QED

The Missing Antidote

turnbull selfie smallAt a microbiology level there are a number of things that might attack the body because the body is unwell in the first place. Some of these might be genetic, some related to lifestyle, even diet.

I’m the eldest in my family, and life has handed me a number of blessings, but my next brother down, Steve, was an alcoholic. He’s dead now, but we didn’t know he was dying when he last visited us, although perhaps we should have put two and two together: we had to use a fan to dispel the abominable stink coming out of the spare room. It smelt not unlike an over-ripe change room after fifteen players have taken off their socks, only worse. I don’t know if it had anything to do with his liver function or the possibility he lacked the energy to shower on a regular basis. All we knew was that something was very wrong and, yes, we preferred not to think further than that.

To cut a long story short, Steve was diagnosed with an infected hand and that was the end of him. His daughter told us he died after being given a general anaesthetic prior to ‘cleaning up’ the wound. His health was so compromised, he had no idea that he had been slowly committing suicide.

Now all this has parallels on a macro scale — call it the “national level”, if you will concede the metaphor of a body laid low and brought down by disease. Various forces seem intent on stepping outside their bailiwicks and exerting unhealthy, debilitating illnesses on the broader society. Bureaucrats, Corporate Australia, universities and their academics, even priests, top echelon cops and the Australian Medical Association are telling us same-sex marriage is the only issue of any real importance! The rest of us feel the need for a focus on the economy and, more particularly, the energy crisis and insane policies that will mean outrageous electricity and gas prices must continue to attack and erode the health of the country as a whole.

We saw what can happen when the little people are given a chance to unleash the antibodies of their disapproval at the ballot box. It happened with Brexit, when the majority voted to leave the EU — a body that had insisted on medicating a nominally independent nation with policies and edicts a majority of its citizens regard as toxic in the extreme. Out of control immigration, for example, plus external control of trade and the general, constant fiddling with a sovereign nation’s laws by Brussels’ eurocrats was too much for British voters to countenance once given the opportunity to express their disapproval.

Across the Atlantic we are seeing more of the same push-back spirit. In America, the corporate bodies that own the various NFL teams sided with activist players who have been ‘taking the knee’, rather than standing for the national anthem, all based on fallacious Black Lives Matters propaganda. Last week, over 180 NFL players knelt rather than stand. Then Donald Trump intervened, called the kneelers “sons of bitches” and condemning the politics of lies that motivated the protests. It worked. This week a mere 11 players took the knee, having been administered a timely presidential antidote. Had Trump not spoken up and articulated the views of average Americans, the sort not normally consulted on what is good for them, can anyone doubt the ranks of the kneelers would continue to grow.

Here in Australia we have the raging same-sex marriage debate, with the bulk of the abuse coming from the very side that had claimed a postal survey would open them up to the abuse of homophobic bigots. That survey, mind you, was the last thing SSM proponents wanted. Why risk failure when fellow members of the elite are eager to shove the desired changes down the voters’ throats via the floor of parliament. And aren’t they annoyed at being thwarted! Just look at that trendy left-wing Anglican vicar who posted a sign outside his Gosford church saying ‘Peter Dutton is a sodomite’. Then, just to make sure the wider world recognised a virtuecrat with a grievance, the same man of the cloth posted a photo of the sign far and wide on social media. If this isn’t ‘hate speech’ I don’t know what is.

The AMA came out in support of SSM without discussing it with members. Woolworths did the same, again without seeking its shoppers’ opinions beforehand. We can surmise why Qantas went all-in for same-sex marriage, given its CEO is openly gay and in a long-term relationship — and perhaps, too, because making a look-at-me fuss about the need for “equality” in Australia eases the shame of his airline’s pact with the national carrier of a Gulf state that inflicts hormone “treatments” on homosexuals and locks them away for ten years at a stretch.

The ABC and SBS have been ardent advocates for gay marriage, as you might expect, likewise the Fairfax press. Their job, notionally, is to inform the public, not lecture it on the appropriate and endorsed views our betters insist we must adopt. Collectively, the institutions the left has colonised — take that to mean all of the above — read from the same hymn book. Dare to sing out of tune and the choirmasters of the Left crank up the abuse, even posting it on church noticeboards.

Can the Liberal Party under Malcolm Turnbull do anything to stem the tide? Is it even prepared to try, given the deep and growing divisions within its ranks? Probably not. It was the Liberals who might have done something to reform the ABC, to shatter the groupthink and cosy nepotism that has infused that organisation with an unchallengeable green-left mindset. The Liberal Party is a party at war with itself and at odds with its supporter base. Our various churches are divided and their Sunday pews increasingly unoccupied. Our schools and universities are extruding the next generations of Green voters because there, too, the left’s colonisation has been a total success and, as with the ABC, the party that should be doing something about it refuses to raise a finger.

Like my poor brother, the health of Australia’s body politic is in decline as contaminants and toxins are pumped into its life’s blood. Common sense is jettisoned for ideology while a political class, its mentors and courtiers all genuflect before institutionalised idiocy. Think that’s harsh? Well how would you describe a government of men and women seemingly bent on putting manufacturing industries out of business with ruinous power costs?

St Matthew’s gospel offers some hard-hitting advice, ‘…if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell’.

Pardon my pessimism, but I fear we’ve gone way beyond the simple corrective measure of amputation. Our society — indeed, the entire West — has allowed itself to be force fed the elites’ poisons, and their cumulative effects are laying us low. Is there an antidote? God only knows, but I’m pretty sure it cannot be found in either of our chief political parties.

The solution, if there is one, falls to us by default.

19 thoughts on “The Missing Antidote

  • padraic says:

    Your comments are spot on, Peter. When the plebiscite was announced with great fanfare it was so that the “plebs” could make the decision and not the political elite telling us what is good for us. But no. The politicians are out there telling us to vote one way or another. Hello? What happened to the legislature listening to the people and then legislating on the basis of that decision. But what ever the outcome of the plebiscite SSM will be legislated. I remember reading some years ago under a Federal Labor government that the ACT had a plebiscite on having “self-government”. It was roundly rejected by voters who had representatives in the Senate and Reps and a very efficient, cost-effective “Department of Territories” who did the Local Government stuff. Despite the massive “No” vote they got “self-government. So much for plebiscites. I don’t agree with corporates and sporting bodies getting into politics so as a feeble protest I have stopped shopping at Woolworths and I did not watch the NRL Grand Final this year. It won’t make any difference, but I feel better. Also all the newspapers are full of this ridiculous issue so I’ll save myself $5 a day by not buying them until the farce is over.

  • pgang says:

    Is there an antidote? I’ve been smashing that one for ages here, soundly annoying everybody. The only antidote is a Christian revival among the common people. Whether you believe or not, there is no denying that this would turn things around.

    • padraic says:

      I think, pgang, that in this secular environment we may need an organization like GetUp, but with opposite views, to harass MPs and corporations etc with threats of withdrawing voting or financial support unless they behave as we, an unelected group, want them to behave. The current elite embrace this Marxist stuff, so we may have to fit in with this post-democratic way of running the country?? I would prefer the old way, but perhaps “needs must when the divvil drives”?

    • ianl says:

      > “Is there an antidote?”

      No – and I realised that, finally accepted it, about a decade ago when the hard evidence of Rudderless’ popularity became incontrovertible. The man is a flake and most people either didn’t see it or didn’t care.

      Oh, and despite your best arm waving, superstition only makes it worse. Irrational beliefs, acted on, are exactly the core issue.

      • Stephen Due says:

        It depends what you mean by “irrational beliefs” and “superstition”. Christianity is a religion. In its biblical form it comprises a coherent ethical system, expressed in various ways with great consistency from the beginning of the Bible through to the end. Christian ethics have shaped the societies and the legal systems of the West for two thousand years. The Bible has been the great ethical textbook of the best minds throughout that period. To describe Christianity as if it were bad science or muddled mathematics is to get the wrong end of the stick entirely. It would be like saying Shakespeare’s writings are no good because they are not evidence-based.

        The Bible is primarily a work of literature aimed framing a particular worldview of a type known as “ethical monotheism”. It is the fundamental textbook of Western civilisation. The Bible in English is unquestionably the greatest work of literature in the English language, far surpassing even Shakespeare, or the translations of the literature of ancient Greece and Rome. The Bible uniquely presents a coherent, ethical worldview that elevates and dignifies the soul, and covers the whole spectrum of human experience.

    • whitelaughter says:

      The common people never abandoned Christianity, their churches did.
      Have a closer look at the change in %s!
      The massive decline in church numbers is *only* in the Anglican and Uniting churches – who are in the forefront of the betrayal of traditional beliefs. The Anglicans went from 40% to 17% of the population in a generation; the Uniting from 30% to 13%. In both cases, most of the their remaining ‘members’ are those who haven’t *bothered* to leave.
      The Roman Catholics at 25% of the population are doing better than they were at Federation (23%) while we have a wide slather of churches who had very little presence here before – both the Continental and Asiatic churches of immigrants and waves of American style Pentecostal churches.
      The ‘dying church’ myth is just that – a lie that our enemies hope will be self-fulfilling. More likely, the death of the churches that betrayed us will turn attention to the vibrant churches.

      • Warty says:

        I suspect you’re right about the decline in church numbers being largely related to the Anglican and Uniting churches, and for exactly the reasons you have given. That Rod Bower bloke, of the Gosford Anglican Church has me spitting obscenities every time he hits the front pages (which tends to occur with monotonous regularity).

  • case says:

    The situation is reminiscent of Germany in the 1930s, when any expression of opinion counter to Nazi policies was squashed, sometimes brutally, to the extent that criticism was silenced and the country went to war. We are being threatened by socialist greens whenever we voice opposition to what is proclaimed to be politically-correct.
    This has gone to the extent that sporting bodies and major companies feel obliged to publicly support ssm. Worse still is that our biggest mining company, incredibly, adopts extreme green policies which aim to shut down all mining!

    • Stephen Due says:

      Yes I agree it is very reminiscent of Germany in the 1930s. It is worth noting also that, as in Germany in 1930s, the youth are being systematically radicalised in the schools to spearhead the political movement.
      One difference between Germany then and Australia now is that the Australian government has a hugely superior mechanism for implementing totalitarianism. There is a vast surveillance network already in place, for example. The government already controls irresistible force in the form of military power that would easily overwhelm any resistance. A fair proportion of the necessary draconian legislation supposedly to guarantee our ‘security’, is already in place. And the moral corruption of the population is already well advanced.

  • Stephen Due says:

    The truth of the perspective offered in this articled is seen in one simple fact. The LBGT activists, and the advocates of SSM, direct their attacks at one enemy – Christianity. It is no accident when you see an LBGT activist carrying a placard reading “Burn the Churches”. They know that only Christians have the collective backbone to stand up to them. They know that without the Christian alliance known as the Coalition for Marriage there would be no effective opposition to their political agenda. They know that Lyle Shelton and the Australian Christian Lobby are the powerhouse behind the anti-SSM campaign. They have other opponents – not everyone voting No! is a Christian by any means – but Christianity is the only organised opposition, and only Christianity has the historically-proven tenacity to recognise and stand against moral degeneration. There is no question, as John Howard correctly said, that SSM is nothing to do with ‘equality’. It is primarily part of an ongoing campaign to drive Christianity out of the public square, and ultimately to de-Christianise our society . The Jacobins are at work.

    • Jim Kapetangiannis says:

      Great points Stephen

      I would add that in my opinion, the move to de-Christianise our society is little more than the attempt to rebuild the Marxist Babel. The LGBTQI community, are no more than the new “useful idiots” to be used and eventually discarded if and when New Babel is built.

      The Marxists (who deny the worship of anything divine and exalt their own humanity) could not win with the “workers” (in fact, they murdered and starved tens of millions if not hundreds of millions of them) so had to find a whole new swathe of “victims” who could be “used” (and that indeed is the operative word) in the construction of New Babel. Sadly, the LGBTQI community is one of the new “victim” groups.

      The hatred of Christianity displayed by the “loving” LGBTQI community stems from one simple fact. Christians are only temporary and uncommitted citizens of this world order. Temporary, as all of us (Marxists, LGBTQI, radical students etc. etc. included without exception) will go the way of all flesh, some mercifully in old age, many violently and in the prime of youth; Uncommitted because our Christian allegiance is not to any earthly commonwealth but to the Commonwealth which will be established after Babel has finally fallen for all eternity. We are the enemy because we declare what they don’t want to hear – all their efforts are ultimately in vain and a “chasing after wind”.

      In the old Biblical story of the tower of Babel, there was a visible and measurable success. The tower seemed to reach to the very heavens themselves and the earthly kingdom appeared to “triumph”. But the end of that primitive attempt to construct an earthly Utopia came almost in an instant and when least expected. It came while the builders enjoyed the hubris of success. This has been the warning case and pattern ever since. Great empires have come and gone as certainly as the sun rises in the East. Similarly, I’ll bet London to a brick that the ancient LGBTQI community of Sodom (and it’s sister city) was having a ball (‘scuse please – no pun intended) right up until the last second before the fireballs came hurtling down.

      The end of the matter for me is that for a little while, we in the West enjoyed the “leavening” of the Christian Gospel and now we are returning to long term, natural trends in human history (including our own Western history )- tribalism, conflict, war, totalitarianism and the personification of “evil” in those who disagree. In our case and most obviously as you have pointed out, Christians in particular have been singled out for this personification. My personal reaction is to not hold any ill will but to keep fighting and never to despair. Even the little we do commenting on these pages (one of the last bastions of free thought)is a salvo for what is really worthwhile. We may be able to arrest the progress of New Babel, even if it is up to the Invisible Hand to ultimately turn it into rubble.

  • jeremyhearn@optusnet.com.au says:

    The solution is in front of us and will solve the national debt as well! Public funding of education and journalism has prevented the normal creative destruction of the free enterprise system from cleaning out the nonsense. What taxpayer would voluntarily pay for the nongs who developed “Safe Schools”. Imagine the ABC having to survive on advertising! Both the dishonest media and the nonsense and lies that are forced into our children at schools and Universities are a result of Public Funding! The left, who are basically unemployable in the free market, have populated the universities and the ABC. They have all the hiring positions so only leftists are hired. Your taxes are paying for them to live. Public education and Journalism have failed and must be de-funded. Give the taxes back to the people. They don’t want to pay for their children to be lied to. This would also give the Government a great start on paying off the debt.
    Imagine offering this to people:
    “We will privatise all schools and Universities and give you a massive tax cut so you can decide what education your children get!”
    “We will privatise the ABC and give you a Tax Cut so you can pay for whatever television you want!”

    • Lawrie Ayres says:

      I have long advocated that universities should be self funding. They are not providing education as do high schools but rather they are selling degrees or licences to practice a particular speciality. As such students should be responsible for their own debt not the taxpayer as are those who gain qualifications through TAFE. If universities were responsible for finance there would be fewer courses, better teachers and better graduates but much fewer academics and even fewer activist students.

  • Keith Kennelly says:

    Sorry Stephen Dee

    The bible isn’t a the great font of westernism you believe it is.

    Firstly Christ Rejected most if it in favour of his ‘golden rule’ of do unto others .. love one another and forgive one another.

    It was a Roman Emporer and the Conferences Of Nicea which determined what was in the modern Bible. The New Testament was adopted by the Christian Churches, which after the enlightenment were pushed aside for liberal democracy. This focused on the values of Christ and developed with this as a guide to life in its laws, freedoms, responsibilities and institutions.

    The Old Testament was part of the Hebrew bible which was written in 600bc by a couple of Jewish scribes in Babylon. It’s sources include the ancient Epic of Gilgamesh. We’ve mostly rejected that as unhelpful. Really do you advocate vengeance, war and hate?

    No, a return to those as a basis is not realistic. We’ve long grown out of the need for superstition or filling people with fear,

    We need a new code or a refresh of the liberal values.

    There is a lack of focus on liberal democracy. You are compounding that with your focus on religion. Most of us reject it. Listen to the great unwashed for they are the font of pholosophy. It is the decisions we make and live by that determines pholosophy.
    With the rise of the knowall elites that are not living philosophy but are telling us what it should be is the problem.

    That will change as the real leaders identify the philosophy lived by the great masses and articulate that who will decide ou future.

    No totalitarian regime has ever lasted.

    This one of the educated managerial class won’t either.

    Brexit and Trump are the b ginning of their end.

    Abbott and Latham will be the spark here.

    Both identify the philosophy of the masses of us.

    Have a little faith for as Ghandi once said ‘ throughout history the ways of truth and love always win.

    The bible isn’t the font of all truth or love. Only parts of it are and we in the west included them in our individual chosen behaviour a few centuries ago. David Holme AdamSmith, J S Mill and others articulated the behaviour of the great mass of people a couple of centuries ago. And that has worked well enough until the rise of totalitarianism.

    We need to return to those values.

    • Jim Kapetangiannis says:

      Hi Keith

      “Firstly Christ Rejected most if it in favour of his ‘golden rule’ of do unto others .. love one another and forgive one another.”

      Where did you get that from?

      “Do not think I have come to abolish the law or the prophets: I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the law until everything is accomplished” – Jesus

      Hmmm…scholarly “Chinese whispers”…

      “The New Testament was adopted by the Christian Churches, which after the enlightenment were pushed aside for liberal democracy”

      There is another view. The Enlightenment was the grandparent of National Socialism and Marxism and without the “tempering” of the Great Awakenings in the United States and the Methodist revival firstly in the UK and then across the Atlantic (think Wilberforce, Shaftesbury, the Clapham sect, Florence Nightingale and many, many, others), these evil systems would have greater purchase in the west. If I may be so bold as to suggest that the roots of modern liberal, representative democracy are not in England but in Geneva. If I may quote a 16th century thinker;

      “Therefore, men’s faults or failings causes it to be safer and more bearable for a number to exercise government, so that they may help one another, teach and admonish one another; and if one asserts himself unfairly, there may be a number of censors and masters to restrain his wilfulness….And as I freely admit that no kind of government is more happy than one where freedom is regulated with becoming moderation and is properly established on a durable basis, so also I reckon most happy, those permitted to enjoy this state…” – John Calvin

      Liberal democracy only works when we accept the Christian view of human nature. Without that, we are subject to the hubris of the “perfect” who call their evil, good.

      “No totalitarian regime has ever lasted.” – Quite true! They are in the main, replaced by other totalitarian regimes, sometimes far worse!

      As for totalitarianism, quite frankly in some form or other and to one degree of oppression or other, it is the natural (unredeemed) state of human government. Democracy in a very limited and primitive form was only ever enjoyed by a few Greeks around two an half millennia ago and that for a very short period of time and except for a couple of hundred years since the American Revolution (certainly not the French!), firstly in the same United States and then for an even shorter time in a few other western nations, the nations of the world have been ruled by various absolute emperors, monarchs and dictators, tin-pot or otherwise. Even the very best democracies of the present time have some element of the concentration in, and the corruption of power by, “dictatorial” elites.

      Sadly, just as the sun set on the noble Greek ideal of “democracy”, seemingly having run its’ course in the west, it is now setting once again. Will it rise anywhere else? Who knows, but if it does, that will be the place to be.

      I’m grateful for your stimulating post – it certainly got me thinking

  • Keith Kennelly says:

    I can’t reminisce about the 1930 in Germany and I doubt anyone here can.

    We can only reflect what n what we have been presented with … which without a doubt is vastly propaganda.

    I suspect the opinions of people who can’t see that truth.

  • Keith Kennelly says:

    Hi Jimbob

    Thank you for your revealing post. Your thinking is really quite interesting.

    You are right of course. Christ did not come to destroy the words of the prophets.

    And indeed he didn’t.

    He rejected the organised religion of the Hebrews and its practises.

    To make my point clearer I’ll give you a couple of glaring examples. Can you point me to the prophet who told the Hebrew to take an eye for an eye. Or the prophet who told the Hebrew to avoid assisting the Gentileg? Or the prophet who told the Hebrews it was ok to trade in the. Temple. Or the prophet who told the Hebrews to stone women for adultery? Or the prophet who banned women from preceding and attending the temples?

    Nice try though.

    The enlightenment produced Hulme, Adams and Mill the great influencers of westernism. Communists all … you say?

    And of course Martin Luther had the ideals of Marxism and Nazism in his heart as well?

    Calvin merely followed the lead of the reformation and Calvins odd beliefs have long been rejected within western society.

    iYiu are at odds with the great body of western philosophy when you claim totalitarianism is the natural state of human government.

    I think the history of the 20th century debunks that as does the wests current rejection of the totalitarianism of the managerial elites.

    I think with all due respect you could read much more broadly than the left wing cant.

    Cheers

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