In which the pond discovers Baxendale is quiet on oppression, and prattling Polonius feels oppressed ...

Others have observed the recent war going down amongst the more vicious and repetitive and simple-minded reptiles, as in Meade here ...

...Lisa Oldfield, one of the cast members of the Foxtel reality show The Real Housewives of Sydney, has to be a frontrunner. Australia needs more feisty outspoken people like Yassmin Abdel-Magied David Stephens Read more Appearing as a panellist on Sky News’ Paul Murray Live this week, Oldfield said the young woman was not ignorant but was a “bitch”. “At the end of the day, I don’t like what she said, I was offended by what she said, but I still support her right to freedom of speech, and my right to be able to turn around and say ‘Lest We Forget Yassmin, that you are brown, you are Muslim and you are a girl and it’s the only reason you have a job at the ABC’.”

And then there was Ackland scribbling about the Yassmin Abdel-Magied bash-a-thon ...

Baxendale is just the latest cab off the rank in this particular reptile bash-a-thon, a conga line of abuse, but with the abuse of a particularly pathetic kind, since it's framed in the usual "when did you stop beating your wife" way ...

Here's how it's done.

The pond heads off to Baxendale's recent pieces for the lizard of Oz ...

The pond is astonished. There's not a single piece about the oppression of women in North Africa, the Middle East, Australia, the hapless complimentary women of the angry Sydney Anglican church, or Catholic women wanting to control their reproductive rights ...

There's a couple of pieces about the 26 year old, but absolutely nothing about oppression ...

The pond does a spot check by heading off to the wittering, twittering Baxendale, here,  and after a cursory inspection, as shallow as a couple of the latest few tweets, concludes that Baxendale hasn't recently tweeted on the oppression of women.

Sadly, and with a great deal of sorrow, the pond concludes that Baxendale is "quiet on oppression" ...

She also drinks way too much kool aid ...

Is it fair? Is it just? Is it right? Who knows, and who cares. That's the whole point of a persecution, of a reptile style witch-hunt. Just do it ...

How does she live with herself? The pond has no idea, but then the pond has no idea how any of the reptiles justify their lives ...

Of course Baxendale's behaviour is made even more piquant when eyes scroll down to look at prattling Polonius's contribution for the day ...and what do you know, he's moaning about a witch hunt against churches, though with a marvellous irony, Polonius himself will do a witch hunt against the Uniting churches ...

Presumably this can be justified because they're in dire theological error and are off to hell quik stix ...

Perforce the pond must ask why an enraged Baxendale didn't scribble a rebuttal to Polonius's piece, and demand it be published forthwith ...

Sadly, and with a great deal of sorrow, the pond must conclude that Baxendale is quiet on the oppression of children in the Catholic church ...

As for prattling Polonius himself, it's a reminder of what great lengths truculent tykes will go to, in the business of distraction and the art of deflection, refusing to accept responsibility, while doing level best to blame others for all the woes that have befallen the Catholic church  ...

Before beginning the usual tedious journey, the pond should pause to mention the "he (or she, or they) did it too" syndrome ...

It's possibly worth expanding a little on the idea, as found here:

The tu quoque fallacy is committed when it is assumed that because someone else has done a thing there is nothing wrong with doing it. This fallacy is classically committed by children who, when told off, respond with “So and so did it too”, with the implied conclusion that there is nothing wrong with doing whatever it is that they have done. This is a fallacy because it could be that both children are in the wrong, and because, as we were all taught, two wrongs don’t make a right. 
Example 
(1) The Romans kept slaves. 
Therefore: 
(2) We can keep slaves too. 
This argument commits the tu quoque fallacy because it assumes that if someone else does a thing then it’s okay for us to do it too. It does not follow, however, from the simple fact that the Romans kept slaves, that there is nothing wrong with keeping slaves. It is plausible to think that the Romans acted immorally in keeping slaves, and that we would act immorally if we followed their example. The conclusion of the argument therefore does not follow from its premise.

Now to an extended bout of Polonius shouting, but they did it too ...and it's even worse at home, because they do it too there ...

If it takes on the tone of a surly child talking of others doing it too, please, remember, it's Polonius in his dotage ...

Now in a sensible world, Polonius wouldn't go around saying blacks do it too, and they do it at home, and it's all the fault of the liberal media and so on and so forth ...

Better just to take the lumps and acknowledge not just shocking "allegations" but actual real, certified, proved cases of shocking abuse ...

But that's the classic way of ameliorating and sustaining the lie ... as if "allegations" were all that were to be found ...

Then comes a classic tyke gambit, with the talk of an obsession with Catholicism, as if there's no reason to be deeply interested, in a legal sense, in all that's gone on in this bizarre, and in this matter at least, appalling institution ...

This is as good an example as any of the continuing level of denialism that runs rife through the Catholic church - the resentment, the unwillingness to accept what happened, the desire to blame others, even the kitchen sink, for things that occurred within the church ...

The funny thing is that when the pond was attending Catholic school acceptance of personal responsibility was all the go. It was considered a necessary pre-condition for change and reform.

Polonius, deep in the "they did it too" syndrome of seeking absolution, isn't much interested in acknowledging the past as a way of beginning to change or reform.

Instead, Polonius sinks the slipper into other churches ...as noted, seeing the Uniting Church as a small, but juicy target, offering a wonderful chance to distract and deflect ...

The pond knows these lyrics well ...

There's a little Polonius waiting at the counter of the corner church

He's been waiting down there

Waiting half the day

To see if the Uniting Church copped a good bollocking

And gets pushed around

Like the hapless long suffering tykes have been pushed around

Knocked to the ground

So he gets to his feet and he sings

What about them

It isn't fair

They did it too

They're worse than us you see

Not that you'd know it watching the ABC

I've had enough now, the Uniting Church should get its share

Can't you see

I wanna be left alone

But the liberal media just takes more than it gives ...

Maybe the pond disremembered the lyrics in their precise original form. No doubt Rachel Baxendale will provide the exact text when she stops being quiet about oppression of children and women ...

For your sins my child, write ten columns about the angry Sydney Anglicans, and oh, say ten Hail Marys, that should do it ...

Meanwhile, Polonius delivers a final prattle, and did anyone guess, did anyone have the faintest clue, that the ABC would be in his sights ...

At the end of all this, the pond wasn't left with a desire to argue, so much as a desire to ponder a metaphysical question.

Does prattling Polonius think this is the road to heaven? Heck, does Cardinal Pell imagine he's on the road to heaven?

Does anyone imagine that the "he did it too" defence is a goer, and like Icarus will soar into the sky?

Does all this talk of fallible memory and Paul Bongiorno absolve the church of the many actual crimes, as opposed to allegations, that have been recorded by the very necessary and useful Royal Commission?

There's also the 'billy goat but' fallacy ... embodied in those last lines ...

Needless to say, genuine cases of historical child sexual assault should be followed up. But ...

No, there's no need for a "butt", Billy Goat, and there's certainly no need to resort to the deeply weird and increasingly strange Arndt ...

Just take your licks and drop the "butt" or even just the "but" ... 

Instead try to get better at life in the future. Heck it wouldn't hurt if the church tried to get a little better by attending to the words of Christ. The pond is aware that the church likes to select passages from the bible, but really, that line about "suffer little children" isn't a prescription insisting that children must suffer ...

If only there was an actual hell, it would be safe to say that the 'they did it too' and 'billy goat but' syndromes provide a fast track to said hell ... you think your Jesus would tolerate this sort of obfuscating crap? Look into your hearts ... heck, the pond knows that Rachel Baxendale has looked into hers and will no longer be quiet on oppression. Stand by for that Baxendale rocket, prattling Polonius ...

And so to something completely different, for an after-dinner mint refreshment, thanks to a different sort of Pope, with much papal enlightenment available here ...

Hmm, the pond has also been there before ...