Just when you thought the Hun could not best itself in contributing meaningfully and intelligently to the public debate, they asked Gary Ablett to discuss the problem of decaying moral standards in the community.
I know that when I want moral, spiritual, political, or life advice, I always turn to my local neighbourhood crack fiend ex-footballer.
In fairness to him, he notes Proverbs at the outset: ‘He who answers a matter before he hears it, it is folly and shame to him.’ In that spirit, we should judge Ablett on the basis of his words and not his former actions.
I believe without a doubt that our nation is in crisis and is in its current predicament because we have deliberately disconnected ourselves from our Christian heritage and history. We are a nation that was originally founded upon the word of God and established on the authority of biblical truth. Our political system, our judicial system and most of our schools and hospitals were begun by godly men and women who based their lives and work on godly principles. — Gary Ablett
Yeah…
There is a sad lack of diversity in the debate of social cohesion. The left denies that there is a problem: culture is the creation of the ruling class to oppress the minority by reinforcing the hegemony. This means there is very little opposition to the populist, radical right who want to fill the culture void with low-brow, aggressive, pub talk.
Man might look like an ape, act like a goat, eat like a pig, think like a jackass, be as stubborn as a mule and as cunning as a fox, but a man is still a man and has been that way right down through recorded history. I openly confess to being no scientist, nor will I try to pretend to be one. However, it is not hard for the average person to understand some of the basic laws and principles within the scientific world. There is so much misinformation out there called “science”, masquerading as “truth”, and because we’ve been taught to believe these falsehoods it takes an abundance of information to get these misconceptions unseated. So please bear with me as I may need to get quite technical to get my message across. — Ibid.
This isn’t the sort of argument we hear in a cultured, civilised society. ‘I’m not a scientist, but science is easy to understand; I’m sorry if I use big words.’ Also, big lulz at ‘recorded history’. You can imagine him scratching his head as he tries to work out how Australopithecus could have existed if it didn’t write anything down. It’s very strange that he doesn’t apply this sort of reasoning to the Christ — though I suspect his head would explode if he tried to work out why Jesus didn’t leave any written documents (the best answer I’ve ever had to that question, btw, was that Jesus was just far too busy being God to keep a diary: he figured that battles over interpretation was a much more efficient and effective way to pass on a message of peace, harmony, and death penalty for children who dishonour their parents).
It might be noted as this point that Ablett appears to be using the New Century Bible translation, which was an update of the International Children’s Bible (written for people who struggle with the English language, like kids). The ICB was evangelical: the sort of Christianity Ablett is discussing isn’t the nice, pleasant, chortle chortle, mind-the-bad-spots Christianity of our forefathers. It’s the radical and aggressive Christianity of the United States. Why would we want that in Australia?
And why is it always Christianity that they want to revive? You can imagine some alternate Ablett saying: ‘Moral decay. We need to get back to values. This country was built by racists and misogynists who denied non-whites and women political power.’ Or even: ‘Moral decay. We need to get back to values. This country was built by wealthy people. Screw the poor.’
This isn’t the sort of conservatism we want in Australia. We want to be able to affirm the very best of our society while being mindful that there are some crappy aspects to it which could be fixed. ‘Winding back the clock’ isn’t what conservatism should be about. So why do we not hear from these conservatives?
Oh, because the media is more interested in the chest-thumping buffoonery of a (retired) sportsman.
Only The Sangfroid 