Australians…

Nobody does.

That's why they were forced to live thousands of miles away from everyone else.

they're British Texans

r2, okay, that kind of helps. Thanks.

What did they do?

I've always been fascinated by Australia—it's a very strange country, just geographically speaking. I've never visited, but hope to one day. From my observations of Aussies I've met, they tend to like to "have a good time." I do think the British Texan analogy is apt, but I'll take a fun-loving British Texan over an imperious Brit any day. Australians are like Americans' drunk cousins.

Example: A couple years ago, I met a guy from Melbourne outside a bar in Portland, OR—he had been left to his own devices in the city by his wife (a native), who had gone off with her friends from college. The guy got absolutely shitfaced by himself and by the time I met him, he had no idea where he was, but didn't seem to care. I watched him bum a line a coke from someone, and then we proceeded to have a lengthy conversation about Australian geography, serial killers, and rock music. He was a diehard Alice in Chains fan. He was a very nice guy. We found each other on Facebook later.

Are they like a less morose version of South Africa? Like, both countries are this racist, drunken, jock worshipping, tacky, inbred enclave. But when South Africa gets drunk it gets evil and paranoid and homicidal like Oscar Pistorius and when Australia gets drunk you get, what? Yahoo Serious?

I've often wondered if Australians ever felt lonely or out of the loop being all the way down under, while the US/Canada/UK/Ireland (aka predominantly English-speaking countries) are relatively close to each other.

I'm considering buying it.

[quote] I've often wondered if Australians ever felt lonely or out of the loop being all the way down under

How about New Zealanders?

Progeny of criminals + Asians

I like Aussies well enough but they seem rather dim as a populace. They're just seem so sunny and chipper

Oh, an Australia thread! Haven’t had one of these on the DL for at least a week.

Looking forward to some hilarious dingo and down under jokes and generalisations about racism and excessive drinking as the American posters display their complete lack of knowledge of a country which they have never visited.

And never will because you’d need a passport and air fare for that.

Carry on, then!

Looks like someone hit a (truthful) nerve with R12.

Ouch!

*yawn*, R12

totally agree r12. These stereotypes, judgments and generalisations become really tiresome really quickly.

Australia racist? Possibly. But we didn't have slavery or segregation here. Our white forebears couldn't own black people like they could have in other countries I can think of. And for an unintelligent and backward people, we have free healthcare for all our citizens and we had the sense to implement gun controls and gun licencing after our first modern massacre. You also forgot to mention one of our most endearing qualities, that, unlike some nations, we don't take ourselves too seriously and we have the propensity to laugh at ourselves.

They gave us Mozart, and apparently Vienna is great to visit.

I love you, R17.

[quote] Our white forebears couldn't own black people like they could have in other countries I can think of.

Because there were so few!

(Just kidding. We in the U.S. know blacks could be imported as well.)

How do you (Aussies) deal with all the monsters? Is it frightening? Do you know anyone who has gotten chlamydia from a koala?

R20 Lots of kids in Australia are told jokingly by their parents to watch out for 'Drop Bears', something like savage koalas that would drop out of trees onto them to eat their ears. Then I recently learned there actually was such a thing in Australia. The marsupial lion was an ambush predator that would drop out of trees onto its prey and start butchering them with massive, shearing teeth. I've never caught soggy-bottom from a koala but I don't hook up with randos & only play with ones I know & trust.

r21, is it frightening to be surrounded by such brutal and bizarre wildlife? When you go to other countries, is it surprising or some kind of relief to not have to worry about that?

If Florida was a country, It would be Australia

They gave us Russell Crowe, Julian Assange, and Rupert Murdoch. They’re inherently evil and shitty.

But they have cool wildlife so I’m torn.

Either way, their accents are ear-bleedingly awful.

Everyday life isn't generally a fight for survival against the beasts of the bush for most Australians, r22. Most live in urban/suburban environments where mosquitos are about the worst they have to deal with. People in saltwater croc country know (or should) to stick to safe swimming spots, people in snake country know to keep their wits about them in summer, people in stinger country know to swim within the nets. Even the biggest goannas will run away before they'll attack a human. Leaving the house isn't like an episode of Crocodile Hunter for most Australians.

Their men are HOT but they age like shit, must be that desert sun and their fair skin.

Aussies are a pretty diverse group these days

They don’t have enough water there. Somebody spit on them!

Can't they dig for water? Do they have camels?

[quote] Do they have camels?

Yes.

What is Australian for “beer”?

How about the kiwis?

[quote]Looking forward to some hilarious dingo and down under jokes and generalisations about racism and excessive drinking as the American posters display their complete lack of knowledge of a country which they have never visited.

I was born there, mate. And every single post, especially about the racism, bigotry and Aussie penchant for grog, is spot on!

We had a Tasmanian exchange student in 10th grade who wore dentures.

Why R34?

Crime. Scary crime in major cities like Sydney.

r35, I don't know. Maybe he just never grew teeth? A friend of mine dated him for most of the time he was at our school. My memory is that he got the dentures when he was 8, but I don't remember a why and I don't recall him having any other health problems.

R10 Most Australians don't have convict blood, including a lot from Anglo-Saxon stock.

The President just cancelled a state visit to Denmark because they won't agree to sell Greenland to him, and you're puzzled about the behaviour of Australians?

Australia has some of the best reality contest shows on the planet, like Masterchef Australia, The Block and House Rules.

We’re not responsible for Crowe. New Zealand is.

Crowe moved to Oz when he was 4. He's all yours.

I hate the Australian accent, the only one worse is south African. And yes, both are racist as hell. Coming from an American, that's saying something.

I lived in Australia from age 7-12. My dad was in he oil business and was transferred there in 1967 (yes - I am an EG). I have incredibly fond memories of my time there - and have been back many times as an adult. I think Australia is just like any other country - you have some assholes and some wonderful people. I'm not sure you can make such generalizations about Australians as some posters have made. The one thing that bothered me a bit (and I don't know if this is still the case or not...) but I believe in the past they had some laws about non-whites emigrating there.

A quarter of the population are descendants of convicts. Helps to explain the sociopathic tendencies down under.

A number of the convicts were radicals and dissidents that needed to be sent away. They weren't necessarily 'psychopaths'.

R45, doesn't sound like that many sociopaths were shipped there:

"The majority of convicts were transported for petty crimes. More serious crimes, such as rape and murder, became transportable offences in the 1830s, but since they were also punishable by death, comparatively few convicts were transported for such crimes. Approximately 1 in 7 convicts were women, while political prisoners, another minority group, comprise many of the best-known convicts. "

The Aussies I had the good fortune to know biblically were uncut. Is that the thing down there Down There?

[quote]I believe in the past they had some laws about non-whites emigrating there.

The White Australia policy officially ended in 1972. Unofficially, it continues to this day, with the UK and Ireland remaining the largest source of immigrant intake.

R2 British Texans is perfect

Only a few months ago, they elected as PM a bible-bashing conservative who refused to vote on same-sex marriage. Prior to this he was the minister responsible for condemning refugees to pacific island prison camps.

What a place.

Several years go I found a site that listed the people manifests of the transport ships, the "convict" ships that were sent out every year from England. Name, crime, port of entry, and transport ship's name.

If your stock is Irish, Scottish, Welsh, or English, then chances are some of your kinsmen were sent to Australia involuntarily.

I cannot find this site any longer. Does any DLer know of what I am writing?

Imagine being white surrounded by millions of brown and yellow people. I'd be batshit crazy too.

They're a lot like the Irish. (and a lot of Irish relocate there, because as one told me, "It's just like home")

A lot of drinking, piss-taking, tall-poppy syndrome, hatred of posh-ness, etc.

But they're not religious and overly earnest like Yanks.

[quote]tall-poppy syndrome, hatred of posh-ness

People who hate elitists?

Yeah - kind of a chip on their shoulder I think. Maybe they think Brits look down on them?

They're not naive like Americans though - well, still not the brightest bulbs in the pack but not as simplistic as Yanks anyway.

I never get tired of hearing Aussie ex-PM Malcolm Turnbull mocking Trump in this clip

Every State in the country voted in favour of gay marriage when a plebiscite was held in 2017. Every one. Could you say the same thing about the US?

R58 Australia has only 6 states and 25 million people; the US has 50 states and 328 million people.

R49 Try India and China, times have changed in the past decade.

R48 I would say most under 40 are uncut (but still a significant minority cut). From the 70s, it started to become half/half.

R52 A lot of white people would be only 'free settler' stock, coming out from 1860s onwards (supported passage to support agricultural development, Irish famine diaspora etc).

So what you're saying, r51, is that Australia, just like the US, UK, and several other European nations in recent years, has seen a populist right-wing tendency take over Government based on a whole bunch of anti-immigration scaremongering?

[quote]has seen a populist right-wing tendency take over Government based on a whole bunch of anti-immigration scaremongering?

More like a whole bunch of shut up, WE know what's best for YOU. The voter has had a gutful of authoritarian diktats masquerading as "liberalism" and is voting accordingly.

How is the integration situation, at this point, with indigenous Australians? Are the Maori treated better?

If an aboriginal wants to "integrate" that's fine and good luck to them. If they want to keep their language and culture and stay out of the modern western life that is also fine. It is their decision, but it can be a difficult one. It is up the government and wider society to make sure aboriginal children can get the education they need, so when the time comes, they have the tools to live in either world. That is where we're failing.

Yeah we did have slavery r16 - Aboriginal people, and the Kanaks we imported to cut sugar cane up in Queensland, (amongst others imported from overseas). As well as the convict labour.

[And yes, I know we chad a variety of euphemisms for deprivation of liberty to extract unpaid labour, it's still slave labour]

[quote]If they want to keep their language and culture and stay out of the modern western life that is also fine.

That's only been in the last 35 years. Now let's talk about the previous 200 years when Aboriginals were hunted like animals, stolen from their families to make em White fellas, forced to live by White fella rules that destroyed their social structure, culture and language. Much like American First Nations, there are few Aboriginals today who know their own history, let alone language and culture, who cannot exist successfully in either their own or White fella culture. Their loss of identity has made them weak and self-destructive, and alcoholism and drug abuse are rampant. Just the way the White fellas want it.

The Maoris of New Zealand are much the same. Forced into living like Pakehas, they've also lost much of their culture and language, and, like Aboriginals have had to rediscover their identity, often sadly improvising, due to absence of self-knowledge. I remember reading somewhere that, unlike the Aboriginals in Oz, there isn't a full-blood Maori left in New Zealand.

It is no coincidence that Maoris call New Zealand Land of the Wrong White Crowd, a sarcastic mistranslation of Aeotearoa, Land of the Long White Cloud.

r66, is there expected discrimination against those who do choose to move to the cities? Do people assume that they will be poorly educated or otherwise 'less than' because of their ethnicity and block them from opportunities on the basis of those biases? Or is there a more pervasive attitude of wanting them to feel welcome in this other culture?

[quote] It is no coincidence that Maoris call New Zealand Land of the Wrong White Crowd, a sarcastic mistranslation of Aeotearoa, Land of the Long White Cloud.

That's great.

R69 - It is a bit of both. You rarely see full blood tribal aborigines in the cities and they can be discriminated against. It's more that the gap between the two cultures is so huge it's hard for anyone to live between them. Even with the simplest thing, like how you make eye contact or measure time, the rules are totally different. So right from the first day of school the tribal kids not only have to learn everything every other kid in the classroom has to learn but also a new language and a whole new culture and deal with discrimination on top of all that.

Do the aborigines have reservations like the Native Americans do?

R63: No, they have a history of electing right wing governments. It's so odd, they where the first country to have a Labor government and bring in the facets of the modern welfare state in the 1900s and 1910s, but they keep returning to the right wing as the default. The Labor party split over World War I, and the right governed Australia till the Depression. Then Labor wins, splits over the Depression, and the right governs until World War II. Then Labor splits again in the early 50s over Communism and Catholicism, and the right governs the country until 1972. Then comes right back in 1975. Labor finally got a decade to itself from 1983-1996, but then came the disgusting John Howard until 2007, and Labor got only six years until 2013 and it's been all right wing, all the time. A right wing that is rapidly devolving to behave like our American version. Hell, they just had their own CPAC with Nigel Farage as the guest speaker.

I don't get it.

[quote]Hell, they just had their own CPAC with Nigel Farage as the guest speaker.

And yet Labour had no problem welcoming Holocaust Denier David Irving into the country, long after other countries had banned him.

Disgusting indeed!

R47, actually a LOT of sociopaths were sent here: they were the guards of the convicts (and more than one of the Governors, too). Once in the colony they were paid in rum, so that really helped.

They left a rich tradition, whereby you couldn't tell the cops from the crims until after the Wood Royal Commission in the mid-1990s.

Keep in mind that Captain William Bligh (yes, THAT Captain Bligh) was appointed Colonial Governor of NSW after the mutiny debacle. He precipitated yet another debacle, the Rum Rebellion, in which he was deposed of his command and arrested, proving once again that Australians are SERIOUS about their grog.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

[quote]And people are surprised that anti-immigrant rightwing governments get elected? Really?

Exactly. Liberal courts/judges are always easy on perpetrators, especially if they're POC. Ever wonder why Hollywood (which is mostly run by liberals) glamorizes the criminal and demonizes the law?

Jesus Christ r77 you’re full of shit.

R79 can't stand the truth.

Are the racists who just popped up Aussies, Americans or Borises? I vote Borises.

R181 sees Russians under every bed and around every corner. He's been well brainwashed by CNN. Congrats?

I assume you're calling me a racist because I dare point out why Australians (and other countries) are increasingly voting for rightwing governments due to criminal immigrants going wild in said countries. I'm actually Australian, dear, so I think I know more about what's happening on the streets in Australia than some fat queen in America like you who's never set foot in Australia and gets all his "Australian knowledge" from old Crocodile Hunter episodes on YouTube.

R82: You cited fake news from the racist Daily Fail. Sit down and shut up.

R83 Are you going to accuse every media outlet as fake news? Who do you think you are? Donald Trump?

R84: No, cunt. Just the ones with a history of doing so. As the link above points out. You're just a racist who posts a stupid link to justify your racism and electing the hideous fascists your country elects. As though the Labor Party brought Africans here to specifically harm your precious pasty white ass. Grow the fuck up.

R84: OK, you white nationalist Nazi. You're done. Spamming, racist, sex-less trifling bitch. You're banned. And someone needs to strip you naked and beat your ass yesterday.

R96 doesn't like people talking about crimes by violent immigrants who think nothing of stealing from, bashing, raping and killing Australians. The fact that R96 ALWAYS sides with the criminals is very telling.

Australasian are some some of the ugliest people on the planet. And very bad pockmarked skin.

It's clearly an 8chan racist troll. No real human being sits here and posts 12 links to right wing and other hate sources attacking black people within 10 minutes unless they came here to do it. What a sad, pathetic creature you are, racist boy.

According to R102, EVERY media company in Australia is "right wing" and a "hate source".

By the way, I posted so many because the dipshit above (you?) outright dismissed the Daily Mail so I posted a selection of the first articles that came up in a Google search.

R102 is a perfect example of why right wing governments have been elected all over the country.

Citizens see a problem in their own communities. They see it in the streets, on the news, in the newspapers. All their friends and co-workers and families are talking about it.

Instead of addressing and tackling the issue, the left wing media and dolts like R102 try to either downplay or outright dismiss what everyone can see with their own eyes or (even worse) try to make excuses like the Apex gang mother who said Australians commit crimes as well as if that somehow negates her son's sins.

Finally, a politician dares to address the issue. Always a right wing politician.

People who would never have voted for a right wing politician in their life listen to what he or she says and acknowledge that this person is the ONLY politician who is addressing and aiming to tackle the problem. The same problem they and their co-workers and families talk about every day.

These same people see the left wing media and their dolts like R102 for what they are. Enablers and chaos lovers who think screaming "RACIST!" at normal people with normal concerns with silence any who would dare to address and tackle an issue.

They vote.

A right wing government gets elected because, duh, they're the only ones focused on issues relevant to the majority.

The left wing media and dolts like R102 continue to screech and stamp their feet about "fascists" while spending their days trying to silence anyone who disagrees with them like cunt at R96 who won't even allow any discussion of this on an internet forum.

Enjoy staying irrelevant with stupid identity politics that only divide the populace. But that's your ultimate goal isn't it? Divide people so they're too busy fighting with their friends and families to notice what you and your ilk are up to. We've got your number, hussy.

[quote][R102] is a perfect example of why right wing governments have been elected all over the country.

^^ world. Not country of course.

How come Australian men are hotter than Brits? They are the same stock. Women are horsey and fug in both.

R81 , If you're going to vote "Borises" over the more plausible option that they're just racist Australians, either you don;t live here, are very naive and sheltered, or you're deliberately seeking to sweep under the rug the appalling history of racism here and the worryingly large numbers of racist Australians. The overall divisiveness, based on income, location, class, race, ethnicity, religion, state parochialism has all been actively encouraged by the Libs* and Nats and Murdoch media, particularly since John fucking Howard.

*The Liberal Party, or Liberals, are a former classical liberal party, which became conservative, and is now full of people ranging from a few centre-right, to majority right and far-right/neolibs- Not many traditional conservatives left. And none of them are anything like the American idea of "liberals".