Stolen from the ABC Web site
See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil
So Senator Cory Bernardi told a jocular story of an unnamed parliamentarian and lost for a while his chance of a federal ministry. Federal Court Judge Marcus Einfeld named a deceased person as having driven his car on a night when no injury occurred and was threatened with year in jail. Opposition Leader John Brogden uttered three words, "mail order bride", and was so politically punished for it that within ten days he attempted suicide.
Tony Abbott uttered two words, "people skills", and was hounded out of a chance at the Prime Ministership, forever perhaps.
George W Bush, by contrast, ordered the killing by lethal injection of 150 Texans, including a woman, the first in 100 years, and was offered a shot at the Presidency. The two young coppers who shot seven times in the head a man innocent of any wrong on the London tube train and were found to have "acted appropriately".
Words can get you into big trouble, it seems, while deeds, violent, cruel, sometimes fatal deeds go lavishly unpunished. The soldiers who killed a family for driving their usual way home were found to have "acted within the guidelines".
Matt Brown, meanwhile, for having said "titty-f***ing", though no-one present heard him say it, and he says he didn't say it, may lose his political career. Harbajhan Singh for saying "monkey" nearly lost his sporting career.
Andrew Symonds for upbraiding an umpire was sent into rehab to rectify his emotional instability. For saying at a private gathering that some provincial Americans "cling to guns and religion" Barack Obama was thought to have lost, in seven syllables, the Presidency.
For saying "At last I can feel proud of my country", Michelle Obama, a descendant of black American slaves, was accused of intellectual treason and thought unfit for the White House. The two words "at last" put John McCain ahead that week, the way they would.
It's been thought that if the young London coppers, instead of shooting Jean Charles de Menezes seven times in the head, had called him a "spick" or a "lousy dago" they might have lost their jobs. As things turned out their preferred option may have earned them a promotion.
What is going on here? What indeed is meant by the concept "freedom of speech"? The freedom to lose your livelihood, your family happiness, your career path, your one life on earth, because of one small thing you say?
Moses stoning Jews to death for picking flowers on a Saturday was thought to have acted excessively until recently, but perhaps no more. He was doing what we do lately, punishing trivial deeds with harsh and mortal retribution.
Words, it seems, have magical potency still. The word "****" is thought to be harmful, and is still not printed in some newspapers. The word "pissed" (as in "pissed as a fart") once got Mike Carlton removed from the airwaves. The words "raw meat" had Sheikh Hilali threatened with banishment from Australia. Had he instead said "eye candy" he might, I suppose, have suffered helicopter gunship attack by the Australian equivalent of Ehud Olmert, Pru Goward.
The word for the process with which we begin life is thought unspeakable too and the word for the female organ, unprintable even here, is treated like a molotov cocktail though it's most common meaning is "inconsiderate person".
What is going on here? It feels like a scaled-down rerun of the sixteenth century, in which Tyndale was burnt at the stake for putting out the New Testament in English, Cranmer burnt at the stake for writing the Book of Common Prayer in that same language and the hands of several provincial pamphleteers cut off for uppity thoughts on the Virgin Queen.
And Jews who denied the true Christ were burned, imprisoned or tortured too, a bit like those who deny the Holocaust in Austria today.
It is a world not far from wooden crosses held up to ward off vampires, or chicken livers delved to predict the course of battles, or fatal diseases blamed on the witchery of the crone next door; it is a world in which one convocation of letters can be thought evil, and evil-spreading, and another harmless, or positively beneficial.
Words matter we are told, and deeds matter less if intentions are good, but I'm not sure why this might be so.
In Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino every vile racist epithet is shouted or muttered by a good, sad, decent ex-army widower who knows it is deeds that count, not words, and nobody he curses minds much, nor should they, for he is such a good neighbour in other ways.
The foulest words, moreover, are aimed in South Park at four-year-olds and nobody minds much, nor should they.
Hitler's racist rants continue to fester on library shelves or blurt from history channels and nobody minds much, nor should they. Fred Nile continues to threaten merciless hellfire to sodomites forever and nobody minds much, nor should they, though some think his notions of just punishment disproportionate.
And yet the verballing of politicians for luckless adjectives goes on, and no-one remarks on its nastiness. Barnaby Joyce is arraigned for doubting global warming and kicked round the walls like, he says, "a Holocaust denier" and is then kicked round the walls for saying "Holocaust".
Kevin Rudd calls a picture of a nude pubescent girl "disgusting" and and is thought no longer fit to lead the Labor Party. Belinda Neal upbraids a waiter (why shouldn't she?) and is thought no longer fit for public office. Julie Bishop makes a cat's-claw scratching motion in Question Time (why shouldn't she?) and is upended out of the Treasury. Julia Gillard calls Christopher Pyne "mincing" (why shouldn't she?) and is thought to have "over-stepped the line". Joe Biden calls Barack Obama "clean" and is asked to leave, a proven racist, the presidential primaries.
And Australians blow up children in an Afghan village and are pretty much praised for it. And the five million Iraqis crippled, killed, dispossessed and harassed into exile are judged mere by-blows of "a policy that's working". And a child dies every 30 seconds thanks to free trade, "the only economic policy that makes sense".
Deeds, not words, Christ advises, are the things we should be judged by. Deeds, not words. Take that on board, you punk, you punk, you worthless, snivelling, scum-sucking punk.
Make my day.
Or else explain, yes, please explain what the (expletive deleted) is going on here?
Make my day.
should get my daughter to do it
