Posts by Tom Semmens

Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First

  • OnPoint: Dear Peter Brown: *Hug*,

    I have just got home from a long and ethnically diverse night at Tanuki's cave... And suddenly I is all in favour of mass Asian migration, especially the girls...

    Errr gotta go...

    k thnx

    Bye.

    :D

    Sevilla, Espana • Since Nov 2006 • 2217 posts Report

  • OnPoint: Dear Peter Brown: *Hug*,

    Paul C - just to be devils advocate for a second - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/happiness_formula/5012478.stm


    People mostly like being around people like them, it seems.

    Sevilla, Espana • Since Nov 2006 • 2217 posts Report

  • OnPoint: Dear Peter Brown: *Hug*,

    One other thing I/S - go to any of the Nordic countries we so strive to emulate and check out how many black or indeed even swarthy faces you see. Try and migrate to Norway. They are progressive countries that seem to practice what is basically a "whites only and then only some" type policy. Why? I suspect because they know they've got it good and they don't particularly care to share that goodness with others.

    Sevilla, Espana • Since Nov 2006 • 2217 posts Report

  • OnPoint: Dear Peter Brown: *Hug*,

    "...New York benefits greatly from having a Little Italy and a Chinatown etc. Is not being completely integrated always so bad?..."


    But they all have American flags outside their stores.

    Sevilla, Espana • Since Nov 2006 • 2217 posts Report

  • OnPoint: Dear Peter Brown: *Hug*,

    Craig to be flippant for a second, from my observations a shared desire to dump on Asians is a powerful bridge building agent between Pakeha and Maori New Zealand... "Look, we all disagree about the treaty, but lets have a group hate about those bloody Chinese..." However, P.I's I know have a very high incidence of intermarriage with Chinese. Go figure.

    Lucy - "Asian" is code for "Chinese'. Specifically. Even the Japanese seem to be better accepted (is the fact that most Pakeha Aucklanders of my acquaintance can tell the difference in a glance between an ethnic Chinese and and an ethnic Japanese an encouraging sign? I'd like to think so!). And to be flippant again, Indians in New Zealand are by and large quickly integrated, they are (and I know I am painting with a broad brush here) admirably capitalist and for us lefties the fact that 90% of Fijian Indians are Labour voters is a amost welcome extra. No one minds the South Africans and the Europeans, they look just the same, fit right in AND the Saffas like rugby.

    Sevilla, Espana • Since Nov 2006 • 2217 posts Report

  • OnPoint: Dear Peter Brown: *Hug*,

    Bravo for a thoughtful post on the issue. To me though part of the problem the reaction of everyone from the chamber of commerce to the Green Party to Peter Brown's comments - Outright refusals to even countenance a discussion of the possible implications for New Zealand. The refusal of our leadership elites in business and politics to even discuss the problem is going to hand the framing of the debate (topical because of the upcoming FTA with China) to idiots like Peter Brown and NZ First.

    We had this same canard raise its head in the 1990's, and New Zealand popular opinion then decisively rejected uncontrolled Asian immigration. The current large numbers of Asians in Auckland by and large have not been allow to integrate and have it seems to me often responded by deciding they don't want to integrate anyway. Anti-Asian sentiment is still acceptable and large numbers of New Zealanders engage in systematic and widespread discrimination against Asians in hiring and social situations. I am of the view that this rejection is largely because the politicians of the 1990’s stuck their heads in the sand and refused to listen to and help assuage the unease of New Zealanders over immigration, and that let Winston and co whip up an anti-immigration feeling that lingers to this day.

    It isn’t inherently racist to have the serious debate now we should have had 15 years ago about what sort of demographic makeup and what sort of country we want as a result of immigration BEFORE any sort of racist anti-immigration party gets 20 seats and demands the removal of hundreds and thousands of people who are already here. We need to decide, for example, if we are going to be a melting pot or a diverse society, a United States/Australia model or a Canada/U.K. model, before we have any potential massive migration as a result of (for example) a FTA with China. And it is important, for once, to listen to what working class New Zealanders have to say on the issue instead of engaging in a middle class echo chamber on immigration. To do otherwise would simply increase the disconnect already rampant between the elites and the working class and just encourage the rise of extremist parties who use race as a platform, as evidenced by the European experience of immigration as a political issue.

    The worst possible thing that could happen would be to allow a re-run of the 1990’s race debate.

    Sevilla, Espana • Since Nov 2006 • 2217 posts Report

  • OnPoint: Brownlee: Now 93.5% fact-free!,

    Freeview, increasing the digital divide since 2007...

    Sevilla, Espana • Since Nov 2006 • 2217 posts Report

  • Hard News: Ya rly,

    From Mr. Shepard's utterance's over the Auckland Airport offer from the Canucks I concluded he was probably an unreconstructed Bourbon of the Rogernomics era. His latest comments only reinforce that.

    And while we are at it about this mornings Morning Report, why must my morning 6.50am shower be disturbed by RNZ reporting every thought and press release of the ANZ's Cameron Bagrie as if it were passed on down from on high carved on a stone tablet? I googled Mr. Bagrie, and discovered that before his appointment at the ANZ was - Quelle Surprise! - a treasury gnome. I am not doubting his integrity, but he works for a foreign owned bank for crying out loud!!!! Why doesn't someone at RNZ twig that the ANZ might have their own reasons for trying to set the economic tone in the land?

    Sevilla, Espana • Since Nov 2006 • 2217 posts Report

  • Island Life: Ask her now,

    Oh yes, my best friend proposed to his fiance by taking her away for her birthday to a flash hotel and writing "Will you marry me?" in rose petals on the bed for her to see when they got back from dinner.



    I told him that all this raising the barrier stuff is making me uncomfortable.

    Sevilla, Espana • Since Nov 2006 • 2217 posts Report

  • Island Life: Ask her now,

    When it comes to picking a school, as the product of a private single sex religious school and having observed the interactions of everyone I know, I would say an integrated upper decile state school is the best option for trying to get the balance right between proper socialisation and an excellent education in New Zealand right now. Only avoid the North Shore schools, their products seem to contain far to many objectionable spoilt little shits. I would certainly never subject any child of mine to my type of schooling, looking back it seems we were primarily being educated to go off and rule the Indians or something.

    Having said that, if I were king for a day private schools would be abolished and every school would be required to have an ethnic and decile rating that reflected the overall New Zealand population.

    Sevilla, Espana • Since Nov 2006 • 2217 posts Report

Last ←Newer Page 1 193 194 195 196 197 222 Older→ First