Je Suis Le Neuf du Perruche Ondulee

So the Budgie 9 have been released with a caution.

First of all I want to go on the record as being extremely opposed to the term “budgie” when used in relation to underpants. I am sick of it and would like it to be scoured from the earth.

Putting that aside for the moment, I am glad the Nine aren’t going to jail. Because if they’d gone to jail, it would have been a RIDICULOUS punishment for a bunch of guys wearing flag undies at a Grand Prix.

I mean it’s ridiculous there was even a chance of them going to jail. It’s ridiculous that they were, briefly, in jail awaiting their fate. It’s ridiculous their actions could be considered a crime and it’s ridiculous they ended up in a courtroom.

In My Opinion.

I had to add “in my opinion” because for some reason, whenever you say what you think in public, there’ll be someone who trots along with an accusatory, triumphant “Yes, in YOUR opinion!”, as if they’ve proved you wrong by pointing out that you believe the thing you just said you believed.

Soooooo. In my opinion…

In my opinion making it a criminal act to be a knobend in underpants at a sporting event is terrible. Making law like that is, to me, far more disturbing than the act of underpantery itself could be. It’s a dumb law and a repressive law that subjugates human rights to vague notions of “offence” and criminalises behaviour that harms nobody — which to me is always the litmus test as to whether behaviour should be criminalised.

OK. So that said. Here are the things that the above opinion does NOT mean:

• It does NOT mean that I think people should go to other countries and feel free to disobey their laws. Wilfully putting yourself in danger of arrest for no good reason is stupid. That doesn’t mean the reason you get arrested can’t be stupid as well.
• It does NOT mean that I think Australia has no bad laws. Australia has plenty of bad laws and plenty of authorities behaving badly and I have no problem saying so. This does not rob an Australian of the right to criticise a law of another country, any more than another country’s horrible laws forbid its citizens from criticising ours.
• It does NOT mean that I am condemning Malaysia as any kind of savage primitive hellhole. Almost every country has its bad point and good points, and it’s silly to think that pointing out the bad points in any instance equates to denying the good points’ existence.
• It does NOT mean I’m declaring the Nine to be virtuous, pure or even particularly pleasant people. They seem pretty stupid, and they’re probably arseholes. Most people are. I am opposed to the criminalisation of stupidity and arseholery and I do not desire to make my opinions on the legal status of a particular act dependent on the personality of the person performing it.
• It does NOT mean I think Malaysia “has no right to make its own laws”. Of course it does. When you criticise a foreign country’s law some people react as if you’re demanding we invade them. They have the right to make their own laws and I don’t want to go over there and try to take that right away. Neither do I want to take away the rights of Saudi Arabia, or the United States, or Australia itself, to make their own laws. But some of their laws are not good laws and I reject any suggestion that nobody should ever say so.
• It does NOT mean I think insulting people’s cultures is “good”. Just that insulting a culture is better than jailing people for insulting your culture.

All of the above should actually be pretty obvious, inasmuch as none of those points are in any way implied by the original opinion as stated. But I thought it was as well to clarify, because people, well, are simpletons.

So if you’re thinking of formulating some kind of opinion on the matter (and I am in no way recommending that you do), try not to be a simpleton. If you can.

The no. 1 book of choice for non-simpletons: Error Australis. Funny, educational and sexy as hell, buy it now.