Fuck Politeness

So, I’ve just read it’s actually officially illegal for me to annoy World Youth Day participants. They can annoy me by taking over my city, and Hyde Park, and calling a week a day, but I am to be arrested if I annoy them?

How great is your power if you can have someone arrested for annoying you? I could have the annoying guy who always pops his head in to my office to make inane chit chat (as though a glassed in office is an open invitation) charged and dragged away! I could have snooty impatient shoppers in Coles whisked away without leave to contact their family for 48 hours. Honking drivers? People who talk during a movie? People who continue to try to make conversation with you on public transport even when you politely give them the “leave me alone please” cues?

What constitutes annoyance? What if I don’t know that the person in question is a World Youth Day participant? What if my loud voice and questionable sense of etiquette annoys them? What if I accidentally get caught up in that “oh, shit, no sorry, you go” do-si-do you do in the street sometimes when you’re all Chip N Dale over who should go first. What if they’re easily irritated? So far as I see it someone who has to wait until they’re married to have sex and can only then have sex if they intend on having a baby has gotta be permanently annoyed – and don’t even get me started on how easily annoyed those who swear to celibacy must be.

I just…lookit. The pope says no condoms in a world where AIDS is spreading like wildfire through severely disadvantaged countries…and to me this is mass murder. Now…I’m not *actually* going to go all tit-for-tat on their arses and mow em down as they rally in Hyde Park stomping all that lovely grass into mud, and I don’t advocate or condone any form of violence…but I can’t stand around in an “I found Jesus, he was behind the sofa the whole time” shirt? My boss can’t mess with them with a “So many Christians so few lions” shirt? This is actually enough to have my arse hauled away?

It’s so ridiculous, and so infuriating I cannot begin to discuss it seriously.

I have two suggestions here…firstly rather than protesting in obvious ‘annoying’ ways…I think perhaps we should all dress as ‘nice’ Catholics, join the crowd, then walk up to police officers, point at some participants and say “Those people over there have been making trouble –  just calling the Pope a murderer, and I have to say I’m really annoyed by this”. That should be good for a day of fun at least.

Alternatively, this:

http://remogeneralstore.com/pages/domitem.cfm?dom_pk=12112

is pretty awesome.

Tags: 'annoyance', Catholocism, civil liberties, new laws for world youth day, political tshirts, protest, World Youth Day