Helping other people. The free and open sharing of ideas and solutions. This is what politics should be about. Not a competition to determine who is the most offended, or who is the most privileged. We should be moving forward, rather than creating artificial stalemates and deadlocks.
Let us look at the media coverage of Hurricane Harvey. An enormous number of Americans are volunteering their time, their trucks and their boats to help their fellow Americans. But what dictates the media coverage of this event? Rest assured, not the generosity of Americans who are helping out and displaying true humanity.
Instead, the clothing worn by visiting First Lady Melania Trump is criticised. Instead, a 2016 CNN article claiming that “feminine-named hurricanes…cause significantly more deaths” has resurfaced. It is lamentable and appalling that, in the event of a natural disaster that has taken many lives, mass media cannot help but politicise it. It appears as though every event is reported through the lens of finding fault and miserably condemning whatever it is. This is a terrible situation for the Western world, and one which we should strive to change.
The same can be said about the current debate surrounding same-sex marriage in Australia. The core of the debate are proposed amendments to several subsections of the Marriage Act 1961 (Cth) and the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth). However, both the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ camps have turned this into a major ideological battle for Australians. On the ‘yes’ side, phrases such as ‘equality’, ‘love is love’ and ‘it doesn’t affect you’ are used. This is complemented with a tsunami of hypocrisy; can somebody campaign for ‘tolerance’ whilst simultaneously being intolerant to all views contrary to their own? On the ‘no’ side, phrases such as ‘freedom of speech’, ‘slippery slope’ and ‘tradition’ are employed. Where to draw the line between freedom of speech, conscience and religion, and the doctrine of amending laws that treat Australians differently is a matter, in my view, for the Australian population to decide.
At the end of the day, though, whether ‘yes’ or ‘no’ wins the debate, the outcome will provide no solution to the more pressing issues facing Australia and its people. Can marriage, either traditional or same-sex, solve Australia’s high power prices and shortages, and the devastating economic consequences deriving from them? Of course not. Can marriage, in any form, curb the increasing disrespect for police and the legal system in Australia? Of course not. Will it protect people’s legal private property from being seized when they use it to protect their families? Of course not.
The current political discourse (and media coverage thereof) focuses on issues such as same-sex marriage, because philosophical and moral issues are much easier to debate than finding valid economic and legal solutions. Even the energy crisis has been transformed into an ideological battle to absolve Australia’s lawmakers from confronting the issue head-on. Naturally, the possibility of injecting emotions into an issue causes the mass media to salivate at the mouth.
Rather than finding a solution to the very real power crisis that is hurting Australian households, it has been hijacked and used as a platform for a more general debate concerning renewable energy. Renewable energy is the clear path to the future – very few people deny this. But at the present moment, renewable energy is not sufficient enough to power all of Australia. Hence, a transition period is required.
Simultaneously, stronger export restrictions should be applied to Australia’s offshore exportation of gas. Australia’s high volume of gas exportation has resulted in Australia’s domestic gas price having to match the considerably high world price. This is one cause of the current energy crisis.
Unfortunately, as with the cases of Hurricane Harvey and same-sex marriage, the true facts surrounding the energy crisis are seldom reported by the media. The preferred outcome of the mass media is not to disseminate facts and information in the hope of enlightening the population, but to incite emotions, feelings, sensitivities, mind-sets of feeling offended and viewing those better off than oneself, as privileged. With his frequent cries of ‘fake news’, perhaps Trump is on to something.
What we can do, as truth-loving citizens, is remind ourselves that the media does not see itself as working for us or for our benefit. We can source the data ourselves, read the legislation ourselves and find the scientific reports ourselves. We do not need a middleman to warp and distort the truth, and then feed it to us with a false fork of fallacies. If the media wants to regain our trust and respect, it will have to undergo a dramatic shift back to its original and honest intentions.
In the meantime, we should pursue self-autonomy and self-sovereignty. We will all become wiser and more knowledgeable, less sensitive and offended, and, ultimately, happier.
James is the Managing Editor of Centrethought. Find out more about him here. You can contact him at james@centrethought.com