Laughing with Donkeys.

At hee hawing, hee haws.

It sometimes occurs to me. When I’m thinking what to write about. That I spend an awful lot of time reading about idiotic things that idiots have said.

The radio, the news, social media. You look at the content coming out and it makes you remember not to swim at a lot of Auckland beaches a lot of the time. Poo stinky. It oozes across the land. We’re like unfortunate livestock who spend their days in mud.

Some people like the “mud”. It gives them something to focus on so they don’t accidentally think. They claim it isn’t mud at all, and you must be stupid if you think it is. To be fair it is very popular, and for many popularity is the only measure of quality.

If you tell them their favourite presenter is a bit lenient with the truth and is feeding them Kool Aid, they get a bit annoyed. They don’t try and tell you that the man with the Ferrari is providing accurate information. No, they tell you that he’s popular. Definitive proof that their sedative of choice is successful.

Or maybe they just use the hee haw button.

You know, the laugh response on Facebook. A feature that was probably used to indicate that a reader found something funny for about five minutes after release. Not now though. Now it’s the response of the Simpsons character Nelson Muntz.

You know the rules. What happens if you say something contentious, based on a good understanding of what you’re talking about. The onus is not on the person you are having a discussion with to provide a counter argument, to refute your points in an informed way. No. The rules are if your statement gets more hee haw responses than likes, you lose. Don’t blame me, I don’t make the rules.

It is the same with opposition politicians.

The government can lay out whatever rationale there is for a policy, the detailed thinking behind a piece of spending. The opposition can, and will, just point their finger and say hee haw in response. Better yet, half the country will then say - “they’re right, you know - it’s so refreshing when someone just keeps it simple.”

Then we get to watch the News give equal credence to the two positions. Which places the government at a serious disadvantage. It’s a lot easier to pull apart and find faults in a detailed plan, than it is with someone making hee haw noises.

Do some people find it preferable not to deal with the truth, not to know the facts? Is it easier to blame the Government for everything than think about the hard problems?

Why do people want to listen to it? Why listen to a presenter braying when you’d be more enlightened, informed, and entertained listening to an actual donkey? Old souls donkeys, we should definitely listen to them ahead of hee hawing shock jocks.

Image: Dieter Hawlan/Dreamstime.com.

Some people use the word Donkey as an insult, implying stupidity or stubbornness. For example TV chef Gordon Ramsay regularly refers to struggling contestants as “You F#cking Donkey”. But in reality Donkeys are loyal, lovable, and highly intelligent.

These people with their hee hawing are not like donkeys at all. I wish they were, stoic, thoughtful, well considered donkeys. Actual donkeys wouldn’t bray with these hee haws, they’d be braying at them. Me too. That’s the reason this newsletter is laughing with, not at, donkeys.

Why do people hee haw? It seems akin to me to standing up in public and yelling “Look at me, I’m an idiot, and I’m proud”. In your one existence why would you listen to mistruths and moronic reckons, and react to intelligent things with a hee haw? Is facing the reality of mortality just too much, or too futile, and so they’ve decided to live their existence only consuming things as weighty as reality TV?

We started to notice the hee haws more during Covid. It became fashionable among the ill informed to deny the science, to deny the scientists, and for some - to get angry. Really, really angry.