A nation of whingers

[evand]

"Perhaps this is the symptom of our success. If we had double-digit unemployment then we'd really have something to worry about. But we don't. So we wail and gnash our teeth about the injustice of it all."

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/polit...tive-whinge-20120517-1ytk0.html#ixzz1vAhj7dkv

 

[Corey Batt]

By international standards, both sides of our Politics attempt the country reasonably well. I believe that the Australian publics unquenchable thirst for them to do better has something to do with it.

A country where they accept their leaders are useless and the public doesn't constantly provide critical discourse in the nations decision making process, is a country where politicians can have a culture of 'coasting' and running the country into the ground.

As annoying as it is, I know which one I'd rather.

 

[depreciator]

Ross Gittins wrote a similar piece recently. He couldn't work out either why everybody is complaining so much.

 

[evand]

yes i read that one. I was looking for it but forgot who wrote it.

Ross Gittins wrote a similar piece recently. He couldn't work out either why everybody is complaining so much.

 

[Ideo]

Ross Gittins wrote a similar piece recently. He couldn't work out either why everybody is complaining so much.

Yep. Same here.

After living in both the UK and Australia I've decided that pommy whingers have nothing on Australia.

We truly are world class. At complaining over nothing.

We live in a country where you can leave school at 16 and begin a profitable trade. You can continue on in school and go to university and earn a well paying job.

If you get sick you do not go bankrupt because you can't afford private health insurance.

There is low unemployment.

The streets are generally safe - even other developed countries are not immune from large scale rioting and looting.

There is no threat of military coup.

I honestly don't see why we have it so bad that every second thing needs to be about how bad we have it.

 

[Belbo]

I think it's because the economic foundations of Western civilisation are clearly teetering on the brink, and Tea Party-types have brilliantly utilised social media to turn fear of that into loathing of 'intellectual elites' (i.e. as obstacles to the greater 'freedom' needed to resolve everyone's complaints).

 

[Ausprop]

plus you see the potential of this place and how badly it is managed - it is this lost potential that makes everyone so irate

 

[evand]

Even if that were true what does constant whingeing and complaining about every little thing have to do with it? Being irate and whingeing are - again - 2 different things.

plus you see the potential of this place and how badly it is managed - it is this lost potential that makes everyone so irate

 

[Corey Batt]

Even if that were true what does constant whingeing and complaining about every little thing have to do with it?

Make the powers that be scared to mess up on the big things.

 

[evand]

I did a quick Google search and therea are so mnay references to Australians being world class whingers, i couldnt believe it.

What really surprised me was how well known and accepted it is.

Here are just a couple.


http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/the-world-is-run-by-those-who-whinge-the-loudest/

http://wheelercentre.com/dailies/post/ef5676423952/


http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1793846

http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/shopping/dont-like-to-complain-but--20111013-1ln7e.html


When did this happen? I didnt get the memo.

I wasn't even aware of it occurring till i saw it on the forum.

 

[lizzie]

Because if nobody complained, then nothing would get done.

I feel part of it is that those with the ability, realise the country has so much more potential and fear it being left behind due to poor management.

And the other part of the whingers are those who are too lazy, and find it easier to whinge about those who "do" rather than "do" themselves.

 

[evand]

Justified complaining about relevant and important issues to get something done is not the same as the meaningless whingeing i have seen and what the articles are talking about.

People just whinge about every little thing and dont care if there is any result or outcome. They just complain and complain......and complain...

Also, this country is doing so much better than just about every other country in so many categories, its not funny. The potential is being realised.

Political and social Stability, lifestyle, economic, standard of living, on and on.....and we are leaders of the world in whingeing especially.

Because if nobody complained, then nothing would get done.

I feel part of it is that those with the ability, realise the country has so much more potential and fear it being left behind due to poor management.

And the other part of the whingers are those who are too lazy, and find it easier to whinge about those who "do" rather than "do" themselves.

 

[twobobsworth]

Sounds like you're complaining about it.

 

[Ideo]

I love this article

Link

Especially the last line -

Our whinging puts the poms to shame. We are getting soft. We stubbed our toe in the global economic crisis. America had its legs cut off and Iceland was drawn, quartered and fed to starving dogs. So stop whinging. This is the lucky country.

Don't believe me? Well, it doesn't matter. Someone in the media will be along presently to pat you on the head and tell you how tough you got it. They will be there to stoke that burning sense of entitlement you feel down deep in your belly. So think what you want to think, and whatever happens, try not to choke on your next latte.

 

[evand]

Great article and the key word is one i used yesterday on here "sense of entitlement"

Loved this paragraph:

Well, I'm past giving a *****. Your electricity bill is going up? Don't live in a McMansion with six bedrooms, a rumpus room and a home theatre. Bananas expensive? Buy an apple. Soy-milk Chai latte not flavourful enough? Give yourself an uppercut.

And this one:

What happened to the stoic Aussie? The laconic digger? The 'she'll be right mate' attitude? We'll that's all as dead and buried as Ian Thorpe's swimming career.

We're not stoic, we're like one of those European soccer players flopping around on the field in convulsions at the slightest touch (or perceived touch). We're not laconic, we bleat on endlessly about a thousand petty grievances; it's not "she'll be right mate" anymore, it's "she'll be right when I get my tax cut and belly-rub".

And of course there's the voice of Alan Jones always there in the background to stroke that sense of entitlement and misplaced self-pity. We are becoming a silver-spoon nation of whingers.

Our economy is the envy of the world. European bankers turn green with envy when they see our economic data; American bankers would do the same if they ever looked at a country outside America. We've got almost no unemployment, a stable, well-regulated financial sector, solid economic growth and resilience enough to ride out the catastrophic financial mistakes of the US. The OECD ranks us as one of the strongest economies on the planet.

And we've got it bloody good when you compare us to other rich countries: let's not forget the people who really deserve a whinge - the starving kid in Somalia, the Thai sex-trafficking victim pimped out to a Chinese businessman, the family who has been sitting in a squalid refugee camp on the border of Afghanistan for 10 years.

These people should be the ones complaining - not some middle class private school girl with a macchiato fetish, not some professional on $200,000 a year living in North Sydney and driving a Range Rover, not some self-funded retiree squandering their life savings on a yacht and Botox treatments. I'm sorry, but you don't get to lament and gnash your teeth. You get to shut up and be thankful for how you good you got it.

I thought this whingeing thing was a small isolated cult but it seems its a main stream pastime now. Quite sad what our country is turning into.

I love this article

Link

Especially the last line -

 

[HotRod]

The whinging probably comes from the hand-out mentality that social security has lead and is further leading to.

Whinging forms part of the tall poppy syndrome, where people want to sit around and be lazy living off welfare or not striving to acieve much in life and then complain and have a go a people who have become successful and they want a part of their success or to drag them bag down.

And now government is doing that by taxing successful companies with the MRRT.

 

[Ideo]

The whinging probably comes from the hand-out mentality that social security has lead and is further leading to.

Whinging forms part of the tall poppy syndrome, where people want to sit around and be lazy living off welfare or not striving to acieve much in life and then complain and have a go a people who have become successful and they want a part of their success or to drag them bag down.

And now government is doing that by taxing successful companies with the MRRT.

The middle class handout/tax cut mentality has much more to do with it.

But I'm only on 140k. I need family tax assistance. Or subsidised health care. Or cheap electricity.

It's not fair.

On and on ad nauseum.

 

[Belbo]

A perfect example of the Tea Party-powered whinge:

The Rudd government's stimulus spending on schools might have help avert an economic catastrophe, but it should have been spent BETTER!!!

(And hence its only logical response: Give it a freakin' break already. Sheesh!)

 

[Ausprop]

The middle class handout/tax cut mentality has much more to do with it.

But I'm only on 140k. I need family tax assistance. Or subsidised health care. Or cheap electricity.

It's not fair.

On and on ad nauseum.

probably do need assistance given taxes in this country

 

[chilliblue]

Because if nobody complained, then nothing would get done.

I feel part of it is that those with the ability, realise the country has so much more potential and fear it being left behind due to poor management.

And the other part of the whingers are those who are too lazy, and find it easier to whinge about those who "do" rather than "do" themselves.

So true.

Either you get walked all over or you get what you want.