You're not Patriotic! You don't love your country!

[Nyoibo]

He's not a bushranger! He's a sheep-rustler!

He's neither, he's a swagman who tried to make the most of an opportunity.

[Andara Bledin]

I think it's important to at least express in words what it means to be part of a community and part of a nation that believes in freedom and liberty, because those kinds of expressions lead to actions later in life.

This is a great idea.

And you don't accomplish it by forcing kids to recite something that is at least nominally against the religion of the majority (I figured this out by 13, but didn't dare not at least make some show at doing it) and which most of them won't actually understand until they've been reciting it for almost a full decade.

"Let's teach kids about freedom by trampling all over a few of them every morning for a dozen years."

^-.-^

[fireheart17]

He's neither, he's a swagman who tried to make the most of an opportunity.

and still committed suicide.....>.>

REALLY representative of our nation

Thankfully in Australia, there tend to be two camps with the flag-waving. Apart from it being raised in schools and the like, there are two camps with the flags:

-The group that will put it out on Australia day, pimp their cars out with the flag and basically, everything that day has the Australian flag on it.

-The group that will wear said flags as an excuse to be racist. >.>