As we all know, cultural Marxists are forever peddling bollocks. There's almost never a moment when they actually tell the truth. And when you catch them out telling porkies, they never, ever 'fess up to clear the slate. They just dig in even harder!
Take how they define freedom of speech. Of course they say they're all for it. But what they really mean is, they want the right to shout other people down.
You see this a lot on university campuses in America, and increasingly here in Oz. They quack on about how opposing viewpoints create a dangerous environment; make the students feel unsafe. They say that speech itself is violence. It's so pathetic you almost can't believe it.
Then, when a conservative speaker does actually lob to politely make her point, the lefties go utterly spacko and trash the joint. They are clearly more violent than the so-called haters whose words and ideas they simply cannot bear to hear.
This is of course completely obvious to any sane, rational adult. But many leftist quackademics are incapable of perceiving this massive contradiction, which shows how dim they are. That's sad -- particularly when you consider that as so-called educators they're tasked with making the yoof smarter. "Clever country" my arse!
That said, some of these activist "professors" are well aware of how absurdly inconsistent their behaviour is. But they just don't give a rat's. For them, power trumps truth. They believe that as long as they get to boss people around, any lie is justified. It's a truly sinister attitude.
To be fair, most lefties are not quite as extreme as this. They can and do let their opponents speak on their turf and are generally civil about it. Still, they make damn sure that they're pulling the strings. They choose the subjects to be discussed, and will ensure the moderator is on their side (while purporting to be objective, natch). If one of the hated righties is about to drop a truth bomb, he'll try to cut her off or change the topic pronto!
They also make sure that lefties outnumber the conservatives. And they invariably label the latter as such, while not doing the same for their fellow travellers (who are often radical activists if not utterly unhinged moonbats) instead describing them merely as experts, writers, commentators, etc -- zif they're sage-like and totally unbiased! FFS. What a joke.
Q and A is a perfect example of this tried and trusted leftist tactic of stacking the decks in their favour, while purporting to be fair and balanced. (Please check out some of my previous takes on individual episodes.)
Their ABC has another, more low key panel "debate" show called The Drum. Its politically correct bias is not as obvious as it is on Q and A. But it's still there.
In recent weeks this bias has become an issue on Twitter, with the show's host Julia Baird tweeting this:
Maybe Baird is actually being honest here. Perhaps she really does think that she's playing with a straight bat.
But the fact that she touts her post-grad qualifications in her Twitter profile is significant, IMO. It's like she's saying she's smarter than other tweeps.
And this smug, superior attitude is common on campuses across Oz. Tertiary education here is almost totally dominated by cultural Marxism, an elitist ideology if ever there was one. Campus "thinkers" see it as their duty to figure out what's best for the plebs, then get them to go along with their daffy utopian plans whether they like it or not.
While some sane adults do appear on The Drum, they are clearly outnumbered by the sneering hipsters, many of whom are full-time quackademics. Some are broadcasters with that background who've spent years poncing about in ivory towers congratulating themselves for their compassionate far-sightedness. Take Peter Van Onselen for example:
Wow. Talk about intellectual hubris.
He's like Tim Flannery -- another quackademic who's forever predicting the future, only to be regularly confounded by reality.
You've gotta wonder why he has a such a daffy view. Seems to me that because he dearly wants this child-brained utopian vision to come true -- or at least sees it as some kind of moral advancement -- then he believes it's gonna happen for sure.
But one thing you learn as you get older (if you're paying attention, that is) is that people tend to do what they want to do, not what you think they should do. And you can never know for sure what'll happen even in the relative short term. Even a coupla years ago, who would have thought that the UK, that bastion of democracy and free speech, would now be imprisoning those reporting on organized rape gangs to maintain the lies of political correctness?
But even if PVO is correct, and the so-called progressives continue to increase their power over us, he forgets to consider the effects of intersectionality. That is, if animal rights rule then plant rights'll follow, natch. So even veganism will be verboten in time. The woke'll chant: "Meat is murder! Hommus is hommuside!" Eventually everyone'll be so dang hangry they'll all go back to BBQs ...
In any case I shouldn't be too harsh on Van Onselen. He's by no means the silliest of The Drum's guests. Take Vanessa "Van" Badham. She seems to be on there every second week, peddling her trademark brand of sour, self-obsessed wrong-headedness. And she always seems to be wearing weird Carmen Miranda style headgear. One time it looked like she'd stuffed a giant half-eaten doughnut in her locks, no kidding!
One can only guess why she dons such OTT garb. Her verbose and pompous pronouncements are ridiculous enough already ... Maybe it's a feminist version of Pirate Pete's trademark red bandana? She's changed her name to sound more masculine ("Van" -- sounds like "man", geddit?) so I wouldn't be surprised if that's the case.