As you’ve no doubt heard by now, SBS sports journalist Scott McIntyre woke up unemployed today after he took to twitter to criticise, well, war.
Even Warrior for Free Speech Tim Wilson refused to stand up for McIntyre saying he would be ‘judged harshly’ for his comments.
The cultification of an imperialist invasion of a foreign nation that Australia had no quarrel with is against all ideals of modern society.
— Scott McIntyre (@mcintinhos) April 25, 2015
Not forgetting that the largest single-day terrorist attacks in history were committed by this nation & their allies in Hiroshima & Nagasaki
— Scott McIntyre (@mcintinhos) April 25, 2015
But why were we surprised? After all, it’s the lefty loons at the SBS who said “I felt then, as I feel now, that the politicians who took us to war should have been given the guns and told to settle their differences themselves instead of organising nothing better than legalised mass murder.”
(Wait, that was actually Harry Patch, the oldest surviving veteran of the First World War).
The Australian press has a code of decorum that must be followed. Left-wing journalists break this time and time again. It takes conservatives to call them out and keep a level of respect in our media discourse. Here are some examples of them keeping a calm and rational perspective and, most importantly, not getting fired:
1. The time Gary Johns from The Australian felt like Aboriginal people were stealing from hard working taxpayers
“Gap Day joins the roll call of NAIDOC, Invasion Day, Sorry Day, Reconciliation Week and no doubt, in time, Recognition Day, as opportunities for the Aboriginal industry to screw the taxpayer for rent.”
2. The time Paul Sheehan from the Sydney Morning Herald provided a nuanced perspective on terrorism
“The killing will go on because jihad is built into the fabric of Arab Islam.”
3. The time Janet Albrechtsen from The Australian accused The Greens of protecting terrorists
“Next time the Greens straddle their moral high horse about civil liberties, remember these people, put into the Senate to represent us, are offering the greatest protection to those who would kill us.”
4. The time Alan Jones from 2GB felt the need to assassinate the Lord Mayor of Sydney and the Prime Minister of Australia
“Put [Clover Moore] in the same chaff bag as Julia Gillard and throw them both out to sea.”
5. The time Miranda Devine from The Daily Telegraph thought lesbians caused riots
“The issue [same-sex marriage] is largely symbolic. It is simply a political tool to undermine the last bastion of bourgeois morality – the traditional nuclear family. You only had to see the burning streets of London last week to see the manifestation of a fatherless society.”
6. The time Tim Blair from The Daily Telegraph decided to stick it to the Muslims
“It’s just bad luck, I guess, that the religion of peace attracts so many people of violence. Could’ve happened to any religion, really, although it’s rare to hear of anyone flying jets into buildings to honour Krishna or screaming oaths to Ganesha while cutting someone’s head off.”
7. The time John Laws was sensitive to rape survivors
Laws commented on one female caller who said she was a victim of sexual abuse with “My god, they were having a good time with you” and then asked ”Was it in any way your fault? You weren’t provocative?”.
Another time he spoke to a man who was abused as a child, and called him a “wet blanket” and told him to “go to the pub and have a lemonade, for god sake”.
8. The time Andrew Bolt from the Herald Sun told Aboriginal people how they should identify (and was sued as a legally defined racist)
“I’m saying only that this self-identification as Aboriginal strikes me as self-obsessed, and driven more by politics than by any racial reality.”
9 (with bonus). The time Piers Akermann managed to offend gay Australians and deny global warming in one hit
“To oppose the perversion of the definition of marriage, which has stood for millennia, is to be homophobic, a fairly recently invented term meant by those who use it to mean an active dislike of homosexuals. It is a bullying epithet, like the term “denier”, which those who have foolishly permitted themselves to be conned into believing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) propaganda on climate change fling at anyone who presents an argument demonstrating the flaws in the climate modelling used to justify the economy-destroying carbon dioxide tax.”
10. The time Gary Johns (again) from the Australian (again) wanted to institute a eugenics regime in Australia
“Some families, some communities, some cultures breed strife. Governments cannot always fix it. Compulsory contraception for those on benefits would help crack intergenerational reproduction of strife.”
11. The time Tom Elliott from The Herald Sun decided it was time to suspend Australian democracy
“Massive electoral swings in Queensland and Victoria, plus leadership instability in Canberra, suggest democracy isn’t working right now. It’s time we temporarily suspended the democratic process and installed a benign dictatorship to make tough but necessary decisions.”
Socialist Alternative protestors haven’t learnt the lessons of the past http://t.co/s6N5VMNCzZ
— Tom Elliott (@TomElliott3AW) April 10, 2015
12. The Time Tim Wilson, regular culture commentator and future Freedom Commissioner, called for violence against Occupy protestors
Wilson was upset that the 99 percent were upset with the one percent. In an eerily prophetic tweet, he argued against freedom of speech.
Walked past Occupy Melbourne protest, all people who think freedom of speech = freedom 2 b heard, time wasters … send in the water cannons
— Tim Wilson (@timwilsoncomau) October 21, 2011
BONUS: The time The Australian made a heartwarming tribute to one of Australia’s recently deceased beloved authors
“Colleen McCullough, Australia’s best selling author, was a charmer. Plain of feature, and certainly overweight, she was, nevertheless, a woman of wit and warmth.”
It is a testament to the spirit of the Australian people that a journalist tweeting in a personal capacity against the horrors of war should be fired, while other journalists penning homophobic, sexist, racist, and at times, treasonous polemics should be rewarded with continued employment in high salaried positions.
Because that’s the fair go that Anzac Day is all about.
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