Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Talk about the passion

Ms Morse last night told the Weekend Herald her action was a "significant message of dissent".

She said she had gone to court only to ensure no precedent was set.

"When young men and women go off to war, they go off under the flag of the nation. So when you burn the flag, you are sending a strong message."
Yes, you are sending a strong message that you are a dick. Remembrance services are attended by returned servicemen and servicewomen who want to remember those who did not return, their friends who died. Whatever the rights and wrongs of war, those people and their loss should be respected. Ordinary people go as well, to show that respect. These ordinary people were themselves once respected by the Left, but they have been forgotten by the likes of Ms Morse.

Instead, the Left shouts and screams, makes gestures, gets indignant, then offended, then self-pitying. The Left has become child-like. Self-important poseurs like Ms Morse talk of dissent and resistance, as if they were in danger, as if they were courageous, as if they were principled, when all they are doing is showing off.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, the Government is finding new ways to redistribute wealth. The Government can do this because the Left has abandoned ordinary people, preferring identity politics, Post-Colonial Theory and other parlour games.

4 comments:

Steve Withers said...

Being a dick isn't a left or right thing. Its just bad manners. Gerry Brownlee and Don Brash manage it just as well as anyone on the left. :-)

Paul said...

I agree wholeheartedly. Many of the Right's attacks on political correctness are attacks on good manners. One might claim a right to make jokes about disabled people, but it is still a very nasty thing to do.

laughing_boy said...

And regarding the childish behaviour accusation, watching question time from any random week will show clearly that it is not a problem of 'The Left' alone.

And the contents of tv and the news implies it's not a problem of politically active people either.

If we're going back to kindergarten, I'm hanging out for my playdough cake.

Anonymous said...

I think the issue here is one of declarative politics versus distributive politics. I agree, the latter is important. As for the flag burning issue, I wish she'd done it some other time than Anzac Day. However, there are civil libertarian/freedom of expression aspects to this whole case.

As for identity politics, false polarity. I have more or less always said that LGBT politics has to have a redistributive dimension and support the comprehensive welfare state, public health provision and so on. Fraser/Butler dialogue in New Left Review etc etc.

Craig Y