Its sick. I’m sick, I know, I have a problem, but I just….can’t….help myself.
I’ve had this problem for many years now, and I know that it’s affecting my loved ones, my workmates, and any other poor bastard who is forced to interact with me while I’m under the influence of her unrelenting irrationality.
But I just….can’t….help myself. Its disgusting. I keep stashes of her diatribes in my sock drawer, in a secret compartment in my desk, I retire furtively to the bathroom (or any room with a locked door) and I imbibe, like a sick, sad junky, the torrents of bile that she lets fly on a bi-weekly basis.
Why? I’m not sure what it is about her that fascinates me. I think it might have something to do with the fact that she is female. I can’t explain why but something about right wing females hits that attraction repulsion button and…bingo, I’m, hooked. And I don’t think I’m alone – maybe every man adores a fascist. In the same way that American liberals seem to revile Anne Coulson with a vociferousness far in excess of that reserved for Glen Beck, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and their ilk, I have the feeling that Miranda seems to have a place high in the hate stakes of most “lefties”.
Maybe it’s a fascination with how someone can think and write with such a refined sense of irrationality and bloody mindedness. As it’s been said that arguing with someone like Alan Jones is like arguing with a child, its often just not possible to meet Miranda head on and debate her arguments. While someone like Janet Albrechtsen tends to make points which are backed by (admittedly sometimes spurious) facts, Miranda has a unique ability to locate half truths, unsubstantiated assertions and the like and somehow weave them into a sickening, yet fascinating diatribe which bears no resemblance, whatsoever, to the real world.
But actually, I think her real appeal is the fact that in her writing she manages to create a weltanschauung which is diametrically opposed to everything I have grown up believing and perceive to be worthwhile. According to Miranda, everything from renewable energy to Radike Samo to asylum seekers to primary school education to Christianity to the Victorian bushfires to Penny Wong’s baby are all somehow related to the insidious work of lefty pinko elites. I think I’m so attracted to this because it provides me with such an easy “other” to define myself against, a ridiculously simplified version of reality which I can nevertheless revile and thus cheaply acquire a sense of political identity.
Which is really just the same old story as far as political debate in Australia goes. The Culture Wars have this horrid ability to turn intelligent, rational analysts into the equivalent of chanting footy fans baying for the blood of the enemy. All considered analysis of any issue is fair game in service of fighting this greater war; you like wind farms? Well, seeing as you and I are on different sides of the fence I, by default, must then hate wind farms. You believe that children should be taught not only about the positive aspects of the white settlement of Australia but also about the way indigenous Australians were actually treated? Well seeing as you and are in different camps, I’ll accuse you of wearing a black armband and buy myself a ticket to see Keith Windschuttle employ every bombastic weapon in his arsenal of hyperbole at a symposium on re-writing Australian history.
On and on it goes, with nary an end in sight. And I guess I’m just another one of them slinging mud back and forth over the ramparts.
Or maybe I just have a thing for right wing North shore Mums with 4WDS and an unrelenting sense of outrage. How kinky.
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