Posted on 10/09/2006 5:12:44 PM PDT by naturalman1975
RECENT speeches by John Howard and Petro Georgiou have led many commentators to lament the decline of small-l liberals in the Liberal Party and the betrayal of the Menzies tradition of liberalism. But stand back and look at the history and today's political scene and you will find a different story.
Start with the Menzies tradition. Hardly a day goes by without some media sophisticate crying foul that the conservative Howard Government has undermined the party founder's Liberal philosophy. But bear in mind that although Robert Menzies had many pragmatic aspects and was too socialist for some tastes, he could also be a tough-minded conservative.
Liberal Party authority Gerard Henderson has pointed out that Menzies banned the Communist Party early in World War II, tried to ban it again in the 1950s and toughened up the Crimes Act in the '60s to such an extent that today's civil libertarians would have been outraged.
He also sent Australian troops to four or five wars. Not much small-l liberalism there.
Menzies, furthermore, would have had as little time as would his Labor counterpart Arthur Calwell for that ideal of small-l liberalism, multiculturalism. Both were keen supporters of immigration but wanted it to strengthen Australia's identity, not divide it.
Those Liberal politicians who publicly disagreed with Menzies generally saw their careers ruthlessly and permanently ended. Howard, by comparison, has been tolerant of dissent. Rebel Liberal backbenchers Georgiou and Judi Moylan have been somewhat less than gracious considering Howard's support for them. Their recent attacks on Howard's policy towards Papuan refugees have received a lot of media attention.
(Excerpt) Read more at theaustralian.news.com.au ...
We have the same problem here Mate, they're like cockroaches
A big problem we have to deal with is liberalism encroachments on conservatives. Robert Bork's book seems to be a great read on the subject: today's conservatives are becoming a branch of the liberalism movement... with the liberal mentality of 30 years ago.
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