Fuck Politeness

So I had to go in to uni on the weekend.

I study by distance education now, and it was an on-campus session. I was dreading the hours and hours of boredom in store.

I forgot the dynamics of tutorial set-ups.

You know the phrase “There’s always one” right?

Well he announced himself in the first five minutes with an Anna Coren worthy segueway from the Constitution into “…and I come back, and now you can’t smoke in pubs!! I mean what the fuck is with THAT?”.

Absolutely. Entirely the most pressing Constitutional concern in this country right now, one that has kept many a High Court justice awake at nights wrestling with her/his conscience.

Anyway, he was just the most delightful bundle of machismo and testosterone, in a charmingly squat, open mouthed package, and whenever someone dared to disagree he thought nothing of snarlingly swearing at them, hurling contempt with his barely thought out reply. It was fun, it really was to share a space of learning with the thug.

One of his finer points of argument over the weekend?

On the gender makeup of High Court benches

“Well! You know…if they’re dealing with cases about guys smashing up cars and shit…you’d want people who know about guys smashing up cars”.

Um.

Firstly I am now curious to know if there’s ever been a case before the High Court about “guys smashing up cars and shit”, and second? I’d really like to know what the FUCK Dyson Heydon would know about guys smashing up cars that any woman would not. 

Anyway…

So the tutor. Oh the tutor. Not quite as blatant a dick swinger as this tool, but…well, I think he just preferred to wield his in a different manner.

There he is, up the front, in his button down shirt and chinos, all objective, neutral expert. He states from the outset that he is a conservative and against big government, then spends the rest of the weekend alternately making oblique proclamations which *tell* us what the role of government is and is not, and using the case law and articles to *prove* his points of the perils of Commonwealth power and the threat of the reds under the bed (Julia Gillard et al apparently)…EXCEPT that many times that weekend I caught him out in blatant misconstruction of the cases and the articles.

First he told the class to just ‘not worry about’ the critical discussions of Constitutional interpretation set in our readings. He proclaimed post modernism says that the text has absolutely no meaning (sorry, not quite it dickwad), decided it was all pointless and with no qualms dismissed out of hand the readings which were clearly set for a reason.

He told the class that the legal critic Craven is a conservative (not the sense I got reading his articles) and informed the class that Craven both slammed progressive interpretation (which he did, although miraculously the tutor “forgot” to mention that this was after he had ripped apart literalism as resembling “arguments amongst eight year olds with dictionaries”, and asserted that the text book implied that a section of the Acts Interpretation Act might enable this Unholy Union of United Unionists (Ok, that’s my phrase, I have fun with exaggeration) to alter the Constitution without a referendum, *conveniently* leaving out the fact that the very next sentence obliterated this theoretical possibility. It would never happen. Any attempt would be immediately challenged and found unconstitutional by the High Court which would find that the *possibly, possibly maybe, if you close your eyes and squint while very very drunk* reading of the *dangerous* clause would be read as being subject to the Constitution.

He informed the class that the second “Airlines” case represented a massive and threatening expansion of Federal government powers by obliterating a long held constitutional distinction. I will not bore you with the details (unless you write and ask) – suffice to say: It. DID. NOT. I am sorry but it didn’t. It is not a matter of opinion. It DIDN’T. It just fucking didn’t. It was at pains to emphasise the importance of continuing to uphold a distinction which most people find dubious at best.

When I pointed this out, he claimed that it did to all intents and purposes since if it was shown that there would be any affect on the trade in question that was sufficient. Again…BUH BOW…WRONG, thanks for playing. It explicitly did NOT do this, rather insisted that there had to be a real physical danger that by upholding the distinction the Federal Government would be prevented from performing its duties.

Ok. This is all very boring to many readers I’m sure. But dude was either ill informed or duplicitous.

So THEN. He asks if anyone knows of ‘the meat case’. I know the one he means and I say yes. He rolls his eyes, slaps his thighs and asks “I MEAN! Really! Can ANYONE explain to me what possible head of power justifies federal governemnt involvement in the regulation of the production of meat??”

I (not meaning to deadpan, having my finger ON the explanation in my book) say blankly “trade and commerce”. “NooooOOOOOOOooooo!!!” comes the disparaging remark from bogan-wannabe dickslinger over yonder “It’s QUARANTINE [he says in that “Err, ya fuckwit, as if you wouldn’t know THAT” tone of voice] mad cow an’ shit”. I’m barely able to recover from that before the tutor beamingly gestures at said dickslinger and says in a tone of pride like “Look what I made”: “We have a constitutional lawyer in the making over here!”

Eh? Unless a Constitutional lawyer ought to actually be able to read and understand the Constitution and Constitional cases.

Sigh.

So. Apparently reading and understanding will get you nowhere! If you don’t have a dick and you don’t wave it around you get nowhere. So that’s what I learned (or rather was reminded of). It doesn’t matter how smart you are, how many readings you do, how many notes you take, how much you care about the law and the Constitution, how much you would like to discuss the history and interpretation of it to hopefully make the lives of anyone living in this country safer and better, to attempt to require a legal system which claims that it constrains and protects all its citizens equally to actually fucking DO IT.

Nope. Doesn’t matter what you say. If you’ve got a dick and you assert yourself in full belief that you are a genius and the whole world would benifit from your insights, you *win*, hands down, no matter how much of a clueless, selfish, aggressive tryhard wanker you are you will win with comfort and ease over some WOMAN who don’t know shit about guys smashin cars an’ shit.

Tags: aggression, arguments, arseholes, dickswinging, feminism, gender, gender priviledge, law, sex, smoking