tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6832901.post7689561936971824668..comments2024-03-25T19:48:24.624+11:00Comments on Oz Conservative: Can Elle Hardy's definition of the right hold? Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6832901.post-88778959317680492642014-02-09T10:38:31.499+11:002014-02-09T10:38:31.499+11:00I don't think so. Parties always follow popula...I don't think so. Parties always follow popular vote, and, let's face it, majority of ''right'' voters today are not socially/culturally conservative, they vote for their ''right-wing'' - capitalism and individualism (both without any restraints and therfore antithetical to conservatism). Contemporary right shuns any element of social/cultural conservatism because they believe that it creates bad image and will lose votes for such policies. Most of the Westerners who claim to be ''conservative'' usually know nothing about the orgins and the real meaning of that word.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6832901.post-48215904974685985992014-02-09T07:53:59.198+11:002014-02-09T07:53:59.198+11:00Anon, I missed that. I went and checked out her tw...Anon, I missed that. I went and checked out her twitter page and sure enough "rootless cosmopolitan" is the first thing she describes herself as. Mark Richardsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15961688379656119701noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6832901.post-2459631275646276732014-02-09T07:49:46.858+11:002014-02-09T07:49:46.858+11:00Well put. It's that framing of politics to kee...Well put. It's that framing of politics to keep debate within liberal bounds that, unfortunately, rank and file traditionalists were not good at opposing in the past. Instead, traditionalists just tended to attach themselves to right-liberal parties and to be content with some conservative sounding appeals to nation or family at election time. The task is to assert a politics that expresses a principled traditionalism.Mark Richardsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15961688379656119701noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6832901.post-55883615246367931542014-02-09T07:44:42.866+11:002014-02-09T07:44:42.866+11:00I think you're right that right-liberalism is ...I think you're right that right-liberalism is not deeply popular (at least not in Australia). But it dominates on the right because it has institutional support (business associations, economics faculties, certain media outlets).Mark Richardsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15961688379656119701noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6832901.post-86270442221720706322014-02-09T07:26:42.725+11:002014-02-09T07:26:42.725+11:00Yes, I think she is saying something like this. Sh...Yes, I think she is saying something like this. She is embarrassed that Tony Abbott is focusing on issues like border control. She accepts that democracy involves the getting of popular support but wants people like Abbott to inspire that support, morally and intellectually, on the basis of her own preferred policies of free markets and individual rights. Mark Richardsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15961688379656119701noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6832901.post-38187373832711092932014-02-09T07:21:03.844+11:002014-02-09T07:21:03.844+11:00Yes, a fallacy is defined as an argument that uses...Yes, a fallacy is defined as an argument that uses poor reasoning. Therefore, whether or not a slippery slope argument is a fallacy depends on whether it is supported by a logical argument or not. If I were simply to assert "smacking of children should not be banned because if it is banned it will lead to a decline in GDP" then that would be a fallacious use of a slippery slope argument. But if Kevin Andrews were to argue in support of his position something along the lines that "marriage between a man and a woman supports the ideal of a two person marriage because it can be envisaged as a union of two distinct but complementary parts that together form a whole union" then he has described a process by which one event (revoking the heterosexual nature of marriage) leads on to another (marriage is opened up to multiple partners). It may be proved correct or false but it is not a fallacy.Mark Richardsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15961688379656119701noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6832901.post-12263987502851537512014-02-09T01:07:32.513+11:002014-02-09T01:07:32.513+11:00Typical case of libertarian disguising as conserva...Typical case of libertarian disguising as conservative. If you check out her twitter page, you'll se she descibes herself proudly as ''rootless cosmopolitan''. How is that compatibile with anything right-wing, if conservatism starts with rootedness, restraints and devotion to a place? She is simply looking to sell her liberal-libertarian ideology to conservatives, or she really seems to think there is something conservative about individual rights and liberal democracy. That's the problem with nowdays western conservatism that it has been to much poisoned with libertarianism. In my view, liberatarianism, liberalism, socialism all sprung from the same, and I don't want any of it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6832901.post-62334064915051424152014-02-08T19:58:06.117+11:002014-02-08T19:58:06.117+11:00Right-liberals are a more dangerous enemy than lef...Right-liberals are a more dangerous enemy than leftists. The right-liberal dominance of supposedly conservative parties promotes the illusion that we have democracy. It makes people think they have a choice when in fact it's merely a choice between two evils. I suspect that right-liberalism is actually supported by a tiny proportion of the population. Most people vote for parties of the right because they want conservatism, not right-liberalism.<br /><br />Right-liberalism, like leftism, is an ideology of elites by elites for elites.dfordoomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02306293859869179118noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6832901.post-21962560554105123632014-02-08T18:46:12.865+11:002014-02-08T18:46:12.865+11:00Sounds more like a gatekeeper than any kind of con...Sounds more like a gatekeeper than any kind of conservative. They always said the plan was to dominate both sides of the divide and frame the issues and paradigms accordingly.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6832901.post-91800677752379328232014-02-08T09:27:37.326+11:002014-02-08T09:27:37.326+11:00"Foreign ownership of farms, and the natural ..."Foreign ownership of farms, and the natural shift of our economic base away from manufacturing are both positive things, and we cannot allow a selective fear of Chinese capital to flourish."<br /><br />Oh dear. 100% kool-aid. Three strikes and she's out. Somebody send her books by Pat Buchanan, Ian Fletcher, or Paul Craig Roberts, to dispel the free-trade myths. There are fruit farmers committing suicide in Australia because of the devastation of free-trade.ideologeehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05342734091237801188noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6832901.post-16986408649074278752014-02-08T07:24:09.113+11:002014-02-08T07:24:09.113+11:00Just as an aside from the main thrust of your post...Just as an aside from the main thrust of your post, this quote struck me:<br /><br />"Intellectual and moral leadership is required to bridge the gap between populist policies, with which we must grapple as ardent democrats, and the promotion of fundamentals such as free markets and natural rights."<br /><br />Is she saying here that right-wing elites must do whatever they can to defeat the political inclinations of most people while still keeping some pretense of letting them rule? That's certainly what the elite of the Left believe.CamelCaseRobnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6832901.post-54201848779156143322014-02-08T04:56:33.931+11:002014-02-08T04:56:33.931+11:00She seems to be economically right-liberal and soc...She seems to be economically right-liberal and socially left-liberal. In Britain even our right-liberals don't talk like that about marriage (yet).Simon in Londonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6832901.post-14249523606702719592014-02-08T02:04:52.861+11:002014-02-08T02:04:52.861+11:00Libertarian conservatism will ultimately lead to m...Libertarian conservatism will ultimately lead to more government, not less. Even if the government stops promoting "heteronormative" values, people will notice that such values are still the norm. Some of them will argue that popular prejudice is imposing that norm and therefore limiting our free will. So there will be demands that the government intervene and set things right. Since most people are heteronormal by nature, there will then be demands to beef up this intervention. And a ratchet effect will begin ...<br /><br />Libertarian conservatives may not be among those who make those demands, but they create a political environment where such demands become inevitable. Somebody should be making the counter-argument that free will is limited by human nature and that there is nothing wrong or evil in these limitations. In fact, these limitations are adaptive; they have developed over a long period of time to help us survive and reproduce. Unfortunately, we cannot count on "conservatives" to make that kind of argument.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6832901.post-66171775148452287332014-02-07T23:32:22.936+11:002014-02-07T23:32:22.936+11:00It is ironic that she should use the example of sa...It is ironic that she should use the example of same-sex marriage when talking about the "logical fallacy" of the "slippery slope." Slippery slope arguments are not, in fact, fallacies, since some processes do have positive feedback loops (the process of sliding down a slippery slope, for instance). In any case, when sodomy was decriminalized a few decades ago, anyone who complained that this would lead to same-sex marriage could have been accused of this bogus "slippery slope fallacy." As it happens, no one made that argument because no one knew how slippery the slope actually was. Ditto no-fault divorce and a host of other social innovations.<br /><br />An operating definition of a true conservative might be a man who believes that all slopes are slippery, and most are studded with crags and jagged rocksJMSmithnoreply@blogger.com