Ok I haven't done this blog thingy yet, but it's not for failing to have a few things bearing on my mind. It's probably for nervousness. I'm not my big sister. I'm someone else, and I'm thankful to Margo for the opportunity to help maintain this site, as well as the opportunity to express a little myself, amongst brilliant and colourful company.

For all the deserved gush about Margo's book on this site - and I'm in the company of the gushers in spirit - martin english is onto something when he scolds us for using jargonistic language to decry our enemy. I think he too quickly lumps the barely edited contributions of dozens of reviewers with Margo and the site as a whole, but if his point is that we should be careful to be concise and rigorous in criticism, avoiding treating any assumption as self-evident, then he has to be right.

Now with various close associates I have no trouble using the phrase, 'that evil man' to describe our PM, and it is packed with all the meaning I require in this very familiar context. But in a forum where divergent viewpoints are supposed to be finding common ground, which is the great spirit of Margo's book and of this site, there is a good argument for more rigour and a more careful choice of words. Meanwhile of course, the Review section in particular of this site remains virtually uncensored and un-tampered with and given the nature of the material it is no surprise that many responses are emotionally loaded. Perhaps the point is that the NHJ community should not assume too much of each other in terms of familiarity.

Martin also mentions Howard's gun-law reforms. I hate guns. There is too much unsaid stuff about this and it is utterly relevant to the history of the NHJ situation. I hate guns. When Howard introduced his gun laws in response to Port Arthur masacre there were protests in capital cities that rivaled the Vietnam war protests. In case I didn't say, I hate guns - really loathe them. I don't think the media or commentative classes even gave them, 'mob'. They were self-evidently stupid right-wing loonies. Hate those bloody guns. No meaningful debate was deemed necessary with this massive lobby of farmers and sporting shooters - all pretty ordinary people who we appreciate when they produce food and win olympic medals respectively. But we treated them exactly as we hated being treated. We did not live up to democratic standards, and now we rightly scream when such standards are not applied to us. Democracy means there is debate and that minorities - especially large minorities defending a very traditional viewpoint - are not silenced.

I hate guns, but I love democracy, and it would have been a damned helpful debate, even if the result had have been little different. Farmers and shooters might have had the time to really see why we hate guns (if they don't already) and the rest might have had time to see why this lobby felt the gun laws were impinging on their needs (if we don't already - let's be balanced). The result probably would have meant less types of firearms outlawed, but it would have involved a system of licensing, restrictions on people with violent historys and regulations concerning storage and maintenance - as there is. But democracy would have been served much better. And a swathe of every-day people would not have felt betrayed and discarded by a system, as we were.

The role of this huge, organised and well-funded gun-lobby in the rise of One Nation has barely been acknowledged by analysts of the latter. People did often openly wonder at One Nation's capacity to organise and mobilise en masse pretty much from scratch, but then not many of us chatterers read shooter's magazines. There is no question in my mind - and I was reading shooter's magazines (for this reason) and following the 'pro-gun lobby' very closely - that One Nation would not have had an organisational base across Queensland so instantly were it not for the freshly defeated but still highly spirited and organised gun-lobby.

It is relevant that the dismissive tactics we have become so used to from the current government were virtually pioneered against those who he could rely on us to dismiss.

Food for thought. Somone told me it was my job.