The
Making of the Mongrel Dog
The Mongrel Dog was born into a clean living rural family; law abiding, respectful, loyal to democratic Western traditions, resourceful and independent. He had an untroubled childhood and adolescence and grew in the love of those values his community believed were the best distillation of centuries of human experience.
As a young adult he participated in community affairs, did a little charity work, wrote a few essays on civics encouraging grass roots participation in decision making, spoke in public advocacy of what he saw as good causes, and saw community service as the proper inauguration of a youth into manhood.
In this way he was focused upon becoming a man, and paying his fair, and in time he became one. A fully paid up one too, in the best Western liberal tradition. But he carried a fatal flaw, and in time this would ruin everything. He wasn’t doing any of this for the acclaim of his peers; his was a compelling inner obsession with service to others as the stuff and support of his own dignity. Certainly weird, but one sometimes gets that.
Having become a man and one fixedly concentrating on real results, and insanely oblivious of what his peers valued or acclaimed, things got progressively out of hand over the next twenty years.
He had worked for weeks helping to gather signatures to a petition he saw as drawing attention to an important injustice. He went to Parliament House to witness its presentation there. The great moment came. The Politicians had been chatting before the announcement and reading of the petition. Not one stopped to listen, none even turned their heads; none had even registered its passing. The belief in noble abstractions, when shattered, is one of the cataclysmic forces in humanity.
Was the wording of the petition incorrect, offensive, or at fault? Was I wrong? In a dazed state he attended the Parliamentary sittings for two more days and saw many other petitions presented. None warranted the least modicum of attention.
Still the victim of myth, he decided that considered and well-constructed letters personally directed to our Parliamentary Representatives would be efficacious. He encouraged little groups to form, to make so far as is possible a science of writing to politicians, and ply them with intelligent and well-presented correspondence. They wrote their hearts away, but when they compared responses, over 98% were identical reproductions on any subject raised.
Mongrel Dog was a youth raised to the myth of the humanity of man to man, but all he found in authority were politicians; venal, grasping, self-serving, and pathetic caricatures of moral mediocrity. It is said that if you lock up a rogue elephant and give him nowhere to go, he will normally start breaking things. He did.
Certainly he saw “our representatives” at last, in a clear light, but he was also disaffected with his peers. Could they not see the disuse to which they were subjected?
He had learned of the Swiss system of Voters Veto whereby the people had a degree of control over politicians. In small measure this idea had leaked into some other countries. No other measure of democracy is anything much other than make-believe, but how to get it?
Politicians are firmly in command of every road to direct democracy, and are its avowed and implacable enemies. Their natural inclination is to aggrandise themselves as the people’s saviours. This could never be maintained unless the people were abjectly dependent upon their politicians, and forever kept there. So which way is forward?
The first thing was to look at the landscape. Ours is a country of criminally misrepresentative politicians ruling over a population who would fear to censure their politicians, but only make do with having them take turns at misrepresentation every few years. Discriminating between politicians, all of whom will never allow the people a say on what they want a say on, is ridiculous.
Then everything changed. He met a bloke who had met a bloke, who had met the bloke who broke in several thousand donkeys for the British Army during World War I. He always started by isolating each donkey in a small yard, approaching it, and without warning or provocation, hitting it very hard down the face with a lump of 3x2 hardwood. After this, training his donkeys was always easy, because they always gave him their full attention.
There were no threats, no yelling, and nothing to indicate that the blow was coming. For this reason the donkeys had to pay attention all the time, and not just when threatened. It is the same when training politicians. Don’t petition them or write them any letters; these things only reassure them that you think they are of some use.
We need to get used to the idea that only mongrel acts are effective in politics. Making them take turns at doing mongrel acts to us is not the answer. We have to perfect acting like mongrels towards them. But how can I be a real mongrel to my politician? Easy!
When you approach the polling booth the politicians’ rat-packs will all show you how to vote. You will only ever need to ask one question “Who is the sitting member?” Once you know this you are fully equipped for your mongrel dog act.
Mongrel Dogs don’t discriminate against politicians because of their race, religion, party or sex. We put all sitting members last irrespective of any and all considerations whatsoever. If they are politicians they must all be defeated at all elections, until they give us the right to initiate binding referenda on issues of our choosing. After that politicians won’t matter much, no matter who they are.
Nobody ever taught a politician anything by electing him. Only if we give them all a sound thrashing and throw them out of the House, will they listen up. So Mongrel Dogs will always ….
Put Every Sitting Member Last
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