Adults Do The Darndest Things

Tuesday, 25 September 2007

By Dr Frigmund Pseud

If you ever want to examine something you usually take for granted, try imagining explaining it to a child of primary school age. This is why teachers get ulcers. To wit:

Dad, who should I barrack for?

Anyone but Collingwood, son.

No, I mean, in the election.

Oh. Erm, hang on (mutes the television, then taking one look at son, realises the gravity of thesituation and TURNS IT OFF). Tell me what you know so far.

Well there’s Labor versus Liberal, and lots of other teams that nobody seems to think can win, except maybe the Greens will win a seat or two, or Family First, if Labor does a deal with them again.

(Shit, he has been paying attention). Ok, well. Labor means liberal with a little l. Liberal with a big L, means conservative. Green means conservationist. The conservatives hate the conservationists.

And the Democrats? Are they democratic?

Erm, no, democratic means popular, or populist. Of course, the problem with true democracy is you’re letting the people run the country. Most people care only what directly affects them immediately. You can’t run a country like that, even though that’s what the current government has been trying to do for longer than you’ve been alive. Is that why they’ve been so popular?

You’re quick, I’ll give you that.

So what about the Democrats?

I didn’t answer your question, you’re right

Maybe you should go into politics, Dad

Democrat means irrelevant, son.

The way you said that sound like you know it’s the truth. You never hear politicians talk like that, except by mistake, or when they don’t think anyone’s listening.

No, politicians are in a bind, because they have to say what their party wants them to say, while the journalists’ job is to get them to say something else, because we all know what the party thinks already. If they say what they really think, their party will dump them.

And then what, wouldn’t they be truly independent and representative?

No, they’d be powerless.

Gee, that doesn’t make much sense.

Well, in this society, whenever adults make a decision that doesn’t make sense, we call it Political. I’ll give you an example. Water. Our state government has a choice between equipping every house in Victoria with a rainwater tank, or spending 3 billion dollars on a big dirty desalination plant on pristine coastline in Gippsland, so that households can keep flushing drinking water down their toilets. What do you think makes more sense?

Rainwater tanks, of course.

And what is the Government going to do? Build the desal plant. Why?

It’s political.

Correct. Someone somewhere in the decision making process has a major conflict of interest, meaning major temptation to do wrong out of self-interest. They influence the decision behind the scenes, meaning there’s more going on than we can see.

Dad, why do we have three levels of Government?

Ah, that’s so the States can blame the Commonwealth, who in turn blame the States. That way no-one gets hurt.

Dad, are we left-wing?

Why do you say that?

We get The Age.

Well, The Age is what people like us read to feel better about ourselves. The Australian is what well-off Liberal voters read to feel better about themselves. And The Herald Sun is what everyone else reads.

What’s left-wing and right-wing?

Well, right-wing means conservative, which means retarding the progress of everything except theeconomy. Left-wing means progressive, which means protecting everything the economy threatens, likepublic housing, transport, education, health and the environment. Liberals are right-wing, which meansBig Business pays their bills. Labor was left-wing, which meant the Unions paid their bills, but togetelected nowadays, you have to be populist, so they’ve moved toward the Centre, meaning they stand forsod-all.

So is there much difference between the two major parties, Dad?

Listen son, politics goes back to Adam and Eve, the first humans on the planet. Homo sapiens means ‘man the wise’. It should read ‘man who conquered the globe wiping out all prior forms of humanity andgreat swaths of plant and animal life too’. How did we do it? Our first ancestors comprised aright-wing psychopath bent on destroying all competition, living with a bleeding heart leftie to stop himeating his own young. Thus has it been ever since.

So who should I barrack for?

(Sigh) Anyone but the Government, son.