they're just going to lie and no one will believe the 15 year olds doing 'soles in the park over the police. (Of course if someone was bashed by the police I think the victim should take them to court, but that's another thing). Being defensive, refusing to answer questions, etc, well... that makes you look like you're hiding something. On the other hand, if you present as a rather uninteresting and law abiding citizen, you have far better chances. It works whether you're breaking the law or not, either way, you want to look like you've got nothing to hide. The defensive position would seem to generate the worst outcomes for either case (unwanted attention if you have broken the law, further unwarranted attention if you haven't broken the law).

I think statistically you'll do better in the long run by being civil. But yeah, I respect people standing up for something, I just think there's a time and place for it. A cop asking your name and where you're going to me isn't the place for such a stand. Original poster wanted to know how to avoid bad outcomes in these situations, and I would guess that the bad outcomes are in part a result of his own actions (his position might be valid in some sense, but from a practical point of view the actions aren't working too well). Even if a cop is filling some quota, you've got to have broken the law. Maybe it happens, but I've not heard of people just being plucked off the street for literally no reason and jailed. Although I saw a pretty chilling video in another thread in America of a woman being tasered quite brutally, for no apparent reason other than to exercise power. Now that was America. I personally think that part of the Aussie way is to be a bit cooler about things, bit more laid back. Giving cops the 'I don't respect your authority' stuff to me just adds to the tension and aggravation in our society, with no real justification for it. I dunno, I know it's a complex issue and there's no simple black and white, but if you hate on people you're going to get some of that negativity back. Increase the peace