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Barnaby And His Anti-religious Crusade!

Recently, Barnaby Joyce addressed a rally of Western Australian farmers on the topic of live exports. Not only did he passionately insist that the live export trade would not be shut down, but yea, verily, it would grow. As Mr Joyce told the rally:

“What we’re up against, is like a religion.

“Zealotry. And they’re not going to stop with just the closure of the live export sheep game, that’s not where they stop. These people haven’t got a partial religion, they’ve got an absolute religion.”

Of course, I don’t know how this sits with Phil “Monty Burns” Ruddock. I mean, the Federal Government has commissioned a report into religious freedom, but it seems to me that if one has the freedom to be religious then that also gives one the freedom to have a non-partial religion.

Mr Joyce, as some of you are aware, is a great supporter of “partial religion”. By that, I mean that he believes that people should be bound by his religious beliefs – as in the case of same-sex marriage – but that he himself should be free to ignore them when it comes to bonking a member of his staff or lying to the general public.

However, a great many religious people seem to have the belief that their religion is an absolute one and not something they can pick and choose. Of course, there are also a great many people who agree with Barnaby that partial religions are the only way to go. For example, it’s sinful to allow schools to have their Safe Schools program, but when Jesus talked about welcoming strangers, he obviously didn’t mean strangers who arrive by boat.

Notwithstanding any of that, Mr Joyce seems to be taking a strong stand against “zealots” because they’re “like a religion”. From this, I infer that Barnaby thinks that groups who are like a religion are somehow bad. This, of course, is strange unless he perceives religion itself as bad.

Now, I’m sure that the WA farmers must have taken issue with Mr Joyce’s reference to the “live export sheep game“, given that it’s not a game to them but a serious business, but maybe they forgave him because he’s from Canberra where everything’s a game. Personally, however, I was more concerned about what he meant by “that’s not where they stop”. Did he mean that once the live sheep industry was shut down that they’d start on other animals? Or was he suggesting that they may turn their attention to human trafficking? Or worse yet, join forces with the Green Religion and try to change life as we know it?

Some of those members of the Green Religion attempted to twist the words of the ACCC report and suggest that by telling us we needed to have a transition from coal, that meant that we shouldn’t keep burning coal forever. No, by orderly transition they clearly mean no transition at all, and that we should build more coal-fired stations which are natural and wholesome. If God hadn’t intended coal to be our power source why did he make it so cheap? However, the Green Religion want us all to go back to some by-gone day when people managed to live without polluting the atmosphere. I mean, it’s all very well to rely on solar, but if the sun stops shining – which scientists predict will happen sometime in the next billion years – that’ll put a real dent in economic growth.

No, I’m with Mr Joyce on this one. We need to put people before sheep and coal before people. Anything else is just succumbing to the zealots! We need to listen to the rational people like Tony Abbott, Craig Kelly, George Christensen and Cory Bernardi.

Religous freedom is all very well. But not if it’s a religion we don’t like!

 

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31 comments

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  1. corvus boreus

    Rossleigh,
    According to the strictest interpretation of the statutes in his scriptures, Barnaby Joyce was not actually committing any transgression when he took up with Vicki Campion and began to do a bit of begatting on the side.

    According to some biblical passages, there is no sin in bedding female property, be they servant or slave, if your wife is unavailable, and, technically, it only counts as adultery if the woman herself is married.

  2. Rossleigh

    c.b. Thanks for clarification. Fortunately I have no servants nor slaves, thus sparing myself from difficult conversations around interpretations of biblical texts that my wife have a different view about…

  3. John O'Callaghan

    Joyce is the ultimate hypocrite and serial rorter of tax payers money, and a true professional bludger on a par with that other obnoxious bludging piece of crap Bronwyn Bishop!

    Let us hope that sometime in the future our politics will be free of vermin like Joyce Kelly Cash Abbott Credlin and their various ” Partners In Slime”.

  4. Cara Clark

    I’d really like to know in what capacity Bananaby is even in WA addressing farmers? What does it have to do with a mere backbencher? I do hope he’s not claiming the trip as electoral business, with attendant travel allowances. I await publication of his expenses with interest.

  5. Wun Farlung

    Cara Clark
    I was thinking exactly the same thing while watching he of the beetroot complexion ranting on the ‘news’ last night.
    I did a quick search and couldn’t find any mention/reference of him sitting on some type of Government committee related to agriculture.
    I hope there are journalists out there keeping a eye on the beetrooter’s travel expenses.

  6. Michael

    May as well be a round trip to keep the home fires burning with benefactor?

    Would one venture to say that the turnout of farmers, without realising, are perhaps subconsciously, protesting at the fact that they have little choice at election time and no choice to effectively participate in our democracy in between other than to listen to representatives of vested interests on the public purse religiously haraunging them from the artificial top down whereas life is where one walks – bottom up?

    Keep the people divided and ruled!

    There seems to be a need for an effective mechanism to retake balance of power from ground up.

  7. Jagger

    Don’t worry, our fearless leader will have his bum boy sort this mess out, I mean poor PM Plod Dutton is busy keeping us all SAFE, he’ll send Mal Turdball over to WA to take a few selfies with the sheep herders, yeah that should fix it.

  8. helvityni

    Tudge and Turnbull have spoken lately about Australian values…
    I’m hoping someone will list them to me, so I can see if they match my Fenno-Scandinavian ones…

    As I only follow soccer and not any other sport, that doesn’t augur well for me; I don’t understand cricket or rugby. I was taught to be honest, so I have to admit to my short-comings…I’m not going to start lying now… Will walking and Pilates do for sport…

    I can’t say I like meat pies as I have never eaten one. Is that bad?

    I also have many dear Oz friends whose ancestry goes right back to early convicts; I just call them friends, not mates…

    Not looking good for me…

  9. Mark Needham

    “belief that their religion is an absolute one and not something they can pick and choose.”

    Heaven forbid, that I should be like this. I know that I am, but I just can’t help it.

    But, it is a great pleasure to know, that I am the only one in the world who is like this. I’m a bad boy.

    Needs spanking,
    Mark Needham

  10. Jagger

    Watch out Helvityni, you’ll have Immigration chasing you, come on mate be fair dinkum.

  11. paul walter

    Surely not a lot to ask to get the livestock ships fixed up a bit?

  12. New England Cocky

    Hmmm ….. an interesting pic of young Barnyard “working”??????

    Now, Rossleigh … it is very unfair of you to keep bringing up the fact that Barnyard is an adulterer of convenience. Whenever I post “Women supporting adulterers support National$” some conservative zealot takes umbrage in large doses ….. does the truth hurt THAT much???

    @Cara Clarke: I too would like to know how Barnyard justifies Parliamentary expenses for attending a graziers’ meeting in Western Australia when he is the representative of the National$ to the long suffering voters of New England (NSW).

  13. Terence Mills

    What is it about Kiwi’s and sheep ?

  14. Aortic

    Terence, see the above biblical references to adultery.

  15. guest

    Michael @10:08

    By “benefactor” do you mean Gina Rinehart, wealth estimated at $17.6bn and benefactor to the IPA with donations amounting to $4.5m over the past couple of years?

    Gina has awarded a sum of money in the past to Barnaby and taken him to India to see how the Indian people would benefit with umpteen million tonnes of coal.

    She has spoken out against the climate change “religion” and said “I have never met a geologist or leading scientist who believes adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere will have any significant effect on climate change, especially not from a relatively small country like Australia.”

    No doubt Ian Plimer is one of those 3% of scientists she has met who are sceptical. But I can tell her that I have never actually met any of the 97% of scientists who do support the tenets of Climate Change, but I have a fair idea of what they think of Gina’s ignorant statement. She makes it sound as if Oz is the only country emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

    Furthermore, I do not understand why the IPA is regarded as a charity. Is the IPA a “religion”, too?

  16. Jaybuoy

    He must have a pocket python like a babies leg with the foot chopped.. otw..wtf..

  17. Lawrence Winder @shanewombat)

    One thing that is absolute, Barnyard is a dangerous idiot!
    And the IPA has Gina for its deity… even though Le Jongleur, Roskam professes being a catlic.

  18. Terence Mills

    In today’s Weekend Australian Greg Sheridan says this of Malcolm Turnbull :

    Malcolm Turnbull prays regularly, celebrates the mystery of the Eucharist, believes in life after death and is inspired by the selfless love of Jesus.

    Sheridan will publish next week, a series of interviews with various politicians on their religious beliefs.

    What is going on here ? I find this very odd. I can understand that Malcolm feels a need to pray regularly and probably attends confession regularly too but that does that absolve him from all the lies ?

  19. Florence Howarth

    What are values? Are they the same as culture, even religion? Are they the Ten Commandments? Why are our so-called values seen as superior?

    Truth is there is more that connects us than what is different.

    We know or should know culture & society changes over time. Never static, always evolving.

    Do they rich,, upper class have they same values as the working class?

    Do values change?

  20. DrakeN

    ” If God hadn’t intended coal to be our power source why did he make it so cheap?”

    Akin to the Flanders and Swann reference to the cannibal chief: “If the JuJu hadn’t meant us to eat each other, why did he make us of meat?”

  21. guest

    Terence @3:02

    In Murdoch-speak, it sounds like “virtue-signalling” or “identity politics”. Or they are looking for converts. Remember, they are the Catholic Boys’ Daily.

    Remember also that Christian leaders have been strong on waging war in recent times. And someone is approving the horrible situation on Manus and Nauru. “Suffer the children to come unto me for of such…” What the …!

  22. paul walter

    Yes, I liked Florence’s post also. People adore morphing heavily contingent propositions into self serving and promoting facts. But the cosmos is little more nuanced as to that and people always come to grief on things taken for granted in a universe of difficult to prove metaphysical assumptions covered at best by a rough heuristics… Believe me, I know this all too well, for reasons apparent if considered for even a brief moment by others.

  23. Matters Not

    Florence Howarth at 3:52 pm

    Now that’s a great list of exploratory questions. Further – are there significant differences between and among the verbalised values and those that are lived?

    And which should be more highly valued? (No need to answer that.)

  24. johno

    Good article Rossleigh, Hypocrite Barnaby stikes again.

  25. Terence Mills

    guest

    Isn’t it interesting that the funding of the IPA, which has been a closely guarded secret, has now been revealed in a court action between Gina Rinehart and her kids. Information such as this :

    The IPA’s 2017 annual report declared $6.1m of income but said that 86% had come from individuals. Based on that report, Hancock Prospecting’s $2.2m donation would appear to have constituted more than a third of the IPA’s income that year.

    In 2016, the IPA reported that 91% of donations were from individuals, but that year Hancock Prospecting’s $2.3m donation constituted almost half the IPA’s income of $4.96m.

    So the IPA are not only a secretive organisation when it comes to their funding sources but they also tell lies in their annual report.

    I wonder if the voters in Mayo, who are considering voting Georgina Downer into office in the federal parliament, would be comfortable with this information particularly as Georgie was a research fellow at the IPA and holds very extreme right-wing views.

  26. corvus boreus

    Mark Needham,
    Try ‘nanny-whip.com’.

  27. Josephus

    Our PM the good Catholic? Jesus threw the money changers out of the Temple – or was it the offshore tax haven Jesus airlifted them to?
    Joyce’s views are neanderthal, but problem is some will swallow it. Poor education is the death of a reflective, just democracy.
    What was he doing in WA? Did his party pay?
    What is a partial religion anyway- like the Nazis’ half or quarter Jew.
    Oz values – assume it means redneck ignorance and snags n beer. And of course values change- heard a Catholic today say the sexes are equal so women should be priests etc, yet centuries ago female babies got their inter uterine souls weeks later than males did. No idea how the Church knew that. Does the Pope still concur?

  28. guest

    There are many aspects of these claims about what is religion and what is not, and abut values.

    I see where Greg Sheridan is offering interviews with prominent people about how religion is important or them. and no doubt there will be some interest in these musings.

    But I have some questions about religious thoughts. One in particular is the notion expressed that gays, if they do not seriously reject their sexuality, will burn in hell. Charming. I do not see how such a sentiment is welcome in a country of equality of marriage. Is that what freedom of speech allows? Is that why freedom of speech is so touted by the religious; ie, some kind of freedom of religion to say anything?

    Then we have people writing in a wide-spread broadsheet which claims climate change is a scam, who write such ignorant nonsense one wonders where they have been in recent decades. Clearly they are totally gutless in their fear of what the IPCC is saying, they will not even publish it truthfully, preferring fake news to sell their propaganda. They should be laughed out of town. Their anti-science “religion’ is full of myth and fantasy.

  29. corvus boreus

    guest,
    There are 3 biblical passages that condemn male on male coitus, and 8 that explicitly prohibit the eating of shellfish.
    Poo-pushing might be biblicly damned, but apparently prawn-munching is a hell of a lot worse.
    Perhaps we need a postal plebiscite regarding the legality of crustacean based cuisine.

  30. Kaye Lee

    I would like to exercise my free speech to comment but…..

    1 Timothy 2:12: I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet.

    1 Corinthians 14:34: Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says.

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