I may not agree with what you say but I will defend to death your right to say it
Well the Victorian state election is coming up real soon. Isn't it funny that this election is at the end of this month, the US midterm was at the start of it, and yet our early voting begins before their vote is finished counting?
Well, this isn't really just an election. If it was, I wouldn't care. I wouldn't dare throw my hat in the political arena. I want to be a writer, all I want anyone to know of me are my stories. My views and values on politics are for me and my personal life. I don't desire to dirty my writer's cap with the mud of politics. But this is far more than just plain politics.
It is affirmation. A new tone has been taken on, and it is different to any I have seen in my life. For me, I am the type of person who doesn't like to tie myself to a single side in politics. I have probably voted for about as many parties as elections I have voted in. That is because the people in those parties change, the things those parties stand for changes, and the proof of their worth, or lack there of, is constantly updated.
When it comes to politics, there are two things I cannot stand. The first is people who don't know about politics, who don't care, voting. Not to say they shouldn't be allowed to, they should. But it is actively bad for democracy when people are gaining power not because they earned it, but because someone says "I don't know, I don't care, who did my parents vote for?" But this is really secondary. The thing most reprehensible to me on this topic is people who do not care about what their party has done, they will vote for them no matter what. Because to them, it is 'their party', like a football team is 'their team'.
People who treat politics like a horse race, who only want the satisfaction of winning the vote, and couldn't care less about what is good for the state/country, the people, or even themselves. It is all about their tribe and their pride. People who would rather run from any reality that challenges the virtue of their party, blocking their ears and screaming "I can't hear you" instead of actually accepting that the party you like, might sometimes not be that great. Personally, I don't take kindly to this attitude. As I said, I have voted for many parties, for they have changed, and who I considered the best shifts every time. Who I voted for in the May federal election will not likely be the same as in this November state election.
But this is all abstract.
The vote isn't about abstract concepts of political tribalism. It is about those incumbents already in, and those trying to take their seats and power. And the set of players here is unique in every election, and in every place. The set of players in this current set includes a specific man very worthy of note.
Premier Daniel Andrews.
Let me tell a quick story. It might seem unrelated, but without it, I would not be writing this.
Last year, I was in a small basement apartment with barely any light. I had no visitors, no one to talk to, small conditions, and had just lost any reason I had to be there. To my friends, where I was staying was "worse than a Finish jail cell". This was in a suburb of Canberra. At the time, Canberra was in lockdown over some covid cases, far, far less than the number of cases present in Victoria. Yet, under the Victorian rules, I was considered too much of a threat to be allowed back home.
To much of a threat? I wanted to return to a place more dangerous than where I was by just about every metric. Any reasonable assessment would say I was the one going into danger. But let's forget this illogical reasoning. It is irrelevant to the story.
With my lease expiring, and having no job to support myself, I sought emergency permission to return home. I was denied. The reason; I had some money left in the bank account. What I was told, over the Victorian hotline for these issues, was that unless I was flat broke, I would not be allowed back. Not for a funeral, not for my physical health, and not even if my mental health was falling apart. The only way I could return to my home was if I needed lifesaving care that couldn't be gotten elsewhere. Otherwise, I would have to drain every cent I owned on hotel rooms. Then, when I had nothing, they might authorise me to return to my own home. Talk about 'you will own nothing'.
My conditions were bad. I needed light, and I needed people. I was so lonely, I started to donate plasma just to see people. The experience left me faint, but I returned the moment I could. Now the doctors have told me I am not allowed to donate again for two years because of my going faint, but I didn't care, I needed to have human interaction. These conditions brought me back to some of my lowest points, and I was becoming actively suicidal. But did it matter, that I was crying on the phone with Mr Andrew's so-called helpline, saying I was thinking of killing myself? No. Mr Andrews said I was a danger to him for being in a place with less covid than his state. It was much safer for me to just die.
Wasn't the point of all of it to save lives? No. Of course it wasn't. It was people who said they will save one life, even if it means killing a thousand. It is people who were more than happy to destroy, crush, kill, and maim, if it suited their tribe.
As I said, I do not like taking sides, certainly not of political parties. I will condemn anyone who does wrong, even if they came from a political party I voted for or endorsed. One of the politicians I despise the most was one I once praised heavily. Because what matters isn't being right last time. What matters is doing what is right now and in the future. I will not deny mistakes, wrong doings, or poor judgment, in order to pretend I was always right.
Since the last election, people have been clamouring to change our corrupt system for electing the House of Legislative Council. We use a system that has been railed against by the Guardian, the ABC, the Freedom Party of Victoria and the Greens, to name a few. This is rather bipartisan. Every other state removed it. Federal removed it. But allowing someone to sell seats in a system that favours him, well, of course Our Mr Andrews would ignore all these cries and leave it intact.
This is not about Liberal or
Labor. I hate both parties, and have for a long time. In fact, the leader of one of them might have gone and blocked my personal account on one social media. It wasn't the one I'm writing about now.
Nor is this about left vs right. There are parties in the libertarian quadrant on both sides with positive points whom I would support. I care about if you support life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness far more than I care about your views on co-operative vs competitive marketplaces.
This is about a man with no regard for human life, a man with now six corruption probes against him, and a man who kept saying he would reveal his modelling, his sourcing, be transparent, and to this day has done none of it. This is someone who is supposedly a public servant who lectures the public on a daily basis. He doesn't serve the public, he views the public as beneath him, worthy of being talked down to. The evidence of this is in every time he gets behind the podium. This is about authoritarianism, plain and simple.
Some call it communism, say say fascism. His defenders jump to the rescue, pleading semantic arguments. To tell you the truth, I don't much care for the name of the boot pressed against the back of my head holding me into the mud. I only care that it exists, and that what it is doing is fundamentally wrong.
When protests were banned for going against him, but allowed when they were aligned, it isn't about science or health, it is about 'the cause' and his power. We are getting dreadfully close to "kill all others"
That phrase, "I may not agree with what you say but I will defend to death your right to say it", used to be something we could agree with, no matter what we believed. Now we say "how dare
you think something different". The mentality that people were of value, and their lives actually mattered on an individual level, has been stripped away. We are being told to care about statistics. Damned be the people, all that matters is what number gets plastered on TV. It doesn't matter how many individuals are abused, destroyed, made to suffer. It doesn't matter that there were businesses begging for staff, and people begging those businesses to hire them, both in agreement. All that matters is if you are on Our Führer's essential list or not.
I am sorry, Our Führer Andrews, but where was the science for the curfews? Where did that
come from? Why has it still not been released? Why did we adopt unscientific measures that were never a part of the pandemic plans until we saw them used, and fail, in China? And why was fear porn prioritised over scientific debate? We could have had discussions, peaceful, respectful, honest and in good faith. Instead, you shunned anyone who wasn't marching in lockstep. Keep us scared, people are easier to control that way. That was the whole point, wasn't it, Our Führer?
This is why this election is not just between two political quack parties with no interest in us. It is between a tyrant who showed how far he is willing to push us. Vote Labor in any other state or federally, vote for them last time or next time. But here and now, in Victoria, in 2022, with Our Führer Andrews at the helm of that ship, you are not voting for anything moral or justified by supporting him. You most certainly are not voting for the working class, and if you somehow thing you are voting to save lives, then I have a bridge to sell you. You are not the good guy, no more than the apathetic German angry at the treaties after WWI who supported Hitler was. Or even worse, you are the very same as those who thought he was saving lives by sending people into those death camps.
I would never tell a person who to vote for, nor do I like to ever proport to calling someone evil, and idiot, or anything of the like, for voting differently to me. I understand that we all have different experiences, understanding, and see the world through a different lens. But at some point, there is a line. And Our Führer has crossed that line. He has gone out of his way to tell us he would gladly step on every Victorian's corpse to get his wish. While I cannot in good faith come to the defence and support of the current opposition, I can state that what I'd consider his incompetence, is far superior to Andrews' malice. I can state that there are many parties running from both sides of the political spectrum, and while I did not believe this at the Federal election, here it is clear they are better than him, and more worthy that Victorian State Labor in 2022.
I don't care what you have to say, I will fight for your right to say it.
He cares very much what you have to say, and if it isn't lavish praise for him, he will fight like hell to make sure you never speak again.
Like I said, this isn't about the election, it's about the affirmation. To vote him in is not an endorsement of Labor. It's an endorsement of authoritarian rule. It's support of centralised authority. It is saying that allowing a government to say your life matters, and hers doesn't, is a good thing. It is saying that corruption is not only not wrong, but something worthy of congratulations.
What it means to vote for this man after everything he has done, is screaming at the top of your lungs, that you do not care about right or wrong, you only care if a person comes from your tribe or another. And if they come from yours, you will defend them to the death.
Somebody once said that 'there is no law so obscene the police would not be willing to enforce it, up to and including the mass execution of innocent children.' There is such nuance to that statement that I will not get into, and it includes a discussion of a machine more than just the individuals involved. But I bring this up to state that were Our Führer to go so far as to create such a law, those who still vote for him after everything he has done would be those glad to enforce such a law. Some are the wilfully ignorant, others believe that if he says it, it must be moral. In either way, such people only believe in or care about one thing, and that is that it came from their tribe.
Well damn. That sucks.