Just Stop the Boats

I just got SBS On Demand for my Xbox (hell yeah!), and decided to try and catch up on the series Go Back Where You Came From, as I missed its run on TV this year. I had heard good things, and while it did live up to these expectations; that's another blog post for another night. For now it reminded me of something I just need to get off my chest.

A while ago I took a screen capture of a poll at The Courier’s website that caught my fancy. Check it out below:

When I first saw this survey, I was heartened by the fact that the lower scoring options were the ones I personally don’t care for; shirking our responsibility and sending the refugees overseas to deal with them. Then I noticed the last option, the one with 47.2% of repliers selecting, and it took me aback a moment.

Just stop the boats.

It is by far the most languid option there, with no real thought put into the thing it supposedly represents. Just stop them how? It’s like people are so fed up with the refugee issue that they can’t even handle having to hear about the problem anymore. I suppose their solution to starvation in Africa would be ‘Just stop the hunger’.

I mean, I suppose I could see the option as being preferential if you were to add enough qualifiers, or sub-conditions to the proposal. ‘Just stop the boats by helping to eliminate the causes for refugees having to flee their lands in the first place’. There; I would pick that option.

Just stop the boats: Really? Like that is an option which somehow had not been tried yet.

I can imagine people responding to this survey who read through the first options, perhaps pondering where they stood on the issue. Thinking about what the most humane option was, or what responsibilities we could be said to have on a moral level to help those people who come to our country; perhaps they began to philosophise on how their own personal rights and the rights of others should be compared, and their actions tempered accordingly. But then as they reached the last option, their beleaguered brain shouts in relief “Just pick the last one so I can have a break from this already”.

Just stop the boats.

Just end unemployment.

Just fix the economy.

Just overthrow Saddam Hussein.

I can see many bad policy decisions being made by those who have to try and placate such sloppily thought through responses.

Rant complete.