Pages

Tuesday 8 November 2016

If I Ruled The World....?

Although I do try hard from time to time to become more politically correct, even though I mix with the `right’ people, not very much seems to rub off on me. I worry about it sometimes because all around me there are `right thinking citizens’ (alternative - `moralising do gooders’?) who are anxious to make even more left leaning changes to the community and there am I stranded in the centre of all this progressive thought, leaning further and further to the right and at times reaching back into the very annals of history. A person can feel very lonely. Good Friend Sara, who has seen me distributing occasional two dollar coins to the homeless, and with whom a day or two ago I shared the remains of a bottle of white wine, maintains that I am not as traditionalist as I would like to be seen. She’s wrong about that, well to be honest she’s wrong about a lot of things, but as for traditionalism I don’t think there are many among us as terrifyingly Rightist as myself. For instance I would bring back hanging in a flash should I find myself leader of an independent, self directed sovereign state. Not for the average run of the mill murder I should explain, and certainly not if there was some doubt as to the perpetrator, but for child killers of the category we have become accustomed to in New Zealand – and furthermore even for those committing sex offences against children. As far as the latter is concerned, I won’t even demand a body but I will need to be assured that the offending actually happened. Why on earth keep these people alive? What can they possibly contribute to society? Much cheaper, more efficient to simply get rid of them. I’d hazard a guess that should my ideas be deployed sex crimes against children would dramatically diminish overnight so we wouldn’t even need to have too many unpleasant executions. Good Friend Sara looked at me strangely when I said this so I added that overall I think we would find it to be a far more economical solution than the current arrangement where we keep these offenders secure in various ways and attempt to change their thinking with therapy. I would certainly bring back a parent’s right to physically chastise their errant child. Doing away with smacking has done a lot of good hasn’t it? And you know, I might even bring back corporal punishment in schools. Not for the very little ones though. I think you can afford to debate appropriate behaviour with five and six year olds (even use an exclusion room perhaps) but by the time those with red hair called Damon or Kevin are nine and ten years of age they are completely aware of consequences. I’m not suggesting beating them senseless you understand, just enough to hurt and remind them that nobody really wants to expend too much energy on redefining the parameters of acceptable behaviour with them. Yes, I know it probably won’t turn them into better people but it will make school a more pleasant experience for those who are constantly disrupted by the more disorderly students. I would also dispense with the services of poor teachers as fast as possible. For a start I would give them all a spelling and grammar test – oh and basic arithmetic too. Now Good Friend Sara began to tell me what I already knew – language changes, spelling changes. Yes, I know but it certainly doesn’t change that much that quickly. My New & Acceptable Teaching Staff would conform to my ideals or get out. `Are you going to allow there to be such a thing as gifted children?’ she wanted to know – well she knows how many years I was obsessed with their future, etc., etc. And yes, I was, children with high intellectual potential would be given the opportunity to study topics that would extend them such as Latin, Philosophy, Russian Literature. And those with creative ability would be given rigorous training. `A bit like it used to be in Russia?’ she queried but by then I wanted to get away from education. I said that it was my belief that a society is judged by the way it takes care of its most vulnerable members so I would also bring back psychiatric hospitals where those suffering from serious mental illnesses could be cared for by staff who would ensure absolutely that they took their treatment whether they liked it or not. This I believe would cut down the number of horrific killings committed by patients currently aimlessly wandering shopping malls and lingering outside schools. These are people that nobody cares too much about, even their families and it’s a problem that should be fixed not only for them but for the good of the majority. Yes, I do realise they might not want to be incarcerated but if I became Head of State they wouldn’t actually have a choice. Good Friend Sara maintained that I would very quickly become a much despised Absolute Ruler rather than a greatly adulated one. I told her that I didn’t think I would mind that too much and anyhow there were other things I would do that people would applaud. I would not get rid of the dole as she suspected but I would make people work for it. Not an original idea of course but definitely a sound one. Medicine and Education would be absolutely free and no, as yet I didn’t quite know how I was going to fund it all. Good Friend Sara emptied her wine glass and said she didn’t think I would need to worry too much about it all anyhow. `Why not?’ I asked. `Because I think you’d be assassinated before you could implement much of it,’ she said. She can be extremely irritating at times.

No comments:

Post a Comment