Each year, to his neighbours’ dismay, right-wing columnist and convicted fraudster Damien Grant celebrates his son’s birthday with a deafening commercial-level fireworks display. Grant’s critics need to shut up and let him live his libertarian ideals in peace, says Emily Writes.
So I was listening to RNZ’s The Panel (only because Mihi Forbes was on it) when I heard a story that tugged at my heart strings. It is the story of a man.
A brave man. An Auckland man.
If Damien Grant was an animal he would be an eagle. Soaring above our communities spraying freedom in the form of….fireworks.
And he is being heinously, heinously attacked by it – by freedom haters who wish to impose their tyrannical rule and ridiculous ideas like “not wanting horses to break their legs in fear” and so-called “respect for their community”.
Damien Grant is a hero. Some might think that it’s excessive to stage a commercial fireworks display on your child’s birthday but who hasn’t wanted to light up the sky in celebration of spreading their seed? This is the right of every man.
And as Damien says on The Panel, to the quite frankly outrageous suggestion that he should consider the “people” around him: “I enjoy fireworks.”
How can you argue with that? Damien likes fireworks. So why, WHY, should he have to consider the welfare of animals who have frankly done nothing for us at all, and the “community” who can just move out if they don’t like it.
As Damien says, fireworks have been around for “a thousand years or more” and they are “entertaining”.
If that’s not an argument for horses to die, companion animals to be traumatised, and babies to be up all night screaming I don’t know what is.
But Damien, expert in words and opinions, continues to argue his side, even though he has clearly won this battle with his exceptional reasoning. “Visually” he says, fireworks are “an orchestra sound-wise”. They are also “exciting” and “dramatic”.
If that’s not enough to convince the local veterinarian and these uppity dickheads who care about the welfare of their pets and family members, then what about this argument that shows the towering intellect of a man who didn’t lose his virginity until his mid-30s.
“You eat bacon, a pig dies.”
It is true. It cannot be denied. We do eat bacon. And a pig does die.
Now, frankly, Damien Grant, champion of liberty, could have left it there. Because who could argue with this truth teller? This saviour of self-determination?
But he continues. “The horses in question…” he says, correctly putting the real menace to society, those enemies of sovereignty, on notice. They know about the fireworks.
Kaimanawa Heritage Horses muster coordinator Simone Frewin told NZME that there is an “extremely high chance the fireworks could cause injury or death to these horses” and that our hero of self-governance, lover of justice Damien Grant is “sadly… immune to reason and considers the potential enjoyment of the 40 children and more than 80 adults to be of greater importance than serious trauma and potential catastrophic loss of life.”
But what more could he do? It’s not like he could listen to the community who have begged him for four years to stop putting on these gratituous displays of wealth and privilege? This astounding monument to narcissism. This gigantic attempt at appeasing his fragile masculinity.
It’s not like he could do that. It simply is not an option. The horses need to move out, or maybe just put on ear phones; if the people don’t like it they can move out too. Close the curtains. Sure the display has been described as “hellish” by people in the area – but what do those horse-lovers know?
Because, as Damien says: “There are more people than horses. And they shouldn’t have a right of veto over other people’s enjoyment.”
“I want to put on a fireworks show”.
Self-described former incel Damien Grant, King of Waitoki, has spoken. He wants to light things and he wants those things to blow up and make big things in the sky. And that has nothing to do with his sexual frustration.
Finally, let us consider these wise words from this simple everyday hero partaking in his God-given right to hold a commercial fireworks display for his child:
“None of us live on an island.”
The Bulletin is The Spinoff’s acclaimed, free daily curated digest of all the most important stories from around New Zealand delivered directly to your inbox each morning.