eccentric.
Posted on 11/23/2004 1:04:10 PM PST by NZerFromHK
"THEY are like mules," a particularly cool bishop remarked the other day of progressives in the Catholic church. "They have no heirs."
Might this also be true of the deconstructionist Left in politics, with its conceivably sui generis progenitors traceable only back to the counter-cultural sixties and seventies? There's an argument to be made.
The re-election of George Bush, an unequivocally combative conservative, and the return of John Howard for a fourth term, suggests climate change in American and Australian politics rather than seasonal variation.
After fighting Bush with dedicated unscrupulousness throughout the presidential campaign, The New York Times tacitly conceded this in a front-page analysis of the election results. The author, Todd Purdom, concluded, "It is impossible to read President Bush's re-election with larger Republican majorities in both houses of Congress as anything other than the clearest confirmation yet that this is a Centre-Right country."
It is significant that the decisive issue in the US presidential election may well have been values. A shell-shocked Left has been trying to cushion the shock by qualifying these as "moral values", in the hope of blaming everything on fundamentalist Christians, whom we all, in the name of political correctness, naturally despise as ignorant, superstitious primitives.
But "values" stands comfortably and forcefully alone in the context of the American elections. It is a word that records a broad, belated popular rejection of the deconstructionist Left's insistent bluff, sustained for the best part of a generation, that only "values neutral" policies are valid.
As in our own election, where the sudden appearance of the Family First party, backed by the Assemblies of God church, startled the deconstructionist Left out of its wits, the religious Right in America did little more than tap the barometer.
In 11 US states where voters had the opportunity to consider constitutional amendments defining marriage as a union of a man and a woman, they supported it in even greater numbers than they did President Bush, to whom the 11 also gave a majority. Fundamentalist Christians cannot alone muster such numbers. The vote was a clear statement by a majority of all voters that values neutrality does not apply to marriage.
I'm not sure if values neutrality is the parent or progeny of political correctness. But I've noticed few, if any, accusations of homophobia being flung at opponents of gay marriage either in America or here. That's a welcome climate change.
Then there is the wonder that, in both countries, abortion has suddenly – virtually since the two elections – become a matter for public discussion, ending 30 years of oppressive silence.
Since the US Supreme Court brought down its Roe v Wade decision in 1973, the deconstructionist Left has ruled the matter closed. A woman is entitled to control of her own body. That's it.
Since 1973, however, science has deepened its knowledge of fetal life and established fairly closely the point at which uniqueness may be assumed. Debate on abortion in 2004 is undisguisably complex.
I think John Kerry suspected the existence of political climate change and dealt with it by running under an assumed identity. Rejoicing all his political life in being an advanced Boston liberal from the Ted Kennedy (deconstructionist) camp, Kerry fiercely denied accusations – accusations! – that he had been the Senate's most liberal member.
A peacenik since his youthful days as an anti-Vietnam War protester, and off-and-on about Iraq, Kerry strove – imprudently, since he proved incapable of looking or sounding the part – to present himself as a warrior who would prosecute the war in Iraq and the war against terror at least as aggressively as Bush (though, of course, more efficiently).
Complaisant hitherto about abortion and same-sex marriage, Kerry brandished a little uncertainty. Towards the end of his campaign, he gingerly introduced his Catholicism – seldom before displayed outside Boston – as an electoral asset. One Sunday in Florida he went to church three times.
Kerry's Democrats sweated blood and money to persuade young men and women to register to vote, believing the youth vote was overwhelmingly theirs. But on the day, much of the American youth vote found more interesting things to do than vote. (Similarly, Mark Latham tried and failed to score from comparison of his vigorous youth with Howard's doddery decrepitude.)
Kerry won a majority from voters under 29, but there seems to have been unpredicted leakage to Bush.
What the deconstructionist Left really needs to worry about, though, here as in the US, is the vote of today's under-18s – its heirs, if it has any.
Standing on a veranda with a bright six-year-old the other day, watching the rain fall, I was electrified to hear him say, "I'm not a mad greenie or anything but I just love rain."
We live in a benign climate when aesthetics and the senses win a few from ideology.
I am fortunate that my thirty year old single mother daughter voted Republican and can't stand libs! She says they whine too much!:-) I am content with my parenting.
Yes, we are a Centre-Right nation, with Traditional Values.
I've got no personal equivalent, but this link will give you a quick overview of New Zealand...
Regards.
You are quite right, to an American, this is bizarro. Abuse of police power happens here so often, with public officials far exceeding their powers on paper, that we're also a might more paranoid when government puts it in writing with the expectation that they don't really mean it (except for those "other people"). Further, we have hordes of activist attorneys looking for just such an opportunity. Such a law would either be struck down by some activist judge before you could sneeze or would be enforced on everybody. Laws assuming selective enforcement just don't happen on the criminal side. Civil cases are another matter.
Another itethat I recommend is the Copetitive Enterprise Intitute (CEI):
http://www.cei.org
It has hundreds of market-based environmentalist proposals that both the Left and Right in the United States aren't aware of or altogether ignored. I found many common-sense proposals refreshing and challenging.
,,, many thanx. I'll give it the once-over.
We have a more convention-based legal mentality - police or other government power are often limited by how it is traditionally exercised as well as what the laws related to that agency have granted (note the convention is unwritten but observed - any serious break with this convention is discouraged in courts). But the United States often doesn't have this convention - it is in fact run a lot more like civil law countries with regards to how much power government actually has with respect to what the law has granted.
It is no wonder this slippery slope thinking is much more prevalent in America than the Commonwealth or Britain.
One thing that I part with many conservatives is transport. I personally think public transport hould be highly developed and people make use of it as much as possible. In theory, bus or railway has greater fuel efficiency - I don't support the thesis that fuel is going to be extinct next year but I don't see how 1 litre of petrol spent on moving a car with one driver to downtown could be justified when you can use it to generate electricity and upply it to an EMU with 1,200 people to the same destination.
An inefficient use of resources just for the sake of "greater mobility" runs rather hollow when you see good PT in East Asia with same degreeof mobility.
I am an environmental conservative. That means, to me, that we ought to be looking at real science rather than junk science in weighing our actions to take on the environment. And, like I've said countless times before, I think "The Skeptical Environmentalist" by Bjorn Lomborg is mandatory reading for conservatives.
There ARE market-friendly solutions to our environmental problems, if the left just gets out of the practice of making environmental dishonesty a religion, and the government allows the private sector to do what it does best: rewards innovation and creativity. Whenever the government is involved, it becomes too expensive, too cumbersome, and too slow. JMO.
,,, and there's the weigh point - volume of population to make it cost efficient, stops planned en route relevant to business and attractions and convenient scheduling.
Liberalism is the hobby of the damned.
,,, seconded!
That's the key. Hong Kong has 7.5 million people on land size less than 2/3 of Auckland (40% of you forget about the mountainou and uninhabited islands). We can never have rey entirely on PT but we should at least make people who go to work and who don't require driving around for their jobs to use PT to/from work as much as possible.
That's the key. Hong Kong has 7.5 million people on land size less than 2/3 of Auckland (40% if you forget about the mountainous and uninhabited islands). We can never rely entirely on PT but we should at least make people who go to work and who don't require driving around for their jobs to use PT to/from work as much as possible.
,,, check out the article on liberalism in the November 6th 2004 edition of The Economist. [under the heading "Political vocabulary"].
,,, Singapore makes private motoring virtually prohibitive.
We don't have to learn everything from Lee Kwan Yew. ;-) You know, he's an eccentric.
eccentric.
So am I. (Are we going to be kicked out of the club?) I believe that protecting and preserving is a good thing. But I don't worship nature (after all she is out to kill me) and I don't think of humans are outside of the natural order which is what I find many on the Opposite side of the political spectrum believe.
Preserve, use, protect, tend, enjoy.
You know, we follow the Poms' definitions and the Yanks have different definitions to "liberalism". A search through Wikipedia reveals what we (New Zealand) call liberalism they call it classical liberalism or moderate libertarianism.
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