The Politically Incorrect Show - 07/08/2000

[Music - Die Fledermaus]

Good afternoon, KAYA ORAAAA & welcome to the Politically Incorrect Show on the free speech network, Radio Pacific, for Monday August 7, 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.

[Music up, music down]

So the Aussies kept the Bledisloe Cup. There's another prize they can claim over New Zealand - having the greater number of ridiculous, gratuitous authoritarian rules & regulations imposed by Nanny State. Even the sheeple of the Democratic People's Republic of Aotearoa would bridle at what the Aussies acquiesce to (or so I prefer to imagine). Their equivalent of our Commissioner of Inland Revenue, for example, is explicitly empowered by their new tax legislation to lie in the pursuit of his department's tax-grabbing. Worse, unlike here, there is no one sounding the alarm bells as Big Brother extends his tentacles. No one, that is, until Steve Waterson wrote an essay for the back page of the current issue of Time magazine. I quote:

"Last week [police] officers began to enforce rule no.213, subsection 4(b), of the Australian Road Rules, whereby motorists are liable to a fine of $A68 for leaving their cars unlocked if the driver is more than 3m from the vehicle. This obscure edict has resulted in the absurd sight of uniformed policemen slinking like joy-riders down rows of parked cars, discreetly testing the door handles. If the door opens, off they race to your house to menace you with the full majesty of the law...

"It would be funny if it weren't so serious. Last week, without any fanfare, we moved from the customary witless meddling of our underemployed and overcompensated legislators - who at least used to be able to argue that government was intervening to save us from ourselves - to a more sinister situation, where to protect the innocent from becoming victims of crime, they are turned into criminals themselves."

Waterson goes on to observe:

"Australians have long since grown inured to the intervention of the nanny state in matters that shouldn't concern it: to protect our heads, we are required to wear ridiculous bicycle helmets - so far, happily, only while riding - despite evidence that suggests they are ineffective; we risk a fine for walking across the street anywhere other than at a designated pedestrian crossing; we are resigned never to eat cheese made with unpasteurized milk, although generations of Frenchmen seem to have survived the encounter...

"There are lots of crimes - some of them, it might be argued, more serious than unlocked cars - that the police are too busy to attend to, at least according to published clear-up rates. So let's broaden the application of this new victim-as-criminal principle.

"We can begin by rehabilitating those visionary judges we vilify as out of touch when they suggest women in short skirts are asking to be raped. Not only are the strumpets asking for it, they should be punished for putting the idea in the poor rapist's mind. The answer to sexual assault is to make it an offence to dress provocatively. The Taliban have the right idea: forget the sunblock, let's see the burkah on Bondi beach. Why do we waste our efforts in catching & trying to reform criminals? It's the law-abiding citizen who should be the real target of our crime-fighting efforts. Old-style criminals, almost by definition, find it difficult to resist temptation, so let's make it a new-style crime to offer it."

Then, removing his tongue from his cheek, Waterson comments:

"Civilised society operates on the assumption that the majority of citizens are trustworthy. It is the lubricant of everyday intercourse; it is one of the things that separate us from the animals. To punish innocent people for trusting their neighbours is one of the most dishearteningly cynical acts a government is capable of."

That the Aussies really won the rugby match on Saturday is arguable; that they have the edge over us when it comes to nanny-statism is not, especially since our government's welcome abandonment last week of the previous regime's gun registration proposals. But we must remain eternally vigilant. Let us ensure that in no future rematch are the tables turned.

In the meantime, to Time magazine's Steve Waterson, for his attempt to awaken the Aussies from their acquiescent slumbers, the Free Radical Award.

(FREERAD AWARD)

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