The power of the Roman Empire can be traced back to one key factor: The Romans did not fear death. This was not so much a state of mind or philosophical outlook on life. It was, simply, the law.
This was a society in which making a good speech in the Senate, winning a major victory on the battlefield or even just being Emperor, were all grounds for a swift and unexpected execution.
If the leading men of Rome had permitted themselves to have even the slightest fear of dying no one would have gotten anything done, since the consequence of doing pretty much anything was to be stabbed in the neck by an old friend.
Being nothing if not a realistic and practical people - and one with an almost sensual love of bureaucracy - the Romans therefore decided to make it a rule that they were unafraid to die.
This enabled politicians to argue fearlessly against their enemies, even if they might find their grapes poisoned that night; generals to win battles, even if it meant later execution by jealous emperors; and soldiers to stand fast in the face of a barbarian onslaught, sacrificing themselves but saving the legion.
Thus undarkened by humankind’s greatest shadow, they went on to create the most extraordinarily sophisticated political system and most powerful empire the world had ever seen.
The impending death of the Labor Government is now an absolute certainty. There is no way on earth that the ALP will win the next election, if indeed it is able to make it that far in the first place.
A Roman soldier in such a position would wade into the enemy lines and take down as many of them as he could with him. A Roman politician would wander off into his bedroom with a nice glass of hemlock. In the first case you would at least accomplish something before being cut down; in the second you would at least maintain your dignity.
But this Government, naturally, has chosen neither course of action. In typical fashion it has been presented with two solid and achievable options and decided to go with Option C.
In the face of annihilation it has attempted to bargain for its life.
This, for any Roman, would be an indignity far worse than death, and for any Australian citizen it’s pretty embarrassing too. Rather than offering up one last defiant “@#$% you” to the heavens and going out with a bang, the ALP is still desperately looking for an escape route even as it’s walking the Green Mile.
What if we change leaders? What if we send boat people to Nauru? Please, we’ll do anything…
Quite frankly, the whole scene is unbecoming. If this Labor government directed the movie Braveheart it would have ended with Mel Gibson painting a Union Jack on his face and then getting killed anyway.
The fact is Labor is not going to win any upcoming election, nor is it going to save enough seats to be able to win the one after that and nor – given the party’s complete abandonment of its values – would there be much point in winning it even if it could.
But as the Romans knew, death does not have to be terrifying. In fact, it can be liberating.
Unburdened by the need to actually win an election, now is a golden opportunity for Labor to show some coconuts and start standing up for things the party supposedly believes in.
No.1 on this to-do list is a decent asylum-seeker policy, and the ALP’s recent policies on this issue have been far from decent in either sense of the word.
If a party is going to take the morally psychopathic step of using human beings as live political pawns then you’d think it could at least do it with a remote degree of competence - but the ALP has failed even at that. Not only has it exploited the trauma of women and children for its own political gain but it has failed to make any political gain from it. What a cruel and pointless waste.
It’s about time Labor did what it always should have done and process asylum seekers onshore. The genuine ones stay, the bogus ones get sent back. Simple as that. This does, of course, run the risk of more people making the dangerous journey by sea, and that is a powerful consideration.
It is easy to be tempted by the argument that making examples of a few asylum seekers might ultimately save the lives of many who end up avoiding the perilous voyage.
However, this argument falls apart on two levels. One is that these people are, it needs to be remembered, fleeing persecution and possible death, and – unlike in Ancient Rome – sudden execution is not something Australians tend to accept as being part of a human being’s daily life.
In other words yes, asylum seekers might be taking a risk by getting on a boat, but it’s not like they’d be a hell of a lot safer at home. That is why, after all, they are seeking asylum in the first place.
But there is another far more powerful reason that the Malaysia Solution is so offensive. It is a simple reason, indeed one so fundamental that it took me a long time to put my finger on what it was.
It all started when I overheard a snippet on the radio mentioning in passing that the Immigration Minister was the legal guardian of the 57 unaccompanied children locked up in limbo on Christmas Island.
This has always been the technical relationship between the minister and unaccompanied minors - it was nothing new in and of itself. But now I heard the term again as the minister was trying to deport them to Malaysia and what is at best a frightening and uncertain future.
And I thought to myself: “What sort of parent would do that to their kids?”
So there it is, the most powerful argument I can muster against shunting women and children around South-East Asian lock-ups: It’s just not right.
It’s perhaps fitting that Labor’s latest disaster, and the one that will most crushingly cost the party its existence, has also offered it the opportunity to save its soul.
This and other measures, such as setting up the National Disability Insurance Scheme now and not in a decade, signing off on gay marriage so it doesn’t continue to distract and divide the party (and at least keeps 10 per cent of the population happy, a healthy number for Labor these days) and delivering some serious transport infrastructure funding might not save Labor’s life, but it would at least give people some nice things to say at the funeral.
At least, like the Romans, they would leave something to be remembered by.
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