Thursday, April 19, 2007

There is no racism in Australia.

Just the other day, I found myself thinking that as a society we should be more accepting of assault. No, no, hear me out! I replied to myself, somewhat confused by the increasingly odd and somewhat loud conversation occurring in my head. After much internal bickering, my thoughts won out, and put forward their case.

I mean, only like minor assault, not like really heavy shit or anything.

Right... minor assault. Is that a bit like a minor stabbing?

No no no, I just mean kinda reprimandy sort of behaviour. Like, punching people.

You can't just go around punching people! I replied, belying my increasing intrigue in where my thoughts were heading on this one.

No... but imagine if you could... Consider it like smacking, but for adults. My thoughts replied, starting to make some sense.

And surely, my sadistic side held some truth to it. All this uproar in the last few weeks about smacking (no doubt as a result of the annual Today Tonight expose on lack of discipline in the home), had parents, TV personalities and concerned busybodies up in arms defending the age-old right to give your kid a damned good walloping (for their own good), whilst simultaneously decrying video games for introducing violence into our society and forcing events like the Virginia Tech shootings upon us. But the kiddies! they cried, belt in hand, giving little Tommy 5 of the best. The kiddies! Look what they learn! Look what they do in these games! It's not right, all this violence! they find themselves now shouting over little Tommy's increasingly loud sobbing.

And of course, they are right. I mean, in my violent video game playing phase, I played such titles as GTA and Postal... hell... I was so hooked and corrupted by these games that I skipped the actual process of playing the games, got myself a good long list of cheats, and jumped straight into Lets-see-how-much-shit-I-can-blow-up-before-I-get-shot-dead mode. And wow! That pixelated, cartoonish, completely unrealistic violence perpetrated by a character I could totally identify with (Wherez my bitches, y'all?!) - pimp hat, rap-sheet, aircraft piloting skills and all - completely pales any experiences of violence in the real world I might have come across. What? Violence in the real world?! I hear you say... Yes! That's right! There is a real world out there, and amazingly - and I'm not entirely sure how this has been allowed to happen, but... there are violent aspects to it! I mean, do you know that there's this place, it's halfway around the world in a place called the Middle East, where, you know, there's this government which gets a lot of funding and guns from the US, and other places like Australia, and they have a book. And apparently, this book - it's a holy book- it gives these dudes a sanctioned right to blow a lot of shit up, and build walls and stuff (It's a bit like Command & Conquer meets Warcraft 3). Particularly a lot of Palestinian and Lebanese shit. You know, like buildings, homes, villages... people... the usual stuff. And then, if the Palestinian and Lebanese dudes fight back, well then, the government gets to do stuff like impose economic sanctions (which are a bit too boring and long term to try and include in a video game unless you're one of those Civilization buffs, who - and lets face it - have enough time for anything.) and bomb the fuck out of them for being naughty and getting out of line. It's a bit like having your very own set of slaves, but instead of setting them to work, you skip straight to the putting them to a slow death part.

Then there's this other violence, too, and I hear - and I could be wrong - that some of it even occurs on our streets. Like, apparently there was this big drunken mob in Sydney once who decided that'd be really cool to spend an afternoon hanging out at the beach with a few tinnies and some white supremacists. Howard said it wasn't a race riot, even though they exclusively patrolled for and beat up anyone with darker skin than them, but you know, he's the Prime Minister so he must be right, no matter what the rest of the world thought about it.

There's all this other violence too, I hear. Like, in Sydney and Melbourne, people beat up taxi drivers and steal their cash. And then there are other people too who bash the ones they love. Oh, and then there are pub brawls too, but that's okay, because it's just boys being boys, and you know, it's alright to half kick someone to death because you don't like their hat when you're drunk... in fact, it'll make a damned good story to tell the boys down the boozer after your hearing at the county court. But anyway - as I was saying, my hours sitting on a beanbag with a controller in my hand completely pales all that real world violence. In fact, as I type, my very hands are stained with the blood of the nosy receptionist with a penchant for throwing out perfectly good food from the fridge on the grounds it doesn't have the correct name-labeling on it, which actually - and rather conveniently - brings me back to my point about why we should all be punching each other on a more regular and less punishable basis.

People are dickheads, it is true. And while I think people are a little off the mark on the idea of smacking little-dickheads for dickheadish behaviour, it seems like a perfectly good principal to apply to adults. Instead of being forced to exasperate as loudly as possible the next time some shithead tries to walk onto your overpacked commuter train before people have even had a nanosecond to get off the fucking thing, you could simply give them a good clip over the ear. Or maybe an open-handed slap to the cheek, if that's more your style. For more offensive actions, such as being completely inappropriate to wait-staff, blatantly cutting in line, or any other arrogant actions performed by people who simply think that they are far more deserving than everyone else around them, I would suggest a straight punch to the jaw. That'll learn 'em. I think you'll find that it'll do wonders for correcting the offending dickheads' behaviours. Hell, I'll expect I'll probably even have a few coming to me, courtesy of my blog. Still, I think it's important to know when you're pissing people off, because really, it's not one of those things you want to do by halves. And surely, that's the lesson we should all take from Cho Seung-Hui.

Ohhh, burn.

8 comments:

Fandango Jones said...

See, this is why I think that all thos gun lobbyists in the US are at least half-right. It would be much better if everyone were armed - with Nerf weapons. You're standing in the aisle of a train, being elbowed and breathed on by 6000 different prats, and some prick start trying to force their way in? POW! Nerf dart to the face! Just picture that look of stunned outrage on their face as the door closes... priceless.

In parting, I'd just like to add:
Blogger and Google can go fucking joust, in a pit of acid filled with sharks and annoying pop-stars like Robbie-Fucking-Williams. CUNTS!

The Rantolotl said...

Actually, I think those people who get onto jam packed trains and then start telling people where to move and how to do it ("Move down to that door! You just need to twist around, and take a few steps... good. Now you, you move over to your right...") should be made to eat live land mines.

Anonymous said...

Video games are dangerous. After a couple of hours on Katamari I feel an unstoppable urge to coat a big rubber ball in tar and run it over people. Then throw them into space and turn them into a star.

Kipper said...

Your receptionist trashed your lunch? Use the labelling system to identify her food and lace it with strychnine.

rws said...

what the world needs is more rollercoaster tycoon :(

Anonymous said...

I want a rantolotl on the Lessons of Cho, or 10 Things I learned from Cho. I think this bears much more thought so we can all seriously consider the valuable legacy he left the world. I dare the rantolotl to provide us all with such a much-needed tome of wisdom.

alex said...

.. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ...

Bozza said...

I have been defeated in a number of the MSN Uno games I have played lately..... There will be murders! :P