Church-bashing is so much fun!

Carl Mather lets rip on religion:

Religions promote elitism, xenophobia, intolerance, ignorance and fascism (n. a governmental system with strong centralised power, permitting no opposition or criticism, controlling all affairs, etc.).

Religions encourage slavery, torture, murder, and unquestioning obedience to rulers, i.e. the church.

Carl doesn’t provide any evidence to support his assertions and just throws them out there as if they were self-evident truths. His article is a convenient exercise in shallow-thinking that can be summarised like this: in the past most people were religious, and therefore religion is responsible for all atrocities committed in the past. Convenient, but bollocks nevertheless.

I have to make a special mention of Chris’ assertion that religion breeds fascism. What a load of utter crap! Fascist were vehemently anti-religious. Mussolini was “fiercely anti-Catholic”. As a student activist in Switzerland he made a name for himself by offending devout Christians. In “Liberal Fascism” Jonah Goldberg writes that Il Duce’s favourite trick was to publicly dare God to strike him dead if He existed.  German Nazis were so hostile to religion they sent thousands of Christian priests to concentration camps. In fact Mather’s article is exactly the sort of anti-religious propaganda that would make any fascist proud.

He also has this little gem:

History clearly shows that any society that relies on religion for moral guidance hastily plummets into barbarism.

I can think about a couple of such barbaric societies: Communist Russia, Maoist China, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy… None were religious – all either atheist or openly hostile to religion.

It is trully astounding how little thinking the so-called “thinking people” actually do…

Australia Day Torture

Dear Readers,

Another Australia Day is upon us. This of course means another round of self-indulgent “genocidal Australia” writings from the left-wing nutters. Like this piece by the Socialist Alliance Trotskyite John Passant titled “Trapped in a genocidal history“. Let the torture begin!

Passant opens by asserting that:

Genocide against Aboriginal people is one theme that runs through the history of the last 220 years. The failure to recognise that genocide is another ongoing theme.

Genocide is defined as the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group. This implies deliberate government policy geared towards extermination of Aboriginal. As it turns out such deliberate policy never existed. Arthur Philip, Australia’s first governor ordered that Aborigines must be well treated and that anyone killing Aboriginals would be hanged. In fact over 50% of Aborigines were killed by smallpox which wasn’t even remotely deliberate.

It was Marx who wrote that the tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the mind of the living.

What irony it is to be moralised by a Marxist! Marxism is of course a poisonous ideology responsible for tens if not hundreds of millions of deaths and untold misery around the world. Just think of Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Khmer Rouge and so on. Even Nazism which stands for National Socialism is based on Marxist teachings. When it comes to genocide Marxists really take the cake.

The war against Aborigines, what I describe as genocide, has fundamentally alienated Aboriginal people from their land, their identity, their culture and themselves. There is a shocking 17-year gap in life expectancy between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians.

Does he rally mean that 17-year gap in Aboriginal life expectancy is caused by alienation from their land, their identity, their culture and themselves? It sure sounds it. Somewhat more trivial and realistic explanation would be endemic alcohol and drug abuse coupled with the lack of access to quality medical services in remote areas. Remote areas where Aboriginals are forced to live thanks to the well meaning land rights movement that gave Aboriginals useless land in the middle of nowhere and easy welfare without any chance of meaningful employment. In every corner of the globe human misery flourishes in communities with no access to jobs and easy dole to buy booze and drugs. It can be no different in remote Aboriginal settlements.

We invaded the Northern Territory last year to further the destruction of our Indigenous people’s links to their land and culture. 1788 is being repeated in 2008.

2008 Northern Territory intervention was prompted by a damning report into horrific cases of child sexual abuse in remote Aboriginal settlements. This intervention tries to deal with booze, drugs and joblessness. Stemming the flow of booze and drugs has a huge potential to bridge the 17 year life expectancy gap. Why would such self-anointed protector of Aboriginal as Passant be against it, especially since it was supported by the Aboriginal leaders such as Noel Pearson and Warren Mundine and both major political parties? I suspect that for the likes of Passant it is more important to advertise their moral superiority than to deal with the grim reality of their noble savage fantasy. Pre-settlement Australia is gone forever. It won’t be brought back by the dreamings of indulgent inner-city yuppies. The longer we promote the fantasy that Aborigines can somehow live in the tribal way and have 21st century social outcomes, the longer we will perpetrate their misery. If saying so makes me a bigot, I am sorry, but does it make me wrong?

Passant proceeds to demand compensation for Aborigines. Saying “sorry” will no longer do. Funny isn’t it. When “John Howard’s fascist regime” was running the joint it refused to apologise to Aborigines. Compensation was one of the sticking points. Opponents claimed that saying “sorry” would open the floodgates for claims of compensation. They were dismissed by the Sorry lobby that said that saying “sorry” was important as a symbolic gesture in itself to heal the wounds and so forth. Now that we have the government willing to say “sorry”, it is no longer enough – saying “sorry” means nothing without compensation. This just reconfirms the suspicion many Australians had about the “sorry” saga being a mere vehicle for a cash grab. Thanks Passant for making the right-wing nutter’s case for them.

Passant concludes with this bold call:

The trade union movement represents one powerful ally for Aboriginal people and if Indigenous Australians could mobilise that section of society to take action for their cause anything is possible.

Australia Day perpetuates our founding myths and enslaves our Aboriginal brothers and sisters. In the spirit of true reconciliation let’s abolish this celebration of genocide.

I would like to counter with the call to abolish trade unions. They are full of Marxists whose deluded ideology is responsible for misery that eclipses any misdeeds ever perpetrated against the Aboriginals. I would also like to have a blanket ban on left-wing poseurs with inflated sense of morality whose fantasies continue to entrap Aborigines in perpetual cycle of substance abuse, joblessness, poverty and disease.

This Australia Day I am going to hang the Australia flag high and drink VB. It will taste even sweeter knowing that doing just that gives John Passant the shits. Happy Australia Day folks!