An odd question to ask, I'll admit, but I think it's worth asking.

It's hard to have a public conversation today about political or politicised topics because people will pipe up and tell you that you're crazy and your ideas are completely backwards. And the reason why people say this is often driven by conflicts between personally held values rather than the ideas themselves. As a result, these conversations usually end up with both sides arguing past eachother and no concensus is ever made; nobody is happy.

One of the more common reasons for these arguements is typically because one party believes in egalitarianism - the belief that all people should be treated the same - and the other one does not. It's particularly strange to see given that so many countries have egalitarianism as a cornerstone to their government and laws. Yet we still see many people trying to take away rights and freedoms from certain classes of people.

Regardless of any particular conversation, what do you think is the best way to convince someone in the value of egalitarianism? How do you convince someone that they're not part of a higher class who has power over another?

Scott Morrison stands by Liberal ad promoting government's bushfire response

Here's the advertisement itself: https://twitter.com/ScottMorrisonMP/status/1213330419044638722

For the non-Aussies, and for the Aussies who aren't political tragics like me... the reason everyone's up in arms is that this video has been released by the Liberal Party, not by the Australian government. We can tell by the "Authorised by" statement in the final frame. Government information comes with the Commonwealth coat of arms and says "Authorised by the Australian Government, Canberra". Party political advertisements have to be "authorised by" someone within the political party. In other words, this is a political ad, not a government press release. The Liberal Party (not the government!) is promoting itself on the basis of what the government is doing for the bushfires.

Scott Morrison has already been an utter failure during this crisis. He went on holiday after the fires started. He's done as little as possible since he returned. And people have noticed. People have abused him when he turned up to visit their town. People have literally refused to shake his hand (but he grabs their hands and shakes them anyway!).

But, despite all this wrong-footedness, this new advertisement is the most tone-deaf thing he's done (so far!). It reflects his background in marketing. Everything's a message for him. Unfortunately for him, the message here is "I'm using your suffering to promote myself".

Scott Morrison has fucked up yet again.