In which the pond conjures up a most unholy union between Dame Slap and the Bolter and notes the deeds of their unruly children ...

(Above: and as always more excellent Rowe here).

The pond had a restless night, trying to work out what had gone wrong in the world of the reptiles.

There was no rest when the pond worked out the cause. 

Imagine, if you will, a marital union between the Bolter and Dame Slap.

Now don't recoil in abject fear.

Let's not go too far and make it physical - let's just imagine an intellectual, spiritual, mystical if you will, union, which somehow, like the virgin births of the ancients, managed to spawn the likes of Leynohjelm, Roberts and Folkes.

It's easy enough to see the lineage. Those likely lads, as they grew up, overhead things being discussed at the dinner table between adults, picked up wild notions and ideas, and like most lads over-dosed on raging testosterone, began to ferment and foment plans of action.

This wasn't helped by the way they were surrounded by all the mad aunts and uncles that most families store up in the attic, but which in these liberated times routinely scribbled wild-eyed and agitated columns for the reptiles of Oz and other Murdochian rags ... when not reporting on the mad aunts and uncles, the onion munching fundamentalists, Corys, Georges and Ericas who decided on a career in politics instead of working for the Chairman...

Now the parents might get agitated, and disclaim responsibility, but how could the matriarch chastise the likes of Malcolm Roberts for peddling conspiracy theories in climate science, when she herself at one time had embraced mad uncle Monckton's wild-eyed notions of a UN conspiracy to introduce world government?

And how could the patriarch get upset when Folkes decided to stand up and be counted?

Didn't they expect their words and their meanings to have an impact? Did they think they wrote in an existential void, in a way designed as an exercise in futility?

Is there any reason to doubt that heterosexual marriage is responsible for all that blights western civilisation?

Well there's no time here for Freudian analysis or marriage counselling, or even for guidance for the angry, alienated children who are now out and about in the wild, and no amount of mocking or laughing at them will change them from the ways they were shown by their parents.

They want to own the family farm and continue the traditions, and no amount of satirical outings - of the kind offered by the likes of Neil McMahon freeforming on that Q and A encounter  is going to stop them ...

Let's see how it worked out in the real world when the Bolter came into contact with one of his children ...

First let's set the scene, because this is what the child probably read only recently while snacking at the table on pure, dinkum Australian oats ...

Bizarre, and it went on and on in the Bolter way, so let's cut to the chase ... remember, it's terrible days, apocalyptic, could it be end times and the rapture, we're muzzled like banned greyhounds and  we're all as mad as hell and it's time to speak out ...and then ... and then ...

Yes, it's time to fight, we're as mad as hell, we're insulted and offended, we're not going to take it any more, and we hate Islamics of all stripes and we fear and loath climate scientists up to their necks in a conspiratorial dudding or peverse misreading of the figures and so on and so forth, and we must make a stand, and free speech ... because free speech ...

Say what?

Well the pond couldn't resist leaving in that ad - don't click on watch the trailer because it's a screen cap, and sorry by the time you get to Georgina's very amusing story here it'll probably be gone but never mind, the pond's browser delivered a "privacy" error and wouldn't play it anyway ...

Oh Fairfax, Fairfax, but that glare by the McConaissance seemed to herald where the pond had landed.

In the middle of a domestic dispute, with the patriarch issuing stern directives, and the fractious rebellious son seeming to think he was Jimmy Dean in some Rebel with a Cause movie ...

Now this is a man who was just recently mad as hell and urging everyone to speak out and rage against the dying of the light, at one with a figure much admired by the pond, so admired that he sits in our banner ...

So what was the result?

He cut him off? This is freedom of speech? He told the son to storm off into the stormy night?

Well you can see where the son gets all the anger and the rigidity and the stern intolerance from ... the bigoted vengeful patriarch, imagining he's out on the range playing in a western in the style of a Burl Ives or a Lee J. Cobb ...

The pond wasn't just rolling the Jaffas down the aisle. It was throwing them at the screen and hooting and hollering. This was a man - who'd talked up free speech and being as mad as hell - pulling the plug when Folkes had managed to make it through an episode of The Project on Ten ... setting down restrictive rules on speech and then pulling the plug when the rules were inevitably broken.

Easy enough to see the anger and the rigidity and the fascist tendencies ...

But what of the mother?

Has the matriarch learnt anything from the father's difficulties with the child?

Well no, the mother is still leaning over, crooning into his ear that it's his right to be as barking mad as he likes and whispering how he should be allowed to howl at the moon if only 18c didn't get in his way.

What right have fawning cringing Christians got to talk about turning the cheek and all that other lovey dovey stuff when we all need to get as mad as hell?

And fight, fight for the right. Sure we might not have much to talk about when we get the right - after all, what room to move when son Malcolm keeps on stealing all Dame Slap's thunder about international climate conspiracies? Never mind, here we go, and somehow it seems, we all lose, as if the silencing of the Bolter and Dame Slap would be any loss to climate science, except in their own legendary minds ...

Once again the pond began to develop a sneaking sympathy for Malware.

This is going to be the howl for the life of the parliament, this is going to help expand the madness whirling around a very slim majority, as the foolish poodle, having done dirt on pairs, now wonders why dirt might be done to him ... never having had it explained to him at the kitchen table that what goes around usually comes around ...

This is why the mad uncle onion muncher spoke up, this is the mischief he wanted to make.

And that's why Dame Slap keeps coming on like a screaming banshee ...

Indeed, indeed. But where are the lawyers for the hapless son kicked out into the storm by the rigid patriarch?

But was the mother curious about the father's stifling of the son's right to free speech? For what after all was surely just a harmless prank, monstering silly old Christians and carrying on like members of the KKK?

Probably not. Instead all we get is more moaning about Bill Leak - who when last noted by the pond hadn't stopped cartooning and other self-indulgent whinges about minor matters which can't even be slipped in under a #first world problems hashtag ...

As for the self-satisfied, smart arse, complacent satisfaction at being able to milk a comfortable living from Rupert Murdoch by scribbling columns about UN world government climate science conspiracies, well, the pond will have to leave that subscribers to the lizard Oz newspaper ...

What about your responsibility encouraging such tosser stuff by paying for it?

Which brings us back to the matter of free speech itself. What's the use of free speech if it's the freedom to be as silly as the Bolter and Dame Slap, united in their unholy union of self-righteousness and rigid ideology and sublime lack of empathy for others?

We can see where the right to talk nonsense leads, as it's currently well down that path, and well on the way to both stark untruths and incipient fascism ...

Oh the pond just thought that would be a nice break, because we still have a gobbet of the matriarch to go ... and what's the bet that she'll mention one of the US loons who has helped unleash the madness that currently constitutes US politics?

Now PJ has turned against his child, the GOP ...

No, not the GOP of George W., PJ managed to defend that war, featuring the seemly child who gave up grog for a Jesus crusade, it's the other one that's turned him off, though some have asked Is PJ O'Rourke the Donald Trump of satire? and come up with the logical answer, that he's that blowhard at the party who’s had a bit too much to drink, thinks he’s hilarious and sometimes is but mostly you just want to punch in the face. 

But wait, the pond is getting ahead of itself ...

Well after all this, the pond would love to be seated around the dinner table tonight with the Bolter, Dame Slap and the boys talking about free speech and why did dad turn off the mike, and aren't we so lucky we live in such a wonderful country where chairman Rupert pays us quite handsomely to rabbit on about all sorts of reactionary nonsense, and howl at the moon and blather endlessly about free speech in a Western liberal democracy dedicated to climate science and gay rights and secularism and SSM and ...

Oh wait, can we just scrub some of those items off the Western liberal democracy agenda and get back with the Catholic fundamentalists putting out the Catholic Reptile Boys' Daily?

So where did all this rigidity and anger come from and why are you children out on the streets protesting and storming into churches and organising stunts about white males and denouncing climate science conspiracies?

Questions, questions, but maybe the pond would just be better off with a Pope cartoon and a note that there are more Pope cartoons here ...