Tuesday, April 3, 2012

A Father's Pride And Joy

YOUNG MASTER BUNYIP stopped by the Billabong last night with his sweetheart, drawn by word of the tandoori roast about to go in the oven and the need to collect his sporting attire, just washed and hanging on the line. One drink led to another and then quite a few more when Q&A came on the telly, which tends to be the way with the climax of the ABC’s Monday night offerings. If Tony Jones and his standard guests are to be taken seriously, mild derangement is essential, especially when the programme is beamed from Tasmania. Between Jones’ interruptions, the young fellow said something to make a father extraordinarily proud. This talk of legalising drugs, he observed, was very dangerous and needed to be nipped in the bud.

Drugs of all sorts are freely available, he noted. They are mostly good quality and their price is reasonable. If legalised they would be taxed, their strength and quality diminished by regulation, and there would be an inevitable and patronising registration process, which would almost certainly involve compulsory attendance at government-funded and social worker-infested “educational” sessions. There are moments in the life of the successful parent when one can sit back and bask in a job well done and this was one of them. Indeed, the Professor might have hooked both thumbs beneath braces and done a little chest-out preening, except that smoking jackets require no over-the-shoulder support and both hands were occupied with bottle and glass.

The conversation progressed and Young Master Bunyip’s insights deepened. If drugs were to be legalised, that would free more policeman to operate roadside revenue cameras. And on top of that, legalisation would confound Charles Darwin. As it stands, drug dealers shoot each other in disputes over territory and profits, removing each other's influence from the gene pool. These are public service homicides and should be encouraged, much as denying protective custody for convicted child molesters and your more notorious thrill killers would save public monies and allow fellow inmates to do them in – a boost for self-esteem and positive step toward rehabilitation.

Toward the end of the evening, a Bunyip’s pride and joy put the icing on the cake. He had no need to sleep in the guestroom, despite the thicket of empty bottles that had sprouted on the coffee table. A responsible lad, he had monitored his sweetheart’s intake and knew her to be borderline legal. If a driver’s licence was in jeopardy, it would not be his.    

22 comments:

  1. "If a driver’s licence was in jeopardy, it would not be his."
    You brought him up well.

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    1. My thoughts, too. A chip off the old bunyip block.

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  2. Your pride is well founded, Bunyip. However, I have one urgent, obtuse but related question on the new zombie ruling class that runs Q&A and the government. Why is one of Australia's greatest political cartoonists restricted to publishing his best work on Facebook? http://www.facebook.com/pages/Larry-Pickering/236991276355038#!/photo.php?fbid=325176774203154&set=a.237011506353015.72838.236991276355038&type=1&theater

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    1. Wow. I am going to have nightmares about that one.

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  3. PhillipGeorge(c)2020April 3, 2012 at 11:16 AM

    spoken like a senator representing the city republic of Epicureans.
    Just add a little legislation to improve the flavour.

    If a conservative is out proudly marching with the horse has Bolt_ed Gaytopians a radical conservative is marching naked with nudists because that's how Adam and Eve were! Ah the good old days of antediluvian hyperbaric atmosphere lung fulls - dragon flies with metre wing spans - maybe cane that could grow 6 metres in a day.

    If the cultural elite are toasting the appetites of Darwin's apes perhaps those in the antipodes are meditating on the finer nuances of the iboga plant.

    Or the pharmakinetic properties for extending Sheldrake's morphic mind to connect with another soul's history.

    she sound like a good woman. indeed, the heart of a venerable servant.

    [off topic? - how do go Anonymous following a Melways from home to Safeway's]

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  4. What a smart young fellow, you must be proud.

    The Hesperian

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  5. When the USA repealed the prohibition, did the quality and price of the goodies decrease and increase? Quite the opposite.

    Pot & Hash is legal in Amsterdam, and the price and quality are both good.

    So I see no rational reason as to why your offspring's fears should be accurate representations of reality.

    Of course his point about cameras might be weighty in backward states like Victoria, but in NSW the red light cameras are operated by the RTA without interference by the fuzz. As for the breathalyzers, I would prefer not to be on the road with inebriated drivers, although I do believe that 0.05 is too low. The US mostly gets by with 0.08 without mass slaughter of pedestrians, other drivers etc.

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    1. "Of course his point about cameras might be weighty in backward states like Victoria, but in NSW the red light cameras are operated by the RTA without interference by the fuzz."

      Indeed, the only "interference" the police have with the mobile speed cameras in Victoria is the requirement for the local district Highway OPatrol Sergeant to produce a weekly roster of where and for how long the cameras operate. Policemen have not sat behind the cameras operating them (despite the Prof's words) for almost 10 years...

      So any increase in hours available for other policing duties gained by the legalisation of drugs will have no effect on the number of police operating cameras. It will remain at zero, where it has done since the contract was tendered to the public (as mentioned, some 10 years ago)...

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  6. Not sure about Darwin, think he would be pleased as the legally drugged up would plough into trees at speed,overdose,fall in threshing machines etc etc.

    As for the dealers pushers etc they would quickly become ALP members or unionists and murder their way onto the public teat.

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  7. Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.April 3, 2012 at 2:08 PM

    Any decision to meddle in something so complex often means that the truly meddlesome move in, with untoward effects. Young Bunyip is a perspicacious chap.

    I feel for the young lady, though. Such evenings behind the wheel also fall to my lot. The Irish part of the Hairy Ape believes that the meddlesome have meddled so thoroughly with a standard drink that you get far too many to a bottle these days. He is nostalgic for some days of yore, where apparently you could drive a vehicle half-smashed and just leave it for the morning when you started the return journey by ending up on the pavement with a garbage bin stuck in the undercarriage and had to walk home. As a method of testing his genuine incapacity to drive, it worked for him, several times, he notes. Over the year, others, and I, have exerted a civilising influence. However, because of his refusal to believe what's written on the bottle, I do the driving regardless.

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  8. Brings a tear......a fine lad.
    The story of how he escaped his brain being washed by Manne's legions at whatever Institution he attended would be riveting.

    "These are public service homicides and should be encouraged...."..... is the world's only complete sentence.

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  9. Off topic Phil? Sure it is, but so is almost everything you write.

    Judging by your output here, I would have thought you would be all for the legalisation of drugs. Then again maybe you are. I can't tell.

    jupes

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    1. PhillipGeorge(c)2020April 5, 2012 at 11:07 AM

      Gabon, Bwiti, Iboga Plant, the God Plant,
      out of body experiences.....
      Epicurus Vs other Rationlists,

      The Epicureans called their little State or Estate the Garden.

      Rupert Sheldrake on the Morphic Field collective sort of mind..

      all easy reading..

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  10. The Old and Unimproved DaveApril 3, 2012 at 5:25 PM

    Has Master Bunyip ever considered a career within politics ?

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  11. Absolutely brilliant cartoon there Tom

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  12. You're wrong on this prof. Nobody has the right to tell you what you may or may not put into or do with your body. If some moron wants to sit in his backyard or bedroom wasting his money in his veins well good for him. All the laws in the world won't stop him.

    I reckon (and I should know) that you could probably reduce the size of Victoria Police by say 40% if drugs were decriminalised, not to mention the thousands of Customs and associated officers and public servants (fedpol) The morons who currently run the drug trade would be reduced to finding jobs or becoming welfare cheats. There may be taxes involved but the drugs would be of good quality and a free market would ensure that competition would keep the prices down.

    It would be a win for all. In the US the black population would stop shooting each other and would have to find jobs etc.

    But most of all prohibition doesn't work never has and never will.

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  13. That's it. I've tolerated this nutbag for long enough. He/she/they/it makes no attempt at rational argument, and wanders into the dystopian wilderness like an argumentative Boy Scout on low-quality smack. Either contribute meaningfully, in legible and contextualised English and idioms, or bugger off to a forum that understands gibberish. Your drivel does not contribute to the conversation, the tone of the thread, nor any conceiveable realm of normal discussion. No idea what it would be like to talk to you in person, guessing it would be a titanic effort on your behalf to use chalk, blackboard and hand signals to get your point across.

    FFS, either get to the point or tell your story walking.

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  14. I had a similar vibe recently, my eldest's 21st function on Saturday night. I'd nominated myself to deliver a few chosen words, and in the day before had given it a bit of thought.

    And found that, without blowing smoke up his date, a fair summation of the man on his majority reflected on his sense of fun and fairnes and application and and.

    Caused me to reflect on a fine outcome. With pride.

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  15. He's well brought up, Prof. Congrats. With such independent thinking he can either make a lot of money or get really frustrated with his fellow Aussies. I recommend the former, having suffered the latter.

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  16. Perhaps you might recommend to the sprog a piece by Theodore Dalrymple at http://www.city-journal.org/html/7_2_a1.html

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  17. Compelling logic from the young Bunyip. Thanks for the generous sharing. Have a nice Easter, break, whatever.

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  18. Frankly I can't say that the young bunyip's grasp of logic is all that compelling, particularly when he suggests that more government interference to citizens will result from regulation rather than prohibition.

    Perhaps he hasn't spent a night in the Carlton lockup after being sprung with a microscopic quantity of the green stuff in his pocket. I'd call that government interference of the more serious variety.

    The most compelling reason to regulate rather than prohibit drugs is to eliminate crime, both of the illegal and legal variety. By the legal variety I of course mean the smashing down of doors by heavily armed plods on yet another ridiculous 'drug raid'.

    Why does Mr Plod always come out in favor of probition? Well I'm sure it has something to do with the heavy breathing righteous thrills they get from imitating their TV heroes, not to mention the loss of a very large chunk of their daily chargeable timesheet.

    The Prof. does sometimes intimate or confess to drug related immorality in his distant past. Does he in his relative old age really think that prohibition is actually the best policy? Is he certain he isn't being slyly conned by the ruling plod classes for their own benefit? Has the professor never heard of individual liberties and the free market? We could be excused for thinking that would not normally be the case.

    What about the large and well funded drug victims social worker class, all of whom I'm sure will heavily come out against regulation. I'm sure that loss of job opportunities has nothing to do with their athoritative opinions.

    Do we for example pay more to fix the problem in taxpayer funded police, legal system, social worker and prison expenses than the actual problem itself?

    Empirical evidence from the Netherlands, or even from our own home grown South Australia where I believe the green stuff is semi-legal, demonstrates that regulation is a rational choice for both corrupted leftards and right-wing loonies of whatever political persuation.

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