The Politically Incorrect Show - 18/07/2000

[Music - Die Fledermaus]

Good afternoon, KAYA ORAAAA & welcome to the Politically Incorrect Show on the free speech network, Radio Pacific, for Tuesday July 18, proudly sponsored by Neanderton Nicotine Ltd, the show that says bugger the politicians & bureaucrats & all the other bossyboot busybodies who try to run our lives with our money; that stands tall for free enterprise, achievement, profit & excellence against the state-worshippers in our midst; that stands above all for the most sacred thing in the universe, the liberty of the human individual.

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I have received an e-mail urging me to dumb down my editorials on this programme. It refers to yesterday's in particular. Here's what it says:

"Step into the beer-swilling, rugby-head Kiwi bloke's gumboots (the sort that listens to Radio Pacific) for a second though and reread this sentence: - 'Inveterate illiberal-leftie Gordon McLauchlan, doyen of Aotearoa's arty-farties, couldn't conceal his delight when his ideological confreres, the Labour & Alliance parties, were elected to office.'

"Inveterate. Doyen. Confreres. Who uses words like these?   You're not writing for the more intellectual and cerebral Free Radical, but trying to penetrate the thick fog of apathy and ignorance that clouds the sheeple's brains.  To their ears, this sort of language is mostly incomprehensible and sounds quite pretentious, like the Aotearoa arty-farties you malign (with just cause, I might add).  Most people know you're a libertarian and so they can tar all libertarians with this brush as a bunch of academic airheads who think they're smart and superior because they use fancy words and who don't really live in the real world.  Most people like straight talk. This is just my opinion you're free to ignore, but I'm not going to mince words just so I don't hurt your feelings or bruise your ego. I think you need to dumb down your editorials a little."

I can report that I responded to this e-mail with straight talk. Two words of straight talk, actually, frequently used by beer-swilling, rugby-head kiwi blokes.

Inveterate. Doyen. Confreres. Who uses words like these? I do - not because I'm an academic airhead who thinks he's smart & superior but because they mean what I want to say & should be part of anyone's vocabulary (any half-wit could infer their meaning from the context anyway). If they're not, it's a sign of the epidemic of illiteracy that blights the land, which I have no intention of accommodating -  & to which, in any event, I don't believe MY listeners have succumbed. If they have, then the solution is not for me to dumb down, but for them to smarten up.

Much of my adult life has been spent fighting the dumb-downers - on television, in print, on radio. It's a fight I intend to continue. The world is perishing from an orgy of dumbing down. If people are dumbed down - as they have to be NOT to understand simple words like "inveterate," "doyen" & "confreres" - they can't reason. If they can't reason, they'll never find their way to freedom - they'll always want someone else to do their thinking for them. No doubt in large measure this is why we have a Labour/Alliance Retard Government.

A friend who also saw the e-mail said, "One of the best things about the PI show is the combination of passion and INTELLIGENCE.  How dare he suggest that you dumb things down!  It's insulting to you, it's insulting to your listeners, and it's insulting to the cause of liberty."

Well, in language even my e-mailer should understand, I ain't gonna do it. No way!

Politically Incorrect Show, decidedly not for airheads, academic or
otherwise ... 309 3099.

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