Politician gets inducted into gang

The local media is such a treat. The name for the story that goes with this photo is "Youth on right track", and it shows a clueless, window licking Labor MP (Viriginia Judge) surrounded by kids who are clearly members of a local gang.

I have difficulty reconciling this idea of kids being in a gang whilst simultaneously being "on the right track". Unless being in a gang around these parts is being on the right track.

My only explanation for this is that Judge is a Real Blonde, and thus utterly clueless.

I love the language used in these articles.

"The days of high school dropouts ending up in dead-end jobs still exists, so tailor-made services for young people are critical..."

Really? High school dropouts get jobs? I thought they just went on the dole and bludged in public housing. The seem to be no consequences to failing these days - the state will suckle you until you die if you can't be arsed being a useful and productive citizen.

"We've got a training centre here, so within our centre we're opening a space that's just for youth".

"Space". I love that. "Space for youth". Why youth need special "spaces" is something I have never figured out. It's all part of our modern pandering to the idea that youths are special and fragile and delicate and different and that they need special help etc etc.

What a load of crap. How are they going to grow up properly and learn to function as a mature adult if they are raised in separate, special enclaves that don't have an adult presence? A special "space for youth" to me means somewhere with minimal adult supervision and no role models. Recipe for disaster. Many of these kids are probably all fucked up because they come from single parent households - no dad around. What they actually need is proper male role models, not to be prevented from having any at all.

This program has a groovy name by the way - "Youth Linx", with an "x". I wonder how much of our tax money was spent on thinking that up?

"Young people leave school for many reasons, including problems with drugs and alcohol, dysfunction within the family, issues with the justice system and disability".

I love the way we chuck euphamisms around, because no one wants to face the ugly truth.

"Problems with drugs and alcohol". What does that mean exactly? What is a "problem with alcohol"? When I was a teenager, my biggest problem was getting enough of it, and then when I did get some of it, my next problem was holding it down. I did some horrible cheap red wine chunders in my teens, and suffered some incredibly brutal hangovers. Is that the sort of problem these kids are having?

For what is the problem with occasionally getting wasted on Saturday night? We did it as often as we could (which was never often enough), yet we turned out pretty normal. But then again, I'd spend Saturday morning playing sport, and Saturday afternoon studying, before getting loaded that night. When the hangover cleared on Sunday, I'd do some more sporty stuff and then start studying again. Getting drunk never interfered with my school work, and I finished very close to the top of the state in a few subjects.

No, their problem is not alcohol. Alcohol gets blamed for a lot of things, but I usually blame it for fuck all. Their problem is that they don't do any work when they are sober. I could have been drunk three nights a week - the thing is, I would have got my work done before I got drunk. These layabouts do nothing, then get drunk. Somehow, alcohol gets blamed, rather than their own personal failings. Hell, at Uni, I sometimes got drunk 7 nights a week. Early morning tutorials were a problem, butI still got the work done. I wouldn't say I got great marks, but somehow, I managed to get drunk a lot and still get a Uni degree in the days when one actually meant something. These clowns can't even manage to complete a watered down high school program. Phooey to alcohol being to blame.

Then we have "dysfunction within the family". Is that supposed to mean that Mum is trying to raise the kids after Dad shot through? Is Dad a wife beater, a life time dole bludger, or freshly out of prison for armed robbery? What exactly is dysfunction? We seem to have plenty of it around our place, but we generally put that down to teenage hormones. Plenty of war widows managed to bring up their kids without most of the problems that kids seem to suffer these days. Sure, not having Dad around is a problem, but it is not the end of the world. Teenagers are a handful, and they are a lot of work. "Dysfunction" is a word that shifts the blame away from useless, lazy, unemployed, drug-addled parents.

I prefer to use the word "selfish". Teenagers are monstrously selfish, because they have not matured into adults. Beating that selfishness out of them is a constant grind. It requires a lot of parental involvement. However, selfish parents can't be bothered doing that, because they are too wrapped up in their own lives to bring up their kids properly. This seems to be especially prevalent amongst barristers, who are completely full of their own self-importance, and tend to be utterly divorced from the workings of their own families.

"Issues with the justice system". Now WTF is that? What's wrong with saying that they've been to Children's Court 93 times for shop lifting, mugging old ladies, stealing cars, bashing kids, dealing drugs and break and enter? Saying "issues" is a great way of softening how bad it really is - a way of covering up their crimes and misdemeanours.

"Disability". The only disability I can see these kids having is that they are fat. They're all teenage porkers.

So, well done to Virginia Judge, for getting down with some thick, fat, useless, drunken underage crims. Yo, Homey!