In which the reptiles go full Hansonite ...

Well that was predictable.

In much the same way that it was predictable that the reptiles maintaining the rage over superannuation wouldn't have the slightest awareness of irony in the juxtaposition of these two stories at the top of the digital page ...

Fight to maintain privileges ... deny chance to raise revenue ... oops, decade of despair ahead ...

But it's not the painful navel-gazing and self-serving, self-seeking, self-interest of the reptile demographic that fascinated and compelled the pond this day, it's the way the reptiles have gone full Hansonite.

The first hint came with this story, near the top of the digital page ...

Now that splash on the left could, with the help of an apostrophe, have got it right, as in "Right's distortion helped Hanson." 

Perhaps with a sub-header: "Barking mad tendencies of extreme right provided the groundwork for the re-birth of Hansonism. Bolter and Alan Jones held to account."

But alas, that wasn't the meaning at all ...

Now in reality Peter Kurti was the former rector at Sydney's St James King Street, and an associate priest at St Luke's in Mosman, and is a fine example of an anti-gay marriage, Islamophobic, angry Sydney Anglican as might be found doing the rounds ...

He can be found in all the right places, including Quadrant, The Spectator and the lizard Oz ... and he's blathered on before about this sort of thing, as in a piece at Quadrant here ...

The ferocity and intolerance with which the new right to equality is demanded by same-sex marriage advocates threatens real harm to the substantial and foundational right to religious liberty as it has been understood and interpreted in Australia. Shorten’s claim that “at its heart, marriage equality is about removing discrimination from our laws” is simply the use of equality as a weapon with which to beat those whose understanding of marriage differs from his.
Deploying the concept of equality in the debate in this way has served not only to drive further apart the proponents and opponents, diminishing areas of shared agreement and threatening the tenor of debate, but also to threaten the right to religious freedom enjoyed by all Australians.

So why have the reptiles decided to highlight just a routine bit of extremism? Because it's been given the grand, poo-bah status of a "new report"?

Nope, the pond suspects it's because the reptiles have decided to go full Hansonite ...

Now all this is fine as far as it goes - the pond always enjoys Sydney Anglicans talking about how it isn't a country of extremes while still serving up ancient notions of complimentary women courtesy of Adam and Eve - because there was an even surer indicator that the reptiles had decided to go full Hansonite, and it came from the sage, the seer of government grants ...

Of course the easy way would have been to breach Godwin's Law, and suggest a better header - like Herr Hitler's voice welcome in stirring up convention, or George Wallace's voice welcome in stirring up convention, or Racists, homophobes, Islamophobes xenophobes, Asian bashers and ratbags welcome in stirring up convention, but instead the pond settled down to enjoy what the federal government has helped to fund by way of generous grants ...

There, you can't get any better than that from the seer, the sage handsomely paid by the federal government to celebrate Ming the Merciless ... 

It falls to Hanson to buck the trend ... 

Shortly after the very same writer had deplored one-dimensional answers to complex political questions.

Now don't get the pond wrong. It enjoyed the couple of sociology units it did, though the pond does wonder about what might be learned in English sociology degrees. Anxious to gain further insight into this scholarly question, the pond read on ... no doubt it would all be the fault of ersatz intellectuals, the intelligentsia, and anyone with a university degree.

Yes, we're back in the valley of cunning Caterist self-loathing, where a simpering grant-laden, well off city 'leet dweller purports to be at one with the Queensland masses ...

Is there any irony in this, apart from the obvious one of a Menzies Research Centre scribbler talking about a degree of welfare dependency?

Please allow the pond to consider the welfare dependency on parade in 2014, 2015 and 2016 ...

Hmm, no wonder Queenslanders wanted access to that sort of action.

But back to irony, there should always be irony, and the real irony is the way that the Caterists welcome a discordant voice, when in reality all they do is continually bray about the intelligentsia and the sophisticates, while pocketing government money in a most sophisticated way ...

It was the final metaphor that did it. Is there any evidence whatsoever that the Caterists are routinely down at the back paddock fixing the fence, or even the Cyclone gate?

From what the pond's observed, you only get Caterist soft hands by smoothing the wrinkles out of government's silky smooth cash in the welcoming paw ...

Never mind, it's been a long excursion into reptile love of Hanson, and so it's time for a genuine rustic image, thanks to Rowe, and more exemplary Rowe here ...

Giddyup and by golly, that's the sort of ride the Caterists and the reptiles will come to love ...