Why don’t the asylum seekers go to China, Russia, Japan or Singapore? They are usually closer.

But I digress.

It’s clear that onshore processing is not working and the centres are overfilling- there are too many people coming. Opposition Border protection spokesman Michael Keenan pegs it, “That represents basically the end of any sort of orderly immigration system.”

If you are a refugee you should be welcome into Australia, the lucky country. After all, Australia was built on migration (just ask our local Aboriginals how migrating visitors has been beneficial to them!). We have been more welcoming of late anyway- we have appointed commissioners on the refugee panel who are sympathetic to your plight to ensure you are more likely to be judged as a refugee (hence the high clearance rates). Let’s end the farce and dispense with the formality.

After all, “Most asylum seekers arriving in Australia by boat have their refugee claims approved.”

After all, “a former member of the tribunal, Peter Katsambanis, claimed members of the panel were told to go easy on asylum seekers appealing against department of immigration decisions to send them home.”

So let’s end offshore processing.

Do you know the quarantine bins? We’ll have a new class of bin when you arrive in Australia by aeroplane or boat. Drop you passport in here and mention you are a refugee at the counter. After you dispose of your passport, we won’t be able to infer which country you come from, and to ask you would be racist. (You won’t need the passport anymore since you have already flown to your chosen transit country and disembarked!) Since we won’t detain you offshore, you can move into the community while we assess your claim for asylum. If you commit a crime and are convicted of it in the meantime, we will house you in onshore detention centres- our prison system (and we will provide you a lawyer to argue your case at the taxpayer’s expense).

A refugee will need money to set themselves up in Australia lest they start off destitute. So we should make welfare payments to you until you are on your feet- we can either tax the local population with “you’re not a refugee” tax, or we can strip money from essential services such as hospitals and schools; they don’t need the money anyway. Or we, as a nation, could just borrow more money and put it on the national credit card. We have a head start- the savings from closing detention centres will exceed 1$ Billion per year. At the same time, you may tell your friends from other countries (who will similarly throw out their passports) so they need to be accomodated as well- hence the need for more “budget savings”, such as stripping money out of the foreign aid budget (we are spending it on people not from Australia yes? There is no difference). Not only that, we may pay you a benefit if, sadly, your relatives perish on the perilous voyage at sea because their boat is not seaworthy sometimes in full view of the media. Conditions are good in Australia so the urge to reach here is understandable and the deaths were unavoidable.

Not only that, relatives back in your home country will benefit, or so says Dinoo Kelleghan, a member of the Australian Refugee Review Tribunal for seven years:

“gushing torrents of remittances home from Sri Lankans who have gone abroad for employment, often making empty claims of persecution to leapfrog others… Yes, you can find work in Australia easily. Yes, you get money there even if you don’t work. People get free houses there, money for getting a baby, sustained help in finding work. Just a little bit of hardship at the start but everyone knows you’ll get there in the end, and if you go in by boat as an asylum-seeker the Australian government just has to take notice of you, and they start looking after you straight away.”

Free houses, easy jobs that are below the locals and, if you can’t get either, you get a welfare cheque you can easily send back home… all paid for by the government and the local taxpayers. It’s true that asylum seekers are sometimes barred from taking up employment, but don’t worry, the Australian taxpayer will pay the welfare tab until they are eligible, with 85 per cent of refugees on Centrelink benefits in their first five years here. In fact, you can fly home back to your country of persecution (which you fled in terror) and then back to Australia, to your new home, if it so pleases you. And if this country doesn’t feel like home, if you feel that locals not speaking your language is discriminatory or racist, you can take the local to our anti-discrimination commissioner to plead your case- how dare a local Australian not speak your language to provide you equivalent service! That is discriminatory.

Do you feel that our justice system is unfair, does not reflect your culture or daresay even racist? We can even set up a parallel justice system like the Koori court to accomodate you and your culture. You could have parallel Sharia law if you like. If you have your own enclave of language speakers, you can even have your own religious police to enforce those laws, especially on local Australians who come into your neighbourhood. Your young children can get together and form social groups to protect you from the racist local Australians. We understand if you are more comfortable among your countrymen so if you set up an enclave where services can be localised and you can congregate, all of Australia can benefit from the multiculturalism.

If Australia becomes unrecognisable to the locals in the process, don’t worry. We’ll have been saving your boats for repurposing by then- the local Australians will sail away and hope some other country is as accomodating as we are. After all, if you fled a country that is oppressing you, the locals are entitled to flee a country that resembles such oppression that you escaped from. If the locals return, you will welcome us back, yes?

Offshore processing is not working. Let’s end it now- I, for one, welcome our new neighbours.

Related articles

• Australian mainland now off-limits to asylum seekers (radionz.co.nz)
• Australian mainland off-limits to asylum seekers (radionz.co.nz)
• Advance Australia Fair (madeleinewhitby.wordpress.com)
• Senate debates continent excise plan (news.theage.com.au)
• On-going hunger strike in The Hague to support imprisoned asylum seekers in The Netherlands (theglobaloyster.wordpress.com)
• Australia gets tough on asylum-seekers (gulfnews.com)
• Out of sight, out of mind: excising Australia from the migration zone (theconversation.com)
• Australia’s Costly Asylum-Seeker Policy Contributes to Nation’s Deficit Woes (world.time.com)
• Charities overwhelmed by asylum seeker pleas (abc.net.au)

I’m not going to go into a huge amount of detail describing its owners and what happened to cause The Great Trolling of 2013, but I absolutely urge you to check out the video that aired as the season finale of Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, season 6. After almost 100 episodes of the successful show, Ramsay finally gave up and walked out on two people he rightly claims are incapable of help. It really is something to behold.

Video: Amy’s Baking Company on Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares Full Episode

It is fair to say, discussion of their business and behaviour has exploded across social media. Before the airing their Facebook page had a mere 483 likes. Now, it has over 88-thousand. That’s 18,000% growth on Facebook in one week. Good for business in this case? Umm, no.

Before and after the airing, reviews came thick and fast from disgruntled diners.
Here is but one of hundreds across many restaurant review sites:

Are negative reviews fair?

Deserved or not, is it fair for a small business to be subjected to the negative opinions of diners? The Washington Post‘s Caitlin Dewey points out that many (small business owners, of course) think this is not right, especially when the business owners disagree with the review (well, of course they would, wouldn’t they.)

But while the Internet has rejoiced in the Bouzaglos’ raving — their Facebook pagehas nabbed more than 85,000 likes — even their angriest rants may hide a shadow of truth. Yelp reviews can destroy a business’s reputation, whether it deserves it or not, some owners say. In fact, more than 700 businesses and consumers have filed complaints about the popular online consumer review service with the Federal Trade Commission — and earned Yelp a few mixed reviews of its own.

In the Washington area alone, more than a dozen businesses have filed complaints, according to data obtained from the FTC by the government transparency site MuckRock. One frequent criticism involves the site’s use of an automatic filter to hide potentially suspicious reviews. Hidden reviews do not count toward a business’s rating, and users have to take an extra step to see them, even if they’re positive. Some owners have accused Yelp of filtering out good reviews unless a business advertises with the site.

Other Washington businesses complained that they could not remove unfair or false reviews from their pages. And a restaurant in Fairfax County claimed that two vengeful reviewers threatened to destroy the business with their bad ratings even though they had never even eaten at the restaurant.

“I repeatedly explained that these comments against us [do] not match with our restaurant or description, but they [Yelp] don’t care,” the complaint reads. “This is an un-American act against hard working citizens … I need your help.”

In late 2012, one Fairfax contractor went so far as to sue a Yelp reviewer for defamation.

Source: Read the whole article here.

Perception among businesses is that review sites like Yelp are not good for the business because they invite criticism. They believe that Yelp exists to be good for the consumer only.

Gordon Ramsay gets it, however. He says to Samy Bouzaglos in the Kitchen Nightmares episode, “If they didn’t like it, what are you going to do about it? The kitchen needs to know!” He knows that receiving negativity is ultimately about improvement. Therefore, receiving criticism should be seen as good for business, good for brands, good for people.

I sincerely hope sites like Yelp don’t become controlled by legislation. If that happens, then disgruntled patrons have no choice but to go back to the old style of trolling and expressing displeasure: the ol’ graffiti on the window trick.

Here are my answers to a few questions being debated about Yelp and other restaurant review sites in the wake of this business meltdown:

1. Should a business have the right to complain if they’ve received bad reviews on Yelp?  My opinion: Yes, of course. You can complain about whatever you like.
2. Should the restaurant have the ability to respond to reviews? My opinion: Yes.
3. Should those reviews be removed? My opinion: No. Not even if they’re vitriolic. There are plenty of counter measures that could be put in place to make commenters more accountable for what they write, such as a implementing a trust/reputation system for commenters, but I will let you discuss such ideas in the comments.
4. Should reviewers be forced to use their true ID before they leave a review? I tend towards “No”, but for reviews that build a permanent profile of a business, I’m in two minds: I consider forcing users to use their true ID a breach of privacy and potential safety; when you force someone to use their true ID you’re basically forcing them to downplay their true feelings in case someone retaliated against them. Then again, that’s precisely what we’re forcing small businesses and their owners to do by being on Yelp, so I guess it’s only fair to level the playing field there.
5. Should an individual be able to be sued for defamation if their review is completely false? Yes. But remember, opinion is subjective. So this would have to be on a case by case basis and I imagine it’d be quite hard to prove intentional defamation in many cases.

Should people keep criticism to themselves?

In my observation, there seems to be an alarmingly large population of people who agree with the statement “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all”. This is not, by any measure, limited to restaurant reviews. Do you find this to be the case too, or is it just me?

If I don’t like a song or video on YouTube for example, god help me if I attempt to post a negative comment about it. I’m almost guaranteed to receive a venomous reply from someone proclaiming that you “shut the **** up and get the **** off this page” for merely saying I don’t like something.

Same goes if you dare to criticise a celebrity, a TV show, a sports team, fashion, event, or especially, the most taboo of all — criticism on regular people who invite comment on social media. “Haterz gon hate”, be prepared for the fanbois and groupies to attack you back like rabid dogs.

It is a huge taboo to be anything but positive on social networks, to the point where it is doing the individual, the business and the world a disservice to have to completely censor yourself “out of politeness” if you disagree with something so that they only ever receive support. How many of you have censored your own fingers from leaving a criticising comment on a post by one of your Facebook friends?

My stance is this: if you’re out there on social media inviting responses from people on any topic, whether it be your music, your food, your beliefs or even how you look or how beautiful (ugly) your baby is, then negativity, criticism and disagreement of absolutely any degree is just as valid as positivity and support of any degree. Politeness? Come on, people. The world is not all rosy and everyone doesn’t think like you do. You should not expect this.

I’m not a hypocrite, either. Think what I’m writing is shit? Disagree with what I’m saying? Great! I’ve decided to put it out there for dissection and discussion, so it’s fair game. People learn from accepting conflicting opinions. Without it, you cannot ever grow.

The true saying we should all be living by is not “If you can’t say something nice don’t say anything at all“. Whoever coined that saying fails to see the larger benefit in accepting criticism. Try to teach the art of being diplomatic and reasonable when you dislike something. But please, do not teach your kids to shut up when they dislike something.

The “Compliment Sandwich” technique can work with sometimes quite hilarious results, as demonstrated below. But it risks just beating around the bush. Why sugar coat what you actually need to say, just because you’re afraid you might hurt someone’s feelings? Again, if someone invites your comment by posting it up for public review, it’s fair game.

A compliment sandwich. Source: http://www.mintleafstudio.com.au/blog/post/item/2011/10/06/how-to-critique-a-website-design-and-accept-criticism

The true saying we should be raising our children and running our businesses with is in fact “If you can’t take criticism, don’t invite feedback”. No one needs to learn this lesson more than the operators of Amy’s Baking Company, but I think this is a lesson a great many of people cannot apply to their own work or themselves.

As for Amy and Samy Bouzaglos… if they ever raise anything more than their three cats, God help us.

Related articles

• How Can I Learn To Take Criticism? (Lifehacker.com)
• Fired Amy’s Baking Company Employee Reportedly Gives Reddit AMA, Calls Owner ‘Demonic’ (huffingtonpost.com)
• Kitchen Nightmares Most Hated Couple: Owner Is Convicted Felon! (radaronline.com)
• Yelp is Broken and Social Flashmobs Apparently Rule (directmarketingobservations.com)
• Gordon Ramsay quits filming ‘Kitchen Nightmares’ episode (nydailynews.com)
• Lessons From Amy’s Baking Company: Six Things You Should Never Do On Social Media (forbes.com)
• Why Every Insurance Agent Should be on Yelp (insurancefiles.com)

Gruesome footage of a Syrian rebel commander cutting the heart out of a soldier and biting into it has emerged online.

According to Human Rights Watch, the clip shows Abu Sakkar, a founder of the rebel Omar al-Farouq Brigade carrying out the bloody act.

He says: “I swear to God we will eat your hearts and your livers, you soldiers of Bashar the dog,” to offscreen cheering.

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/05/14/syrian-rebel-leader-abu-sakkar-cutting-eating-soldiers-heart-video_n_3271067.html?1368528427&ncid=edlinkusaolp00000008

You know, a large part of me is really not surprised by this. Sure, war is violent, but man, those Syrians are a whole other level. In fact, truly nothing in that part of the world surprises me anymore.

This is by far not the first time reports of unbelievable acts of cold blooded murder and other war crimes have surfaced from Syria.

Here is another absolutely abhorrent, graphic video of Assad soldiers slowly stabbing two prisoners to death. I really don’t recommend you watch it, but hey, I did and I survived:

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=0ae_1357451616

Sure, they’re on the side of Assad, but whatever. They’ve all had the same upbringing.

The website LiveLeak is just overrun with such videos, and for that, I say thank God for LiveLeak, for it is one of the few last bastions of true un-censorship, betraying the truth about what goes on in the world outside of your G-rated, sugar coated tabloid “newspaper” sites.

Then you have Intentious, here to say what no other news blogging site has the balls to say on the matter.

Human Rights Watch’s Peter Bouckaert told Reuters news agency following the act:

“The mutilation of the bodies of enemies is a war crime. But the even more serious issue is the very rapid descent into sectarian rhetoric and violence.” 

He went on to say that those committing war crimes on either side had to know that there was no impunity and that they would be brought to account.

You can watch the inhuman heart-eating act here (click on the picture):

Source: Screenshot taken from: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=349_1368354271

Honestly, rebel Syrians… why do you expect the world to have pity on those being oppressed by Assad when you’re demonstrably an equally savage people?

Both sides are clearly full of barbaric scum that the rest of the world wants no part in. Even Turkey’s prime minister has vowed that his country won’t be drawn into Syria’s civil war, and I can fully agree with him.

I could not care less if this guy and everyone who supports him, dies… and I feel like I speak for a god damn lot of people.

The rest of us have had enough waiting for civility to catch on outside our own countries.

Related articles

• Savage Online Videos Fuel Syria’s Descent Into Madness (world.time.com)
• Syria rebel in ‘heart-eating video’ (thesun.co.uk)
• Outrage at Syrian rebel shown ‘eating soldier’s heart’ (radio2hot.wordpress.com)
• ‘Sheer savagery’: Syrian rebel rips out soldier’s heart, Human Rights Watch says (worldnews.nbcnews.com)
• Syrian rebel eats the HEART of army soldier in latest civil war atrocity (mirror.co.uk)
• Outrage at Syria rebel fighter ‘taking bite from soldier’s heart’ (standard.co.uk)
• Human rights group slams Syria rebel ‘heart-eating video’ (thesun.co.uk)
• Video of Syrian rebel biting heart of dead soldier condemned on all sides (irishtimes.com)
• Syria: Brigade Fighting in Homs Implicated in Atrocities (hrw.org)
• Video of Syrian rebel commander ‘biting into soldier’s heart’ (itv.com)

In this article I am going to introduce the idea of how state funding of the arts is undermining the culture of our nations, and indeed our social well-being, but first I am going to share a couple of my favourite pieces of artwork and then introduce you to some examples of “art” that I’ve come across in museums that receive at least some public funding or have art from artists who received public funding.

There are three things necessary for the production of good art: creativity, effort/suffering and beauty.  These three things are immediately self-evident whenever a person observes a piece of art.  If you need an arts degree to appreciate a piece of art, then the Emperor has no clothes on and you are actually looking at a piece of junk.  When I think of the price tags on some of the pieces I am about to show you, I also think fraud.  Appreciating art is something every human being with empathy and sensitivity can do naturally.  Before I start giving you examples of how bad and degenerate modern art has become, here are a couple of examples of excellent artwork.

The Accident by William Geets (1899)

This painting is wonderful on many levels.  The selection of colours is aesthetically pleasing by itself, so the eye is immediately enticed to look at this piece before it has even focused on what is there.  The people in the piece are fantastically interesting to examine as they come from a complete spectrum of medieval society.  Through the decoding of the gestures and facial expressions of the people one can piece together a narrative of what is happening off the frame.  We see a young nobleman preparing to attempt a rescue by diving into the water, so there is a plot and much activity in this scene as well as conflict: should he attempt to rescue the drowning child or is it better not to risk more lives?  The architecture of the buildings is complex and interesting as well.  Consider also that this is a painting and it took a lot of time and effort to create this scene purely from imagination.  Thus we have beauty, creativity and effort all combined into one.

I could spend hours, if not days, examining this picture and every time have a new interpretation of what is actually happening in this scene.   I can feel my wisdom increase as I think about the significance of every single detail in the picture.  This is good art.

This piece is a sculpture called “The Burgers of Calais” by Auguste Rodin.  It is about a historical event that occurred in 1347 during the Hundred years’ war.  It is a very moving work depicting six leaders who, for the love of their fellow townsmen, have voluntarily chosen to surrender themselves to certain execution in exchange for the sparing of the people whose well being they were responsible for.  The six men are accepting their fate each in a deeply moving and personal way as they trudge across the field to be executed by King Edward III.  However, the Queen was so moved by their selflessness that she convinced her husband to spare the lives of these brave men.

This is good art because it has a narrative, because it is beautiful, not for the depiction of suffering, but for the depiction of sacrifice and love, it is aesthetically pleasing to the eye, it is also inspirational and it took enormous skill and effort to produce.

Now that you have seen what good art actually is, I hope you will quickly recognise what bad art is:

This is a canvas of the Virgin Mary.  She is African and those are cut-outs of women’s anuses and vaginas from porn magazines glued onto it, she has a naked breast hanging out of her dress.   The colours are sickly yellow to me, but I know some people like yellow so maybe it is not a total aesthetic disaster for everyone.  But there is no real narrative or deep insight to be found in this picture.  To me it is an infantile scream for attention through the deliberate creation of a physical incarnation of offense directed at Christians, and all who lay eyes on it who do not hate their heritage.  I hate even putting it here because the artist is clearly emotionally five years old and is begging for someone to pay attention to them.  Good or bad attention is does not matter, this person just wants attention for themselves and their ego, I also suspect that they have an axe to grind against European civilisation, and infantile hatred is ugly.

This is not something I would ever put on one of my walls.  It is lacking in skill, aesthetics, subject matter and interest.  It is called ‘Angel’ but there is nothing in this picture vaguely symbolic about angels, yet if you are interested Google the artist and read his explanation of the title: it was along the lines of being that it reminded him of bookshelves that might contain books with stories of angels in them.  If you can take what he says seriously, you are lot less incredulous than I am.  If I did want to put this on one of my walls, I might pay $50 for it and that is saying something because of all the examples of bad art I will show you this is the only one I would ever consider buying at all.  Something tells me if I “accidentally” threw up on it I’d have to pay a lot more than $50, even though my vomit would probably be more interesting to look at, and depending on what I ate for lunch, more expensive to produce.  I have no precise idea for how much this piece would go for in an auction, but based on the price of other works by this artist we are talking a six figure sum of money.

Nude by Stuart Ringholt

Here we have an example of how lustful sex is again being used to offend and degrade human dignity.  This picture is hideously ugly.  The artist who created this sees nudity by itself as art, I have this image of him flicking through a porno with pictures of men’s faces stuck on women’s bodies and him thinking himself sophisticated for doing so.  However, nudity and porn are polar opposites aesthetically, something every artist should understand, the fact that he called this a “Nude” is a calculated offense against those who are aware of the distinction (depictions of naked people with in an expression of lust are pornography, if they have any other expression it is called art.  Pornography is often said to be degrading to women as it depicts them as pathetic needy creatures and validates this as an acceptable aspect of female identity, whereas a nude woman expressing pride is empowering to the embodiment of mature womanhood).  The orientation of the body is not one of elegance and grace that can be found in true nudes, but of craven sexual hedonism found in porn.

Another interpretation is the confusion of the transexual or bisexual living in conflict between their body and their spirit, but I am simply not convinced the artist has successfully pulled this off for a number of reasons, but chiefly because the ugliness is still degrading.  Therefore I would call this an immature piece or a specialist piece more fitting for a museum that specialises in such works, not something that should be considered healthy, normal or representative.  Not that I would want anyone to decide what was healthy, normal or mainstream for other people, but government funding denies people the choice of what art they believe if healthy, normal and appropriate for them.  People should decide with their wallets what art they enjoy, not with their taxes.

Sadly, the public who have been convinced that they are too simple to offer a valid opinion about art because they do not have an arts degree, are highly likely to believe that their opinion on this is not important because someone with more authority than them spent their money on it for them.  This work should perhaps be put in a museum of perverted and degenerate art to help educate the public as to how to recognise ugliness and offense because you would never find this in the vast majority of people’s homes, almost only in a public art gallery, because no human being wants to fill their house with perversion, except the perverted.

Arse End of the World by Juan Davila (1994)

Burke and Wills are two heroic figures in Australian history and folklore.  This work can only be described as a calculated hateful attack on the dignity of the Australian people.  Imagine if someone painted a picture of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson fucking raccoons and sodomising each other?  That is how I feel when I look at this painting.  I know the author wanted to make me feel like this, but he also wanted me to feel ashamed and disgusted with being Australian.  In that regard, he has completely failed.  I am proud of my heritage and I well aware of the complexity of the interpretation of Burke and Wills as heroes or not.  To publicly shame and humiliate this artist might be too good for him.  Better to just ignore him into obscurity and poverty.  Unfortunately, public money is being used to support and promote artists like him so my freedom to ignore him has been taken away from me.  Imagine if artists only got paid based on how many “likes” they got for their art?  Imagine the improvement in the quality of art that would take place if this was the case?

This is a cast of a suicide bomber made out of chocolate.  The artist made a remark about how calm and at peace he seemed.  I have to wonder if the artist’s sympathy with a deranged mass murderer is an indication of his own hollowness as a human being?  Firstly, this is simply a cast any forensic pathologist might be able to do for you, no impressive artistic skills required.  Secondly, the implication of the peace and tranquillity a suicide bomber feels after committing mass murder is creepy and disturbing, especially if you have the empathy to wonder about his victims and their families.  I appreciate that understanding how mentally deranged suicide bombers truly are is important, so this piece might serve a valuable point of reflection or even education for teaching children about this, but that is not the primary job of art to do.  Again, I am going with attention seeking, not a genuine interest in stimulating people’s minds.  Especially since anyone with enough experience around corpses will tell you: all people look calm and tranquil when they are dead.  Including this man’s victims.  The decision to make it out of chocolate might seem interesting, but consider this: if you stuff up with marble, you have got to start again.  If you stuff up with chocolate, you can fix it up easily.  Again, we do not see evidence of real technical skill, creativity or beauty.

Now that you witnessed some of the works and artists your tax dollars are helping to prop up and promote, I hope you are ready to read this.  Across the Australian Commonwealth our governments are collectively spending just over $6,650 million annually on the arts and culture.  The European Union expends almost 150 billion Euros annually propping up the arts and culture.  I could not find any figures on the amount the USA expends on the arts and culture but I would imagine it is considerable as well.  These figures do not include money spent on education, purely for artistic and cultural programs, but consider how much money goes to universities as education funding only to produce more art and artists like these?

Let me be clear, the government is taking your money and giving it to people like these artists so they can humiliate, embarrass, demoralise and mock you.  Ever wonder why you find it so hard to pinpoint what your culture is as a white English speaking person as compared to other cultures?  It might because bad artists are getting paid to make you think your culture is disgusting, ugly and contemptible.  You might also have had so much of this ‘art’ shoved down your throat that you do not want to even feel a part of your own culture or heritage.  I suspect if you spent some quality time looking at good art, instead of the rubbish I just showed to you, you would feel a lot more comfortable calling yourself a person of European descent with a proud European heritage.

I know compared to other things the government wastes other people’s money on, the art and culture budget might not seem like it is a significant amount of money, but artworks generally are not that expensive to produce so the money can be redistributed by government to inflict enormous harm on the industry.  This harm can be seen in the examples of bad art I just showed you.  These works should not be on displayed in any galleries that can not survive from their own sources of income from charging visitor’s admission.  People given a choice when paying for something will not choose ugliness over beauty.  It is only natural and aesthetically healthy to desire beauty and to reject ugliness.  I do not mind private collectors displaying them in their private museums, but that is the thing.  Art is a private matter, not a public one, so the government should stay away from it entirely.  Especially from their funding of schools and universities.  The spread of ugliness and the decline of beauty is important when one considers how pleasurable and inspiring beauty is, and how ugliness leads to depression and anxiety.

Apart from the brainwashing and the indoctrination universities do to young people, they also carry out a program of supporting artists they considered worthwhile:  Basically anyone who is related to a politician or a university employee, and is pro-depression and anti-liberty.  This creates a protected market where we have producers (the artists) making products they know people will buy (with taxpayer money) regardless of whether they are good or not.

However, the majority of the public want to buy interesting, exciting, positive and uplifting artwork.  That is what they were going to spend their money buying, before it was taxed out of them.  However, the artist, if given the money and freedom to produce art he wants to produce, is going to produce depressing, self-loathing, meaningless and mediocre work because that is what happens if you spend too much time looking inward living the lifestyle of the entitled narcissist.  Looking inward tends to result in discovering how imperfect and wretched you are, because pride comes only from successful interaction with the real world, not the inner one.  Consequently our artists are all suffering from “body image issues” of the soul and it shows up in the depressing rubbish they make.  If they at least created a painting with high technical skill, even if it was meaningless, the personal accomplishment of their high technical skill would make them feel better about themselves.   So do not let the artist have this kind of ‘artistic freedom’.  He needs to struggle and work hard to earn a living like everyone else, not be coddled like a helpless child.  It is for his self-esteem that he must struggle because it is only by overcoming ordeals that we develop self-esteem.  Do not give the artist a blank check otherwise all you are going to get from him is his excrement smeared over a canvas.

Another point that bothers me is that taxation affects everyone but not everyone wants to spend their time appreciating art, so they are effectively collecting money from everyone and giving it to a small proportion of the population just so they can pursue their hobby.  Their hobby is giving their friends and relatives other people’s money to produce rubbish.  I do not pay taxes to support other people’s hobbies.

This article is just the beginning of a series I would like to write about how the arts have been perverted by the government into something toxic to human dignity and public welfare.  I will be making it a point to visit more art galleries and museums to collect more examples and evidence of this degeneration and hopefully spread more awareness of this problem.  If you read this article and agree that modern art is a horror that must be resisted then please share this article so that more people can learn about this and my sincere hope is that more people will actually go out and discover real art for themselves and, apart from buying good art from real artists, together we can pressure the government to stop wasting our money on people who do not deserve it.

Why are journalists no longer professionals?

I trace the disastrous collapse in journalists’ ethics to the moment the government became involved in funding tertiary level education. In the past universities were privately run, elitist institutes and financially independent of the government. Once the government started offering cheap loans to students the number and size of universities increased to unrealistic proportions. With this came several changes. First they had to get rid of elitism because the purpose of higher education was no longer to create an elite class of exceptional people with exceptional responsibilities and duties in society, it was merely to make money and churn out as many graduates, not people, as possible. Since most people do not have an elite level IQ they had to dumb down the university curriculum and lower their passing standards so anyone with only half a brain can graduate now and act like a pretentious elitist snob, also known as a hipster, simply because they have an almost worthless piece of paper on their wall. Secondly, the universities are now effectively employed by the government, who are paying their income so they had to change the course material to be pro-totalitarianism so as not to upset their new customer, thus the universities have become a de facto branch of government. Finally, because foreign students are worth so much money to universities they had to axe all nationalist course materials and promote a globalist, communist and anti-white curriculum so as not to upset their new non-white customers from the third world. In short: universities are now communist indoctrination centres that churn out idiots, statists and self-hating whites.

This would all be fine, except university graduates go on to work as lawyers, psychologists, teachers and journalists and that is when they start to cause massive damage to the fabric of society spreading communist propaganda, ideology, anti-white racism and the belief that the government should be all-powerful and worshiped. If what you just read is making you furious, then the odds are you are a university graduate and you should ask yourself how come after spending so many years in a university learning to broaden your mind, you still are not mature enough to handle a difference of opinion without getting excessively worked up about it?

Journalists are the most dangerous people to have compromised with communist indoctrination, because the mass media have incredible powers to influence and shape the minds of other people. Now these journalists are for the most part decent people, they are not sociopaths and they sincerely believe in the messages that they put out to the general public. But they are dangerous because they do nothing but encourage people to think and behaved in childish and irrational ways. Now I shall move on towards giving you an example.

If there is one theme that is constant in communist propaganda, it is pinning the blame on everyone else. Communism is after all a philosophy based around fostering childish jealousy and resentment in a population, generally the poor, the ethnic minorities, the sexual minorities and the women and then encouraging them to whinge and moan about their problems until they feel like entitled victims bold enough to take what they lust for by force or voting for others to take it for them by using force. Politicians and their unwittingly brain washed friends in the media can then exploit the victim complex they have created to rile people up over false moral crises. Simply because there is nothing an immature person likes to do more often than to get on a soap box and proclaim their moral superiority over other people because they feel self-righteous. Sentimental moral outrage is one of the most exciting drugs depressed people take these days, to self-medicate their self-loathing, it makes them feel smug and superior to everyone else. Think about this the next time someone tells you off for not being vegetarian, atheist, homophiliac, global warming alarmist, multicultural, socialist, feminist or whatever they think makes them morally superior to you at the time.

This week in The Age, the flagship newspaper of cultural Marxism (or communism) in Victoria, Australia, we could see yet another calculated attempt to stoke misdirected rage and resentment. A Mr. Tim Colebatch published a piece about how “Millionaires snub taxmen“. For those of you who are already libertarians, this is going to tell you nothing new, but for those who do not understand libertarian philosophy consider this analysis of this article to be an exercise in learning how to see the world through libertarian eyes as opposed to the distortions of communism that are constantly fed to us in mainstream media outlets like The Age.

The first line of Colebatch’s article opens up with a loaded statement about how the rich are exempting themselves from paying taxes. However, when one examines this line, “If you earn enough money, paying tax can be optional,” one can see the bias of statism. Statism is the belief that the government is entitled to exempt itself from all the of the rules it expects you to live by. One of these rules is that you can not forcibly take from other people because that’s stealing, yet the government engage in taxation which is exactly the same thing as theft or the protection money the Mafia expect from people and businesses living in “their” district. And yes, the Mafia also claim to be offering people a welfare service in exchange for their protection money. So when people argue that taxes are taken to be spent on services like education, health care and retirement funds, point out to them that wouldn’t it be better if you kept your own money and spent it on education, health insurance and investments for your own future? It would be better because you would not have hundreds of thousands of government bureaucrats eating a slice of your money before it is spent on the services you purchase directly. Remove taxes and you remove the completely unnecessary and overly expensive government middle man who produces nothing himself. Schools would be cheaper, health insurance would be cheaper and retirement would be a lot easier if you could have bought your house in your 20s with your greatly increased tax-free income. Also think how much easier life would be if you did not have to worry about tax returns. The fact that taxes are not optional is the real issue and the mainstream media do not want you to think about that because they have their own agenda: big government, also known as communism. It is quite childish to complain that some people are simply smart enough and/or have enough self-respect to not pay someone for services they do not need or use.

Governments have rewritten the law to exclude themselves from it. This is not a case of granting extra powers, this is a perversion of justice. The government should be equally subject to the law as any individual is.

The central point of Colebatch’s article is the assertion 70 millionaires earned a total of $194 million between them, paid $33 million to lawyers and accountants and ended up reducing their total income to less than $20,000 so they were exempt from paying tax. The reader is encouraged to feel outraged that these people have avoided paying to tax and not the far more important question of, “if they do not need to pay tax, then why do I?” Which is a very good question considering that of those 70 millionaires, only 30 of them paid that $33 million in accountants and lawyers suggesting 40 of did not even need to try hard to get those tax exemptions. Avoiding paying tax must be so easy to do it makes everyone paying them a sucker for doing so. However, these millionaires did not actually avoid paying tax. They merely avoided paying income tax, these millionaires still paid plenty of GST, petrol taxes, stamp duty taxes etc… because it is impossible to avoid paying tax. Hence it really is not a big deal what they actually do not pay income tax because so long as they spend their money they are still contributing more to tax revenue than anyone else with a sub $100K salary could even imagine. The rich are not getting away without paying taxes, they are merely reducing the amount they are paying by a few percentage points overall in the big picture. They are also paying lawyers and accounts who in turn pay taxes so the government is still getting its cut of revenue, so do not worry about that. The focus should not be on who is paying taxes or how much, but why are we paying them at all if the government can not deliver any quality services with the hundreds of billions of dollars they collect from us.

However, one thing that constantly bothers me is if taxes on cigarettes and on alcohol are put in place to discourage people from smoking and drinking, then what do taxes in earning money do? They do in fact discourage people from earning more money because they get diminishing returns thanks to progressive taxation systems. I know plenty of single mothers and under-employed who deliberately reduce the number of hours they work so they can keep getting government benefits. Why not simply cancel the benefits and remove their taxes at the same time? Sure, that is going to put a lot of bureaucrats out of a job, but then they can go and produce something useful like goods or services instead of stealing other people’s money only to waste it on the very poor quality government services they mismanage.

Another question Colebatch failed to raise is why such massive holes in the taxation laws exist allowing hundreds of a millions of dollars to be exempted so easily. The answer is because these millionaires are either politicians themselves, or friends and relatives of politicians. Politicians know about the loop holes in their own laws because they fully expect to exploit these loop holes themselves or for their friends and families to. This is the problem with giving power over to anyone: power corrupts. The corruption is simply in the core of the human condition to believe oneself to be a good and responsible person and therefore the law does not apply to them. This was nicely summed up by Plato, “Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.” What was implied with Plato’s statement was that good people would find laws unnecessary and insulting to their dignity. So the fact is, anyone who has self-respect is going to assume they are a good person and exempt themselves from their own rules. Think how many people set themselves rules for their diets and relationships and then break them because they are insulted by the very notion of rules constraining them as though they were bad people. This is the libertarian position that no one can be trusted to have such power to organise or manage other people’s lives because it is in human nature to not obey the very rules we set for others.

Of course, if you obey the same rules you set for your children, then my argument is invalid. Remember to be in bed by 7pm though or you will not get any dessert.

This is the crux of rule making: rules are made only for people who are not responsible enough to run their own lives. The government, whether Labor or Liberal or Green or National all believe we the people are not mature, smart or educated enough to run our own lives and spend our own money the way we wish to and so the government pass these laws telling us how much we are allowed to earn, where we are allowed to go to school, what we are allowed to learn about, what books, websites and movies we are allowed to read and watch, what we are allowed to buy, what food we are allowed to eat and and what kinds of houses we are allowed to live in. It is hard to understand why a person who objects to sharia law would feel uncomfortable in our nanny state as it continues to assert its privilege to dictate who we are allowed to even marry. Unfortunately, those in power obviously do not feel threatened by sharia law and I have to wonder if it is not because they want to impose their own version of sharia law via the nanny state. No one would tolerate a busy-body neighbour telling them how to organise every aspect of their life, so why do people tolerate a busy-body government telling them how to organise their lives?

So there you have it, I have offered you my opinion on this situation and explained it in detail with justifications for my point of view. You will never read an article like the one you just read in a mainstream newspaper because the communists with all of the journalism degrees have an agenda they want you to adopt. See, communism is a cult, they want everyone to think, feel, act and live the same way they do and they are terrified of change and individuality. So they only tell you ideas that they agree with or feel comfortable with you knowing, because they think you are all children and need to be told by them, the “adults” what to think and believe. By not sharing with you alternative points of view they are narrowing the discourse and reducing your ability to think and decide for yourself. It is more important what they do not tell you than what they do tell you, because these days with all the gossip passing off as news they are effectively telling you nothing at all.

I do not care what you believe, as long as you read this article I am satisfied. If after reading this article you can no longer stomach the pointless mindless dribble that passes for news these days then I will be happy. If you share it with your friends then I will be elated, as it will help me earn more money to contribute to my taxes. Think of it as community service, but at least I am honest about my agenda and I am only being greedy, I think you should be more worried about people who do not have such a simple agenda as I do, these people actually do it because they think they care and want to rescue you from yourself. Examine them more closely: they are just as greedy and self-interested as anyone else you will meet, but what makes them dangerous is that they believe that they are actually selfless.