“Matin’s one thing the Lord and I see eye to eye on but durned if I can figger why He went and created them consarned green-gutted turnip worms!” from ‘Tobacco Road’ by Erskine Caldwell
The logical thought processes of children and simple people are such a hoot; so guileless in their innocence. It’s not until they grow up and start dealing with the broader social consequences of their own damnfoolery that it isn’t funny anymore.
That is especially true in politics; always in the public eye; utterly dependent on a fickle and diverse constituency, and burdened with the co-incidental bonehead ideology of your faithful support base who understand your silence perfectly well as long as they get an occasional wink and nod.
One wink too far and the whole farce unravels in a twinkling of an eye. But there may be a way out: if the will of the people on gay marriage rights reverts back to the people then let hellfire or a more temporal embarrassment fall back on their own heads for a change. “Let a thousand schools of thought contend” as Chairman Mao famously wrote, but they really mean it this time. Let the people decide the fate of same sex couples, and having been tossed the hot potato we have no choice but to rejoice.
Most of us won’t. We didn’t elect these people to shirk their responsibilities. We, the vast silent majority who are so cavalierly claimed as everybody’s constituency might rather take our cue from the Book of Job and silently endure our many pestilences as we await our chance to turf these fools. It might be thought that the writer here is outside the box for having opened his mouth, but it isn’t so. This isn’t part of a debate on the mechanics of marriage equality because I don’t give a rat’s if gays and lesbians marry or how people define their marriages, partnerships or whatever.
As a liberal it isn’t my business how other people pursue happiness and fulfilment as long as it doesn’t actually impinge negatively on someone else’s, which is something Tony Abbott and a fraction of his brain-dead big L essential partisan support base can’t comprehend. The thing is, regardless of our own orientation we all know someone and the polls are unequivocal.
In my extended a family a young woman in another country has married her girlfriend, and they organized to have a baby. Her (highly educated, professional – probably a negative in the all- important numbers game) mother says “It isn’t what I would have chosen for my children, but they are deliriously happy, and who could stand in their way?”
A rhetorical question this; in which ‘who’ translates as ‘what kind of slimeball.’
And the other thing about it is the same old which is always money. The unravelling of the great united Liberal party leadership has shown up another glaring disconnect which is the way these people handle public funds. They came in not only as our bright-eyed saviours replacing a dysfunctional Labour government but as angels of probity and thrift to repair the budget. That’s something all of us great unwashed sympathize with even though we like to have personal exceptions where belt- tightening is concerned. Yet most of us man- up to our patriotic duty; not that you are given much choice if you have left the workforce.
