It is a mistake these days to assume that the other person is sane. I went to my club gym early on Wednesday. I’d had a doctor’s appointment to check my blood sugar level and do a licence check – a demeaning procedure that applies in NSW once you have reached a certain age. Some wretched politicians a while ago thought that they would inconvenience older people. What a lark!
Anyway, enough of that. There are some tables around a chlorinated over-heated pool. I thought I would read the paper to wear off the flat white, I had just had, before getting onto the treadmill. Another older bloke was reading the AFR. I opened The Australian.
A clue to what then happened. He did not acknowledge me when I walked in. I had to initiate the hello. Hmm?
Within a minute he got up to leave and sticking his AFR under my nose asked me whether I would like to read it. Thanks, but I am reading the Australian, I replied. I wouldn’t read that he said, it is a Rupert Murdoch paper, full of lies. I said, well without Murdoch we wouldn’t have Sky News and Fox News. I don’t look at those either, he said. Clearly, he was all about pushing his perverted view of the world on anyone unfortunate enough to be in his vicinity.
I was tempted to use the two-word expression, beginning with f and o respectively. But can’t do that in the club, so I simply said, read and watch what you like and buried my head in my paper. Off he marched; maybe to harangue another conservative in the club if he was lucky enough to find one among the wets.
My point is that he looked normal. But he was a modern-day leftie and therefore by definition mentally ill. I live in an area where sixty percent of people voted Yes to the racially divisive Voice; mistaking sanctimony for morality. They also vote for the Teals. Think about it. Those who vote or preference that way believe that if Australia, all pipsqueak 27 million of us, burn no coal and gas, we will become a renewal energy superpower; and, to boot, the world will be saved from a fiery fate.
This is a case of delusions of grandeur on stilts. It bears absolutely no relationship to reality. To me that is a sure sign of insanity. When you put it together with believing that a man can become a woman; that the nation is best represented by three flags with the optional extra of a gay-pride flag; that renewal energy is the cheapest energy; that subsiding electricity bills lowers inflation; that bringing in thousands upon thousands of Muslims does not put social cohesion at risk; that a two-state solution can be forged with murderous terrorists; and so much more freakishness – then, perforce, the case is closed.
What to do? Move away from batty neighbours? But where to? Nowhere seems safe in Australia. Maybe to the reddest US state – Wyoming? Cheyenne median house price AUD 532,000.
Peter,
Leave.
Quickly.
The Outer Hebrides or Vietnam.
It may be insanity, but more likely cultish behaviour. Very Jim Jonesish.
Which is a worry.
People in chains always want to pop the manacles on others. That way they don’t feel so alone.
Enjoy your freedom to think rationally before it becomes illegal.
I think Wyoming is part of what is known as the ‘American Redoubt’.
It might be a good choice.
Bloody cold in winter, but ses pretty libertarian.
For a bit of the local flavour, read some C.J. Box novels.
I think if I moved there once the snow got ten feet high I would be filled with regret. Move to the Wide Bay Area.
Anyone even thinking of Wyoming would be well advised to consider this road sign:
I know I’ve said this before, but when 30% of Australians are immigrants, isn’t it about time for the ABC to give up the Narm and Gadigal nonsense.
Yes it is, but the ABC live in ABC World and until they get confronted with reality – the reality we face every day – they will not and can not change their mental outlook.
Peter, two things to remember about leftism: a) it is a religion for athiests with very strict rules about the beliefs required for membership and those who don’t go along with those rules are excommunicated by public shaming; b) leftism is emotional, not rational, and is designed to appeal to three-year-old girls.
There are no neighborhoods in Australia — or anywhere in the West — that are free of leftards. So the correct response when we inevitably encounter militant leftards isn’t pointless confrontation and argument, but lampooning of their stupidity.
However, that requires remaining outside the physical range of the afflicted sufferer’s rage as leftards often lash out when they’re made fun of.
Hope that helps.
Peter, you sound like you live in my Teal (at the moment) electorate. Sadly,friends as well as foes believe the rubbish that the impudent stranger piled on you. Only today I found myself in an exchange via text messages re the Donald and the Zelensky “incident”. She was outraged that Zelensky was poorly treated. I argued the opposite even more vehemently. She ventured into UN territory & I countered by wishing that Donald would withdraw from that as we’ll as the WHO. She eventually gave up, probably in disgust. A pity. She is a good friend and a generous, charitable individual. But she and her hubby are blindingly Left.
As if that was not enough, granddaughter sought my input re a uni paper she was going to write re the media approach to the Chinese ships incident. She actually thought the media were “overboard” (no pun intended!) about the whole thing. I ventured (with argument via the later Jim Molan’s book) that this was just the beginning of a very real danger from China. At least she was open to what she saw as a strange overreaction (!).
Peter, we need to reassert to ourselves the very real possibility that we were witnessing an enormous change in western thought. As the recent ARC conference argued. We are on the crest of the wave. It should be a wild ride.
Vicky,
I’ve had very similar conversations over the Ukraine situation. Rabid frothing at both Putin and Trump.
My strategy, which works rather well and hopefully make them think, is to ask them what their expected outcome of the war will be.
Not their ideal outcome – that of course is Putin retreating to previous borders, and probably giving up Crimea too – but what they realistically EXPECT to happen.
There are three obvious paths – present these to them:
1/ continuation of the slaughter of both Ukrainian and Russian people with western backing of Ukraine.
2/ Escalate – NATO (and maybe the US) join in the fun. Sounds a lot like WWIII.
3/ negotiate a peace
Really? At your age you want to try and flee this stupid, stupid country?
Consider carefully the logistics and consequences of doing so.
I’ll just be happy to flee sydneystan, which will be happening soon.
I fled from Sydney in the 80’s, up to Queensland and points North and West.
14 years ago stopped in Barcaldine.
No Leftists here except for the guvvie wukkas.
OK, maybe a couple, but they don’t drink in my pub.
Heaven.
You do realise that by declaring him mentally ill you’re giving him an out?
Leftism is a moral condition, not a mental one.
I just found my next Tshirt slogan.
Ta.
Firstly, I enjoy your writing very much. But, of late you have become quite dower. I’m of the female variety and would impetuously diagnose your symptoms as “Old Man’s Grumpy Disease”, which is a misnomer in itself. Anyone can get it, at any age. It’s just called different things. It is a result of feeling redundant, cut off, useless and unable to connect your views and yourself to others. Plus you are aging and don’t have the energy you used to have, nor the drive. But hey, sounds like you have a lot going for you. More than most. You need to soften off, not everything is a potential confrontation or degradation. What you are going through, we are all going through.
Next time you go to your coffee spot buy a copy of the other guy’s leftist rag. Put it prominently in front. If he is baited he will approach. Now, you can say something like, ” I was thinking I need to get different views on things as you can get stuck in a rut”. “What do you think?” He will have to respond then it’s over to you. Listen he will be intrigued. Most lefties at the moment are going through a major psychosis period. Reality is creeping up and their egos are repelling. They are vulnerable. At times quite nasty. Be gentle. The tide is turning slowly. Also take a break if you can, go up the hills, stay in a pub, get a change and time to enjoy nature. Good Luck.
It was dour I meant, not dower.
Hi mem, I am not nearly as dour as you might think. Complaining about the left is me having fun. I will try to let that show through a bit more.
Hi mem, I am not nearly as dour as you might think. Complaining about the left is me having fun. I will try to let that show through a bit more.
nah… carry a cricket bat strapped to your back… Conan the Barbarian sword style.
If they even sniff start reaching for it.
I think there are a variety of factors that contribute to our present state of socio-cultural (and moral) decay. These include, but are not limited to:
Leisure – Here in the Burst… sorry, First, World, we have a comparative excess of leisure time.
Like-tivism – Activism used to involve a degree of personal risk, like throwing oneself in front of racehorses, in order to gain the attention of the wider public. With communications technology now, however, we can sit in the comfort of our home and click the ‘Like’ button on a digital social media page, and perceive we have done our bit to save the whales/snails/definitely-not-males. We need take NO risk at all to be a like-tivist; we gain an immediate reward (the release of endorphins courtesy of our index finger) without having to invest ‘money in the game.’ I’ll let you ponder what Like-tivism means as a feedback mechanism regarding public policy…
I’m not a fan of the mental illness theory, though I understand the temptation: It absolves us of any responsibility for watching this decline take place (over decades) without offering an effective defense.
Should have just said you had already read it. Found it lacking today so went for diversity of opinion.
The Australian isn’t Left Wing? News to me.
Same idiot drover’s licence medical in Queensland for over 75’s.
Idaho seems popular. Avoid large cities though.
Since Trump’s win, lefties have become marginalised in the USA. Witness MSNBC and CNN ratings and consequent sackings plus the Democrat party crumbling and infighting.
Sanity is returning over there and I think we can hope for the same here especially since Dutton (he’s no Trump) should win.
The Voice also gives hope with 60/40.
I have an old college mate who’s now a bush lawyer, defending crack heads stealing pension money etc. Woke as, but usually is pretty even handed including a decent sense of humour. He would post on facechook mostly about family, sport, or his pet obsession of shopping trolleys not being returned to the collection bay. But he’d also sparingly post stuff on politics and the current social Marxism as well.
Since the Trumpster took office he’s gone off the rails. As in completely lost his mind. The sense of humour has gone and every post is TDS on steroids. It’s an amazing thing to watch.
RFK jr…
“We need to look into blue hair dye because it seems to cause mental illness”.
The Week in Pictures: High-Five Edition
Peter – the social highlight of the past five years was gently (and without seeming to) goading a close friend’s fiancé into declaring me a denialist at the top of her lungs just as there was a delicious pause in the conversation drowning out other tables in our local Italian restaurant. Both he, and my partner (who he introduced me to 20 years ago) enjoyed the moment greatly. I just felt a warm glow but did reach out a consoling hand. ‘You got me,’ she purred ever so gently – more for the moment of theatre she’d caused than anything else.
Now – she is a senior director in the foreign aid bit of DFAT. He is a senior diplomat. And my partner after a long career in defence & intelligence is now a senior auditor with ANAO. As for me? Well, I’m the fourth leg. The one who enjoys an occasional bit of political media the way Bruce McAvaney watches sport every now and then. Unbeatable in a political to and fro, although I learned long ago I am wasting my time with anyone even marginally left of centre. And in the town I currently live most of my time in – that’s the majority.
The stupidity of Labor, The Greens and The Teals is despairing. Although the cowardice of the Coalition is often worse. I keep my membership of the CLP NT paid up because one day given a (goddamn) break by the powers that be, including my partner – I will run for Parliament. Because it’s really the only game in town. (Only the US gets to have an Elon Musk, and there’s only one of him. So let us forget the great wealth and influence path.) Maybe you need to think about it. We need more conservative independents speaking their minds. You might not win a seat but you can influence the outcome and you will attract a lot more respect than you realise. (I loathe The Greens and The Teals with every fibre of my being…but at least they’re having a go.)
I want to stand as the member of “The Goanna Party” for the electorate comprising ‘Hay, Hell and Booligal’.
We members of The Goanna Party love chewing and spitting out the bones of green teal ducks.
Thanks for the update, Rowley Birkin QC.
Something for Peter Smith to be mindful about:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_abuse_of_psychiatry_in_the_Soviet_Union
Whether leftism is a mental or moral disorder is moot: it seems to me that it works mainly through language. Some people, in order to decide what to do consult their instincts, while others consult their ideology. Some ideologies are in reasonable harmony with what one might call the natural, non-linguistic response, others are not. If you cling to a leftist ideology, you wind up with virtually no contact with reality at all. You have a purely verbal knowledge of it, just like the LLMs, or AIs as they are called. So you may believe a bloke is a sheila just by his saying he is. The language dominates, no matter how whiskery he may be.
It’s not helped by an ‘educational’ system which trains students to say and write the ‘right’ things, with zero interest in whether they are true, false, or totally devoid of meaning.
Some people have an instinctive feeling for the real; farmers, engineers for example. And some are slaves to the linguistic usage in which they were raised. Reality is not very important to such folk.
It’s the difference between Trump and Kamala. For the latter, it’s about the right brand of bullshit. She sees her opposition as committed to the wrong brand of bullshit. The way M0nty sees us. But that’s a category error; most practical people loathe bullshit and if they are smart, they cut through it ruthlessly.
How would you even know what’s bullshit if you only read and watch left-wing media? Some left-wingers still believe the “fine people” hoax and that Trump was or is Putin’s lapdog. It was late last year when a few billionaires who turned to support Trump did so after they finally realized that what they had been fed were complete hoaxes. They changed sides because they resented being lied to.
Most people loathe bullshit, but they have to end up realizing they’ve been deceived. That’s not happening with the left, and only a few are escaping the brainwashing.
There are about 50 odd hoaxes. Ask Fatboy which of those he believes. It will be about 50
odd.
The Right appears to have the ability to self correct and call out bullshit even from their own side. The Rightwing also have a propensity to read and watch both sides. This doesn’t happen on the left. I’d make one exception and that’s the woke right, but that’s only fringe.