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"Visitors or immigrants have choice: abide by the rules we dictate to them or don't bother coming." Yes that is true. It doesn't mean we should make them follow laws that we wouldn't want to follow. Terrorists are not going to be caught out. If the intelligence communtiy knows what they are up to, then the law is useless yet again. "Why? Owning my own home confers rights that I take away from others (like the ability to do what they like in it, or even come there at all). If they don't like that, well, they don't have to visit. The shareholders in a company collectively have the same right. If the shareholders of MacDonalds don't want you in their restaurants - you have to find somewhere else to buy your cholesterol." I just don't agree with this. People do not have a right to do as they please in your home if you do not forbid them to do so. The analogy is a bit stretched here. By either allowing or not allowing someone to enter your house, you are not taking any rights away from them. Having the same rule the US had to try to weed out communists will be ineffective, and although only in most cases an academic exercise, mean that the law favours internal extremists to external ones, regardless if they plan to use violenece or not. We should have the right to do and say as we please as long as we don't intiiate violence. Why shouldn't visitors have this right too? "And do they also have an equal right to welfare? First world medical treatment? Education? Protection from crime at Australia's expense? How about the right to an equal say in selecting the government?" Equating free speech to mooching off welfare is well, not a good comaprison. We don't have first class medical treatment, it is socialised and there are many shortages. From what I know, foreign students have to apy for university education, up front, like everyone else should have to. Yes they should have a right to be protected from crime. Unless you are going to suggest we have the right to rob them and treat them a communist Government would a foreign corporation. As the tax system shifts to use pays, they contribute to our economy which is worth protecting, and the revenues used to fund the police and military. An equal say in electing the Government? I don't know why you threw this one in it's obvious they shouldn't. I can't justify this fully, nor could anyone saying that citizens should most of the time, get better treatment than foreigners. Perhaps the thrat they pose to our rights is a reflection of the size of Government. "ou mean people who could easily be programmed by the 'true believers'? :-)" Err, yes. "From your own property, yes. Frankly I would expel most members of foreign political parties. They are repulsive." What about diplomats and ambassadors strawman? Or republicans or monarchists? I don't beleive you think that either of the four parties in Federal Parliament, are, on the whole protecting what should be inaliable rights. "How far should someone's rights go? Do foreigners have the right to drive around in vans full of ammonium nitrate? "That's fine guys, but if you pull the trigger you will be breaking the law!"?" Come now, you know I don't agree with that, that's like other libertarians claiming owning nuclear warheads is necessary for self defense. "and sometimes you increase freedoms by limiting them." Given the uselessness of such laws (e.g, s11), this would not be one of those times, like limited taxation or inexclusability between the rights of two or more people? ".. though frankly I prefer a solution which increases freedoms to Australians in Australia by limiting freedoms to foreigners in Australia. Again - if they don't like that policy, they don't have to come." Very well, but it shouldn't take away rights like free speech and rights to a fair trial, just the more dubious ones we give ourselves at the expense of economic freedom, like welfare and not having to pay for medical treatment. It's not that I don't agree with the last point and your approach, just that this law that America has, in my opinion, wouldn't stop our life liberty or property being taken away, just free speech from foreigners with no gain for any party.
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