Even the Vietnam war protesters from the 1970s would condemn these clowns

An anti-lockdown protester is detained in Sydney.

Jim Cairns may well have been the worst treasurer Australia ever had but in his heyday he was a genuine hero.

Striding along the boulevards of Australia’s capital cities, at the head of tens of thousands of citizens protesting against our involvement in the Vietnam war, he was seen as a beacon of moral fortitude.

Beguiled by Junie Morosi, he allowed his stellar reputation to be trashed so much that he became a tragic figure, mocked from pillar to post for being a silly old fool.

The first time I saw Morosi was at the infamous Terrigal conference of 1973. She was coming down the stairs at the entrance of the Florida Hotel and I immediately recognised and understood why men were prepared to throw their careers away in pursuit of her. The Vietnam moratorium marches made Cairns just as surely as Morosi unmade him.

Nowadays, with no outstandingly worthy cause like pulling out of the Vietnam war, marches are regarded as the refuge of the undesirable, the wretched and the unemployable. The idiots who glue their hands to the asphalt have seriously undermined the notion that a march is simply a demonstration of the kind of free society in which we live. The Trotskyists love this kind of semi-anarchic behaviour and their hopes are always high that new recruits will emerge from this sort of activity. Like the revolution they have been predicting for a century, the new recruits are a mirage fit only for the gullible.

When NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller declares he will come down hard on those clowns who think gathering in numbers is a clever idea in the time of Covid-19, even those who used to march in the 1970s will condemn those prepared to march now.

As a fervent participant in those moratorium marches, I will be among the first to castigate this bunch of dopes. The moratorium marches were not reckless ventures endangering public health, they were simple expressions of democratic freedom.

I think “reckless endangerment” is a crime and that provides the police with the big stick they are certain to need. I hope they are not reluctant in its use. I can vividly remember a few louts, the fringe dwellers who hang around the edges of legitimate protests, trashing a car which they later set on fire. All around me those marching condemned that stupidity. You don’t march for a thrill, you march for a cause.

When you take even a cursory look at our standard of living, you find it difficult to come up with a reason to protest. Trade unions have done so well for their members that they now find it difficult to convince people to join up.

The trend for so many “tradies” to incorporate gives real meaning to the comedic line – “the working class, can kiss my arse, I got the foreman’s job at last”. The greatest problem for unions has been the diminishing workforce from which to find new members. Automation has seen so many of the lower paid jobs go and is now eating into the white-collar numbers as well.

White-collar unions, outside of the public service and the banks, have either vanished or continue in diminished form. The rise of the machines cannot be resisted as computers take over so many tasks that were once the sole domain of human beings. I read recently that in New York there were trials of computerised legal advice being used in court cases. Those who control the way we educate our children have noticed this and have acted totally inappropriately. They have downgraded grammar and spelling because they figure that the computer will correct any errors.

I have seen too many new recruits at various jobs who simply cannot spell. Our language is vibrant and needs to be protected from Huns and Visigoths massing at its gate.