Earlier incarnations of puritanism ended when its proponents became laughing stock

Wokism is just another cycle of the bossy righteous social climber, and it will be defeated, not when we take them seriously, but when we laugh at them.

Nothing is funny any more, all jokes are microagressions. The world’s unctuous busybodies are humorless sods, telling everyone to eat bugs and arm themselves with solar-panel-shields to stop the tide. They pretend to care for the poor while they condemn them to poverty. They earn points in invisible beauty contests while they accidentally raze forests, kill bats, and slaughter birds in a quest to be holier than the guy next door. The only thing they care about is themselves.

Nick Cater reviews a new book by Noah Rothman that sounds like a good read. The point I appreciate the most is that humans have gone through these waves of righteous madness before and that there will be an end, and the more we mock them, the sooner it will come. As Nick Cater sublimely does with one performer at the Melbourne Comedy Festival who he describes as “.. an Indigenous woman who identifies as a comedian.”

The Rise of the New Puritans: Fighting Back Against Progressives’ War on Fun

The Rise of the New Puritans:From the Publisher:   The New Puritans can judge a person’s moral character by their clothes, Netflix queue, fast food favorites, the sports they watch, and the company they keep. No choice is neutral, no sphere is private. Not since the Puritans has a political movement wanted so much power over your thoughts, hobbies, and preferences every minute of your day. In the process, they are sucking the joy out of life.

Nick Cater, The Australian

New Puritans will realise the last laugh is on them

Welcome to the new age of puritanism where stand-up comedy has been replaced with performative piety. It doesn’t have to be funny, it just has to contribute to the fight against systemic evils and the creation of a less shameful society.

Like Hollywood directors, artists and athletes, comedians are no longer tasked with delivering enjoyment for its own sake. They must convey the correct moral and political message or risk being deplatformed.

The enthusiasts driving this culture of moral conformity have more in common with their 17th- and 18th-century puritan forebears than they care to imagine.

Not surprisingly, the requirement comedians be both earnest and funny is threatening to kill off the business altogether. In 2008, comedy movies accounted for 25 per cent of Hollywood box-office takings. Ten years later comedy was reduced to just 8 per cent. Comedy box-office receipts had more than halved even as overall revenue had grown larger.

These striking comparisons between puritans old and new are drawn in a new book by US conservative commentator Noah Rothman. Others have compared today’s progressive ideology to a fundamentalist new religion replete with dogma, liturgy and conformity with a narrative of sin and redemption. Rothman goes further, explaining earlier generations of puritans sought more than personal salvation. They were engaged on a utopian, messianic mission not dissimilar to the people we today consider as woke. Puritanism was more than a religious creed, “it was also a program for society” furthered by the good work of the righteous.

Whatever it is, it’s not about respect:

The new puritans bring their morality to bear on the food we eat. The production of meat and other animal products is causing global warming, they claim. The world must move to a vegan diet supplemented only by bugs, the only type of fauna considered to be acceptable for human consumption. The absence of meat is seen as a virtuous form of self-denial.

“Proponents of this sort of thing seem constitutionally incapable of arguing in favour of a bug-heavy diet because you might actually like it,” writes Rothman. “For the New Puritans, a smug sense of self-satisfaction is the most delicious dish of all.”

We can feel the witchhunts of cancel culture rising to new absurd heights, but there is a self-limiting nature to it. The more righteous they get, the more there is to laugh at. All we need are more people with the spine to laugh out loud.

Nick Cater is executive director of the Menzies Research Centre. 

9.8 out of 10 based on 99 ratings

157 comments to Earlier incarnations of puritanism ended when its proponents became laughing stock

  • #

    Well and good but Cromwell was a Puritan. They did a lot of damage before they became laughable.

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      Neville

      Well David, Torquemada was a conservative Catholic and ditto “bloody Queen Mary.”
      And they both killed many unbelievers and Mary roasted many protestants and both caused a lot of damage, yet I’m not sure there was much to laugh about.

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      • #
        Steve of Cornubia

        I didn’t read this as “Only puritans are intolerant”. Jo makes a very valid and important point if you want to understand what we’re up against. I have been making the same parallel for some years, branding the New Left as puritans because their behavior and methods are so alike.

        As David above says however, I don’t see this stopping any time soon. Their success in capturing all the institutions that might otherwise push back or provide effective counter propaganda – even putatively conservative political parties – means the steamroller is only just getting up to speed. This is evidenced by the behaviour of hitherto apolitical organisations and high-profile individuals who, whether consciously or unconsciously, are realising that battle lines are being drawn and everybody better choose a side. I believe many are choosing to side with the people most likely to engage in retribution, as always happens during violent revolutions.

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      • #
        Stuart Hamish

        Yes Torquemada and the Inquisition were the Catholic version of puritanism ..The Maoist Red Guards and the Bolsheviks were a secular strain …….The Green radicals and the Woke mob intersectionalists like their forebears tend to eat their own – that is blacklist marginalize harangue and censor them – when they stray from the edicts of doctrine . The censorship of leftist film-maker Mike Moores documentary Planet of the Humans is a case in point

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      • #
        PeterPetrum

        Excellent article, David. I have to admit, I find it hard to laugh, but I will try because, in Australia, the wall that Labor is going to crash against is coming up very soon.

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    • #
      Kim

      Including causing a lot of grief for the Irish as I remember.

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      • #
        Stuart Hamish

        A lot of misery for the Irish , the Welsh, the Scottish – and the English Royal family….The forts monasteries and castles pillaged and burned by Cromwell’s plundering armies are littered all over the landscapes of the British Isles and Ireland .. One theory has it that the climatic trauma and deprivation of the Maunder Minimum played a part in the English Civil War and the rise of Oliver Cromwell

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    • #
      Anto

      The free flow of ideas and discourse should never be discouraged.

      However, from time to time extremism of one flavour or another seems to inevitably gain a grip on: the body politic; the so-called “elite”; their enablers in the media and in academia. Whenever that happens, it is a clear and present danger to civility and society.

      This appears to reoccur throughout history and we are yet to find a mechanism to avoid this periodic dislocation.

      The best that can be said for Western-style democracy is that, while the body politic can remain particularly obtuse for long periods of time, if they can avoid electing someone with true totalitarian intent, eventually the pendulum will swing back towards more sensible, moderate views.

      I have always preferred to live with a “glass half full” philosophy. Let’s hope that I’m right!

      20

  • #

    We just need to build the New Puritans a new Mayflower and send them on their way to their ‘Nirvana’. Now how to do this? That is the Question.

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    • #
      David Maddison

      a new Mayflower and send them on their way to their ‘Nirvana’.

      Send them to Antarctica where they might be able to appreciate supposed anthropogenic global warning. Not much vegan food there but I guess they can eat seaweed. For energy they can use windmills which rapidly fall apart in Antarctic winds…

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    • #
      Penguinite

      If we give them a Mayflower they’ll want to eat it!

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  • #
    Rudolph Hucker

    Recommended reading: Titania McGrath

    https://twitter.com/TitaniaMcGrath

    Spoiler alert! It’s a parody account. According to Wikipedia:

    created and run by Andrew Doyle, a British comedian and Spiked columnist. Doyle describes her as “a militant vegan who thinks she is a better poet than William Shakespeare”. As of March 2021, the character has more than 600,000 followers.

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  • #
    John Hultquist

    I agree, they need to be laughed at, ridiculed, and maybe poked with a hot [snip “conversation”]
    However, burning and stoning witches was not a good time, and neither is watching the climate-cultists.

    Is there Aussie slang for hot dog?

    [John, a hotdog is a hotdog downunder. But other things can be misinterpreted (hence the snip). – Jo]

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    • #
      JoKaH

      Is there Aussie slang for hot dog?

      I don’t know.
      I think the closest we get is a Saturday Sanga at Bunnings!

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    • #
      Stuart Hamish

      Are you one and the same as ‘John Tillman” John Hultquist ?…..I seem to recall you talking up John Tillman and deriding the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis on Joannes page as a ‘bad weed ” that keeps coming back [ a petulant polemic reminiscent of an intolerant puritan I must say ] shortly after Tillman’s arguments were utterly smashed in a comments thread debate under an August 2020 WUWT article [ I was one of the contributors ]…Joanne for some reason went with the fringe Texan cave sediment volcanogenic theory

      00

    • #
      Stuart Hamish

      ‘snag ‘ and “sanga ” are the alternative Aussie vernacular for hot dog

      00

  • #
    John Galt III

    They can also be pointed out as hypocrites and liars as well.
    Case in point:
    Obama belongs to the climate change cult and one of their predictions is that the oceans will rise destroying coastlines all over the world
    In 2019 the Obama’s shelled out $12 million for an ocean front property on Martha’s Vineyard on an island in the Atlantic Ocean off of Massachusetts.
    In 2021 they have started an ocean front home in Hawaii on the Pacific Ocean.
    Now, if you truly “believed” that the oceans would rise by 20 to 30 feet (10 meters or so) would you be doing what the Obama’s are doing?
    So call them out and ask them what the hell they are doing. Do they believe AOC, the IPCC and Al Gore are lying or were they lying all the time.
    Has to be one or the other.

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    • #
      mundi

      The bigger question is how did Obama get all that money given the actually fairly modest pay of being president and his prior political patrons and jobs.

      In australia we cringe at how politicians get a plump pension the rest of their days, yet no one in USA bats an eye lid at how almost everyone in politics somehow makes millions and tens of millions in just a few years.

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      • #
        Zane

        They get multimillion dollar advances from publishers for their ” memoirs ” and autobiographies and millions more for speaking engagements. It is all arranged to reward them for services rendered whilst in power. Positions on boards of companies and foundations and think tanks, and generous consulting fees, add to the income stream. It’s who you know.

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      • #
        John Galt III

        Both you and Zane are correct.

        When Obama was president he directed that Pearson, a British Company, get the contract for the US public school textbooks – cost $350 million. In return the highest bidder for the Obama memoirs was, you guessed it, Pearson to the tune of $65,000,000. Obama is not capable of writing a sentence in English that is coherent and neither can his wife. We know this because Michelle’s thesis at Princeton is unreadable garbage and because Bill Ayers wrote “Dreams of My Father”, Obama’s pile of nonsense about mostly, himself.

        That was nothing compared to the Clintons who got $500,000,000 contributed to their “Foundation” of which only 7% went to charitable causes.

        That’s how Democrats do it. They are the party of grift and crookedness and of course the party of slavery, Jim Crow and the KKK. I say all this because Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan and the Bushes got ZERO when they left office in comparison unlike the Clinton Trailer Trash who stole the White House plates and silver. Trump was and is rich and refused to take his salary for all 4 years.

        Do you folks detect a pattern?

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        • #
          MP

          Obumma was also paid $1 billion in advance by Netflix to produce documentaries, he has produced zero to date. Obumma’s cut of the $Billions returned to Iran of which not all made it.
          Book deals
          Movie deals
          Speaking deals
          Ukraine war funding
          All money laundering

          The QLD tyrants have a much more obvious way, but nobody cares. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vl4UXyk75QY
          The only thing being quarantined is our dollars. Used to call it laundering.

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        • #
          Ronin

          O’Bammy was a Nobel Peace Prize recipient before he was in the chair 5 minutes.

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      • #
        kraka

        Ditto here-how did Bob Hawke amass an alleged $40M fortune when he only earn’t around 2M GROSS dollars during his parliamentary career. Is there anyone in Australia who doesn’t believe Parliament is the biggest insider trading scam going around.

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  • #
    mc

    Nothing is funny anymore, all jokes are microagressions.

    That’s pretty funny. Look at it another way, we are surrounded on all sides by pompous puffed up ridiculous wokeness, everything is funny, make the most of it, laugh at all of it.
    Besides, there may be nothing the absurd woke fear more than being laughed at, that’s why jokes are microagressions, unregulated humour terrifies them, it confronts them with the fact we know they are people of poor quality character, midwits.

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    • #
      David-of-Cooyal-in-Oz

      The Manly rugby league team has been fitted out with rainbow colours for their next match. Only 5 players have refused to play.
      Cheers
      Dave B

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      • #
        Macha

        And the media fueled cancel culture brigade has already seen most if them backflip under pressure…and money. Convictions and faith tested and lost.

        50

      • #
        OldOzzie

        Even noted in America – Australian Rugby Players Revolt After Being Told to Wear Gay Pride Jersey

        With a bit of Humour in the Comments

        Boys, Boys don’t go down the slippery slope of dropping your soap.

        50

      • #
        Stuart Hamish

        I would suggest to you other Manly players are revolted and incensed about being pressured into promoting a boutique ideological cause but are too fearful of bullying struggle sessions , finger wagging hectoring from family and friends, and trial by Woke media .I’m sure you considered these factors though David of Cooyal in Oz .Celebrate the tolerance diversity and inclusion you little bigot or else

        00

    • #
      Ronin

      Then there’s the private jetsetting, mansion living Ginger and the Whinger preaching at us.

      00

  • #
    Simon

    The analogy is nonsense. Puritans were conservative Protestants who wanted to rid the Church of Roman Catholic practices. I would argue that banning abortion while having a state administered death penalty is puritanical.

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    • #
      paul courtney

      Said the humorless puritan.

      291

    • #
      Robert Swan

      A Conservative Protestant doesn’t seem a world away from a Conservation Protester.

      71

    • #
      GlenM

      Yes Simon, abortion is a death sentence.

      160

    • #
      Gary S

      Simon, perhaps the proposition is that the unborn child has committed no crime and has the right to life, whereas the death penalty is reserved for those who commit the most heinous of crimes and have forfeited their right to live amongst their fellows.

      220

    • #
      el+gordo

      ‘The analogy is nonsense.’

      Putting aside the politics, wokeism is definitely puritanical.

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    • #
      MP

      I would argue that banning abortion while having a state administered death penalty is puritanical.

      The death penalty is for people who have committed Murder intentionally. You are now blaming the victims, that is pretty much as low as you can go
      You are the person this article is about.

      Abortion was not banned, it is not a constitutional right. Some of us can read and understand.

      You would argue because that’s all you have.

      Don’t worry about arguing for the drug smugglers, who can also read.

      100

    • #
      Clem Cadiddlehopper

      PURITANICAL, adjective

      of or relating to Puritans or Puritanism

      priggish, prim, prissy, prudish, puritanical, square-toed, straitlaced exaggeratedly proper. This identifies them perfectly.

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      • #
        Stuart Hamish

        Precisely Clem The analogy is not nonsense at all as you elucidated with that list of analogues for Puritanical …Simon knows this of course and I detect a simmering resentment in his deflective superficially literalist nitpicking response

        10

    • #
      el+gordo

      A short read on the history and what it feels like to be in a cultural revolution.

      https://thecritic.co.uk/wokeism-is-latter-day-puritanism/

      30

    • #
      Ronin

      Infants are innocent, but death sentences are well earned by mass murderers and rapists, big difference there, pal.

      00

    • #
      Stuart Hamish

      What is it about Nick Cater’s superb [ as always ] essay that annoys you so much you feel compelled to resort to literalist nitpicking Simon ? . Puritan is a synonym and colloquialism for an austere censorious , domineering fanatic . You know this . Banning abortion while legislating a state administered death penalty is not puritanism. That is a moral relativist argument ..A libertarian or progressive may argue on the basis of perceived hypocrisy and moral relativism [ unconvincing regardless as the unborn foetus has not committed a criminal offence ] but it is not a hallmark of puritanism

      The arch puritan Oliver Cromwell [ for those who have read Bloom’s The Lucifer Principle ] was a notoriously sadistic rapist and thug despite his Calvinist piety. And a mass murderer . Cromwell went far beyond banning alcohol and flogging Sabbath breakers in the Plymouth and Geneva public squares . Nearly a quarter of Irelands population were massacred , starved enslaved and deported during the 17th century invasion of Ireland commandered by Oliver Cromwell. His terror campaigns across Ireland and Scotland still exhibit their scars ..As I discussed in an earlier series of posts [ much to the chagrin of Leaf Motif who suggested it be deleted …And much to my amusement ] the philosophical gurus of the Woke Reformation such as Karl Marx Michel Foucalt and Martin Heidegger were respectively a vicious racist, bludger and genocide enthusiast who abused the family maidservant and never paid her a penny , a cruel pedophile who preyed on impoverished North African boys and sodomized them in cemeteries [ and deliriously infatuated with the Khomeinist theocracy that routinely executed stupid homosexuals like himself ] and an unrepentant Nazi professor …. Simone de Beavoir seduced her female students, groomed them to satisfy the lust of Jean Paul Sartre and went to work for Radio Vichy when she was fired .. Need I continue with Che Guevara or the German co founder of Antifa Ernst Thallmann ? It can sometimes be hazardous and invite retribution , however laughter is the best tonic for dealing with the Woke puritans or any other strain of puritanism [ Like Antifa and the outfit ‘Hope Not Hate’ they can be so vicious as to dox and persecute family members of their targets ]… It is also important to lift the curtain on the revered gurus of the Woke Reformation ……. and laugh even more……Is it any different with the green puritans of radical environmentalism ? Well aside from those who want to censor , prosecute and imprison climate skeptics for ‘climate crimes ‘ consider Greta Thunbergs ancestor the greenhouse warming prophet and Nobel recipient Svante Arrhenius …Arrhenius was a eugenicist and founding board member of the Swedish Society for Racial Hygiene ….

      ..Now please understand these are among the idols and svengalis of the Woke Reformation and cancel culture puritanism ..Helen Pluckrose and the other contributors to the splendid Woke Reformation series did not dwell on these biographical truths and this pedigree of puritanism beyond Marxism and postmodernism but they are instructive as far as I am concerned

      40

    • #
      Stuart Hamish

      Puritans ruthlessly turned on their Protestant co- religionists who were deemed not sufficiently devout Simon

      00

  • #
    Roberto

    I’m not so sure about this article and comments historically. Plenty of people were burned by other groups. Check what happened to Joan of Arc or John Huss, just for a few. I think more Puritans were driven out of place than laughed out (Huguenots, for instance). Or the colleges slowly replaced the way people thought (the Scottish enlightenment) as the entire old way of life faded away. A century ago, 90% of Americans lived on the farm.

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    • #
      Stuart Hamish

      You’re not sure ? …Nick’s essay is historically accurate and rather mild in tone and content …Yes it is true groups of puritans and zealots were pilloried persecuted and executed throughout history [ Joan of Arc was more a revelationist ] and into the modern era… Oftentimes they were exiled and attacked because they were dangerous – not just to the status quo ,ruling monarchies and theocratic authorities – but to those who disagreed with them or refused to obey their dictates …Look at the payback delivered to the Khmer Rouge and ISIS ..

      10

  • #
    David Maddison

    Anyone who reads my posts will be aware about my concern about the subtle and not-so-subtle promotion of eating insects as “alternative protein”. Make no mistake, this is what the Left/Elites have planned for us. Especially after they release foot and mouth disease in Australia and elsewhere.

    Australia’s CSIRO (once reputable government scientific research organisatiom) can’t bring itself to do a proper scientific investigation into the anthropogenic global warming fraud, indeed, they promote it, but they do research on insects for human consumption.

    https://research.csiro.au/edibleinsects/

    Australia is well positioned to be a player in the edible insect market worldwide. This is because here in Australia, we have a long tradition of agricultural innovation. Our diversity of insects is rich high quality research and serious industry experience to take advantage of developing opportunities.

    Incidentally, please be aware of the difference between a bug and an insect.

    https://clarkexterminating.com/blog/bug-vs-insect-whats-the-difference/

    Insects always have three body parts and six legs. They also usually have four wings and two antennae. “True bugs” have a mouth shaped like straw or needle. These true bugs have specialized parts of their mouths to suck juices, mostly from plants.2

    And because they have a tradition of eating insects in China, and because the Left/Elites look up to the Chicomms for guidance, it will be used to support the idea of insect eating. Meanwhile, China will abandon insects in favour of real meat because insects are a food of the poor.

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    • #

      If we eat the insects then what will a lot of birds have to eat? And if that bird population drops what will the raptor birds have to eat? Humans upsetting the balance of Nature once again. Sigh!!!!!

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      • #
        Dennis

        Another example of environmental madness was a recent news story about water sprinklers being installed at enormous cost to keep bats cool on hot days.

        I wonder how they survived until now?

        60

    • #
      OldOzzie

      Pretending Has Consequences – Western Media and Western Govt Continue Saying, Falsely, Global Food Crisis Caused by Russia

      As oft repeated, in order for severe ideologues to retain their insufferably bad policy they must pretend not to know things. However, in the case of food shortages, the pretending about the origin of the problem has severe consequences.

      Vladimir Putin’s military action against eastern Ukraine had nothing to do with the severe food shortages and inflation in Sri Lanka. Nor does Putin have any influence over the Dutch government trying to stop food production. Additionally, Putin has no control over Justin Trudeau’s decision to limit harvest yields by blocking the use of nitrogen-based fertilizer. More importantly, it was not Vladimir Putin who forced all the western politicians to sign up for a new ‘climate friendly’ energy program that is destroying the ability of western farms to generate higher yield crops.

      You do not need to be a farmer to understand that nitrogen/phosphorus-based industrial fertilizer has been the reason why farm yields have generated massive amounts of food on a global basis. The United States, Canada, the U.K. and places like the Netherlands have massively increased their ability to generate food for export, in large part due to the success of improved fertilizer and crop saving modern pesticides.

      Take those farming advancements away under the guise of climate change, and you get a global Sri Lanka.

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      • #
        MP

        PARLIAMENT OF VICTORIA
        591044B.I-5/4/2022 i BILL LA INTRODUCTION 5/4/2022
        Agriculture Legislation Amendment Bill 2022

        https://content.legislation.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/bills/591044bi1.pdf

        “54 Power to enter and inspect
        (1) An authorised officer may at any reasonable
        30 time enter and inspect any place, other than a
        place occupied as a residence, and inspect
        anything found at that place, if the authorised
        officer reasonably suspects that—
        Part 2—Amendment of Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals (Control of
        Use) Act 1992
        Agriculture Legislation Amendment Bill 2022
        591044B.I-5/4/2022 8 BILL LA INTRODUCTION 5/4/2022
        (a) any fertiliser or stock food has been, is
        being or may be manufactured at the
        place; or
        (b) any chemical product, fertiliser or stock
        5 food has been, is being or may be sold,
        kept, stored or prepared for use at the
        place; or
        (c) there is any equipment at the place that
        has been, is being or may be used in
        10 connection with the use or manufacture
        of a chemical product, fertiliser or stock
        food; or

        An authorised officer may at any reasonable
        time take and remove for analysis or
        5 examination—
        (a) samples of or from, or specimens of—
        (i) any plant (whether alive or dead),
        animal (whether alive or dead),
        carcass, agricultural produce, air,
        10 soil or water or any material
        deposited on or in any object; or
        (ii) any substance that the authorised
        officer reasonably suspects is a
        chemical product, fertiliser or
        15 stock food; or
        (b) any equipment that the authorised
        officer reasonably suspects has been, is
        being or may be used for or in
        connection with—
        20 (i) the sale or use of a chemical
        product, fertiliser or stock food; or
        (ii) the manufacture of fertiliser or
        stock food; or
        (iii) the transport or handling of
        25 agricultural produce, fertilisers or
        stock food.

        Read from page 7 for the war on Nitrogen.

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        • #
          David-of-Cooyal-in-Oz

          Does this mean that a farmer who produces hay and stores it on farm for later use is subject to this?
          How about plain pasture?

          Sounds like the technique used to declare CO2 a pollutant to me.

          Cheers
          Dave B

          90

          • #
            MP

            It means whatever they say it means.

            The definition of stock is a very broad word, so any and all feed!

            Transporting, handling and application, is everything on the farm.

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          • #
            Old Cocky

            It appears worse than that.
            2b seems to cover almost any primary production activity. It would be a very rare livestock enterprise which doesn’t have “stock food…has been, is being or may be sold, kept, stored or prepared for use at the place”, and the same applies to any crop production where fertiliser is involved.

            The context may specifically exclude farms, though. The legal profession inhabits a world of their own.

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            • #
              MP

              Agriculture Legislation Amendment Bill 2022

              agriculture noun
              Save Word
              To save this word, you’ll need to log in.

              Log In
              ag·​ri·​cul·​ture | \ ˈa-gri-ˌkəl-chər \
              Definition of agriculture
              : the science, art, or practice of cultivating the soil, producing crops, and raising livestock and in varying degrees the preparation and marketing of the resulting products

              Seems clear enough.

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              • #
                Old Cocky

                “Seems clear enough.”

                but you’re discussing legislation, so what they think it means may be completely different to what we think it means.

                With a little luck, this specifically applies to manufacture, wholesale and retail, but I’m not holding my breath.

                The devil tends to be in the definitions and overall context.

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              • #
                MP

                It comes down to wording and definition of the word, the definition of a word is fixed.

                I have experenced Government at the farm gate. It is not in our best interest, this is an agenda.

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              OldOzzie

              Try this Lunacy – Jeremy Clarkson fumes at ‘WFH bureaucrats’ banning him from selling ‘invasive’ American crayfish in his Diddly Squat farm shop for ‘glorified prawn cocktails’

              Jeremy Clarkson has been left fuming after the Environment Agency stopped him from trapping and selling American crayfish on his farm.

              The former Top Gear presenter, 62, wanted to used the funds from selling crayfish as ‘glorified prawn cocktails’ and chowder to restore his lake on the Diddly Squat farm shop, where he films his Amazon Prime Video show Clarkson’s Farm.

              Clarkson said the ‘problem’ is that he needs a licence to catch the ‘invasive species which means the government is forced to spend millions of our pounds employing a team of people to make and apply rules about what can and cannot be done with them’.

              He said in the Sunday Times he was also told by the EA they need to know if it has a conservation designation such as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and the traps needed to be ‘no longer than 600mm and no wider, at its widest point, than 350mm’.

              He added: ‘We paid them to work that out. They sat there, in meetings, with biscuits you and I bought, working out, to the millimetre, how big a crayfish trap should be.

              ‘And then after I’d waded through all the bureaucracy and the rest of the farm was wilting from my absence, I got a message saying, “The Environment Agency is currently unable to process applications to trap crayfish.” Presumably because they’re all working from home.’

              Clarkson said the ‘upshot’ means he ‘won’t repair the dam’ and the lake will go, the American crayfish will ‘wreak havoc’ and it will impact the voles and ducks.

              The EA said Clarkson’s fisheries management application was approved and issued in October 2021 but an application for personal consumption of crayfish could not be authorised.

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        • #
          Gerry

          So the media, cognisant of what happened in Sri Lanka, is right onto this of course and researching a major investigative series of articles about our road into the depths (90% +) of ESG. I’m looking forward to seeing the articles.

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        • #
          Stuart Hamish

          Who would trust the integrity or the ” inspection reports ” of an appointed ‘authorized officer ‘ in the state of Victoria under Daniel Andrews Labor government or the scandalized disgracefully corrupt Department of Health after following the Slug-gate controversy .? What measures are in place to preclude an ‘Elizabeth Garlick ‘appointed to conduct an inspection ? Probably none Who gets to decide what a ‘reasonable time ” or ‘reasonable suspicion ” is ? Has anyone watched Gideon Rozner’s IPA podcast ‘ Say No To The Dan Stasi ” ? ….

          .Honeckers East Germany recruited authorized officers to monitor apartment blocks and had
          community informant networks – and family members – spy on and stalk their fellow citizens

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    • #
      OldOzzie

      The Globalist Effort to ‘Get Trump’ Is Backfiring – Bigly!

      The race is on! The Great Resetters who want an America of servile citizens willing to eat bugs, obey commands, accept fuel rationing, and own nothing have put the pedal to the metal in their nefarious plans to usher in worldwide communism for the masses and perpetual wealth, power, and privilege for the Schwab-Obama-Soros axis of evil (SOS, America, we’re in distress!). What had been a slow and long march through the institutions these last hundred years has taken on such urgency today that the communists have scurried out of their usual hiding places in the shadows to prance around before us in broad daylight!

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    • #
      Evo of Gong

      I am not sure what insects/bugs are being considered but surely, all insects and bugs also discharge waste products which probably decomposes to CO2 (or Methane). Certainly each small insect wouldn’t discharge much but if they were bred in large enough numbers to provide sufficient protein for human consumption then there must also be a lot of waste products such as CO2 and/or methane produced.
      Personally I don’t believe that greenhouse gases are a problem anyway (we could actually use more co2 plant food) but to replace meat from cattle with insects doesn’t make much sense.

      20

  • #
    David Maddison

    It’s not only a war against fun but conveniences and rights as well. To name just a few…

    E.g. petrol/gasoline cars.

    Personal mobility options.

    Right to bodily integrity and not being forced to e.g. be injected with poorly tested “vaccines”.

    Right to free speech and freedom of association.

    A right to freedom from censorship.

    A reason based society.

    Ongoing progress of society and science and technology.

    Conveniences like the banned humble free supermarket plastic bag, the Left falsely claimed these as “single use” but everyone I know had multiple uses for them and disposed of them correctly.

    Access to a healthy meat diet.

    A right to modern agricultural practices such as the use of fertiliser.

    Right to reasonable accommodation, not forcing the downsizing of standard housing or forcing Agenda 2030 targets like “compact cities”.

    Etc. Etc. Etc.

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    • #
      mundi

      There are so many other things in Australia also making our lives worse.

      Example: energy/water rating on appliances. In the next year or so the humble old tumble dryer will be illegal to sell – and you will have to spend at least $2,000+ for a heat pump dryer. The same thing is going on with washing machines and fridges. Even the amount of water a toilet can use to flush is regulated, and every time this regulation has made products more expensive.

      It is not only appliances. AUS is following EU and making it illegal to sell electric motors not of a certain efficiency. How do you get more efficiency in electric motors? basically by putting more and more copper in them and making them bigger and more expensive. EU has regulation requiring electric motors to pass 99% efficiency and Australia will surely be the same.

      80

    • #
      Stuart Hamish

      It must have been just over a decade ago that the brilliant Bill Leak composed a cartoon lampooning
      a sobbing Adam Bandt and Bob Brown cradling rare frogs with one of them muttering that the poor
      ” little fellas “… are ” not even allowed to get married ” while in the background a farmer is marched off his land at gunpoint by an armed trooper ..It was damn funny at the time because it parodied the callousness of misanthropic Green ideology so exquisitely Bill Leaks cartoon is not so far fetched now mindful of events in the Netherlands and Sri Lanka The man was a visionary

      10

  • #

    I had just been pondering the ABC as television to slit your wrists to.

    80

    • #
      John Hultquist

      You can learn most of the interesting news here at Jo Nova dot com.

      I do not own a TV. I sometimes watch a short clip using the internet.
      Each of the media producers puts up a couple dozen of these sorts of things:
      – Pope sorry for ‘evil’ abuse at Canadian schools
      or
      – Google fires employee after he claimed company’s AI system is sentient

      Some call these “click bait” when they are not actually news worth. In these two cased, I filed a mental note, and I moved on.

      Then there are these sorts:
      – Historians Still Cannot Explain This Photo

      That’s not even worth a mental flicker.

      So, send the TV to a recycle center, save time, don’t slit your wrists.

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      • #
        Macha

        We do have a TV John, but never watch news feeds. Dies that count?
        Anyway, we find news online and then choosing which bait to click. Seems to work for us in WA.
        Our neighbour watches all three main channels of news daily.

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  • #
    Jojodogfacedboy

    I am sorry Jo. You are very much correct.
    Our current Western Nations society has been Americanized and into Femininism which is failing horribly with Egotistists as country leaders.
    Our politicians have taken protectionism to a whole new level where even a cut can get you on paid leave…none of this suck it up and get a bandage and continue working.

    00

  • #
    John

    About the “.. Indigenous woman who identifies as a comedian.”

    Lucille Ball and other women like her were known as comediennes, just like the Oscars still have “best actor” and “best actress” awards. The word “comedian” only applied to males.

    Just sayin’.

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    • #
      Steve of Cornubia

      That’s offensively sexist or something. Probably. Pass the smelling salts.

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    • #
      Ross

      Ricky Gervais does a very good take on female comedians as well. He’s about the only person in the upper echelon of celebrities who is allowed to take the p*ss on any woke subjects. His latest on gender names is a classic. We need more Ricky G’s, Dave Chappelle and J.P Sears types. Years ago the ABC would have also had comedians mocking all the current wokeism, but no more. All they produce these days are boring, humourless cynics who wouldn’t know a real joke if they fell over it.

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  • #
    Honk R Smith

    Woke puritanism escaped the University petri dishes with the arrival of Trump.
    Puritans were about cleansing the Devil.
    They longer believe in the old one, causing problems.
    They saw the opportunity to create a new one.
    For their New Model Army.

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  • #
    Neville

    Thanks again Jo and Nick Cater is a regular on Sky News and I agree with most of his research and his conclusions.
    There’s no doubt that their Climate Change has become another fundamentalist religion for ignorant left wing donkeys and extremists.
    I’ll have to have a look at Noah Rothman’s writings and see whether he’s exploring some new ground or just regurgitating some of the best and clever ideas over the past half century.
    The left have been wrong about so much for a very long time and yet we’ve hardly raised a giggle yet.
    We need somebody or group to map out a strategy to begin to wear down these loonies, but it will be a long time before we make a dent.
    Never forget that these parasites today are also the govts of so many countries and are supported by big companies, big Union Super funds etc as well.
    Where would you start? I mean even our chief Health officer couldn’t provide a quick definition of “a Woman”. And his tortured , eventual attempt wasn’t really laughable.
    Anyway I’m very old fashioned and wasting endless billions $ on idiocy for decades doesn’t make me want to laugh out loud.
    BUT I’m sure Putin and the Chinese dictator(s) are very happy with the present state of Western lunacy and will continue to reap their rewards.

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    It’s all BS

    The great irony of the Puritans was they persecuted more widely and deeply than any other organised group in Western Europe. Until society at large revolted and started persecuting them.

    According to historian A.L. Rowse, Scotland was affronted by the execution of their king, Charles I, by the English under Cromwell. They pronounced his son king as Charles II, who accepted terms and was preached at about the whoredoms of his catholic mother. He emerged a cynic, a great gentleman himself, who later said that puritism “no religion for a gentleman”.

    The Puritans signed their own death warrant with the English people when Charles I was executed in 1649. It took another 11 years for the crown to be restored.

    Despite what Simon says above #7, the Puritans weren’t just anti catholic. They were anti everything that wasn’t themselves. They banned, amongst other things, the Church of England Common Prayer Book, a most uncatholic institution.

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    • #
      Philip

      I heard they were total kill joys, banning all sorts of things, perhaps even theater or something along those lines I cant recall. But the gist was, the public got so sick of them they were begging for the return of the crown.

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    Old Goat

    Wokeism is a target rich environment for comedians but few can get away with it . I am surprised that so many people don’t have terminal cognitive dissonance . The trouble with political jokes is that they get elected ….

    30

  • #

    Wokism is just another secular religious belief, a fundamentalist version of secular humanism that’s been captured by climate change alarmism and an extreme version of Critical Race Theory. Twenty two years ago Critical Race Theory emerged in academic circles as a harmless well intentioned theory about racial sensitivities from the perspective of minorities in ‘white’ America. That’s been inverted into the white heteronormative guilt industry by postmodern emphasis on feelings over reason, especially since the tragic death of George Floyd. If we are to continue to thrive as a multicultural pluralist society we must tolerate the right of individuals to express their beliefs, even the King Canute disciples of rising sea levels, but none of us has a right to force our beliefs on others.

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  • #
    TdeF

    I have wondered how the wokerati are going to change languages other than English?

    In most Indo European langauges everything has gender. Seriously. A table in French must be either male or female. (It’s female, legs. Chair too. But not desk which often has no legs). In Russian which is closer to Latin they have retained male, female and neuter. Which is handy. And most professions in French are male.

    So you have this extremely silly movement in English to fight male domination where the woke want one unisex title for all professions, like actor for actress.

    And in France you have the exact reverse where the woke demand to fight male domination with a female version of the nominally male or arguably unisex profession, like madame docteur or madame pompier (female firefighter or pumper). So ‘the doctor’ in French is ‘le medecin’. A female doctor is ‘la femme medecin’. Good luck with changing an entire extremely sexist language!

    So in a country where everything is either la or le, un or une, you have to remember the gender of everything and they are demanding female versions of single and therefore male words. And in the United States they are fighting against female words, gender in language.

    It’s all about the fighting against oppression, not the logic. Nothing woke actually makes sense.

    Frankly, I could not care if someone wants to identify as a chipmunk, as long as it is not made compulsory.

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    • #
      TdeF

      And check out those human teeth, cutting teeth at the front, canines next for tearing meat and molars at the back for grinding. Humans are omnivores. And now we have to eat crickets? Jimminies! The wokerati are like Egyptians, living by de Nile.

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      • #
        Steve of Cornubia

        “Humans are omnivores. And now we have to eat crickets?”

        Only till it emerges that crickets fart, too. That’s another activity that is verboten by the Holy Church of Climate Apocalypse.

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        • #
          Graeme No.3

          Steve:
          I like that Holy Church of Climate Apocalypse. I will use it when I write to the local Newspaper again.
          Or should I try Holy Church of non-deniable Climate Apocalypse? Or the One and True Church of Climate Apocalypse.

          Or should I avoid the use of Church? After all various churchmen have a poor record of prediction e.g. 1200-1260 AD Joachim of Fiore This Italian mystic wrote that the Millennium would begin between 1200 and 1260.
          After that failed, his followers rescheduled the end of the world to 1290 and then again to 1335.
          They are still waiting.

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    • #
      Old Cocky

      Masculine, feminine and neuter genders in languages is an interesting topic.

      I recently heard a plausible argument that labelling them “masculine” and “feminine” may just be one of those accidents of history because the “a” ending of one category of words coincided with the “a” ending of female names.

      Apparently one of the long dead Indo-European languages categorised on “animate” and “inanimate” lines.

      Another interesting point was that “gendered” languages are far less restrictive regarding word order than English.

      30

      • #
        TdeF

        The only way you can play with word order is to have declensions. “changing of the form of a word, generally to express its syntactic function in the sentence” Bellum, bellum, bellum, belli, bello, bello and plural bella, bella, bella, bellorum, bellis, bellis for one word in latin, bellum or war. The same in Russian. And they have the ‘a’ ending for female. And the ‘i’ ending for male plural.
        It’s so easy in English where using largely one word order eliminates declensions and you use ‘s’ for plurals. However it is changing as we now see signs for ‘Hot Foods’. Sheeps is next. But that’s the business of ‘collective nouns’ I collect them. The collective noun for lawyers is a Greed. For electricians, a spark.

        40

        • #
          TdeF

          While Latin has Nominative, Vocative, Accusative, Genitive, Dative, Ablative the Russian declensions are Nominative, Accusative, Genitive, Ablative and prepositional. Of course different for singular and plural. And they have three genders, not two.

          The english for desk is just desk. The desk. A desk. My desk. His desk. Her desk. And the plural is desks. Boring but easy.

          The real problem with English is that there are too many words, often three for the same thing. Regal, Royal, Sovereign representing the three foundation languages.

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          • #
            TdeF

            And my point is that we are experiencing Woke attacks even on our language. But they are nothing compare to the poor New Zealanders who have to have everything in two languages, English and Maori. Even though all but a few words are made up in fake Maori and there are no Maoris left. They are all New Zealanders now, but not if the left have their way. There is nothing at an airport for which the Maoris had a word. It was a society without metal for one. We Australians will have to endure an even more stone age dialect made up by woke university types. Racism is being invented, like Climate Change previously known as man made Global Warming. It has had more name changes than Prince.

            Gaelic was a sophisticated modern language which predated English and Roman. But no one knows the origin of the word Kangaroo. It was not an aboriginal word in any of the 300 dialects. And you have to think many of the words are just made up jokes like Kakadoo and Moomba. Kakadoo. You’re standing in it.

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            • #
              Old Cocky

              There are a number of distinct language families as well as the languages within the main family and their dialects.

              The wikipedia entries are rather dubious, but give some idea of the language families and their distribution.

              Having bilingual signs with English and the main Aboriginal language of the area all written using the Roman alphabet seems rather incongruous, especially since the sounds represented by the current Australian pronunciation of those letters are at best a poor approximation.

              10

          • #
            Old Cocky

            The extent of my Latin is “Romanes eunt domus”

            30

    • #
      Rupert Ashford

      “…as long as it is not made compulsory…” I used to be very tolerant about all of this until I learnt that was exactly what this mob is not about. They want to force their way onto everybody and everything.

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    • #
      Tides of Mudgee

      But TdeF one of the great mysteries of the French language is that “the vagina” is male at “le vagin”. Go figure. ToM

      30

  • #
    exsteelworker

    Nothing is going to change until everyone is sitting in the dark freezing and starving to death, only in the stupid western nations of course.
    But I have an idea of how to stop this madness in it’s tracks. We should start a protest, just like the woke do daily, and demand that if the woke want their “Utopia ” all the multi millionaires in the West must hand over 90% of all their wealth to pay for it all, starting with Soros, all politicians and working down to Hollywood. After all, you multi millionaires don’t expect the down trodden poor to pay for it, put your money where your mouth is hypocrites.

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    • #
      Kalm Keith

      🙂
      Maybe Billy Gates could have a test run on his enormous farm portfolio and allocate half of each farm area to providing a sustainable lifestyle for the down and outers.

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  • #
    Peter Fitzroy

    so “The New Puritans can judge a person’s moral character by their clothes, Netflix queue, fast food favorites, the sports they watch, and the company they keep”

    and you don’t?

    everyone judges everyone else.

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    • #

      See that’s the great thing about you Peter, it’s like you have no idea that anyone might not be like you. You project all your own flaws onto us. You give so much away…

      Obviously you judge people by superficial attributes which tell you “which tribe” they are in. Other people look to see if someone is the kind of person who listens, who acts like a gentleman, who asks good questions, and who stands tall and has a sense of humour. It’s about poise, eye contact and whether they show respect rather than just talk about it.

      At left-leaning events everyone is dressed fashionably, even if grunge is the fashion. At conservative events, not many are interested in that game, even if they can afford it. But most people turn up on time.

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    • #
      Stuart Hamish

      Selective quotation to the exclusion of the crux of Caters essay, moral relativism and the tu quoque fallacy [ “and you don’t ?] Typically not an intelligent argument Peter Fitzroy …. Joanne and the opponents of Woke Puritanism – quite apart from judgements – are not obsessed with censoring and harassing those who disagree with them …..And you wonder why you are laughed at ?

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  • #
    Dennis

    On Sky News after the exposure of hospital forms replacing mother with birthing parent, and to his credit Minister Shorten recently acted quickly to have that overturned, was the exposure of private sector activist groups who have managed to infiltrate and influence public service employees to participate in social engineering, example being the birthing parent form reference that apparently had no government of the day approval, minister or senior department management.

    Previously influencing of public company boards of directors and senior executives have been exposed, notably “shareholders” who use their shares to make demands, years ago sections of the media pointed out industry superannuation funds involved in influencing based on shareholding.

    Another example given recently on Sky is school teachers using climate hoax promotional material including professionally produced videos to influence students in schools and wasting many hours doing so and without official permission, no Department of Education approval.

    This is a deeply rooted and widespread campaign by leftists to impose their propaganda and social engineering under the radar. And once done and not challenged they have succeeded in getting what they want and over time what they have effectively imposed, even though most people do not accept it, remains in place forever more.

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    • #
      Dennis

      Who remembers the small group of activists that called themselves “Mad F-ing Women” who bombarded media organisations with emails demanding presenters be dismissed, Alan Jones of Sky was one example, and also emailing businesses that advertise with the media outlet where the presenter is employed or on contract threatening to stop buying their products if they continue to advertise with the targeted media firm.

      Alan Jones pointed out that MFW were sending thousands of emails created to appear to be from different people when the senders were not many activists.

      We must speak out when we see the results of the manipulators activities.

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  • #

    The puritans would label this article fear porn. They don’t like porn.

    [How do you know what puritans would label? Projection? – LVA]

    04

    • #

      Au contraire. The new puritans sack professors who tweet “all lives matter” but would they sack one who ran stark naked through a Gay Pride Parade in front of children?

      Didn’t Biden install a bondage advocate into high public office last year?

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      • #

        Geez,is Joe Biden woke now? Or is he not because of bondage and new puritans like public nudity and gay people? Seems very confusing. Almost like you are making things up. Maybe post a full list so that the ovines know which way to walk.

        03

        • #

          There are other sites (not mine) where people post the latest US images of Gay Pride parades with nude cyclists, and trans dancers with flagrant, ahem, sexualized costumes (or no costumes) with children present. You obviously havent seen them. But you accuse me of making stuff up without the slightest research. See twitter

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        • #
          Stuart Hamish

          “Seems very confusing “…….” And new puritans like public nudity and gay people ” ? .”public nudity ‘ is a performance or an expression ..not an identitarian noun in the manner of ” puritan Who is making things up confused and deluding himself ?…….

          10

      • #
        Stuart Hamish

        An S&M bondage and (yes thats right) bestiality advocate in charge of the United States nuclear waste containment Joanne ..Appointed by a demented old man who delights in groping and sniffing children ..

        [That’s the story I was thinking of. Thanks — Jo]
        Then again Greens candidate and ‘ethics’ professor Peter Singer passionately championed the decriminalization of sex with animals (His essay ‘Heavy Petting “) and defended the sexual assault of a severely disabled man. Some Woke Reformation puritans do appreciate hardcore pornography including the more qrotesque varieties …That is not the worst of the Huxleyan pleasuredome nightmare they want to normalize and impose on others. Which is an ugly hallmark of puritanism …

        There are three forms of puritanism that Nick Cater did not elaborate on: traditional religious puritanism; the ‘Brave New World ” Huxleyan variety and the austere Orwellian secular totalism ..The humorless, vicious Woke Reformation intersectionalist gender obsessed , race chauvinist militants and aggressive LGBT lobbyists tend to be a mix of the Huxleyan and the Orwellian (For those interested read Neil Postmans ‘Amusing Ourselves to Death”) I do know this Joanne: the Mardi Gras and Pride march revellers who gear up in mock nun’s and priestly attire (in breach of state religious vilification laws) and radical gays like Garry Burns who lodge multiple vexatious complaints to civic and administrative tribunals, would never dare glam up in an Imam’s dress or don a burka … And we know why: like all puritans they are cowardly hypocrites fearful of arrest ostracism and reprisal

        [SNIP. Thanks but Sorry. More than we need, and please, let’s just stop there. — Jo]

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        • #
          Stuart Hamish

          Is any of what I wrote untrue Joanne ?….. All I did was complement your critique and I was never aware there are content constraints on those who contribute to your comments threads

          00

  • #
    DD

    Laura Ingraham interviews Ron DeSantis, who has the courage to govern responsibly:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MkOw1URMJE

    10

  • #
    another ian

    More fuel for that

    “Dancing to Bandt’s tune! Gillard/Brown redux as Albanese bends to Bandt’s climate dreams”

    https://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2022/07/dancing-to-bandts-tune-gillardbrown-redux-as-albanese-bends-to-bandts-climate-dreams.html

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    • #
      another ian

      And support from that well known “Moonbat” –

      “Farming – an indulgence we can’t afford”

      http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2022/07/25/moonbat/#comments

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    • #
      TdeF

      Bandt has absolutely no interest in Climate Change except as a means to an end. He became a Green because of his passionate desire for political power, nothing more. As a devout communist lawyer that’s how it works. And now he gets to negotiate to force Australians to do what is not the slightest bit in their interest to do. Climate Change is rubbish, crap, anti science. But the power to force Australians to take a knee to communism and Adam Bandt is real. He could not be happier except as Prime Minister.

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    • #
      Dennis

      Remember 2010 when Gillard Labor lost the election but managed to cling to office after forming a minority alliance government, they gained another three years term but lost in a landslide defeat in 2013?

      Part of the payoffs was 10% carbon tax that PM Gillard had promised not to introduce and 10% renewable energy surcharge both added to our electricity bills (with 10% GST add to the bill total amount). The Greens got what they wanted.

      11

    • #
      John in Oz

      Albo cannot change the target for CO2 reduction to cater to the Greens and still claim to have a mandate for change based on his pre-election statements.

      If he wishes to crow about a mandate, stick to the values he presented to us.

      Any change to the 43% by 2030 negates his claimed mandate.

      Of course, all politicians lie and claim they cannot do what they said they would now that they have achieved power and seen the real state of the economy

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  • #
    Philip

    Puritanism falls over eventually because biological instincts are extremely strong. You can make as many ideologies as you like, but in the end they’re only theory, and reality wins. The trouble is the damage it does during the enactment of the ideology.

    My life is like that. I pursued leftist green ideology my entire youth (kind of, I was never a far leftist apart from proclaiming I was a communist for 2 minutes like Thomas Sowell did) which had devastating effects on my life. But reality kicked in eventually, as it always would, but it was too late by then, damage done.

    But the end of the ideology evolves through thinking and/or practicality. For me and environmentalism I saw the theory of destruction and failure wasn’t coming true, so the theory must be wrong.

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  • #
    Stan

    Very interesting and pretty much spot on except for this:
    “Not surprisingly, the requirement comedians be both earnest and funny is threatening to kill off the business altogether.”
    It is no longer a requirement (of the woke Left) for comedians to be funny.

    50

  • #
    kraka

    I have been spouting for years on every blog that matters-ridicule is the only way to defeat these imbeciles. I get it that some of you think that respectful debate with an array of facts is what is required to win but, with due respect, it isn’t. These dimwits cannot be reasoned with, they cant be debated with and facts dont matter. If that were true, the Global Warming scam would have been over before it began simply by noting that the world was getting cooler between 1940-1970 while emissions rose as the world re-industrialized post WW2.

    Laugh at them-point at them, ridicule them-the same can be said for the CV19 numpties.

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  • #
    Ross

    This bug/insect eating thing is sure getting a lot of traction lately. Most people would be mildly shocked to hear our major government institution (CSIRO) are actually wasting taxpayers money on this. But, then we are in a post truth phase. For starters I wouldn’t believe anything the
    CSIRO claimed on any subject these days as they have mostly become a science activist organisation funded in the majority by us taxpayers. Hence, like methane and cow f@rts ( burps is actually more accurate) we need to actually make jokes about this. Take the p*ss out of these subjects big time. But back on the bug eating thing. It doesn’t really matter if it’s a cow or an insect, they are basically just protein formation devices for edible consumption. I’m going to wager that cows are much more efficient protein production devices compared to insects. Also, insects still need a food source to produce that protein. If you have lots of insects then will need a huge amount of a feed source for that production. Anyone been in a locust plague? I have and they’re not nice. Locusts eat a lot and they can very quickly denude an area of any green plant material. Plus all those locusts not only shed as they go through their metamorphic stages they also die. When all that happens they decompose, probably making all sorts of nasty methane and sulphurous compounds.

    20

  • #
    Philip

    The woke agenda is running into another conundrum of its own making with the Rugby League. It’s Israel Falou 2.0. The Manly club is full of Islanders (as most clubs are) who are Christians and they’re being made to wear jerseys promoting homosexuality this week, but the Islanders are objecting. The irony is the Rugby League admin could not be more woke and as part of that promote non white cultures like there is no tomorrow. Problem is their favored peoples, the ones with culture, aren’t into all the other woke stuff at all. They are the last remaining hold outs of social conservatism in the country. Not quite what the woke planners were thinking of.

    Telling was the women’s rugby league grand final a few years back. One victor, a white female probably of convict stock got to the microphone and gave an angered speech on how sexist everything is and this is a victory for feminism. An Islander girl got the mic and thanked Jesus Christ for the victory and the world.

    50

    • #
      Ross

      Yep, the jersey with its rainbow colours was supposed to support inclusiveness ( or is it inclusivity?). Those 5 players are saying “Well it wasn’t very inclusive was it, because you didn’t ask me about it first?”

      20

  • #
    David Maddison

    There is at least one politician in the EU, Christine Anderson, that has a clue:

    “I AM NOT GOING TO EAT BUGS”

    https://youtu.be/OgEpiUBqoCc

    20

  • #
    SimonB

    Thank’s for the article, Jo, this book has been put my reading list. I whole heartedly agree that ridicule breaks the will of the useful idiot, especially if you include them in the joke, not aim it at them.
    The rusted on zealot needs a nodding crowd to maintain groupthink. Pointing out the absurdity to the peripheral useful idiot has them rethinking their choice, because just as they want to be part of group, they don’t want to be spokeswonk for an ideal they don’t actually understand.
    Ricky Gervais has all the anatomical attributes for the fightback; a quick mind, glib tongue and balls to use both. More of his ilk are emerging and need to be shared to let the average villager know they aren’t heading for the dunk tank for being a critical thinker!
    By the way, forgot to mention at the start; my pronouns are you, yourself and I support cricket as a sport not a food staple!

    40

  • #
    Vicki

    After initially welcoming the advent of the Covid vaccines, my husband and I decided, early in 2021, to refuse vaccination after adverse reactions appeared & research convinced us that the vaccines were in sufficiently tested & possibly dangerous.

    As we all know, few questioned the narrative or bothered to research the medical background. In fact, as many of the unvaccinated discovered, their choice was not just ridiculed by the majority of the vaccinated, but vilified. Friends were lost & families divided.

    I guess by instinct I knew that attempts to change minds was not only futile but inviting disaster. This is opposed to my normal habit of discussion & debate – so I guess it was instinctive. As a result, we were not, except for one occasion, challenged or abused. When this one occasion occurred I just laughed uproariously & reminded the accuser that I was not one to take a position without reason. It sort pf took the wind out of that person’s sails & nothing more was said.

    I might add, however, we had the good fortune to become reclusive at our farm throughout the Covid early year and we studiously avoided the vaccinated as much as possible.

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    Vicki

    BTW the bug eating campaign more clearly than anything else indicates that western society is self destructing.

    It is soul destroying to watch.

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      Philip

      I think all the bug eating thing is a novelty, the latest fad that will go the same way as all other fads. It’s an idea that comes out of environmental studies 101 leaflet and it appeals to simplistic thinking.

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    nb

    ‘It doesn’t have to be funny’
    Nope. ABC and its offshoots think of comedy as a system whereby you repeat a sentence several times, ever louder, until the groomed audience gets it that that sentence is the laugh-bit. They laugh, of course.

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    Jeremy Poynton

    Worth noting that the Puritans, when they got to America, promptly divided up into sects with various different beliefs, and turned on each other.

    Fingers crossed…

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    CHRIS

    Comedy is all about timing. Miss the timing…not funny.

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    Yonason

    Puritans – some say they were at least better than some, and no worse than most.
    https://www.grunge.com/674012/things-you-get-wrong-about-the-puritans/

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    casey

    It’s not going to end if we laugh at them… they will just legislate against that laughter (or social media brainwash against it, e.g. cancel comedians)

    Legislation? Yes… in the UK it is a 1000 pound fine for misgendering a trans (or other gendered person, not specifically trans).
    You have to, by LAW, use “ziz” and “zey” (and what about that ludicrous, moronic, “frog gendered” person on youtube? Not seen that? “Frog went to the shops and frog bought frogself a scarf”)

    And A UK resident would get a fine for not using those pronouns!

    And “laugh at them”… sure, right, look at the shit that so many comedians have got into.

    This is not the end times of “woke”, they have barely started! This WILL get a lot worse for the next few (5? 10?) years.

    People who should be seeking mental therapy, help, are walking around ‘normalized’.

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