Some of you are probably familiar with Jordan Peterson’s “12 Rules For Life”. Even if you haven’t actually read them, you’ve probably noticed them prominently displayed in bookstores. Peterson has actually released a sequel called by the rather creative, “12 More Rules For Life”.
Now, isn’t that just what we need? More rules. Honestly, he’s meant to be a conservative. You’d think he’d have heard that the conservatives want less regulation and red tape, but I’m breaking my first rule here by talking about Peterson.
No, stick with me. I don’t have twelve rules. I always think if you have too much to think about your just end up forgetting your rules until it’s the sort of SNAFU that comes with something like the Liberals’ vaccine rollout. At which point you go, that’s right: Rule 34. I should have thought of Rule 34 before I got myself into this mess. So here’s one rule to keep in mind:
Rossleigh’s 1st Rule: Don’t be distracted
Ok, I’m not saying you can’t let yourself have distractions. Distractions are a lovely thing sometimes. There’s nothing better when out on a walk looking over and being distracted by the sight of a beautiful sunset or a pretty flower or someone defacing an advertising sign with some anti-government graffiti.
No, the rule is Don’t BE distracted.
The political classes try it all the time. As do businesses. Whataboutism is frequent way of distracting you. The best recent example of that was Nicolle Flint…
I could allow myself to be distracted here and ask what is it with these Liberal women who have an unusual extra letter in their name like Nicolle and Sussan Ley. In Sussan’s case, my knowledge of the way the English language works means that it should be pronounced Suss an… Which may be appropriate but I would never say such a thing in case the Porter case upholds the idea that you can’t report someone else’s allegations because this may suggest guilt in the eyes of the public… While this would be a blow for journalism, it would also totally destroy Rupert’s business model.
Where was I? Ah yes, don’t be distracted.
Flint, it seems, has managed to distract some people from talking about the PM’s “How great to be in Australia where we don’t shoot demonstrators!” by recounting her terrible story of harassment by a stalker and somehow laying it at the feet of Anthony Albanese. While I’m not suggesting that Ms Flint’s stalking wasn’t a terrible experience, it’s rather odd to suggest that because the stalker had liked posts on GetUp!’s Facebook page he was connected to them and they criticise the Liberal Party so they must be a Labor front and as such Albanese should have done something about them even though he wasn’t Labor leader at the time. After all, Scott Morrison said that he was aware of the terrible harassment of Flint and he thought they were about the worst things he had ever heard since Gomorrah lost to Sodom in the Old Testament rugby final but, in spite of this, Scottyfromdistractions did nothing about them until…
Well, he’s actually still done nothing about them apart from suggesting that they’re all the fault of the Labor leader.
However, the most recent example of distraction as a political art comes from neither politics nor business, but the NSW Police Commissioner and taker out of bins, Mick Fuller.
I refer, of course, to his thought bubble of the Consent App.
Now I could spend considerable time taking it seriously and writing about things like would we eventually have defence lawyers trying to suggest that their client wasn’t guilty of rape because the very fact the woman had the consent app on her phone meant that she was promiscuous and therefore not the sort of woman who could be trusted. If you think that’s far-fetched, you haven’t taken notice of the history of how women are treated when they report a crime. I could also mock the idea of a date which ends with, “I’d really like to have sex with you but my phone just died so…”
But Rossleigh’s Rule Number 1.
Even Mick Fuller said that he didn’t think the idea was likely to be implemented, so why was he even suggesting it?
If a Liberal politician suggested it, I’d think they were just trying to distract from Scotty’s bad week… actually, make that few weeks… all right, time in office.
However, this is an independent crime-fighter. If I didn’t know better, I’d think that he was trying to position himself for preselection in a safe Liberal seat…
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