Thursday, May 26, 2016

Quote for the Day

“And he gave it for his opinion that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together.”

- Jonathon Swift, Gulliver’s Travels

Locals will have seen the disgraceful conduct of protestors at the first meeting of The Council of the Inner West, being the merged Councils of Ashfield (where my office is located), Marrickville (where my home is located) and Leichhardt. The NSW Government has dissolved 40 local Councils and merged them into a smaller number with elections postponed to 9 September 2017. In the interim, the merged Councils will be managed by an Administrator. This does not sit well with people hostile to the sackings of the Councils, the local government pollies who lost their Council seats and the objectors to the WestConnex motorway extensions. See film of the meeting at:


I happened to quote the above words to our trivia team members last night during discussions about the Council meeting. As you can gather, I am not a great fan of politicians.

The words were spoken to Gulliver by the King of Brobdingnag, which is the land Gulliver visits after being Lilliput. Whereas in Lilliput he had been the giant, in Brobdingnag the locals are of enormous size, making Gulliver the tiny one. It was the King’s view that government is a matter of commonsense and justice, that useful government is dedicated to productivity for the benefit of the people, not power politics and all its associated negative aspects.


Bonus quote from the King of Brobdingnag:

“…I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth.”



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