I overhead someone on the train talking to his friend the other day:
"You don't give a shit about the environment, do you?"
"Nah" he replied rather succinctly.
"And you don't believe in Global Warming or Peak Oil. You want to build more roads, and think the RMA should be abolished. You support farmers and actually encourage them to expand their beef production for export. You want to abolish all petrol taxes. You drive a car everywhere rather than walk. You are not averse to Nuclear power. You said the country needs more hydro and coal power stations."
"Yeah, and what's more I believe the earth's resources are inexhaustible and that all this Greenie stuff is total hype and they are out of their tree."
"So, why are you a member of the Green Party then?"
"I like stirring them up at meetings."
"Do you realise there are consequences to your belief that the world is an inexhaustible resource to be abused. Don't they tell you there are consequences to your belief system?"
"They better not, or I'll slap them with an order from the privileges committee and they'll be thrown in jail for 25 years."
"Are you a f*cking lunatic? As if you could jail the Greens for 25 years just because they think the consequences of your actions are destructive."
Yes, the Greens are f*cking lunatics
"You don't give a shit about the environment, do you?"
"Nah" he replied rather succinctly.
"And you don't believe in Global Warming or Peak Oil. You want to build more roads, and think the RMA should be abolished. You support farmers and actually encourage them to expand their beef production for export. You want to abolish all petrol taxes. You drive a car everywhere rather than walk. You are not averse to Nuclear power. You said the country needs more hydro and coal power stations."
"Yeah, and what's more I believe the earth's resources are inexhaustible and that all this Greenie stuff is total hype and they are out of their tree."
"So, why are you a member of the Green Party then?"
"I like stirring them up at meetings."
"Do you realise there are consequences to your belief that the world is an inexhaustible resource to be abused. Don't they tell you there are consequences to your belief system?"
"They better not, or I'll slap them with an order from the privileges committee and they'll be thrown in jail for 25 years."
"Are you a f*cking lunatic? As if you could jail the Greens for 25 years just because they think the consequences of your actions are destructive."
Yes, the Greens are f*cking lunatics
The money quote's here: "Cardinal Pell has shown no remorse for his comments that there will be 'consequences’ for Catholic MPs who do not vote against the therapeutic cloning bill."
ReplyDeleteSeems very much like a privilege issue - Pell's asserting for his organisation a prior claim to the allegiance of certain MPs, above the electors who actually voted for the MPs, which is serious enough. But on top of that he's attempting to intimidate those MPs into accepting that assertion of prior claim and voting accordingly - well dodgy. I hope they do bang him up.
And if an MP got thrown out of the Boy Scouts for advocating lowering the age of consent to 9?
ReplyDeleteAnd if an MP was the patron of Barnardos and they fired him as a patron if he advocating beating children?
Finally, the Church is clarifying its code of conduct. I suspect they can soon start to point of the consequences to people of continuous, unrepentent sinning. And there are consequences, and just because the Greens think there shouldn't be consequences, doesn't mean there are not.
Like my post said - they believe there are consequences to mankind producing a couple of percent of the worlds CO2. And you can't stop them shutting up about the "consequences" Howard will face for not listening to them. If a Greenie MP defected and went all "oil burning" on them, you'd see the extent of the Greenie's love and tolerance.
What consequences does Howard face for not listening to the Greens? They'll campaign against him? Our political process specifically allows for that. It also allows the Cardinal to campaign against MPs who don't vote the way he likes - he has as much right to engage in political activity as the rest of us, as long as the "consequences" he refers to mean only that he'll try to persuade electors to vote for someone else next time. But if the "consequences" involve direct intimidation of serving MPs to try and push them into voting against what they perceive to be the best interests of their electors (eg, by threatening excommunication), he's definitely risking a jail term.
ReplyDeleteFirstly, Pell did not threaten excommunication. The media and the Greens are whipping up a storm on undefined "consequences".
ReplyDeleteCardinal Pell says:
"If you violate Catholic moral principles, it has consequences for your relationship with God and the church," he said.
"Now the church, in many, or most, cases, doesn't take any official action on this apart from saying that such an activity is wrong.
"But those consequences follow inevitably in the heart and the soul of the person who takes actions. That's what religion is about."
Cardinal Pell said he had never threatened anybody with excommunication.
The point about excommunication is that it is not meant as a vindictive penalty, but a wake-up call that the person in question has displayed serious immoral behaviour and needs to reflect and repent. Being excommunicated doesn't prevent one from attending mass.