Chris Kenny, and shameless intolerance for the shamelessly intolerant refusing to tolerate the shamelessly intolerant ... or whatever ...

How to defend the indefensible?

There's an art to it, which we might call a debased form of apologetics, practised by latter day debased kinds of apologists.

Debased, because in apologetics, the notion is to use reason systematically in the defence of a position. These days an apologist will often settle for whatever's to hand, kitchen sink, baseball bat, or counter-offensive surge, often ladling out a mix of emotionalism and hot air like a thick bean-filled soup ...

Chris Kenny shows how it's done in Allegations of racism fuels quiet resentments, as he goes about defending the indefensible aspects of recent outbursts by Cori Bernardi and Scott Morrison.

First it's important to downplay your own team's efforts. Sure there might have been a stray elbow to the noggin, an eye gouge, a knee to the balls, but strictly within the rules of the game:

To be sure, Morrison made some uncharitable remarks at an appalling time. He suffered appropriate opprobrium and apologised.

Uncharitable. Oh that's a canny word. Appropriate opprobrium? Top notch ...

Bernardi turned his strident comments against extreme interpretations of Islam. Most people would agree his remarks went too far, denigrating a whole religion for its most extreme elements. He certainly did not sufficiently qualify his words.

Again he was duly criticised and apologised.

Strident, didn't qualify, duly criticised, apologised, done and dusted. Sublime ...

Why sweet butter wouldn't melt in the dear lads mouths, so apologetic they are.

And just as Wilkie dredged up a hate letter, Bernardi is guilty of republishing on his website hate mail that has come his way. This does not help sensible debate; rather, it inflames hostilities.

Yet, you would hope, these are transgressions to be discussed calmly and maturely.

Calmly and maturely! Mere minor transgressions! A wave of the wand and all is forgotten and forgiven.

Now what's needed here is a distraction, a rough equivalence and a conflation. Having done and dusted the errant pollies - naughty boys, stay after school for five minutes - it's time to find some peddlers of vile hate who have got away with outrageous statements.

It doesn't matter whether these are actual equivalent politicians going about the business of rallying the community, downplaying hostilities, and showing leadership. Any old body will do, provided they show liberal bias and prejudice towards the innocent and the offended:

If Wilkie and progressive commentators wanted to turn their attention to those who denigrate other religions, from Catholicism and the Brethren to Judaism and Hinduism, we could take them more seriously.

The Brethren? Yes, even a cult has sensitive feelings, and these shouldn't be discounted, because after all 370k spent on the right sort of campaign (Sect gave Howard a few tips) is a handy spiritual gesture, and any denigration of a cult should be taken very seriously indeed - but sssh, in this context, don't mention scientology, because that might be a cult too far ...

Better to settle for a more orthodox, and long standing cult, with a most peculiar cannibalistic streak, by dragging in the right's favourite whipping person, long suspected of coffee drinking crimes against humanity, and comedy, and worst of all Catholicism:

Examples aren't hard to find. ABC favourite Catherine Deveny wrote this about her return to church: "Entering the cathedral of misogyny, deception, manipulation, chauvinism, hypocrisy and bigotry, all wrapped up in 'if you don't swallow this hook, line and sinker you're going to hell', felt like coming home.

"Time for communion, when bread and wine is turned into the actual flesh and blood of Christ by the priest. Because he's special. They call it transubstantiation; I call it bullshit."

Yes, that's a good equivalence. A columnist with comedic tendencies having a go at a lost faith is exactly the same as a politician having a go at all Muslims.

Now compare and contrast:

Their insistence of consuming Halal food means that in many countries (including Australia) most of us are unknowingly eating food slaughtered in the name of Allah. I, for one, don't want to eat meat butchered in the name of an ideology that is mired in sixth century brutality and is an anathema to my own values. (yes, you can still read The Failure of Multiculturalism, up there and proud, on Cory Bernardi's site, and with it a load of commentary that ranges from the peculiar to the demented).

How would you feel being a Muslim constituent of Senator Bernardi, asking for a little help, knowing he thought you were mired in sixth century brutality, and never mind that Muhammad and the religion that followed him only really got going in the seventh century, so Mr. Bernardi really should think of you as being mired in seventh century brutality, and perhaps worthy of a medieval crusade. I'm thinking twelfth or thirteenth century as the best era, the finest hour ...

Never mind, let's maintain the conflationary rage. And remember, it's all the fault of the ABC:

Or another ABC regular, David Marr, interviewed about Christian churches: "All of the demonisation of homosexuality from these churches is essentially aimed at keeping erect the authority of marriage and sexual guidance for heterosexuals. And it is wicked. Wicked."

These comments are highly provocative, but most of us likely would agree that in our pluralist society they are tolerable as part of robust debate. If so, then the issues of democratic freedoms and the rights of women and homosexuals within other religious cultures are also worthy of discussion.

Yes indeed, and we only have to turn to Cory Bernardi to see how other religions and cultures treat gay rights:

Spain, at one time a conservative country, has opened up the flood gates on social disruption. In 2005 gay marriage was legalised. Spanish birth certificates now have ‘Progenitor A’ and ‘Progenitor B’ instead of ‘mother’ and ‘father’. And now apes are given rights above some humans.

The slippery slope is just getting steeper and our priorities are teetering on the edge. (here)

Oops, sorry, just made a very poor lapse in apologist judgement. It's most important not to draw attention to the unnerving way that conservative Christians and conservative Muslims can sound exactly the same when it comes to discussing the rights of women and gays ... and the ongoing need to stone secularists and atheists and liberals ... oh and no doubt abhor the elevation of apes and species vilification as well ... and as for the theory of evolution, please, let's not get started ...

Perhaps we should be able to have a similar level of debate and show a similar tolerance for irreverent discussion of Islam. And maybe it is not too much to ask that we avoid being impolite, abusive or offensive.

Um actually, you know Chris Kenny, irreverent discussion of Islam goes on all over the world, especially amongst bacon lovers, but you see politicians aren't supposed to be the peddlers of vile prejudices. And you know it's terribly hard to avoid being impolite, abusive or offensive when Christians and Islamics consign you to hell as a consequence of your opinions. That's the way it is with cultists ....

But perhaps it would be wise for politicians given the task of representing and leading communities who might find that part of the day job is not to be unduly impolite, abusive or offensive, while columnists and members of loon pond can go about their business, abusing the stupidities of any passing religion, whether it be bullshit cannibalism, cow worship, burying spoons in the backyard, pork banning or offering kool aid as a refreshing drink ...

Which brings us back to another important tactic for your average apologist. Find an errant politician who irritates the shit out of you, and abuse the shit out of him.

Enter Andrew Wilkie.

Now here's how it's done. Accuse said politician of encouraging racism by denouncing racism. Sure it's a pretty tortured logic, but you can get there if you try really hard. Come on, tri, tri, tri anti-wonti, triantiwontigongolope. But please make sure that there are due and proper references to cardigan wearers and the commentariat:

"Australia's history is littered with politicians peddling hate," peddled Wilkie as he detailed his now widely publicised claims of racism and religious intolerance against Liberal MPs Scott Morrison and Cory Bernardi.

"Some politicians are as much to blame as the thugs themselves for episodes such as the Cronulla riots and the hate crimes which continue on our streets."

Within minutes the Tasmanian MP's spray was making news across the nation, dominating the ABC website.

Ah yes, the evil ABC's evil website. How dare they report what a politician said. Can a reference to the commentariat lag far behind?

Who wants to end up on the wrong side of an ugly debate, accused of defending the racists? This is the protection Wilkie and his supporters in the commentariat rely on.

Yep, nailed it. You see somehow, as a result of Bernardi and Morrison trawling through a sea of prejudice, the result has all become the fault of the righteous Wilkie. Let's admire the art at work at length:

To trumpet your tolerance all you need to do is wait until someone, preferably a conservative politician, says something that you can construe as racist or intolerant, then unleash your fury. The greater your venom, apparently, the more pure your virtue.

Surely if you condemn another as racist, people will know that you are not. If you denounce others for intolerance surely the praise will be upon you for the way you value all creeds equally.

Wilkie even found time to read to the chamber, and into Hansard, a 2004 letter given to him by an unquoted source, to an unnamed Asian woman, from someone who, apparently, was a supporter of Pauline Hanson.

The letter was vile and racist. But why, all these years later, was it shared with the parliament?

Indeed. After all Wilkie had plenty of fresh utterances from Morrison and Bernardi. Why drag in old stuff?

But you can see where this is heading. Yes indeed, it is all the wicked Wilkie's fault:

Predictably, Wilkie's accusations of racism did not act as a suppressant but as an accelerant in a white-hot parliament.

Oh the wicked man. He took a few done and dusted, apologised for remarks, and threw petrol on them and produced a blazing bonfire of vanities, and it has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with the pollies who made the original remarks.

This was the shame of Wilkie's rant, the moral vanity that sees divisions highlighted, denunciations cheered, sensible debate stifled and individuals incensed. Few people will condemn words such as these from the independent MP for fear it invites a similar spray.

Exactly. A sensible debate about halal meat has been brutally stifled by the evil Wilkie, and so we will never be able to contrast the sweet serenity of an Australian abattoir - go on, go inside one and watch the bolt power into the brain - with the naughtiness of the dhabiha method of slaughter ....which unnervingly turns out to bear remarkable similarities to the kosher form of slaughter ...

Now how would that Bernardi sentence run again?

Their insistence of consuming kosher food means that in many countries (including Australia) most of us (well the people in Elwood and surrounds at least) are unknowingly eating food slaughtered in the name of Yahovah, aka Adonai, aka HaShem. I, for one, don't want to eat meat butchered in the name of an ideology that is mired in two thousand year old brutality and is an anathema to my own values.

Oops. Why that might get the Jewish lobby going. But please no breaches of Godwin's Law, lest you end up a goose like Mark Dreyfus. Which admittedly is not as big a goose as Nick Minchin, which is not as big a goose as Tony Abbott forced to acknowledge that the luddite Nick Minchin still lurks within the Liberal party ... (here)

But I digress, because we've yet to put the cream on the cake, and the cream of course is to see how Cory Bernardi making inflammatory statements, and Morrison beating the boat people drum is actually all the fault of Ju-liar Gillard:

Even the Prime Minister allowed herself to use this as a political opportunity, first demanding resignations, then, in the heat of a parliamentary exchange, accusing the opposition of "race-baiting". This was not edifying for either side or for the parliament.

Most unedifying Ju-liar. I think we can even do a little stretch, and drag in Pauline Hanson, and blame her on her critics too:

We last saw a major public overreaction to poorly expressed insecurities during the era of Hansonism. The strident condemnation of Pauline Hanson helped turn her from a none-too-bright deselected Liberal candidate into a national political phenomenon.

Now here you just have to pause to admire the art. "Poorly expressed insecurities". Yes and peace is our profession too.

You see, it isn't Pauline Hanson who's at fault, or John Howard for dog whistling her along, but her critics, who helped make her famous. Because it was way too strident, when it should have been muted, or perhaps it shouldn't have been done at all. I mean where's the harm? It's got nothing to do with her uncovering a nasty streak in Australia and turning it into a national political phenomenon. It's all the fault of her critics. And sssh, no mention of the White Australia policy, puh-lease ...

Now we must prepare for double back flip with pike, and tortured analogies to round out the piece:

So with federal politicians talking about racism and Hanson announcing another tilt at politics through the NSW upper house on March 26, there could be no better time to remember what her previous incarnation taught us. It is that the perception of a double standard in the public debate fuels resentment rather than eases it.

Yes, if you can make sense of that, you're a better person than Rudyard Kipling's Gunga Din.

Because the one thing that the media's ongoing fascination with Pauline Hanson has taught us is that she's transcended politics and become a kind of celebrity red head always entitled to a further fifteen minutes of fame, especially when the NSW election is a foregone conclusion, and what else is there to write about. So if we're to take Chris Kenny seriously then the entirety of the media stands guilty as charged of a fresh bout of Hansonism, and by raising Hansonism yet again, Kenny has fuelled a profound resentment on the pond ...

Never mind, that's a side game to the final flourish:

And that when opportunists parade their own virtue by making shameless, intolerant attacks on others, no one wins.

You see now? Andrew Wilkie is a brazen opportunist making a shameless intolerant attack on the perfectly amiable and harmless Scott Morrison and Cory Bernardi ...

Back flip with pike totally complete, and in fine style.

You too can learn how to shoot the messenger for bringing the news, and blaming your opponents for all your own flaws, and transfer your hatreds and hostilities to anyone who dares to point at the mote in your eye.

And it works on a global basis. That's how an IRA terrorist supporter and lover, in the shape of representative Peter King, can arrange for an assault on Islamic terrorists ....

As Jon Stewart said, Oh that's right! He's a Republican. They don't fold, they double down! 'Oh I see your charges of hypocrisy, and I raise you a go-fuck-yourself.

Wouldn't it have been a lot shorter and simpler for Chris Kenny to simply say, I see your charges of racism, and I raise you a go-fuck-yourself?

It'd surely be more honest than carrying on about Wilkie carrying on about Bernardi and Morrison, when deep down the reality is that Bernardi and Morrison gave Wilkie a free kick right in front of the goal posts (and please in NSW no betting is allowed on such a remarkable event).

And if you want to see Jon Stewart do over King in ever so kindly a way, go here.

I wish Stewart was around to do over Chris Kenny, though why he'd bother with a gnat when he has plenty of camels like King to swallow ...

But he might manage to point out that it's shamelessly intolerant to accuse people of shameless intolerance for attacking people who've displayed shameless intolerance ... and so the pond is shamelessly intolerant of Chris Kenny's shameless intolerance ... and if you keep this virtuous circle going, you can end up with a giant mound of meaningless blather, defensive posturing, offensive obfuscation and absurdist apologetics well suited for publication in the opinion pages of The Australian ...

The only difference between a cult and a religion is the amount of real estate they own.

Frank Zappa