Stupidity and Malice

Sometimes I look at people and I have to ask:

Are they just that dumb?

Did they forget how to interact with humans for a moment? Or are they that despicable of a human being? There’s this point where you must decide.

There’s a joke that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result. If I push the button enough something different might happen. Sometimes you can just tell someone that what they’re doing is dumb and they’ll stop. Or explain that doing that same thing is hurting someone. But other people, the people you should avoid, just keep pushing the button over and over again. There’s a line where stupidity becomes insanity, but it can also turn to malice. Buttons are fine. But people are not.

Grieving people can be angry people. Our country has already been overflowing with anger towards the government. Now we’ve added frustration, grief, despair. One small push of the button and the populace explodes.

I’m watching footage of the prime minister in Cobargo. He awkwardly grabs at a man’s hand. The bloke is sitting, half slumped in a plastic chair with his drink. His gear is coated in soot, firemans jacket hanging open. As Morrison moves, he picks up his drink and leaves. We later find out that his house is gone. Another woman refuses to shake the minister’s hand, so he walks away, turning his back on her as she asks for help. Two people from this town are dead. A woman is widowed. Properties destroyed.

Morrison said that he went to Cobargo because he knew people would be emotional and he wanted to see what he could do to help. He really went because he thought it would be a good publicity opportunity. No sane person thinks ‘let’s go to a town that’s burning, where people have died, and shove cameras in their faces!’

Morrison kept pushing the button, even though he knew it was causing harm.

Emotional people aren’t fun props to try and make yourself look less like a failure of a prime minister.

He has crossed from stupidity, not to insanity, but to malice. Part of it stems from his religion, which believes that if bad things happen to you, you must be a bad person. Morrison’s god doesn’t do bad things to him, so he’s good, right? Those farmers who died trying to protect their farm must have been terrible people. The two firies who died fighting fires, away from their young families, must have been the worst kinds of people. The separation of church and state isn’t something I’ll go into now, but this is a damned good example of why they should be separate. He doesn’t understand that he isn’t a good person.

He seems to be scrambling now, going ‘look! I did a good thing!’ But it’s too late. The military had to evacuate people from a beach. An entire state has no postal service, multiple areas have no power, no cell signals, no petrol. Sydney is surrounded by flames, multiple main roads closed. My state has declared a state of disaster. The air is hazardous to breathe, the cities covered in a haze of smoke.

We fought for climate action, so he yelled at students to go back to school.

He refused to meet with experts on climate, on disasters, on the fires we get every year. They asked for months so that plans could be made. They knew, he knew that this fire season would be unprecedented, a crisis. Instead of preparing for this, millions of dollars were instead cut from the fire services. These fires have been burning for months already. It’s barely into the summer. He’s too late.

Our house has burnt down, and the prime minister has shown up with a bucket of water.