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The Left’s gravy train derailing
The Australian ^ | 20th January 2015 | Maurice Newman

Posted on 01/19/2015 2:01:29 PM PST by naturalman1975

IN the battle for ideas it is now clear the Left controls the commanding heights. In everything from the economy to sport, the prevailing direction is left. After decades of stereotyping, indoctrination and the clever use of language, Western voters have been conditioned to accept the beneficence of the state.

.....

Voter acquiescence has been bought by both sides of politics, but conservatives everywhere have been politically outsmarted. They are apologetic when they should demand apologies.

Rather than be true to their values, they have too easily rolled over and allowed the Left to set the agenda on economics and social issues, incapable of arguing an internally consistent position. Quite often conservative policies are indistinguishable from their progressive counterparts.

The Left’s victories have been hard won, cumulative and unsustainable, but woe betide any government today which seeks to unwind earlier excesses or restore fiscal responsibility through spending cuts. It will meet well organised, articulate and often hostile, opposition. Unwinding the welfare state carries perilous political risks as the Abbott government is finding out.

.....

The political left has seized on climate change as the new Marxism. It rejects empirical evidence which is inconvenient and promotes dubious and sometimes fabricated science as proven. In true totalitarian style it seeks to shut down debate and ruin the careers and reputations of those who dare to oppose the orthodoxy.

It isn’t necessary to engage in conspiracy theory to see how the Left has successfully infiltrated Western political thinking.

(Excerpt) Read more at theaustralian.com.au ...


TOPICS: Australia/New Zealand; Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
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Unfortunately, this editorial is behind a paywall so most people won't be able to read it. I'm sorry to those people, but unfortunately, this is happening more and more often. You can sometimes get to these articles by posting the first sentence in a google search.
1 posted on 01/19/2015 2:01:29 PM PST by naturalman1975
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To: naturalman1975

Our own Republican Party thinks the route to power lies in being just a little less socialist than the Rats.


2 posted on 01/19/2015 2:03:37 PM PST by Blood of Tyrants (Good Muslims, like good Nazis or good liberals, are terrible human beings.)
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To: naturalman1975

When and if a gravy train ever collides with a biscuit train, I hope I have the proper utensils.


3 posted on 01/19/2015 2:06:41 PM PST by who_would_fardels_bear
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To: stephenjohnbanker

“Rather than be true to their values, they have too easily rolled over and allowed the Left to set the agenda on economics and social issues, incapable of arguing an internally consistent position. Quite often conservative policies are indistinguishable from their progressive counterparts. “

You know, maybe it’s just the pills kicking in but I could swear I heard this somewhere once.

Nah. Must be imagining things.


4 posted on 01/19/2015 2:07:11 PM PST by Norm Lenhart
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To: naturalman1975

So don’t post teasers. Are you a shill for the website?


5 posted on 01/19/2015 2:07:52 PM PST by Born to Conserve
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To: who_would_fardels_bear

Bring a fork truck


6 posted on 01/19/2015 2:09:01 PM PST by HiTech RedNeck (Embrace the Lion of Judah and He will roar for you and teach you to roar too. See my page.)
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To: naturalman1975

NEVER accept the premise a liberal espouses.


7 posted on 01/19/2015 2:12:36 PM PST by subterfuge (Minneseeota: the laughingstock of the nation - for lots of reasons!)
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To: naturalman1975

Going to google news and searching for “The Left’s gravy train derailing” brings up the article, and you can read the whole thing for free.


8 posted on 01/19/2015 2:12:54 PM PST by PapaBear3625 (You don't notice it's a police state until the police come for you.)
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To: naturalman1975

Reality is a Harsh mistress to Liberals....

In the same way the Moon is to Life on the surface of the Moon....


9 posted on 01/19/2015 2:14:13 PM PST by GraceG (Protect the Border from Illegal Aliens, Don't Protect Illegal Alien Boarders...)
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To: naturalman1975

Are we honest enough to admit how true it is.

Many on this site argue for a big government anti-capitalist, anti-free market Malthusian-Guttmacher population-control approach to immigration.

They give to big government the power to tell private employers whom the private employer can and cannot hire.

They propose extremely expensive big government enforcement of the border.

They propose a big government that must intensely deal with 12 million illegals.

The capitalist approach is let the free market apply.

Immigration enforcement cannot focus on 12 million. That is no focus at all. Immigration should focus on the 10% (1.2 million) undesireables: the terrorists, murderers, DUI drivers, welfare parasites. No immigrant, legal or illegal, should be allowed to collect welfare (Obamacare, medicaid, link, Sec8, EITC, etc). An immigrant (legal or illegal) who even applies for welfare is undesireable.

Immgrants who work are to be admired. We like workers.

It is Affirmative Action to say a person should be preferred for employment because they belong to a certain demographic group. No. Employment should be based on ability and willingness to do the job. And the profit motivated employer is the best judge of that.

From a pragmatic political perspective this comes down to the Democrats/left support welfare for immigrants. They give lipservice to deportation of criminals.

We should draw a clear line that we oppose welfare to immigrants (legal and illegal) and enforce action against criminals.

It is cheaper and practical to focus on the 10% rather than the all of them.


10 posted on 01/19/2015 2:18:00 PM PST by spintreebob
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To: Born to Conserve; naturalman1975

He is not a shill for the site but is a thoughtful Aussie FRiend for over 10 years.


11 posted on 01/19/2015 2:19:54 PM PST by pbear8 (the Lord is my light and my salvation)
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To: Born to Conserve

No, I’ve been a member of FreeRepublic for over ten years and one of the main things I do is share stories from Australia (and to a lesser extent the UK) that are I think are likely to be of interest to fellow conservatives.

The site I’m sharing this article from is Australia’s only national daily newspaper - ‘The Australian’. It’s owned by Murdoch’s NewsCorp and it’s one of the most significant sources of news and opinion in Australia.

Unfortunately it puts a lot of stuff behind paywalls nowadays. The other major Murdoch papers in Australia (which are based out of the four largest cities - the (Sydney) ‘Daily Telegraph’, the (Melbourne) ‘Herald Sun’, the (Brisbane) ‘Courier Mail’, and the (Adelaide) ‘Advertiser’ aren’t quite as bad (their subscription technology is different) but it’s also an issue at times. But it’s capitalism in action, really - they are charging for a product a lot of people are willing to pay for.

The two major left wing papers in Australia, the ‘Sydney Morning Herald’ and the (Melbourne) ‘Age’ don’t block as many articles, but they don’t let their stuff be shared here, and as they are hard left there’s not much people here would want to read anyway (except perhaps on “knowing the enemy” grounds.)

Fortunately ‘The Australian’, and the more conservative state dailies, do allow for the posting of reasonably large excerpts here (in line with FreeRepublics 300 word policy, it seems), so I can generally at least try to share the sense of the article as I have tried to do here, so anybody who is interested can maybe track it down - sometimes that’s not that difficult once you have a few specific sentences to search for, because it may be available in google, or may also be published somewhere else as well.


12 posted on 01/19/2015 2:33:25 PM PST by naturalman1975 ("America was under attack. Australia was immediately there to help." - John Winston Howard)
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To: naturalman1975

13 posted on 01/19/2015 2:36:32 PM PST by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either satire or opinion. Or both.)
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To: Blood of Tyrants
Our own Republican Party thinks the route to power lies in being just a little less socialist than the Rats.

GOP budgets have skyrocketed since GWB. They are today what the dems were in the 70s and 80s.

14 posted on 01/19/2015 2:38:16 PM PST by Spirochete (GOP: Give Obama Power)
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To: spintreebob

That is because we’re pretty certain we’re not going be able to cut them off from the freebies.
You can’t have a welfare state AND open borders.


15 posted on 01/19/2015 2:39:03 PM PST by Little Ray (How did I end up in this hand-basket, and why is it getting so hot?)
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To: Born to Conserve

Tell us who you personally are a shill for.
Do you demand posters not excerpt the New York Times?


16 posted on 01/19/2015 2:44:28 PM PST by MrEdd (Heck? Geewhiz Cripes, thats the place where people who don't believe in Gosh think they aint going.)
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To: naturalman1975
I don't know about Australia, but here in the States the ultimate goal of the left is to get as many people on the government teat as possible. There has not been one single Dem admin that has supported tax cuts since Kennedy was president. There is never any room for cutting taxes. None. In fact, the Dems believe much, much more tax money is needed. Their constituency won't be paying more...the great majority of Dems pay very little or no income taxes already.

But the recent election of Abbott is good news for all conservatives. Howard was a good conservative as well...even though if I recall he supported global warming legislation. I hope Abbott is dead set against it.

17 posted on 01/19/2015 2:51:56 PM PST by driftless2 (For long term happiness, learn how to play the accordion.)
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To: driftless2
But the recent election of Abbott is good news for all conservatives. Howard was a good conservative as well...even though if I recall he supported global warming legislation. I hope Abbott is dead set against it

Howard was, among other things, a political realist. He supported some legislation on 'climate change' because at the time that's what a lot of voters wanted, and it wasn't an important enough issue to him to spend political capital on opposing it. He wanted to fight elections on the issues thought mattered most. Abbott is in a different situation - the pressure for 'climate change' laws is a lot less now and there's also significantly more opposition to major changes (even most of those in favour of such laws, now only want minor changes not the major ones they were demanding, so while he pays a little bit of lip service to it, it's all he needs to do on that issue - but if it became a big issue politically again, I think he'd head back towards Howard's approach if he thought it was politically a good idea. The basic difference is they'd regard on getting industry to try and 'fix' any problems by giving them business incentives to do so - rather than saying it's a job for big government. The idea really is that most problems are better solved by the government getting out of the way of solutions, rather than trying to impose its own.

18 posted on 01/19/2015 2:57:27 PM PST by naturalman1975 ("America was under attack. Australia was immediately there to help." - John Winston Howard)
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To: Norm Lenhart

” You know, maybe it’s just the pills kicking in but I could swear I heard this somewhere once.”

Deja Vu all over again : )


19 posted on 01/20/2015 9:05:57 AM PST by stephenjohnbanker (My Batting Average( 1,000) (GOPe is that easy to read))
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To: Little Ray

Agreed: We can’t have both welfare and open borders.

That is precisely why the anti-illegal focus should NOT be on those who work. It should be on those who seek welfare.

In 2016 an immigration clarity where Democrats favor welfare to immigrants and Republicans oppose it is a win for Republicans. But Republicans opposing immigrants who work is a loser for Republicans.

(I realize immigration needs more than just Karl Rove analysis. I’m not saying the above is complete; just that it is true.)


20 posted on 01/20/2015 2:41:54 PM PST by spintreebob
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