Culture Wars: Why Does the Left Seem To Win So Often?

The recent Victorian election was of course a major battle between Labor and Liberal. But it was also part of a larger ideological, political and cultural battle: the fight between left and right. Two major competing political ideologies and worldviews are at war here, and each side finds itself losing sometimes and winning sometimes.

One can make the case that as far as the two main political parties go – both on federal as well as state levels – the centre of gravity keeps creeping leftwards. Thus we have Labor moving further left, often becoming indistinguishable from the Greens in terms of radical activist policies. During the past weekend a number of Greens lost their seats, simply because Labor is claiming back many former Greens’ voters.

But the Liberals have also been moving to the Left sadly. Often we did not really know what the Victorian Liberals stood for. And to the extent they just were a pale imitation of Labor, folks decided to go with the real deal. Thus one might almost be tempted to say that Australia today has one Greens party and two Labor parties! But no real major conservative party.

It is not quite that bad, and there are many solid conservative Liberals, along with some smaller conservative micro-parties. But it seems that this leftward drift is how things are now headed, at least politically speaking. But let me take this discussion a bit further, and widen things up a bit, looking at the bigger left-right divide.

This divide is getting more pronounced, both here and in America and in much of the West. Leaving aside for the moment thoughts coming from a Christian point of view that we might have on the culture wars, one will often wonder why it seems that things keep getting worse and worse.

Why does the other side – the radical left – keep seeming to win, and why does the conservative side seem to so often lose? Sure, some conservative victories do occur, with Trump and Brexit being notable examples, but for the most part the leftists seem to keep on gaining ground while conservatives are losing ground.

Why is this? I am not alone in wondering about all this. Others too have given it much thought. As but one example, a recent article of mine generated a comment from one person thinking about these very things. He said this in his comment to my site:

Why aren’t conservative activists as successful as left-wing activists? Are conservative activists outnumbered – there are simply too few conservative activists? Or is it that left-wing activists were/are just better organised and know how to bring about the changes they want better?

I suspect (but can’t prove) that conservatives in general are just more complacent than the left, but if I’m right then why is that? Is it that conservatives just have a more easy going ‘She’ll be right mate’ attitude, or do conservatives in general just not care as much? Perhaps both?

Good questions indeed, to which I offered a moderately long reply. Here I want to take what I said to him, pad it out a bit more, and offer it as further reflections on this issue. What follows then is an expanded version of the response I gave to him:

Yes quite so – there would certainly be a bit of all of that going on I am sure. And in addition to the solid points you raised, there would be some other points worth offering here in this regard. Let me mention a number that come to mind.

-As is usually the case, most conservatives are far too busy trying to raise a family, work hard, and be responsible citizens. They keep plenty busy. That is often not the case with leftists, for various reasons. So the former tend to be too busy doing what is right and responsible, while the latter often have plenty of free time to get involved in various sorts of activism.

For example, the homosexual activists are overwhelmingly single, not burdened with family commitments. And they tend to have higher average incomes than most. So they have certain advantages here. And related to this, activists on the left often have an evangelistic sense of urgency, they believe deeply in their causes, and they are committed to seeing their agenda items taking root.

Because conservatives are mainly committed to their jobs and families, they have less free time and less disposable income to be dedicated to conservative causes. They may vote for conservative parties, but they have nowhere near the time and energy it seems to become fulltime activists.

Many leftists – but certainly not all of them – are unemployed and/or on various government benefits and welfare payouts. One side is largely made up of busy workers, while the other side has many who have all the time in the world to hit the streets in protest marches and engage in other types of activism.

-The left has made a concentrated effort to march through the institutions of power and influence, and have been quite successful at it. Thus overwhelmingly the schools, the media, the courts, and even many churches, etc., are now firmly in the hands of the left. I have documented this feature of cultural Marxism elsewhere, eg: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2017/05/30/understanding-cultural-marxism/

-Also related to this, they are awash with funds. Often this comes in the form of taxpayer funding. So many radical and activist groups are government subsidised. They get heaps of funds from us taxpayers, while our side usually gets no government support.

And then there are the mega-rich activists like George Soros who dish out many millions to all sort of leftist groups and causes. Back in 2011 for example an article reported that “George Soros, Godfather of the Left Gives $550 Million to Liberal Causes”. However, our side generally struggles to get any such funding.

-Conservatives are often Christians, and they believe in playing fair, not lying, not cheating, not deceiving, not using any means necessary to achieve political power, etc. The secular left tends not to have any such concerns or moral restraints – anything that furthers their cause is seen as fair game.

Generally speaking, for the left, the end justifies any and all means. Indeed, ‘The end justifies the means’ has been a key aspect of Marxist ethics, and cultural Marxism follows suit. Whatever advances their cause is moral, and whatever prevents the progressive agenda is immoral. Most conservatives – certainly Christian conservatives – hold to much higher ethical standards.

-Conservatives in many respects simply seek to conserve that which is worth preserving. It is more of a passive position. But leftists want to destroy, and it is more of an active position. In other words, leftists are on the offensive while conservatives are mostly on the defensive.

-Too many Christians who may be politically conservative wrongly think that believers should avoid politics. Thus we keep losing by default – we let the other side win the battles, while many Christians are not even involved. Far too often evangelical Christians especially have simply gone missing in action.

They have NOT taken seriously their responsibility to be salt and light, and they have not sought to see the lordship of Christ extend to every area of life. As a result, we are suffering big time. As I have argued so often before, we have a biblical responsibility to get involved in the political, social and cultural battles of the day.

I often use Wilberforce as a primary example of believers putting their faith into action, and letting their Christian convictions be a real force for good in a dark and needy world. Millions of blacks today who are no longer enslaved would certainly agree with that assessment.

And we have contemporary examples of this as well. An online friend of mine from Brazil just recently sent out an email concerning last months’ general election there. It was good news for conservatives with Rio de Janeiro congressman Jair Bolsonaro handily beating socialist mayor Fernando Haddad. He ran with an alliance of the Social Liberal Party and Patriota Party.

Says Julio Severo about this win:

In an interview with the prominent Brazilian newspaper Folha de S. Paulo this week, former presidential candidate Fernando Haddad, from the socialist Workers’ Party, which ruled Brazil from 2003 to 2016, has acknowledged that the biggest [thing] responsible for his defeat at the polls was the “evangelical phenomenon.”

He said, “There are studies showing that if I had in the evangelical world the same percentage of votes I had in the non-evangelical world, I would have won the election,” adding, “There is an evangelical phenomenon we have to deal with.” He blamed especially neo-Pentecostalism, or charismatics, for his defeat.

Well there you go. It seems that Christians there did not hide their faith under a bushel basket, but gave public expression to it in some very practical ways. Of interest, the Patriota party has this as its slogan, “Brazil Above Everything, God Above Everyone”.

In sum, what I have offered here would be some of the reasons as to why conservatives so often lose, or don’t seem to get very far. My proposed reasons would go a long way in explaining why the other side seems far more active and committed, and seems to keep winning.

Whether this can be easily turned around at some point remains to be seen. However, speaking as a Christian, I do know how things ultimately will turn out.

[1576 words]

27 Replies to “Culture Wars: Why Does the Left Seem To Win So Often?”

  1. Thank you Bill. Yes, sadly “cultural marxism” is the full package. It has infiltrated every aspect of society. Now, even our children are not safe from its tentacles (spell check keeps wanting to change it to testicles, which possibly may be more apt). I think the aussie saying of “she’ll be right” sums up the way most ordinary normal Aussies think. Yes, most are just busy trying to do the right thing by their family, friends, neighbours, boss and hopefully God. What the PM said about education and activism yesterday was correct.

  2. Great (after the dust settles) reflection Bill.
    I went to hear an American doctor in Box Hill recently. Fifty police on overtime and penalties to control the noise making cultural marxists.
    As you say, they have not much to do other than pursue their “false idols”.
    What does it say when “they” do not want to allow the other side to assemble? To repeat that unfortunate aerial ping pong club adage from 2012- Whatever it takes. (Don’t think that ended well eh!)
    Christians awake!
    Your final sentence packed a punch.

  3. Bill, I’d like to comment on your observation that “This (left-right) divide is getting more pronounced, both here and in America and in much of the West.”

    I suggest that one of many factors is the failure of our democratic systems to actually implement a reasonable approximation of democracy.

    Rather our voting systems tend to promote increasingly unstable governments that flip-flop from one extreme to another because the best election systems still fail to achieve results that satisfy voters. Hence politics becomes increasingly polarised.

    Why is this? Can we fix it? YES! But first how are our current systems failing us?

    Consider an election with three candidates: two are from opposing factions, strongly antagonistic to each other, but each faction attracts a primary vote of about a third of voters; while the third candidate is a middle of the road candidate whose primary voter support is somewhat smaller. In a multi-round first-past-the-post election, or with our preferential voting system, one of the highly polarising factions will win. This is despite the reasonable assumption that voters who support each faction would rather have the middle of the road candidate win than their arch enemies. But sadly our voting systems will elect a polarising candidate while eliminating a candidate who would reasonably be expected to win a one-on-one election against the supposed ‘winner’. We can even prove that our Preferential Voting System will do just that. It is possible that a candidate can win on preferences with 51% even if the actual preference votes cast prove that the eliminated candidate would have won convincingly in a one-on-one contest with the ‘winner on preferences’.

    The reason for this sad state of affairs is that our candidate elimination and preference-distribution system is just as bad as the multi-round first-past-the-post system in that both are obsessed with first-preference popularity and totally ignore last-preference unpopularity. Hence we risk getting a candidate who is unpopular with most voters and eliminating a candidate who is unpopular with very few voters.

    So how do we fix it? How do we get a fair balance between winning on Popularity and winning on being the least Unpopular?
    Simple!
    Work out each candidates Average Preference rating from preference votes cast by voters – and the candidate with the average closest to first preference wins. This amounts to simply changing the way preference votes are counted and getting rid of the elimination-distribution method. Hopefully this Average Preference Counting method will be a factor encouraging more stable government worldwide. One wonders what would happen in an American, or any other, Presidential Election if this was applied –

    A 1-page document called Average Preference Counting at https://tinyurl.com/ElectoralReformAustralia explains this with simple numerical examples.

  4. Everything you identify is part of the explanation. To my mind, the leading influence is Satan. All these left-wing initiatives are ‘In your face, God!’ The people involved are seized by a fanatacism driven by Hell. It delights them to forward plan by generations for destruction of Christianity and all its associated morals, ethics, laws etc. They are driven by a blind hatred of all who do not subscribe to their perspectives. The thought of physically, legally and societally smashing their opponents excites them. The sense they have discovered the Real Truth fills them with unique virtue and readiness to sacrifice all in sacrificing everything to achieve the agreed objectives, even if it takes generations. They celebrate every successful step along the way.
    But the conservatives are not possessed of this zeal. Early Christians had it. The majority have now become effete, and confused by heretical theologies spruiked by pretend Christian theologians and Jesuit equivocators. Regrettably, the zeal tends to burn in those churches where the Holy Spirit burns bright – the Pentecostal/Evangelicals, especially in the third world where reality bites deep and they are literally fighting for life.
    Constantine institutionalised Christianity. There were drawbacks, along with the many positives. Every Roman citizen became a Christian, whether they believed or not. Lukewarmness became acceptable, then mandatory. The Spirit was repressed, and still is. Relativist philosophy has replaced the fire of love of God (as Wilberforce knew it) and the consequent zeal for His righteousness.

  5. In the end we do not have a solution, only God has and we must apply to Him. But there is the question of separation from false teachers. How much time and energy is spent by Christians “fighting” false teaching in the established churches and losing? Meanwhile, independent churches seeking to be faithful are dying from lack of personnel and resources.

  6. I have been reading an excellent series put out by The Epoch Times. Those who do not believe in God or the devil, will quickly dismiss it since the mention of both God, and the schemes of the devil figure prominently in this series… Every Christian should read it…

    But it is a real eye-opener warning for our times — and explains how we ended up here:
    “How the Specter of Communism is Ruling Our World”
    https://www.theepochtimes.com/how-the-specter-of-communism-is-ruling-our-world

  7. Strangely the conventional wisdom is that the Australian Liberal Party is being rejected because it is not ‘liberal’ but under control of a right wing rump. Kelly O’Dwyer has explained this well as they are seen as homophobic, anti women and climate change deniers. Turnbull tried to appease the right and found it was never enough. As Robert Menzies stated the Australian would reject musty conservatism – Australia was a new progressive country. The Labor party years ago realised that a centre ground party would succeed where a left wing party would not. So they moved to the centre ground pushing the Liberals right.

    To improve government schools you need to elect politicians who were educated in the public system and understand its needs and extra funding requirements. At present we are governed by old Christian school students who have no experience of the needs of the public system. Consider the Christian school kids: D Andrews, Abbott, Cash, Cormann, Canavan Ciobo, Dutton Fifield Pyne Shorten et al. And if you can stop wealthy politicians from sending their kids to private schools (Morrison and all) but have them as the parents of government school kids it would see great improvement. As a local evangelical headmaster said when asked if he thought about transferring to a Christian school said ‘Why would I want to do that”.

  8. You forgot unions. Big unions such as the public service union, teacher’s union etc. have pretty much nothing to do so they sit around and dig up dirt and think up strategies etc. Absolutely nothing to do with what they are paid to do, of course, which is to look after their members so their actions are actually fraudulent, but any requirements there, very obviously, take second place to their political ambitions and ideologies. It is not for no reason that most left wing politician originate from unions and of course there is a psychological reason why certain personality types become union reps. in the first place. I would add the caveat that you should not necessarily judge the actions of the union members by that of their union reps. There is often a huge disparity here because the union members are normally involved in the real world.

    The other major factor is how the media has been overrun by immorality. You have the private media, which makes a large proportion of its money from immoral actions, and the public media which has undergone the common practice within bureaucracies of weeding out those who “don’t fit in” which invariably results in a near homogeneous political power base within the bureaucracy. Very clearly advertisers do not pay many thousands of dollars for few seconds of TV advertising, for example, without it having a huge effect so of course the forceful and constant pushing of one perspective within the public media and a complementary pushing of immorality by the private media, has a massive effect. While the public media is allowed to continue to be completely biased and not adhere to the requirement to be balanced on the basis of “journalistic freedom” there is going to continue to be a huge problem here. Nothing wrong, of course, with allowing the public media to criticize the government, but there is a huge problem when the review process for complaints is so weak, ineffectual and itself biased, that no correction ever occurs, so it is inevitable that you end up with problems. The complaint system against the public media is a joke and when I can get emails from senior representatives withing the ABC that say they are perfectly entitled to be as biased as they like in programs that are not classified “news” then it should be obvious that there is a massive problem here. There is a very good reason why the ABC classifies most of its current affairs programs “entertainment.”

    Add to this the same bureaucratic effect in education institutions which can even be formalized in the peer review and “politically correct” requirements and you have a perfect storm for delusion and immorality.

  9. I concur. But Australians have been let down by churches too many times for the population to listen to Christians. It goes way back to “She’ll be right, mate”, which could be the Aussie version of “Don’t worry about what you will eat or what you will wear”and “don’t worry about tomorrow…”, Also “Fair go mate”, surely Aussie for “Do not let the sun go down on your anger…” There are many more Aussie phrases (e.g., “mateship)” that reflect the highest standards of Christian ethics, not in Biblical terminology but in Aussie vernacular. I am very proud to be 7th gen Aussie. We need to reclaim our birthright. The present dilemma was birthed in the fifties when Australia was denounced as being dull, backward, and ignorant by our so-called intelligentsia and the media, both of whom have led us down the broad road to destruction. I would call upon the goodness and integrity of the average Aussie to reclaim our great nation.

  10. I believe one big reason that those on the left are winning is because many on the left are bullies. These bullies have not come face to face with the consequences of their actions due to the largely polite behaviour of the conservatives. As I have written in my second book, The Question Space: Tools to aid recovery from workplace and other bullying ( go to http://www.gailfostertasmania.com) ‘bullies respond to boundaries not kindness’ (page 68). It is time for the decent to be more courageous. ‘Treating ourselves with respect and acquainting the bully with the consequences of their hurtful behaviour, keeps our energy where it will do the most good, on our own work and life, and provides an assertive example to more vulnerable people.’ (page 68 Chapter 11 The ABC strategy. – A for awareness, B for boundaries, C for calm.

  11. Surely we DO live in the times that Jesus and Paul said would come e.g. Matt 24 Vv9-14: ‘Then they will deliver you to persecution and they will kill you. People in every nation will hate you because you believe in me. At that time, many people will turn away from me. They will hand over each other to their enemies. And they will hate each other. Many false prophets will come. And they will cause many people to believe lies. Because of the increase of evil deeds, many will not love as they once loved. But God will save those people who continue to the end. This good news about the kingdom will spread through the entire world. It will be a witness to all the nations. And then the end will come.’
    We should not be surprised these times have come upon us – we thank God for his Grace in past Revivals but evil was always going to increase before the end. At no other time in History has the Gospel been able to be spread into all corners of the Earth – except of course for the recent incident of John Allen Chau.

  12. Travis McHarg (posted 29/11/18: 8.52PM) makes some points, but it appears that the malaise in the Liberal Party runs much deeper than positions on the political spectrum, viz., right, centre, left, etc. where the battle lines are drawn. Greg Sheridan’s piece on Senator Jim Molan being relegated to an “unwinnable” fourth place in NSW says a lot about the Liberal Party. They seem to be in reverse gear. Howard and Abbott must be shaking their heads.

  13. Even in these comments, it is clear that Christians are too spiritual – “too Heavenly minded to be of any Earthly good” – instead of trying to reason through the political situation and understand how it may be combated through policy argument. I feel for those who have tried to get the church to cooperate, given the events leading from the change to the Marriage Act, although the Presbyterian, Catholic and Anglican leaders appear to have taken it up to the government. It is of not much use to keep quoting end times Scripture and leave it at that.

  14. Re: Travis McHarg’s post upthread.

    Is it conventional wisdom that the ALP er Australian Liberal Party is being rejected for being too right wing, or is that merely the narrative pushed by the Left? From what I can see the Liberals veer ever further left, get crucified at the polls, then blame the Right for their failure to win votes. Had they campaigned on a conservative agenda then there’d be grounds to question whether conservatism can win in Australia but so long as they campaign on being Green\Labor lite the only logical conclusion to the ‘conventional wisdom’ is that the Left wants the Liberals to go full Green\Labor. Given the media’s bias (a near majority of the ABC vote Greens) this should be common sense.

    To improve government schools you need to rebuild the culture of those schools. So long as left-wing activists dictate the agenda, curriculum, and lessons, government schools will continue to be indoctrination centres. And since state schools are a state issue they’re one that can’t be resolved while a Hard Left state government is in power. By contrast the federal government supports non-state education and can thus work to protect kids. While I can applaud McHarg’s evangelical headmaster for choosing to serve in the state system, there is a radical difference between adults seeking to serve, and sending children into the system. As someone who attended both independent and state schools – the latter reported to be a very good state school, I can honestly say I’d strongly encourage parents to look at any and all alternatives first, especially since public indoctrination has only gotten much more toxic since my time.

  15. We are coming to the end of this age. Although this is not popular with the Liberal Church, Evangelism is not part of the ‘church’s scene, as far as I can see the main motivation for the Church’s existence. The church is tied to the Government’s coat tails and issues that should habe been fought since the mid 50’s have been ignored, evilution, abortion, easy divorce, and recently marriage.
    Israel is back, they have legal definition, Jerusalem, and recognition of Jerusalem as their capital by a World Leader.
    The church is in decline and only if they go back to the model of Acts will The Church succeed in changing Society again.

  16. While there may be some good in Peter’s preference voting suggestion, I feel the big problem is with COMPULSORY preference.
    In N S W it is voluntary so we don’t have to number every square. I object to having put a number in the square for the Green Party.
    From what I gather from standing for the C D P in past days, the governing Federal party decides the issue.

  17. Thanks for your thoughtful comments, Bill, and also to the other respondents. A number of Christians have joined the Liberal Party in the Australian Capital Territory. It is very hard to elect a conservative party in such a union dominated electorate. At least we can use our votes in pre-selection ballots to try and make sure better quality candidates are chosen. An encouraging factor is that ultimately sin always over plays its hand and corrupt governments are brought down. Oh that God would grant revival and generational cultural change in our nation.

  18. Ray, the new Australian Federal Senate system of compulsory preferential voting permits PARTIAL preferential voting anyway. However, BEWARE:

    Partial preferential voting grossly favours big parties because when there are more than just a handful of candidates if you don’t number every square and you want to vote for good candidates who do not belong to a big party, there can be a risk that your vote will exhaust and have zero effect in deciding the winner.

    Nevertheless, the Average Preference Counting (APC) method I propose, can easily and fairly handle Partial preferential voting and SPLIT Partial Preferential voting: i.e. with 13 candidates you can vote 1, 2, 3, for the good guys and 11, 12, 13, for the bad guys, OMITTING preference numbers 4-10 for candidates or parties you know little about; then my APC method of counting the votes automatically will fill in the gaps with equal 7th for the squares you left blank. Here you will delight in numbering the Green candidate at 13 because with APC counting you will have actively made it as hard as you possibly could for that candidate to win.

    For more detail with simple numerical examples, see Page 2 of the document ElectoralReformDetail2018.pdf at https://tinyurl.com/ElectoralReformAustralia and note that Page 3 explains the APC method of counting.

  19. Further to Ray’s comment: In voting for the Australian Senate where 6 Senators are elected for each State, and each voter must choose from a field of often 20+ parties, the task of rating parties is truly daunting. Hence we are permitted to make a PARTIAL preferential vote of at least 6 parties and can leave the rest blank. Fair enough?

    Not so.

    Consider a Voter preferencing only 6 of 20+ parties. During the vote counting it can happen that only 1 of those parties gets a candidate elected and the other 5 are ‘excluded’ before the count is finished. This often happens to small parties with low voter support. In that case, our Voter’s vote “exhausts” and plays no further part in the counting. Hence the very BEST scenario for our Voter is that they have zero say over who the 6th Senator will be – that is IFF the parties preferenced by that Voter do not exhaust until AFTER 5 candidates have been declared elected. But the WORST-case scenario could be that the Voter has zero say over which party wins the last SEVERAL Senate seats. Hence it is much safer to number at least 19 squares if there are 20 parties.

    But that only solves part of the problem.

    With our current system a party can get LARGE numbers of LAST or near last preferences and be elected rather than a party that receives very few last or near last preferences but has almost the same first or near-first preference support. That’s undemocratic. It is a fault inherent in both multi-round First-Past-The-Post systems and in the COUNTING METHOD we use for Preferential Voting. That’s why I suggest using Average Preference Counting to fix this problem.

    Bill, thanks for you patience with this tangent. You may prefer that readers who want to better understand or debate this issue further go to https://tinyurl.com/ElectoralReformAustralia where they are welcome to leave comments or ask questions.

  20. Having watched all 3 of the youtube videos by Stephen Fry that David Skinner lists above, I’m amazed at Fry’s pompously self-important and verbally bullying behaviour. He attacks and openly derides his hapless interviewees as being ignorant and homophobic, semi-educated religious etc, asks for detailed evidence but provides none himself and makes unsubstantiated claims (that we know are false in Australia) that no one is trying to indoctrinate children etc. So thank you David, I did enjoy it as a classic example of misleading propaganda that we get from a lot of our media. That was your point wasn’t it?

  21. I think that some of the churches are too left-wing. I know one priest who was in favour of illegal migration. She said that in the Old Testament the Israelites were commanded to leave anything behind that had been missed during the harvesting of crops. She that this was for the “immigrant”. But immigration would have been different then to what it is now. There should be strong borders rigorously enforced. Then the Australian government can decide who is in genuine need of asylum. Some priests are for gay marriage. They had pro-gay marriage messages on their Facebook page. I think that many good Christians seem to have been brainwashed by the media and trendy issues. There are Christians being persecuted overseas. The media rarely mentions this. The Western governments do not seem to be interested in giving asylum to Christians persecuted overseas.
    I wonder why they will not give these people asylum?

  22. I love it when Fry says that there at least 480 species of animals are gay and yet there is only one species of animal that is homophobic – and that is man. Apart from the fact that Fry keeps finding new “gay species” , he makes no mention of the remaining 8 million plus species of animals. What about them? Are they all potentially gay? Or are they all repressed LGBTs which, were it not for a repressive patriarchal animal kingdom, would all be gay? Perhaps these are them , the liberated beasts, let loose on the streets of London.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CLjI_u5s2o
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYbv7V545ok

    This fat, footling fool, blown up to monstrous proportions by his own overweening pride is the flagship, LGBT ambassador for Britain and the Queen.
    https://youtu.be/zBy3hEpRNm8?t=802

    Hey Ho. Rule Britannia!
    Britannia rules the waves
    Britons never, never, never shall be slaves

    David Skinner UK

  23. Hello all,
    A bit off topic, but another useful website I came across recently by chance is that of John Anderson, the former deputy PM. He is a Christian as well, and not afraid on his website to support Christian values. Anderson also seems to have a lot more character and integrity than many/most current politicians. See: https://johnanderson.net.au/
    I’ve downloaded and started listening to some of his conversations. Many of those in the current Coalition – both state and federal – would be well advised to listen to these as well. As I type this, I’m listening to John chatting with Greg Sheridan (The Australian) about the latter’s book “God is Good for You: A Defence of Christianity in Troubled Times”.

    Another useful website is that for the PCV’s biennial ‘Religion in the Public Square’ (https://religioninthepublicsquare.org/). I went to this last year, and there were some great speakers, one minister for example comparing the contemporary West to Israel in the time of Amos. Last years talks can be bought cheaply and those from 2013 & 2015 can be downloaded for free.

    Regarding the Liberal party, I was chatting with others at the ACL’s recent Victorian conference about this, and am contemplating joining it next year (I contacted a current Federal Liberal politician who is a Christian, and he supported such a move). Like many other conservatives & Christians, I’m in the workforce so don’t have much spare time – and that includes for commenting here!
    I also wonder how many of the socialists are ‘dole bludgers’ or unionists, ie. unlike those such as ourselves, they have a lot more spare time to take part in their actions.

    If the Liberals want to win an election again they need to go back to something like ‘classical liberalism’ not ‘contemporary liberalism’. Otherwise, it becomes something like the “Animal Farm” conclusion – the voters will compare ALP & Liberal, see little difference, and so go for the ALP. As such, the conservatives / Christians in the Coalition need to ‘purge’ the socialists (as tough as it sounds). My view is that the Coalition lost the election rather than the ALP winning it, some good comments on NewsWeekly at: http://www.newsweekly.com.au/article.php?id=58360. The Coalition simply didn’t ‘put in the effort’ in their campaigning. Does anyone know if Michael O’Brien or John Pesutto are conservative, let alone Christian?

    Another problem is that – as mentioned on websites such as this – is that the population is being ‘dumbed down’ like the character Mildred Montag in Ray Bradbury’s classic novel ‘Fahrenheit 451’ (in some ways, an American equivalent to ‘1984’). Therefore, they may not realise just how bad things can get under an ALP government and so it becomes the ‘I told you so’ that you have mentioned, Bill. Personally, I see myself like one of the ‘book readers’ in this novel (and I can readily see Christians ending up like these characters). The conclusion is also significant, in that the book-readers (by then outcasts) talk about society/humanity rising from the ashes like a phoenix, and re-learning the lessons / mistakes of history.

    Comments are welcome.

    Regards,
    John Cleverdon

  24. Hi, Bill, I might be late to the party, but I gotta say that you’re right when you said that the left wing seems to win whether in the political or the social arena, and it seems impervious to anything that contradicts its worldview.

    I’m a Filipino Average Joe who has made it his life’s mission to convince people of the virtues of limited and secular government, individual rights and dignity, and economic and social freedoms, the tenets of liberalism.

    Sadly, I’m a poor advocate of such tenets, and my limited knowledge on politics (due to my worry that reading more about would worsen my pessimism and drive me insane) dooms my mission to failure.

    Well, it depends on how impervious my opponents are to my rebuttals to their comments on social media that support illiberal policies.

    I’ve been attempting to convince countless people who claim to be feminists, socialists, and leftists yet defend illiberal ideas of the errors of their ways, which might have to do with the fact that they are part of the prevailing opinion and that they wield political influence via their support for such ideas and the political parties that espouse, so I vowed not to let them get away with it.

    Lately, a contrarian Australian white male “third wave feminist” whose name is Matt Searles responded to Facebook post by the Secular Party of Australia criticizing the absurdity of the gimmick by a local coffee shop (sold away by its owners) that charges male customers, voluntary as it may be, claiming that it was nothing but illegitimate whining that calls for taking away the rights of women, given that women experience things like getting paid less than men do.

    I tried to correct him on that one, saying that nobody today would want to take away the rights of women, that saying that women earn less than men do is semantically inaccurate and what he calls for (using the government to grant more entitlements to women at the expense of men) would spark more tensions between the sexes and that it will result in more male collateral damage.

    He then said that he considers the suffering even of innocent men to balance the suffering of women as the “lesser of two evils” and as “worth it”, which is unbelievable and palpable at worst.

    I tried to point out the absurdity and immorality of his suggestion, and I even tried to dispel his accusation of me being against equality, but he dismisses it as false.

    Both he and I do believe in equality between the sexes, although we differ in how this to be brought about.

    Now, such an attitude of his reminds me of the likes of Maximilien Robespierre, using authority to bring about social engineering programs at the expense of the freedoms of many people.

    That’s just one part of the story.

    The argument between us was getting longer that I had to call it a day, but I failed to talk him out of his potentially damaging suggestion.

    He’d still persist even if I managed to win the argument.

    I’m sorry if I’m ranting here

    Feel free to respond whenever you want.

  25. Bill,

    your thesis that the Left wins through having more time than the right is rather original – I have never heard it from anyone else – yet makes a lot of sense to me. Even those wholly on welfare, with very low incomes, have more time than less poor blue-collar workers to engage in political activism. In fact, it has always seemed to me that the welfare poor are the most politically active, and the least traditional, section in society. Of course, the welfare poor gain huge support form taxpayers totalling a quarter of the Federal budget in Australia, and much more still in Europe. Thus, the government and society are, in effect, beholden to what welfare recipients want, which in practice amounts to absolute equality of result.

    One quite salient point, Bill, is that before the 1960s, conservative activists often had as much success as liberal ones. I suspect this is because in those days the very rich devoted their charities to conservative political organisations, and because of the much larger percentage of rural conservatives in the pre-“Green Revolution” populations of Europe and North America. Another, more telling, thing, was that in the pre-“Green Revolution” period, conservatives really wanted to roll back the changes won by liberals, like full democracy and secular education.

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