Jose & Zebee,
Your idea of a balanced argument comes from having a chip on both shoulders.
If you want to analyse any statement for long enough, you can make any self serving judgement you
wish. The average person in Australia doesn't sit & think for an hour before making a statement, &
doesn't expect to have it dissected by a nitpicking anal retentive.
The main problem appears to be between your own hypersensitive ears.
I also find your remark, "your'e not thinking hard enough", to be generally offensive & laying claim
to some superior thought process.
Oh no I think I've jjust caught your disease.
John L.
On Thu, 12 Jun 2003 17:28:51 GMT, Jose Rizal <_@_._> wrote:
>Mark Lee:
>
>>> "Zebee Johnstone" <
[email protected]> wrote in message
>
>>> Why did he see the need to mention the race at all? The only *possible* reason is because he
>>> thought it was relevant.
>>>
>>> Why was it relevant?
>
>> You've got me thinking now. Could she come from a country where everyone drives on the right-hand
>> side of the road? Or where very few people (relatively) drive their own transport due to
>> exorbitant garaging etc costs... perhaps travelling mainly by train, bus, taxi or boat? Where
>> there isn't a culture of learning about vehicular operation in traffic from an early age? Maybe a
>> big city where it never gets truly dark?
>
>All this rhubarb is leading to what? A poor justification after the fact of making your
>race-specific statement? You mention the ethnicity, and think up of the reason afterwards? You're
>not thinking hard enough.
>
>> I know of someone who's learning to drive now as a mature adult who grew up in a tiny village in
>> a country where cars are very rare. One day she may be out on our roads.
>
>Relevance of this?
>
>> Roald Dahl relates a drive with his 21 year old sister during the 1920's in his book "Boy"
>> -incredibly dangerous due to the lack of training or entrenched motorised transport culture.
>
>Ditto.
>
>> "Thailand has the highest rate of road fatalities in the world at 40 deaths for every 100,000
>> people, or 2.9 people dying an hour, a researcher said yesterday.... about 17,520/year. ...six
>> million people were injured in traffic accidents and 100,000 crippled for life last year,
>> according to the National Health Institute." -from online news sources
>>
>> Australian drivers may not be great, but obviously our transport safety culture is better than
>> some. Annual road toll here is ~1750. Comparative populations 61 vs 19million. I'm sure car
>> ownership rates are higher here but the scooters/motorbikes there would skew the figures.
>
>Excellent. You've just explained that it is about ethnocentrism after all. You got pulled up for
>mentioning race in your observation, and then you dig up unrelated statistics to justify it. Where
>is the link to cycling in the dark witout lights while wearing dark clothes? How do you know the
>woman you saw was Thai? Thais don't make up the whole of Asia. "Asians" can come from many
>countries in the region.
>
>You probably could do with the benefit from a doubt though: why don't you think harder on why you
>thought ethnicity was important in describing a disagreeable event? You might be unaware of your
>own unintentional prejudices.
