As they said back in the day, I've had a gutsful.
They make death threats, spit and shout, brandish the imagery of white supremacists. They harass school kids in masks. They block the streets, sabotaging businesses already hurting. They make public servants feel unsafe - those same ones who've worked two gruelling years for the safety of all of us.
Speaker of the House, Trevor Mallard, seems like he’s had a gutsful too - and I can't blame him. He's responsible for a building full of people people who must, more and more, be feeling afraid. And so yesterday, Mallard turned on the sprinklers on Parliament's lawn, and not to spray mode, but to soak. As Stuff reported it:
“No-one who is here is here legally, and if they’re getting wet from below as well as above, they’re likely to be a little bit less comfortable and more likely to go home,” Mallard said in a statement on Friday. “Some people have suggested we add the vaccine in the water, but I don't think it works that way.”
Why does this statement make me feel slightly uncomfortable? I've been trying to figure it out.
This is not an appeal for leniency. The protesters are breaking a bunch of rules, from hurling stuff at police to unlawful parking, and consequences are a’coming. Not even this masterstroke of legal argument will save them.
Using a tactic like sprinklers to defuse more hatefulness is arguably legit. Look at the weather: God Himself is using sprinklers on these dicks right now.
But the sprinklers are an act of power by an elected person with official responsibilities. Yeah, maybe not a dramatic act of power. Maybe a slightly funny one. But still: it’s a person using his office in a particular way, to make people do stuff. And that’s his job.
But to my mind, using a power - big or small or sprinkler-sized - should be a careful, clear eyed business. That's why the jokey statement didn't feel quite right. From one person, words like these might be harmless enough. From another, they could be construed as hoping for likes. I’m not assuming. I just think power must be seen as scrupulously neutral, and for good or for ill, that means no going for LOLs. (It’s why so few senior public servants excel at stand-up.)
I want these people to put their clothes back on, stop playing John Farnham as a matter of urgency, pack up their nonsensical soggy cardboard placards and bugger off home. They’re breaking the rules. I want the rules to be enforced; not because it's funny, but because it's right. And let's be honest, the funny is dwindling. This situation is serious, ugly. It's not that someone could get hurt. Someone will.
I get it. This is weird and exhausting and yucky: I’m not unsympathetic to the Speaker, or anyone else caught in the fray. When you've had a gutsful - I know for a fact - it's harder to be careful, clear eyed. It's also when it matters most.
I feel exactly the same way. I don’t think we should be tolerating it. I guess maybe the weather factors in to the way the police are handling it. Fingers crossed they get rained away!