It’s time for XYZ to come out and unequivocally condemn the actions of Neil Erikson and his nasty right-wing extremist group Patriot Blue against the most honourable Senator Sam Dastyari.
Because that’s what good right-wingers do right?
In case you are unaware, a few evil right-wing extremists recently confronted the noble, tolerant, controlled, honest, incorruptible and self-effacing Senator “Shanghai” Sam Dastyari in a bar in Melbourne. A write up by The Unshackled can be found here.
So of course we have to denounce them.
After all that’s what prominent right-wingers do isn’t it? Condemn anyone on the right whenever they do anything the left find even mildly inconvenient?
Certainly seems to be the case.
Speaking with the Nine Network, our supposedly centre-right Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull denounced the Patriot Blue confrontation:
“We are the most successful multicultural society in the world and that is because it’s built, our society is built, on a foundation of mutual respect. And so we should have zero tolerance for racism and racist abuse like that.”
He preached loftily with eyes half closed.
Caroline Overington writing for the evil, fascist, extreme right-wing Murdoch mouthpiece The Australian was also appalled by the protest against Dastyari, whom she describes as “100 per cent Australian”. She pronounced the act of heckling a politician in a pub as “sickening for its malice and its cowardice” and the perpetrators as a “braying mob” who she claims were only a hair’s breadth away from “breaking a beer glass or snapping a pool cue or landing a coward punch” or even a “political assassination”.
Even Paul Murray, normally a firm man of the right, leapt at the chance for righteous condemnation, tweeting: “I don’t get along with Sam Dastyari. But there is NO EXCUSE for the harassment he copped at a pub today.”
And who can blame them with the record these extremists have?
Certainly no-one can condone Neil Erikson for leading a violent mob into the Senators’ electorate office, covering the walls in graffiti and trashing the place while his wife and staffers huddled in fear in a back room.
Oh wait, that was the left?
Well surely we can’t condone Neil Erikson head-butting Senator Dastyari unprovoked in the street?
Oh wait that was the left too.
Well there were the multiple times Senator Dastyari wanted to speak at an event and it was violently blockaded by angry Patriot Blue thugs, or that time Patriot Blue attacked peaceful protesters on the street with metal bars, or the time Dastyari supporters had to be taken bleeding to hospital after being beaten unconscious by a group of Patriot Blue members, or that time Neil Erikson attacked Dastyari punching him and squirting chemicals into his eyes on Lygon St outside a book signing, or that time various Patriot groups besieged Crown Casino and attacked police for an entire weekend, or Friday last week when Patriot Blue illegally occupied Government offices and harassed public servants trying to go to work, or last Saturday when the vile Erikson and his minions attacked police and blocked traffic outside Flinders St Station, or even on Tuesday when Patriot Blue blocked railway tracks with a car and endangered the lives of hundreds of commuters.
Oh wait…
All of those [and many more] were left-wingers?
You don’t say.
Remember when the left came out and denounced these actions in the same sort of terms that the supposed “right” are using to condemn Patriot Blue today?
Neither do I.
In fact I remember them cheering when Tony Abbott was head-butted. I remember them gloating about shutting down One Nation events with violence, I remember them celebrating when Cory Bernardi’s office was attacked.
I remember when Andrew Bolt was attacked in the street and the strongest condemnation from the left was an opinion piece by John Birmingham in the Sydney Morning Herald where he criticised the attackers for helping Bolt spread his “lies”.
This is the same John Birmingham who named characters in his books “Piers Ackerman” and “Andrew Bolt” just so he could have those characters brutally murdered.
This is why the right loses over and over again. Because whenever anyone tries to fight back using far milder versions of the same tactics the left has used since time immemorial, every prominent Politician, journalist and public figure supposedly on the “right” cannot wait to condemn them.
Some try to justify it by saying that since they condemn such behaviour from the left they must condemn it from the right. They take the left’s failure to likewise stab their own side in the back as proof positive of their superior morality and cloak themselves haughtily in this righteous cloth as the left takes control of our institutions and public spaces through violence and intimidation.
Because of course not fighting back makes you morally superior. Just ask Tibet; a country that no longer exists.
Andrew Bolt in particular is a repeat offender [although getting punched in the face seems to have knocked some sense into him recently]. Bolt, the dignified, opera loving, daggy old uncle of the Australian right continually points out in tones of ringing denunciation that to the left it’s not the principle that counts but the side.
Yes Andrew, that’s why they’re winning.
More accurately, the Left has both principles and a side and realise that your principles don’t matter at all if your side loses.
Whereas Andrew Bolt has principles, a bruised face, a ruined suit and leftists all over Australia chuckling as they read a novel where a character named after him gets its head blown off.