As such, flowery words are not enough. This motion needed robust debate, and specific reference to both the context (historical, and present), and the limitations (ie compensation) of the motion. Complaining that Nelson’s reply just didn’t sound very nice misses this point somewhat. It’s worth noting that Howards ‘Motion of Reconciliation’ received some very robust debate, and was ultimately not supported by the ALP.

James and Nicholas have been very polite and restrained in their responses to to you. My approach is a bit more blunt. Effectively labelling James as someone who makes you “ashamed to be Australian” and telling him he should “piss off to Saudi Arabia” is ad hominem and unpleasant in the extreme. We encourage robust debate at Troppo from diverse political perspectives, but do not permit ad hominem sledging.

Commenters with views every bit as right wing as yours (e.g. Joe Cambria) manage to operate within these rules and get their viewpoints across very effectively. Hopefully you can achieve a similar measure of basic civility. If not I will simply put you on the banned list and delete all comments you post thereafter.

The reasons for this policy should be obvious to regular readers of blogs. Commenters who habitually engage in unpleasant ad hominem abuse make the conversation unpleasant for everyone, and tend to deter others from joining in or even reading. I note that Pavlov’s Cat for one commented here recently that she had ceased reading Larvatus Prodeo because of the unpleasant atmosphere you had created there. Having observed your behaviour over the last week or two I can see what she means. You are only welcome here if you cut out the ad hominem crap.

I might say that the Troppo banned list is (and always has been) very short, and currently includes only Graeme Bird and a pseudonymous troll who went by the name of “Philly” but has more recently attempted to post comments under a couple of other pseudonyms. Both are banned precisely because their comments are almost always nasty and personally abusive of other participants in the conversation

Very droll, sweetie, very droll! Touche!

James has been counselled about the weakness of his analogical rationality.

As a result he has undertaken to mend his ways. I’d like to take this opportunity on behalf of the entire Troppo team to apologise for this lapse on his part and to express our fervent hope that it will not happen again.

To you, we say ’sorry’.

Unfortnately, you show an example of the pitfalls of attempting analogical rationality. Oh and of course, Godwin’s Law. The fact that the Holocaust and Israel even entered your mind in the context of Australia and the Apology shows exactly what is driving a lot of the pro-apology racist Left.

A decade or so ago the Swiss Government apologised for not giving asylum to Jewish refugees. If one of the parliamentarians speaking to the motion had decided to go on about illegal Jewish settlements in occupied Palestine, his comments would undoubtedly have been true and factual, and they certainly would have started debate. But would they have been ‘valuable’ in that context?

Those who do not think truth, facts, and debate are valuable for the Australian parliament and broader body politic should just piss off to Saudi Arabia.

But we cant have anything as inconvienient as truth raining on our parade.

That might mean turning the apology into a realistic appreciation of our much more contemporary failures. SOme actual and existing culprits might be held accountable.

Oh no, we cant have that!

You know, people like Geoff Clarke, a serial rapist who somehow wound up as leader of ATSIC, peak indigenous administratie body. And all his legion of political cronies.

Instead we get these other brilliant policy geniuses, such as HC Coombs moonlighting from the Resere Bank, who attempted to create a state-subsidised Noble Savage system of welfare reservations in remote communities. Just the thing for getting pre-modern remote tribesman on the path to modern urban citizenship.

And what of these other intellectual giants who can produce about a billion words on Aboriginal disadantage. Without uttering the two phrases that have most policy releance for people with remote indigenous socio-biological profile: low IQ and high anomie. Darwin, Durkheim, Weber, Murray – what do these fascist idiots know about people anyway

Some unkind souls might call that professional malpractice. Howeer we all know that it is much more important to stay true to the cultural theory texts that we buried our noses in during our undergraduate days than acknowledge that out grandmothers knew more about social science than we do. .

In stead we must demonise a few superannuated patrol officers, aging missionaries and long dead officials. WHat kind of genocidal racists are these people anyway?

very often they were guilty of the heinous crime of taking part-Aboriginal children out of creek beds away from drunken mothers and violent fathers. And eery one knows that there is no difference, absolutely no difference at all, from this policy and dosing them with Zyklon-B.

So far as whites were concerned an apology without compensation or acknowledgement of direct guilt was simply another exercise in the politics of self-indulgent moral posturing.

But that is not surprising coming from the generation that popularised the slogan: if it feels good, do it!

Not quite true. The belief was that aboriginal people would simply die out, so you might as well make it pleasant. I believe “smoothing the pillow” was the term of the days.

All this and more Nelson did say and could have said, but that’s quite beside the point. For better or worse his speech in reply just won’t be remembered. It’s the sorry that counted, and now nobody has any excuse to hold up work on aboriginal disadvantage.

After kicking someone down for years, how fair is it really to just apologise, throw them money and leave them there?

I’d actually support blanket compensation and private freehold title over crown land granted to all Australians of Aboriginal heritage so long as it was the last ever government intervention specifically targetted at any Australian simply because of their ethnicity.

Good students of history will know that the world is not black and white, and that with every good or bad outcome, there are dozens/hundreds/thousands of individual judgements that led to that outcome. Nelson was a voice to that complexity today, and for good or bad, it has offended a substantial amount of people.

The immediate reaction to Nelson’s speech that was broadcast on the radio, was a reaction that responded negativley to the ‘tone’ of the speech. There was no criticism of the accuracy of his words. Only the way he deviated from the topic.

Frankly, good on Nelson for telling us what he really thinks. He could have gone along with Rudd, as Turnbull would have done, and read from a carefully crafted but decidedley un-personal speech. Instead he’s chosen to leave the final judgement to posterity, in the hope that ultimately history will judge his words as a more accurate description of the harsh reality that faces the indigenous issue.