Lindsay Perigo
The Politically Incorrect Show - 19/10/2000
[Music - Die Fledermaus]
Good afternoon, Kaya Oraaa & welcome to the Politically Incorrect Show on the free speech network, Radio Pacific, for Thursday October 19, 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!]
Yesterday, we discussed suicide, mindful of the impending screening of a drama & studio discussion on the subject - youth suicide in particular - on TV3 last night. I said that, though I watch little television as a rule, I would watch THIS programme & comment on it today. In the event, I wrote this editorial beforehand, confident that, though the programme might graphically highlight the problem, it would prove wanting when it came to solutions. Besides, I had a few things I wanted to get off my chest, regardless of the content of the tv programme.
All of us at some point go through one or more of the experiences that are conventionally sited as the things that trigger suicide - the death of a loved one, the break-up of a relationship, a career setback, financial worries, & so on. These are all devastating experiences, to be sure, but for most of us, our love of life wins through, & we cope, & move on. Some don't. But I think the greatest problem is bigger than any of these things - it is a pervasive epidemic of a HATRED for life that incapacitates our will to fight adversity & achieve our values. Wherever you look or listen, it's there.
Religion teaches us that we are miserable sinners riddled with earthly lusts, to satisfy which is evil; life here on earth is intrinsically corrupt, a mere stepping-stone for a chosen few to something perfect elsewhere. Modern philosophy teaches us that we can't know whether religion - or anything else - is true, & the best that philosophy can offer is a dissection or "deconstruction" of the meaning of the word "of," & the endless, tortuous, asinine nit-picking that follows. Politicians tell us we are incapable of running our own lives, while they, mysteriously, ARE capable of doing so & must be granted dictatorial powers over us for that purpose. Modern culture takes all of this at face value & says, "the hell with everything" - as it wallows in cacophony, dissonance, ugliness, meaninglessness & destruction: ANYTHING to create a surrogate oblivion.
Yesterday I arrived at work to find the area next to the studio festooned with balloons, in celebration of Pam Corkery's birthday. During the programme, I was periodically distracted by mini-explosions outside the studio door. It didn't take me long to figure out what was going on. One of the staffers here - a quintessential child of his times - was amusing himself by sauntering out of his work area whenever he got bored, which was often, to pop a balloon. This is a person whose entire conversation - literally ALL of it - consists of putting other people down & sneering at anything of value, even a humble balloon. He is the adult equivalent of the child who pulls wings off flies. HIS is the attitude that rules our times. Given its insidious pervasiveness, it's a wonder there aren't MORE suicides.
Nonetheless, to all of those understandably tempted to get off the planet because of this relentless nihilism, I say what I say to all those tempted to leave the country because of the current neo-communist government: stay & fight! Life does NOT belong to the dealers in death, any more than New Zealand belongs to fascists or communists, & we must reclaim it from them. THEY are the ones who hate life - let THEM be the ones to commit suicide! Ayn Rand said it better than I can, in Atlas Shrugged:
"In the name of the best within you, do not sacrifice this world to those who are its worst. In the name of the values that keep you alive, do not let your vision of man be distorted by the ugly, the cowardly, the mindless in those who have never achieved his title. Do not lose your knowledge that man's proper estate is an upright posture, an intransigent mind & a step that travels unlimited roads. Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road & the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won; it exists, it is real, it is yours."
Let us lay claim to our world ... now.
If you enjoyed this, why not subscribe?