Whatever happened to the joyful, devil-may-care, larrikin spirit that was quintessentially Australian for decades?
It seems that some of our fellow citizens wake up every morning with the sole intent of finding what is wrong with the world and new ways to find offence.
This is often done by parsing over every online utterance or comment by someone in a public position, in an effort to ‘enlighten’ and publicly shame them with respect to the ‘offence’ that they are allegedly causing to some group in society.
It is getting to the stage that you are almost rendered mute for fear of inadvertently treading on someone’s toes, but it never seems to be enough to appease the PC police.
(Clearly the whole premise of this article is grounded in hypocrisy as I am having a black label, top-shelf moan at those who have seemingly made it their life’s work to gripe about everything and everyone).
The hand-wringers are everywhere you turn, intent on turning our society a deep shade of vanilla.
Vanilla – of course - would no doubt be a deeply offensive term to the tut-tutters, as it is the very epitome of centuries of Anglo Saxon oppression, patriarchy and western hegemony.
The moral exhibitionists were at it again recently when a picture of Malcolm Turnbull was taken at an AFL match cradling his granddaughter in one hand and holding a beer in the other.
The vast majority of Australians would be scratching their heads as to what exactly was wrong with this image.
Surely we have reached peak virtuousness when you are criticised for doing something that is completely legal and not dangerous in any way.
It must be unbearable shouldering the weight of the world, but what is often forgotten by these people is that they are incredibly lucky to be living in a country that allows them almost complete freedom to express themselves.
This is a first world issue as they do not have to concern themselves with real problems, like filling their bellies every day or religious and/or political persecution.
Because they are comfortable with their lot in life, they continually seek to foist their ‘evolved’ values on others.
Every effort should be made to hold back the tide on the incremental creep of the beige-ification of our nation – the stark reality is that not every problem needs a solution and not every group in society is looking for a saviour.
And at the risk of sounding trite - relax – day-to-day life in this great nation of ours does not need to be anywhere near as complicated as some of us make it out to be.
– Trent Thorne, agribusiness lawyer