Everything we don't want you to know about Australia

It's interesting how different people view essentially the same thing differently.

If I understand what these young men did, it was lewd and obnoxious. Obviously alcohol played a role in birthing the loutish behavior, but was it criminal?

Now every nation is entitled to implement the laws they feel are best for their society and if you visit another nation it behooves you to understand, at least at a basic level, what you can and cannot do. If what these jokers did was indeed a violation of Malaysian law, then they couldn't complain if they received Malaysian justice.

Maybe they're lucky that they weren't caned (or is that Singapore?)

It would seem that for Malaysia, Australian tourism represents a great deal of revenue and when all was said and done, cooler Malaysian heads prevailed.

What's interesting though is the certain degree of tolerance some folks have for foreigners violating the laws of their homeland versus their intolerance for their fellow citizens doing so in a foreign land.

I'm reminded of the controversy around an immigrant committing rape in Canada and his defense that it was, in some bizarre way, an extension of his culture, a "rape culture."

Now this is patently ridiculous if not obscene and yet I recall that the denunciation of the ploy wasn't at all 100% among Canadians.

I don't mean to single out Canadians as I believe this is an expression of a world view that is prevalent throughout the West and not unique to our neighbors Up North.

Similarly here in American we have folks who have no problem what-so-ever with millions of people entering our country illegally.

The interesting thing, I think, is that so many of these folks seem to be among the hardest on their fellow citizens who violate the laws of a foreign country.

I really can't imagine any Americans who are in favor of our borders being open, approving of their fellow Americans entering Spain illegally and demanding that they post signs in English as well as Spanish.

Thanks to the more than one million UK-residents in Spain, most signs are in English. And Catalan, Castilian and/or Basque, depending on the region.

And your point is?

That there's no need for Americans entering Spain illegally to ask for English signs.

Are you always so literal?

I didn't think that your imagination was so unclear - my bad.

Sometime when we converse in this forum I think might be two different life forms.

I'm not being snarky here when I ask if you realize that my choice of Spain had no significance other than it was a foreign land. For the purposes of my point you can substitute whatever country you want and if one that doesn't post signs in English is known to you, I suggest you use it.

My point is that there is a segment of America's population that are OK with people from other countries crossing our borders illegally and then demanding benefits and accommodations, and many of them would be very critical of Americans doing the same thing elsewhere, or flaunting the laws of foreign lands.

It's a double standard.

not at all