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| Coming Over The Top: Rory Stewart's memoir, Politics On The Edge, lays bare the dangerous inadequacies of the Western World's current political model. |
VERY FEW NEW ZEALANDERS will have heard of Rory Stewart. Those with a keen eye for the absurdities of politics may recognise the name as that of the hapless Tory cabinet minister who fronted for David Cameron’s government during the catastrophic British floods of 2015. It was Stewart who, glumly – and hilariously – informed the news media that: “[T]he flood walls are working well. The only problem is that the water is coming over the top.”
Not the sort of line that is easy for anyone, let alone a politician, to live down. Perhaps surprisingly, Stewart did recover from his prize-winning clanger and went on to hold many more ministerial portfolios under Cameron and Teresa May.
Boris Johnson, however, was a force of nature Stewart couldn’t survive – even if he’d wanted to. When the extreme Brexiters forced May to resign, Stewart offered himself as the sane alternative to Johnson. Roundly rejected by his fellow Tories, Stewart was then cast out of the Conservative Party altogether by the unforgiving Johnson.
Fascinating though Stewart’s career may have been, the only reason he is again being talked about is because he has written an unusually effective memoir entitled “Politics on the Edge”, in which he lays bare the dangerous inadequacies of the working model of politics currently in use across the Western world. In a powerful essay for the Guardian newspaper, published over the weekend, Stewart summarises the working assumptions of that model:
“The polling graphs, which had brought Bill Clinton and Tony Blair to victory, looked like bell jars with the votes heaped in the centre, and few at the extremes. This era had left a whole generation of politicians with three assumptions: that liberal global markets were the answer to prosperity; that prosperity would spread democracy; and that the world would be governed by a liberal global order.”
With our own general election less than a month away, it is alarming how much of New Zealand’s politics is still governed by these three assumptions. Certainly, National and Labour, the two major parties, in whom close to two-thirds of the voters place their trust, have yet to demonstrate, in either their political demeanour, or their policy platforms, any convincing evidence that they concur with Stewart’s assessment that since the Global Financial Crisis of 2008-09 “all this has changed”.
Equally alarming is how closely Stewart’s experiences as a cabinet minister chime with what so many close observers of New Zealand politics have reported about the behaviour of our own executive branch of government. There is an ominous familiarity about Stewart’s reflections on the way contemporary politics is conducted:
“I had discovered how grotesquely unqualified so many of us, including myself, were for the offices we were given ….. It was a culture that prized campaigning over careful governing, opinion polls over detailed policy debates, announcements over implementation.”
That last sentence, in particular, could serve as the epitaph of the Sixth Labour Government.
Stewart’s most frightening observation, however, concerns the reckless excavation of the once proud mound of centre-ground:
“The old bell jar opinion poll, with the votes in the centre, [has] been replaced by a U-shape with the votes at the extremes.”
While New Zealand has yet to experience the extreme polarisation to which the United States has fallen prey, there exists a level of dissatisfaction with the way politics is being conducted that could easily be exploited by a populist politician less benign than Winston Peters and more effective than Brian Tamaki.
That such a figure has not arisen, either here or in the United Kingdom, bears out Stewart’s observations concerning the general level of knowledge and competence possessed by the political classes of most western democracies.
Certainly, it is hard to argue with his general thesis that because there continues to be broad agreement among the political and financial elites about how a twenty-first century society and economy should be run, our ideologically redundant politicians now vie with one another for the coveted title of “person the ordinary voter would most enjoy having a drink with”. Stewart would be the first to concede that, in the political celebrity stakes, Boris Johnson is without peer. What his Guardian essay (not to mention Johnson’s and our own Jacinda Ardern’s careers) make clear, however, is that celebrity is not enough.
The fascist leader, Benito Mussolini was much admired by middle-class Britons for making the notoriously unreliable Italian trains run on time. What was deemed admirable in the 1920s is making a resurgence in the 2020s. Democracy is entering that extraordinarily dangerous political space where a political ideology becomes inextricably associated with failure.
It is the principal reason for the Russian people’s troubling indifference (some would say contempt) for democratic values. In their minds, the global elites’ promotion of freedom, democracy and neoliberal capitalism coincided with the simultaneous collapse of Russia’s national prestige and their own personal well-being. Vladimir Putin’s popularity is due, in no small measure, to his success in restoring a fair measure of both.
Similarly, Donald Trump’s enduring political clout arises from his ability to make the degraded white American working-class feel proud again. Democracy is for college kids, sneer the Deplorables, apparently unaware that for a frightening proportion of woke college kids, democracy is also an over-rated political system.
Democracy’s steady retreat across the globe has left the moderate Tory, Stewart, reaching for such NGO panaceas as citizens’ assemblies and grass-roots, self-help initiatives. He is plenty smart enough, however, to know that these are nowhere near enough. What he, and a great many moderate politicians like him, are struggling to come up with is a democracy that works.
It’s not easy. This is how he describes the fork in the road at which he, a cabinet minister still in possession of a working brain and conscience, eventually arrived:
“I found myself struggling to produce policies that were other than either a grey compromise between past ideals and the populist present, or policies of the new right, cloaked in the language of the old centre. I acknowledged that the liberal consensus had failed to support manufacturing, adequately regulate the financial industry or invest appropriately in areas such as the north-east. But I struggled to come up with an alternative that did not echo Jeremy Corbyn’s nostalgia for the borrowing, protectionism and subsidies of the 70s.”
Which, depressingly, is where New Zealanders still in possession of a working brain and conscience find themselves struggling, just 26 days out from the General Election of 2023.
This essay was originally posted on the Interest.co.nz website on Monday, 18 September 2023.
31 comments:
Uncomfortably accurate. I would like to see an option on all ballot papers, after all the candidates or party names - ‘none of the above’. Then I could record my vote/opinion most accurately.
“…three assumptions: that liberal global markets were the answer to prosperity; that prosperity would spread democracy; and that the world would be governed by a liberal global order”
“…there continues to be broad agreement among the political and financial elites about how a twenty-first century society and economy should be run.”
One may well ask why financial elites get to determine the political paradigm. Not why they do in fact (the answer is they have all the money and therefore all the power), but why should they get to determine it in principle.
Liberalism has been a disaster, and more and more people are realising this. As a consequence of this awakening, we see figures like the contemptible Jacinda Ardern, having bailed out from the catastrophic mess she left the country in, now being paid by said financial elites to lecture us about how we should all be concerned about and should get behind the financial elite’s push to censor “online extremism.”
So-called “online extremism” is simply opposition to entrenched liberalism. Liberalism has become such a failure that it can’t survive without heavy censorship of opposing views and the voicing of alternatives. A desire for real leadership, national pride, an orderly, clean and functional society with standards of behaviour is seen as “fascism.” If all of these things are considered fascism, then fine – but sign me up for some.
What is “freedom” in 2023? Basically, it is hedonism, nihilism, individualism, materialism and the absence of the kind of standards of decency that make for a coherent society. What is “democracy” in 2023? It is manufactured public opinion and the suppression of disagreement with that manufactured public opinion in the interests of the financial elite who, as we learned earlier, get to decide how a twenty-first century society and economy should be run.
The rising populism and nationalism around the world is a sign that after three generations, the postwar liberal consensus has broken down. The never-ending project of “openness” has hardened into a set of anti-dogmatic dogmas which have destroyed the social solidarity grounded in family, faith and nation (i.e. a sense of “we”). While we are told to worry about the return of fascism, societies are dissolving, having been undermined and demoralised in the pursuit of profit. But man will not tolerate social dissolution indefinitely. He longs to be part of a “we” which gives his life real meaning in a way that the liberal orthodoxy never can.
“I had discovered how grotesquely unqualified so many of us, including myself, were for the offices we were given........................"
Yep, if the govt does change in October we are going to witness the inevitable chaotic consequences of electoral stupidity unfold right here in NZ.
Heartening to see at least that Chippy is ahead in the "most trusted politician" polls.......
Yep! Hence NZ First is the best option, with the rest of the menu offering a range of worse choices.
A democracy that works is one in which elective oligarchies, elective plutocracies, elective kakistocracies, elective 'idiotocracies', elective 'adynatocracies', etc etc have no place.
I wouldn't concern myself over 'the 'lack of democratic values' in Russia, or for that matter, China. Both nations are no less democratic in their own way than Western nations are in theirs. Right about now, I would put Russia's democracy far ahead of the United States' version. And even were that not the case, Vladimir Putin's capacity and competence would answer for many a deficiency in 'democratic values'. In global affairs, Putin and Xi Jinping look like the only adults in the room compared with the calibre of 'leadership' the West can show: Biden, Trudeau, Stoltenberg, Macron, Rishi Sunak, Scholz ... man, what a parade of twerps.
A democracy that works is run by competent statespeople - people who can do the job, or, if not, know how to access to good advice from competent advisors. I had no time for the simpering, posturing Donald Trump, but when, despite all his efforts he became president, I thought he might make an effective head of state, provided he chose his advisers well. Well, he got a bunch of mad-minded demogogues - largely chosen for him by the Donor Class - who went out of their way to sabotage Trump's more sensible (i.e. less crazy) policy decisions (there were a few).
The evidence had already been mounting, but now we know: the US president is NOT in charge of forming, developing and implementing policy. The elected Head of State of the US does not govern: his executive administration is not his to command. The 'Deep State' is nothing special: just the US bureaucracy tied in with Wall Street and the Military-Industrial Complex. Dwight Eisenhower foresaw the pernicious influence the MIC would have over US governance. The 'Deep State' runs the show.
To what extent is any New Zealand political party capable - or even permitted - to run this country? National was always something of a do-nothing party, so its incapacity is taken as par for the course. For good and for ill, Labour used to be capable of determining and promulgating policy. Even Helen Clark's administration (with capable Ministers like Michael Cullen) showed a measure of effective activity.
Jacinda Ardern's adminstration showed promise, but failed to deliver. Why? I suspect strongly that in this country, the party that occupies the Government benches in the H of R is no longer arbiter of this country's political, social and economic future. This has been the case for probably a deal longer than I realised.
Cheers,
Ion A. Dowman
The problem governments have as I see it is Business. Regardless of what type of political system a modern country has, they need a strong business sector. There has to be exports and imports and a strong local economy. Unfortunately the bigger businesses then lobby government to make sure they stay big. The governments panda to wealthy business because they can help them stay in power, for a price. The result is world wide we have corporates infecting government decision making. Iv'e always said the best government is either a left wing government with really good business and administration skills, or a right winged government with a good social conscience. We don't have to look for new political systems, we have to look for new people. People who understand we need strong business and a social conscience. People who will encourage business but keep them in check, and people who understand the less well off need a fair deal. If we don't find those people, like Chris suggests we will find a Trump or a Putin.
Financial elites? Like Rupert Murdoch? I was just reading today that some say he's responsible for the "moral degeneration" of Western society. If indeed we are morally degenerate I couldn't agree more. Honestly though when you right-wingers talk about the financial elites – you realise it's your people right? Although of course if you're one of the little people who happens to vote Conservative they'd throw you under the bus in a New York minute.
Most of these people are of the hard right, and have absolutely no loyalty to society or country. Their only loyalty is to people like them. And I have the bibliography to prove it.
Liberalism is censoring people? Give us some examples or keep quiet. I've posted numerous examples of right-wing censorship on this site among others, and you haven't said a dicky bird. Because you're happy with that I suspect.
Excellent Madame B.
Aside from a few notable exceptions there's an astonishing combination of arrogance and ignorance about. Traditional, preliterate societies were, of necessity, reliant on and revering of their elders, the source of knowledge and wisdom. Perhaps the ready availability of knowledge has helped lead to a foolish dismissal of experience and wisdom as well. There's something deeply satanic in the headlong rush into destructive "progressivism".
Another take on Rory Stewart's book from Tim Black.
"What centrists love about Stewart is that he is a technocrat. He seems to think the dysfunctions of modern politics are squarely down to a lack of expertise and managerial nous. He writes of how ‘grotesquely unqualified’ politicians are – including himself, he says, with cloying and unconvincing self-deprecation. He writes repeatedly of the importance of ‘careful governing’ and of the ignorance and cluelessness of his former parliamentary colleagues. But he reserves his deepest technocratic animus for the electorate itself. He even dreams of a government free ‘of the daily insolence of voters’."
https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/09/18/the-bizarre-cult-of-rory-stewart/
Occasionally I refer to the late Philip Rieff, American sociologist and cultural critic whose books I highly recommend if you wish to understand the days in which we live. Rieff suggested all functional social orders definined themselves by what they forbid, what they considered transgressive.
In the West have spent the last sixty years or more removing sin and transgression from our lexicon, and affirming behaviours and attitudes that once were considered destructive both personally and to the social order. With a loss of a common understanding of what is true, beautiful and good we have devolved into ideologically waring factions unable to agree, and worse demonising the other.
For this malaise there is no political solution.
The problems are deeply cultural and religious at their core.
Who is speaking into that space, who is attempting to right the ship, speak truthfully, celebrate the beautiful, endorse the good? We cannot even agree amongst ourselves what might quaify for those ensorsements.
We are in a time of deep social and cultural transition which is why we often feel deeply unsettled. We simply don’t know what will emerge from this malaise but when it does emerge I suspect none of us are going to like it.
"In the West have spent the last sixty years or more removing sin and transgression from our lexicon, and affirming behaviours and attitudes that once were considered destructive both personally and to the social order."
You say that as if it's a bad thing Brendan. Honestly though you quote someone who was in essence a homophobe – not surprising given his wife left him for a woman I guess. But the man also said we should have private spaces of freedom – something which you Christians are intent on intruding into, in spite of the fact that you are politically in the camp of minimal government – supposedly.
"the secret life … the only life worth living, which is not too well known, or necessarily liked by others.”
So maybe he wasn't such a traditional/Christian moralist as you think. Not surprised that he was against the sexual revolution though, given the circumstances of his marriage.
Sin is a pretty much a Christian concept Brendan that has only been around for a couple of thousand years. It's not a social advance over what went before IMO.
In fact, homosexuality which you seem to think is the end of the world, was very common in some societies, including the classical Greek one that we all purport to admire because democracy. And if you can make a case for that being destructive "both personally and to the social order", you'd really have to look at that and make case – I doubt you could.
And a number of American tribes seemed to embrace homosexuality and what Chris calls "transgenderism" without too much social disruption. The disruption to their lives came from people like you trying to make them feel guilty about it. It was also accepted and relatively common over much of Asia.
It wasn't until you Christians started trying to make people ashamed of their sexuality that it started to be treated as a "sin". Why on earth you people worry about something that doesn't affect you in any way shape or form I just don't know. I regard it as none of my damn business what people do with their wedding tackle, an attitude I would suggest you adopt except you won't, because Christians always want to poke their noses into other people's private business.
The problems are certainly religious at their core. Abrahamitic religions are certainly problematic. 😁 And of course many of the more prominent anti-gay Christians in particular are self hating gay people themselves. Sad. Perhaps you should read this, but be careful – the pink might rub off.
https://www.thepinknews.com/2016/12/12/11-anti-gay-preachers-who-got-caught-doing-very-gay-things/
https://www.advocate.com/politicians/2018/5/24/18-homophobic-leaders-who-turned-out-be-gay-or-bi
Incidentally, if anyone wants to know where the real danger to society is coming from – read this. Pretty sure this is heterosexual Brendan so don't worry too much.
https://www.alternet.org/revealed-the-magat-republicans-three-step-plan-for-classic-fascism/
These days Russia is widely referred to in the MSM as a dictatorship. I would like to know how "Democracy" is defined by such people. If it is a matter of an elected representative government then why does Russia not qualify ? It seems to me that the difference between Democracy i the US for example and Russia is that the elected representatives in Russia are actually in charge of the decision making process and in the US they are not. And those that aspire to be meet the fate of Donald Trump or John F Kennedy.
Western countries have relinquished the control of their economies , and hence their capacity to effect societal fairness within their jurisdiction to Globalism and the free flow of finance across their borders. Leaving themselves powerless to actually Govern anything meaningful . So they are simply figureheads holding a ceremonial position and passing laws that only interfere with those struggling to get by.
D J S
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5aVfVcfehQ
Censorship. Not liberal. 😇
“[T]he flood walls are working well. The only problem is that the water is coming over the top.”
“We have had too many migrants and are having to put the underclasses on floodplains”
“but we aren’t racist”
When the extreme Brexiters forced May to resign, Stewart offered himself as the sane alternative to Johnson. Roundly rejected by his fellow Tories, Stewart was then cast out of the Conservative Party altogether by the unforgiving Johnson.
Brexit was about identity. Johnson increased immigration – Matt Goodwin.
People are intuitively tribal. John Key and Jacinda Ardern’s children may “have a stake in the Asian Century” otherwise they assess who is us and who is them? They are us is an unlikely calculation.
There’s an interesting line up between Occupy (middle class) and opposition to free speech.
Paul Spoonley says Byron Clark is “doing a great job”. They do a great job identifying the clearly wrong elements on the right but are in denial about their role in growths dystopian future.
What justifies putting the underclasses in highrises?
What justifies subdivisions on productive farmland? Is it moral to exclude when someone else feels the pain?
GS: "Sin is a pretty much a Christian concept"
Really? You know nothing of the prohibitions imposed, the responsibilities expected within societies (at least the ones with any measure of coherence and longevity) since societies existed? Breach of tapu, for instance. Good luck getting away with breaking that.
"These days Russia is widely referred to in the MSM as a dictatorship. "
I don't know if I'm one of "those people" but I would define a democracy as a place where elections are free and fair, and where opposition politicians are not put in jail killed. Where newspapers are allowed to criticise the government, where there is freedom of information and freedom to assemble, where media outlets are allowed to operate without hindrance, where people are not put in prison for taking part in demonstrations.
Russia I doubt was ever a democracy perhaps just at the end of communism, but it's gone from an autocratic state to a dictatorship. If you don't believe that I have a spare bridge I'd love to sell you.
For all its faults, the US does have free elections – although marred by much gerrymandering and of course the January 6 insurrection, not to mention it's somewhat arcane electoral system.
And I would love to see some evidence that Donald Trump or John F. Kennedy were not actually part of the decision-making process. And I fail to see what the "fate" of Donald Trump is given that he lost a free and fair election.
GS, there are good reasons we have prohibitions around sexuality; the consequences for women, the children not the least of them. Unfortunately, and perversely, the obsession with freedom has become a moralising mess itself.
Our government departments thought police are now threatening staff that don't believe lesbians can have a penis:
Emma Barraclough, a former policy advisor at MoT, says staff were told to use the term “same-gender attracted” and not “same-sex attracted” when describing gay men and women during a rainbow training session delivered by InsideOUT.
Barraclough - who has a lesbian family member - asked the presenter if she thought lesbians should be willing to accept male-bodied people with penises as sexual partners if they identify as women. You can read Emma's full story here.
Explains Barraclough: "I know lesbians who feel silenced and bullied for saying they’re not attracted to males who identify as women. I wanted to add their voice to the conversation, and say they should be able to say “same-sex attracted” without being shamed.
In response, she was told by the InsideOUT presenter that saying “male” and “penis” was “part of the problem” and “part of the narrative that trans women are a threat”.
Barraclough was then reprimanded in a letter and in a subsequent meeting with the Deputy Chief Executive.
MoT’s Deputy Chief Executive wrote:
“I was surprised and disappointed that you chose to…inappropriately challenge the presenter…It was concerning to me and others that you persistently used language to describe trans women such as 'male-bodied', even after [presenter] explained that such language is inappropriate and offensive.”
https://www.speakupforwomen.nz/post/media-release-ministry-staff-told-don-t-use-male-or-penis-when-referring-to-male-lesbians
A lot of travel over ground. 'Aboot' the main thing (the fellow comes from the Borders and did a show about it), climate change and poverty, according to even the UN main goals -- which we're failing at.
My values to a T. But climate change is everything. There is nothing else, Trottersky?
No shame in letting it get past you despite the clarity from 1990. Got past the great ones, Corbyn, Reich and Sanders.
I hate the details talk in comment sections.
This is the end of the species within a very few years. But because it's been preceded by magnificent comfort for a lot of us we're not willing to do anything about it. And happy to sacrifice our children and grandchildren for it.
We need a talker, Chris.
As you see from America, sans a Left talker, Right bullshit talk takes over. It's taken over my 4 sibs, from the base of born-again christianity.
Your interview went better than John's Sean
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8ct_JjZR6o
“I found myself struggling to produce policies that were other than either a grey compromise between past ideals and the populist present, or policies of the new right, cloaked in the language of the old centre."
Rory is trying to understand what is staring him in the face: it's found within the ideas of conservatism itself. His party's inability to articulate and action conservative values is the only mystery.
"Rarely has it been more fashionable than today to dismiss conservatism as a reactionary resistance against the long march towards the sunlit uplands of an emancipated egalitarian utopia, the settlement of which is assumed to be the fruit of the progressive left’s radical quest for justice tempered by the influence of liberalism. As a narrative, that is as false as it is pervasive because only conservatism charts the middle course between ideologies that elevate the self over the collective and ones that swallow up the self in the collective. Stripped of the many and various accretions with which the Enlightenment has burdened it, conservatism at its core continues to offer the most accurate picture of what settles us in our world and joins us to one another. The conservative outlook orients a society towards everything that it must protect and preserve if it is to enjoy the ordered freedom and relational flourishing that liberalism rightly craves but can never achieve."
https://www.konstantinkisin.com/p/what-is-conservatism
No confusion at all, mate. Vote for the Greens. And Hipkins must go if their coalition wins.
Short-term Rogernome Labour is over.
You over-complicate matters which can't help the people and reality. Climate change is the only thing, despite the mortgage-holders. The short-term people.
On The Platform X had been educated "to the physics level in sociology". He was arguing about the UN and the conspiracy theory alleged about it. Then on came X who was a cabinet maker who suggested a collection of clips of "the nutters". There you have two sides of the border.
A psychologist would ask: "what is really going on behind this?
People detect patterns. What does humanity suggest?:
Large populations limited resources; people at the top thriving and gaining status (Jacinda);
people at the bottom ignored and marginalised. I can recall that "aha" moment when people on Public Address started saying "oh, my!" to Auckland house prices. The cognitive elite have an enormous advantage over people down the otherside of the IQ cliff.
https://unherd.com/2019/10/was-john-lennon-right-about-love/
Try explaining that to Sean Plunket
Conservative values?
Here's what Eisenhower said about conservative values. From his election platform.
1. Assistance to low-income families.
2. Protect Social Security.
3. Provide asylum to refugees.
4. Extend the minimum wage.
5. Improve unemployment benefits.
6. Strengthen labour laws.
7. Equal pay regardless of sex.
Boy has conservatism changed. Nowadays it's:
1. Bugger the poor it's their own fault.
2. Bugger the old, raise the retirement age.
3. Imprison refugees and send them away if you can.
4. Forget the minimum wage no one deserves a minimum wage.
5. Reduce unemployment benefits.
6. Provide tax breaks and corporate welfare for the wealthy while gutting the unions.
7. Equal pay regardless of sex – more or less.
"GS: "Sin is a pretty much a Christian concept"
Yes David it is. It's not just the breaking of rules, as the breaking of divine rules, which if you do it too much, you will be tortured for eternity by a God who supposedly loves you.
"GS, there are good reasons we have prohibitions around sexuality; the consequences for women, the children not the least of them. Unfortunately, and perversely, the obsession with freedom has become a moralising mess itself."
A certain amount of nut picking their David as usual, but societies have existed with many fewer prohibitions around sexuality without any more problems than our own. And for a lot longer than modern Western society has existed.
Obsession with freedom? You're not in favour of freedom? I thought you conservatives were all in favour of freedom. Ah of course – just your own.
GS
The criticisms you make of Russian "Democracy" as compared with the US (or our own) seem to apply to the way it is seen by some to be run by those elected to government. Whether the comparisons you make are correct or not they all seem to be related to the way the leadership operates or wields their power. Is that so or do you not accept that?
What I feel needs to be explained is the structural differences that make that possible in some administrations and not others. If the structural differences cannot be clearly identified then there is no reason to expect any government to be immune from descending into the same evils. It means that the distinction is only between the individuals that are currently in power .
Cheers D J S
Sorry GS, that is pure misrepresentation - and you know it.
To quote from that beautiful address I linked:
"No champion of conservatism is ever comfortable defining it, because to define conservatism is to put oneself in tension with it. There is not nor could there ever be such a thing as a Little Blue Book, for it is the perennial predicament of the conservative to be so alive to the human horror justified by the clinical certainties of political creeds that he will always feel unease at any invitation to write down one of his own."
...... "At the high noon of the Cold War, to be conservative was to see and prize the good in liberalism, to defend spontaneous order against central planning, individual liberty in the face of collective coercion, and the freedom of a sovereign people from a tyrannical will. But at the dawn of the digital age in which the market state has defeated the centrally planned one, many conservatives are as quick to sound the alarm as loudly as any on the left at the power of technology and unfettered global markets to liquefy the ties that bind us to each other and suffuse our lives with the blessings of belonging."
David.
1. Interesting then that the Internet is full of people defining conservatism. Big lists of Conservative principles. But how they are put into practice has changed as you people have gone feral.
2. 'At the high noon of the Cold War to be Conservative was to see and prize the good in liberalism'? Tell that to the victims of Senator McCarthy. How many other duly elected representatives have been removed by conservatives? There was even supposed to be a plot to remove Harold Wilson of all people.
Honestly, calling conservatism champions of liberalism and democracy is a little bit like calling Trump religious because he can hold a Bible – upside down. And it just goes to show the gullibility of conservatives that somewhere around about 53% of them believe that Trump is actually religious.
Let's not forget that no fascist regime has ever established itself without the support of conservatives. Perhaps think on that before you get so po-faced about "misrepresentation".
@David George
... there are good reasons we have prohibitions around sexuality...
For the last sixty years the Left has been hiding behind the smokescreen of all their opposition to traditional Christian attitudes towards sex, all that we won't poke our nose into your bedroom stuff.
I call it a smokescreen because once you step outside your bedroom the Left absolutely want to stick their nose into every other aspect of your life: what car you drive, whether you drive one at all, what job you do, what industry you work in, what food you eat, what you use to cook your food, how you heat your house, and on and on and on. Never ending busybodies, complete with endlessly implying how morally and intellectually superior they are, like a whole bunch of little Popes.
And unlike me being able to tell Christians to get stuffed (because who can be hurt by a god one does not believe in?), these sods make sure they have the power of the state to force you to do what they want.
Moreover, as the examples above with Emma Barraclough show, the Left are actually now getting into the whole business of telling people what to think about sexuality, just like the old Christians like you but with far greater coercion and viciousness, as usual.
"the Left absolutely want to stick their nose into every other aspect of your life: what car you drive, whether you drive one at all, what job you do, what industry you work in, what food you eat, what you use to cook your food, how you heat your house, and on and on and on. Never ending busybodies, complete with endlessly implying how morally and intellectually superior they are, like a whole bunch of little Popes."
I've never been "told" any of these things.
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