A NOTE ARRIVED last night from a reader, let us call him Mr
Spring Street, who took exception to this little blog’s eroded faith in
Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu’s intent or capacity to achieve, well, anything
worthwhile. It seems that politics is a team sport and, even if your side’s captain
has no idea to which end his squad should be kicking, those in the grandstand to
the right of the oval have an obligation to shut up, wave the team colours and barrack
for him anyway. A nice note, by no means abusive, it was in its way quite
flattering. It is nice to know that one’s thoughts are taken seriously enough to
be read, even if that consideration is but an overture to their summary
rejection.
Then again, perhaps the correspondent had a point – for such was
the thought which figured in the nightly examination of conscience as a weary
Bunyip drifted off to sleep. Perhaps, to quote a recent example, Baillieu
cannot be held entirely accountable for failing to respond with leadership and the bold stroke to the chaos that strangled Melbourne’s roads when the Burnley
and Domain tunnels were shut down, just in time for yesterday's morning traffic
peak.
But that’s the thing about One Term Ted, lovely bloke and
consummate gentleman that he is. One makes half a decision not to harp on his
deficiencies and the very next morning there it is, another example of what he
isn’t doing! This morning it is an
opinion column in The Walking Dead by a dancer called Jerril Rechter, now CEO of
Victoria Health, who has made the recent and shocking murder of Jill Meagher her
excuse to lament the low nature of all men, not the rather more narrow
demographic of Labor-appointed judges and magistrates who turn loose career
criminals and then shield their culpability behind the sub judice laws.
Late-night TV viewers, who cop more than their share of tax-deductible public
service announcements, will be familiar with Rechter’s schtick, which is of a
kind. Those who retire early will get the drift from the clip below:
See, if the Great
Bunyip hangs a pair of testicles (or even one) on the muscle-bound amalgam of idiocy
and thuggery that is your senior feminist’s conception of a typical male, that
carrier of the XY curse is a latent rapist by biology’s definition. Just water
the seed of violence with a little beer and an angry pistil will spring forth
to rear and twitch in the direction of any and every woman observed to be walking unaccompanied on a darkened
street. Years ago, when feminism was first in flower, the Parkville Asylum and
surrounding suburbs were plastered periodically with signs that captured the
mindset in five short words, “All Men Are Potential Rapists”. The message is a
little more polished these days, but the sentiment, bolstered by some very
dubious statistics, remains unchanged. Here
is Rechter’s gist:
Sunday's peace march in Brunswick went beyond a community's outpouring of grief; it was also a show of solidarity for a woman's right to feel safe, no matter where she is. It was heartening to see so many men take part.
The march was also a reflection of how more and more men now understand that they are instrumental in preventing violence against women.
They can stand up for equality, they can refuse to turn a blind eye to a mate's disrespectful behaviour, sexist joke, or thinly veiled threat hidden behind a distasteful remark at the pub, work, or on the footy field. It has to stop. These are the conditions that breed violence and harm women.
Get the picture?
Poor Jill Meagher is dead because Bill asks Bob if he has heard the one about
the lesbian who jumped from the Eureka Tower and landed on a parking meter.
Rechter is banging the same gong the left always whacks when a specific outrage
generates headlines: Don’t look at the actual incident, never that. Instead,
direct the debate and public focus to the general theme. There are more grants
to be garnered by this means and, best of all, the broadest of broad-brush approaches
precludes any standard by which the campaign’s success might be judged. In this
instance, making blanket generalisations about all men, not just rapists paroled in defiance of decency and common sense, is both meme and gravy train.
It would be nice to
think Baillieu appreciates this tactic and that he has some notion of how many
Labor holdovers, like Ms Rechter, he has retained in his state’s public
service, where they continue to operate as if the 2010 election never happened.
They are biding their time, cashing their cheques and waiting for the day when
the rightful, righteous party takes charge once again at the top end of
Bourke Street.
Meanwhile, Victoria's
judicial system remains an arrogant, slow, self-absorbed, crony-infested, immensely expensive citadel of incompetence populated by jurists who regard social engineering, not the public’s protection, as
their primary brief.
The Billabong’s
overnight correspondent opined that Victoria is not Queensland, and how a
southern-state version of Campbell Newman would be rejected by the electorate.
Be that as it may, we might as well have a Labor government in the Garden State
if the existing one is capable of nothing more than operating revenue cameras
and covering the mortgages of its embedded enemies.
UPDATE: Those who
bristle at the ad featured in the video above might appreciate this:
Don't dare laugh or Rechter will be seeking to have you charged as an accomplice in Jill Meagher's murder.
Patrick Deneen's latest at First Things 'Obama's Leviathan' is a fine explication of your point Prof.
ReplyDeleteMen a priori violent and suspect? well the state must absorb the government of the household into itself. Humans are mere rutting animals, unrestrained sexual expression or transgression is the only remaining sacred? well self government must be absorbed by the state also.
Makey-make work school/university/bureaucracy self-selects more idiot liberals and the technocratic omnicompetant nihilistic 'place to be' collapses into the black hole in its centre and you have Detroit Mk II.
Timid Ted is placeholder - there's no conservative presence anymore - politics is a charade
"Liberalism is often successful in preempting the debate ... so that [objections to it] appear to have become debates within liberalism. ... So-called conservatism and so-called radicalism in these contemporary guises are in general mere stalking-horses for liberalism: the contemporary debates within modern political systems are almost exclusively between conservative liberals, liberal liberals, and radical liberals. There is little place in such political systems for the criticism of the system itself, that is, for putting liberalism in question." MacIntyre 'Whose Justice?'
Economic conscription into support for liberal meritocratic class ... precedes every other kind.
This process is locked in now. Sexual permissiveness and bourgeois accumulation benumbed too many for too long. None of this ends well.
Actually Professor I am inclined to think in the case of One Term Ted it is his wife's influence that has turned him into a political eunuch.
ReplyDeleteTheir support of "the y'arts" and his status quo approach to Labor's vilification laws smacks of the feminine hand behind the throne.
I am glad that someone in Spring Street reads your blog because I for one will not be voting for One Term Ted's party at the next election unless someone with a couple of aggots takes charge and makes an effort to be a cando party.
Bazza the impaler.
BTI - please tell me you wouldn't vote for Mr Potatoe Head's [a.k.a Daniel Andrews] mob. Not after what they did to the State the last two times they were in Government. You'd help turn us into another Tasmania.
DeleteNo, I certainly wouldn't vote Watermelons or Australian Liebor Party but hopefully there will be a true independent on the paper.
DeleteIf not I will have to write something on the card like "I am into flagellation, necrophilia and bestiality - do you think I am flogging a dead horse?" hopefully causing a flash of embarrassment to a young Libs scrutineer.
Bazza the impaler.
Is there any specific polling or analysis of MALE voting intentions for the next federal election available??????
ReplyDeleteMy spouse often refers to me as her "penis-wielding tormentor".
ReplyDeleteIt makes for livelier conversation at the work Christmas BBQ.
Prof: We do need to consider whether fundamentals of our legal system adequately meet the need to maintain and repair what is good about living in Australia. For example, the European (especially German) way of running criminal and civil matters should be considered as an alternative to what we have now. The jury should not be regarded as sacrosanct (and addressing your concern about career criminals being set loose needs to focus on the jury as much as judges). One particular reform to consider is the repeal of the rule that precludes a judge telling a jury (or self-directing) that the accused could have given evidence on oath, failed to do so, and the failure may be taken into account as strengthening the prosecution case. (UK tv police procedurals like 'The Bill' illustrate how it works in the UK.)
ReplyDeleteBut a critique is easily blunted and diverted if it is based on misconceptions. For example, judges do not shield the culpability of career criminals behind the sub judice laws. Rather they are designed to shield the accused against a welter of prejudicial statements and behaviour calculated to influence a jury and a judge to convict. Of course, this object is often not achieved - think again of the Chamberlains - but this not a reason to permit open-season hunting of an accused. (There is also the more specific aim of avoiding the pollution of identification evidence). I know this is a bit facile, but what is of interest to the public may not be in the public interest (such a fair trial system) to reveal.
Your observations on the Victorian judiciary applies to enough of them (and this is true of other jurisdictions all the way to and including the High Court) to warrant a high degree of concern. I don't think 'independent' appointment commissions are any part of the answer, for they can be easily corrupted. The government should retain control.
In the end, and at in the past you said so yourself, those who wish for root and branch reform just have to get involved, and the best option is to join the Liberals (or the Nationals) and make the point at all possible levels in their structures.
Rafiki, thanks for your response and my apologies if my imprecise language led you to the conclusion that I see judges shielding themselves behind sub juice.
DeletePerhaps what I should have said that, when a nasty piece of work is re-arrested after an horrific crime, the fact that he was on the street in defiance of all logic cannot be mentioned because of sub judice considerations. This rather handily protects the judge who sent him free from being asked, quite reasonably, "What were you thinking."
That parody ad shouldn't be funny but, well, it is.
ReplyDeleteI don't object to a strong anti-violence and anti-rape message at anytime. Though the insistent focus on male violence and male perpetrated sexual assault, always against women, does seem like it is becoming a distraction. Quite apart from anything else it casts all women in the role of victims.
My previous partner (in her forties) ironically said that she "was the only woman she knew who hadn't been raped". The *real* rapists and wife beaters should be dealt with harshly but leave the rest of us men alone and don't push us so far that you risk an eventual backlash and/or turn the next generation of "men" into a bunch of wimps (you'll hate them even more).
DeleteI enjoyed the video too... but how can that be!? I've never raped, beaten or abused a woman in my life...? Perhaps it's because I have a sense of humour a quality sadly missing in so many FemiNazis.
I could tell a couple of stories about certain high profile and very Left leaning Victorian women's penchant for... let us say... six of the best - but, being a gentleman, I never shall.
Xeric
So women who dearly love a man, any man actually, are loving the wrong sort of human being? I think that was once the radical-feminist message, and it still lingers amongst some who should be removed from their jobs. It is precisely when men as a group and gender are denigrated and denied the right to be what their biology and our traditional culture tells them they are - strong, caring and protective to women - that some men become lost and abusive. Some of course, need no encouragement from anything but their own shortcomings, and the same goes for some women, who lash out in their own ways too. People are imperfect, and that is not a matter of gender.
ReplyDeleteProf, you have made your usual elegantly-phrased case for this sort of gender nonsense to be toned down to something more realistic with regard to genuinely violent behaviour of any kind, by anyone, male or female. Wouldn't it be nice if some of our voted-in ''conservative' politicians acted to remove pernicious leftist influences from our government-funded health and welfare programs?
ps. a note to the many Anonymous among us - when posting, put your screen name (anything will do) into the category Name/URL (forget about any URL, it's not necessary). You will then not be nameless. It's so easy, and so helpful to others who may wish to refer to your views.
One commentator to the Pravda/Age article sums up some of the present thinking of the great PC brigade:
ReplyDelete"EVERYBODY should be safe from assault all the time. Greg Platt Location Brunswick"
In other words, Greg doesn't accept the world as it is. It must be transformed. Preferably by re-ducation camps, and then by vigorous scrutiny of everyone all the time at the taxpayers' expense. Because society is to blame!
Get a grip Greg. And get your kids karate courses, and a sense of situational awareness.
What's wrong with young Greg wanting a world free from assault? What rational person wouldn't? It all depends on how you go about it. What if there was a pill you could take that gave you eternal life, or even better, eternal youth. But what if the same pill had the unfortunate side effect of killing you off if you went around assaulting people? Would there be a problem with that?
ReplyDeleteGiven that the Professor's readers appear to be mainly right-wing nutjobs, it seems rather pathetic for some undercover political hack to launch a covert complaint over his criticisms of the Great Leader's all too obvious shortcomings. How will the Professor's self-censorship for the good of the Party affect Ted the Turkey's vote? Given that Ted is hanging on only by the skin of his expensive shoelaces and is going to disappear at the next election anyway, you would think that a politician with more guts might have tried a more vigorous and positive approach.
ReplyDeleteWho knows, the voters might have been impressed with a leader that doesn't suck to the latest multi-culturalist, gender-neutralized and yartistically tedious fad for a change. Too bad we won't find out.
Mr. Spring Street would do well to harken unto the voices of discontent expressed in this and other "conservative" blogs regarding the disappointment in the quality of leadership in several states. No, the problem isn't limited to the Garden State.
ReplyDeleteIn NSW, Barry O'Farrell is trying to out-green the greenies with more and more windmills FFS, then there's the Captain Cook bust disguised as a balaclaved crack fueled 7-Eleven robber in Parliament House. It's unfortunate that both common sense and common decency are no longer "common" in the NSW Libs.
In my home state, Colin Barnett recently proclaimed that Geert Wilders would never be welcomed in WA. Whatever happened to the concept of free speech? Conroy's totalitarianism looks like finding a home in WA.
One-term Ted isn't markedly different from the other state Liberal Premiers, though Campbell Newman appears to be a welcome exception. Perhaps Queensland could loan him to the other states, they need reminding what a conservative leader is supposed to look like.