The Vibe of the Thing

Last night whilst working on my bicycle I had the television on in the background.

There was this goddam awful show playing named (I think) ‘The Project’.

It was one of those ‘witty’ panel shows although this one was cringfully unwitty.

In one segment they reviewed the 40 final entries for the new NZ flag.

Apparently the PM there wants a new flag without the English flag in the corner, so they are going through the charade of public entries, long lists, shorter long lists and then a short list ahead of a referendum where they pick the silver fern on a black background.

The risk of course is that the bogan nation picks some bloody awful concoction instead of the silver fern, just like we in Australia ended up with ‘Advance Australia Fair’ as our national anthem. Thanks Malcolm!

Evidence for this was the personal favorites of the panelists in The Project. They picked awful, awful options that would only be suitable for airline logos, Dick Smith peanut butter jar labels, or government agency posters.

It goes to the point that certain issues shouldn’t be put in the hands of amateurs or the people.

Sometime back I watched a TED talk on the subject of flags and, guess what, there are experts on the subject that really know what they are doing.

Employ them and leave the people out of it, I say.

On the same show I had to endure a clip of Tony Abbot rabitting on about why the coalition had voted against putting the issue of same sex marriage to the parliament as a conscience vote.

In that very painful interview (was there ever a poorer communicator in the role?) he said that after the next election (and assuming the coalition gets reelected) they would put the issue to ‘the people’.

Same sex marriage is bloody inevitable so why waste zillions of dollars just so same sex marriage can be put off for a few more years?

He knows that our referendum process is easily gamed. A change requires a majority in a majority of states which makes it pretty easy to stop initiatives with a concerted effort in places like Tasmania and Queensland.

You have to wonder why people are so keen to control what other people can or can’t do.

Maybe there needs to be a ‘no harm’ clause added to the constitution whereby any majority (or even a minority) can’t assert their will over the rest of us, whether that is through parliament or otherwise, if the majority/minority can only point to the ‘vibe of the thing’ as their only objection.