I recently received a forwarded email with a quote attributed to John Howard. It was taken from a supposed speech he gave about immigration policies and a multicultural Australia. Here is an excerpt:
“Immigrants, not Australians must adapt. Take It Or Leave It. I am tired of this nation worrying about whether we are offending some individual or their culture. Since the terrorist attacks on Bali, we have experienced a surge in patriotism by the majority of Australians. However, the dust from the attacks had barely settled when the ‘politically correct’ crowd began complaining about the possibility that our patriotism was offending others… As Australians, we have our own culture, our own society, our own language and our own lifestyle. This culture has been developed over two centuries of struggles, trials and victories by millions of men and women who have sought freedom”
The supposed speech came to an end in a frenzied climax of patriotic cliches (caps added by original source):
“This is OUR COUNTRY, OUR LAND, and OUR LIFESTYLE, and we will allow you every opportunity to enjoy all this. But once you are done complaining, whining, and griping about Our Flag, Our Pledge, Our Christian beliefs, or Our Way of Life, I highly encourage you take advantage of one other great Australian freedom, ‘THE RIGHT TO LEAVE’.”
Had it happened? Had John Howard finally flown off the handle and revealed his inner Aussie battler? Then I thought, wait a minute, this is John Howard. The who never says anything remotely inflammatory. John Howard, appeaser of the middle class. I turned to Google to find out where this story really came from.
I found that indeed it wasn’t little Johnnie who penned the above rant, nor was it one of his speechwriters. In fact, it was hard to trace the author, there were so many. Stories usually went something like: an editorial in a “major tabloid” said this speech or “a concerned reader and average Joe” sent this letter-to-the-editor to a local newspaper. It also seemed that the country in question wasn’t originally Australia. It seems that the speech has been used in defence of patriotism in the UK as well however the consensus of internet opinion is that it was written by an American citizen as an editorial for a Tampa (Florida) newspaper. Name unknown.
In fact, this is simply a chain letter. A dig back through the news archives showed that this letter has been sent to various newspapers’ editorial sections and published again and again since 2001, the date it was originally written. Finally, I ended up at breakthechain.com which traced it back to “Barry Loudermilk, an Air Force veteran from Georgia and frequent op-ed columnist in the The Bartow Trader” which quite possibly could be the Bartow in Florida.
The fact that people keep quoting this and getting excited by it is probably because it’s more or less how people are feeling. It’s no secret that citizens are increasingly frustrated by the constant stream of politically correct bullshit that spews forth from our lawmakers and media outlets. Usually when something doesn’t sit right with the general population, an opposite reaction will occur pretty soon after. It doesn’t take Newton to tell you that the opposite of PC is usually a little on the racist, good-old-days, nationalistic side. That’s how society ends up reasonably balanced.
The funny thing about this email is that people are not attributing to John Howard the type of quotes we used to read Pauline Hanson actually giving. I suppose those who agreed all along felt a little better when it came from official mouths.
Yeah, right.
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