If there are certain truths that cannot be uttered on the right, even by the Prime Minister, for fear of upsetting people, there are similarly facts that no one can utter on the left without incurring the collective wrath of their ideological colleagues. Here they are:
1. “Stopping the boats” was a huge success in terms of preventing loss of life among asylum seekers.
The great unmentionable of the left: Operation Sovereign Borders not merely stopped the boats, it stopped asylum seekers drowning and restored confidence to Australia’s border control. Attempts to claim it merely shifted drownings elsewhere have never been borne out.
2. Labor was wrong on the GST and we have an inferior tax system to show for it.
In 1993 Keating declared the election was a referendum on the GST and if the Liberals won, Labor wouldn’t oppose it. Kim Beazley failed to do the same in 1998 and Labor’s opposition gave us Meg Lees’ nanny state GST.
3. Capitalism has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty around the world.
While capitalism wears the blame for pretty much everything wrong in the world, it gets no credit for the rise out of dire poverty for hundreds of millions of people around the world, particularly but not only in China.
4. The left doesn’t trust working class people with their own money.
The left are all for empowering low-income Australians and ensuring they have a decent standard of living — and rightly condemning racist income management policies imposed on Indigenous Australians. But if working class people choose to gamble, drink, smoke or consume sugar, the cry for bans, taxes and regulation to prevent them immediately goes up.
5. Protectionism doesn’t work.
The side of politics that began the process of ending Australia’s reliance on manufacturing protectionism is now the side of politics that supports it most strongly, at the cost of billions to taxpayers. And the Greens are even worse.
6. The Coalition is now closer to the basic Gonski school funding model than Labor or the Greens.
In both lifting funding for schools and in bravely taking on the Catholic school system over its lies about funding cuts, the Coalition has — after many backflips — arrived at a position closer to the original Gonski blueprint of needs-based funding with reallocation away from private schools than the left’s “everyone gets more money” version.
7. NIMBYism and anti-development sentimentality isn’t an infrastructure plan.
While most politicians surrender to NIMBYism at some stage out of electoral calculation (see Anthony Albanese backflipping on Westconnex in Sydney), it has an institutional home among Greens and state Labor parties in opposition, demonstrated most vividly by the rampant anti-development mentality on display in NSW at local council and state level. The victims: low income earners and young people unable to access decent housing near economic opportunity.
8. Trump is legitimate.
He didn’t win the popular vote … Russia helped him win … he used fake news and Cambridge Analytica … All those things are true. Maybe James Comey’s decision helped as well. But they made no difference to the result — Trump won by tapping into a mood of white grievance and exploiting the fact that Hillary Clinton was an inept, business-as-usual candidate with a poor ground game. Trump is a disaster as president, but he won fair and square. Deal with it.
9. 18C should be changed.
It’s a lower-order issue among many in the challenges to free speech in Australia (most of which have come from the right and corporations) but 18C is a sloppily-worded restriction on free speech that could be significantly improved by removing the concept that merely giving offence is grounds for prosecution and lifting the threshold to vilification.
10. Socialism has been tried and no it didn’t work.
No, Venezuela’s failure is not the result of “state capitalism”. Yes the Soviet Union really did implement socialism. No, it’s not true that socialism has never been properly tried. The far left’s favourite shifting of the goalposts aims to wish away a century of efforts by political parties to implement socialism — and the enthusiasm and apologetics of previous generations of left-wingers, who hailed the Soviet Union as true socialism — and declare that if only we did it properly it would work. Sorry.
Trump is legitimate.
He lost the popular vote and the electoral college is undemocratic because it gives a greater weight to the smaller states.
Like the Merkin Isle -else how would ErikA be still haranguing us?
Trump is a criminal. If that’s what you prefer, good onya.
As someone who considers themselves firmly on the left:
1. true, but I would say the bigger factor is a change in regional refugee patters that I don’t think had much to do with stop the boat policies. More importantly, the same could have been achieved via humane methods.
2. True
3. True
4. Absolutely false. The people who complain about things like sugar or smoking regulations are rarely left-wing.
5. I agree that it doesn’t work, but I don’t think that’s a taboo among the left at all.
6. I don’t know enough about this to comment
7. True and something that annoys me about my side no end.
8. True
9. It absolutely should not
10. A taboo only because it’s not true. I don’t think socialism has ever been tried. Every country that has had a “socialism” phase was basically a power-hungry kleptocracy dictatorship that masqueraded as socialism to hide the fact that it was. Maybe it’s not possible to have socialism without falling into dictatorships, but one thing is for certain. Actual socialism has never been successful because it has never been tried.
Was going to argue the point on socialism, but you have covered it well Saugoof. A socialist democracy is entirely possible, it just hasn’t happened yet, they have all been kleptocracies/dictatorships.
On the other end of the scale, the greatest periods of growth in western economies coincided with socialist market economy mix. The mixed economy is probably the best option, as long as the socialism is the greater part. I can’t think of any period where a reasonable attempt at socialism has been tried, or in the case of US intervention in south american countries, been allowed as an experiment.
Saugoof, thanks for doing my homework for me. Can’t find much room for disagreement with you. e.g. Protectionism has never persuaded me, except in moments of despair. Agree with point 7 in full. Marx was in awe of capitalism, so why wouldn’t I be? Socialism is meant to emerge from capitalism, so no it has not been tried. Will it emerge? Who knows, but I’ve a feeling the next generation or two are about to find out.
Which puts us where, on BK’s left-right spectrum?
We need a club for progressives/Laborites/Greenies who hate all the NIMBY crap regularly spewed from our own “side”. Truly, NIMBY is a bipartisan religion which unites Northcote hippies and Toorak toffs alike against that greatest of threats, other people who want to live in your neighbourhood.
I think you might find, Arky, that the Greenies are among the most ardent NIMBYists!
As an aside, I have never understood the world : progressive.
The NIMBYism of greenies is because the world is their backyard.
Not that many Greens have ever been in the real world – too much like hard work.
What slish is this? Of course it’s never been tried. You can’t get three people to agree on what it is. The same goes for capitalism. How are going to try socialism when no one , certainly not conservatives, will discuss what capitalism is. With an astonishing lack of humility each side has decided on its own economics dictionary. The ensuing chaos of missed communication and proud and stupid statements ( article above ) is the result. The left is no exception. Saugoof is mostly right on 10. I would go further. Socialism, in bits and tastes has been tried and lo! It works quite well when done right. The Scandinavians who take thier politics as dry and boring as possible ( as it should be !) have proven successful if you keep the harebrained idealists in the loony bin of public discourse where they belong. Capitalism is the direct result of government intervention in the market. The alternative has been tried. It’s called gengis khan. It’s where the government is the only business. It’s not a question of one or the other. It’s a question of balance, and sooner we all have a good cry and accept that the sooner we can stop the Chinese “communist” party eating our fing lunch
Chile was a potentially successful socialist country – then the u.s sent in the CIA and ushered in a brutal totalitarian regime.
Most countries economies are mixed economies – it’s not a question of socialist countries, it’s a question of degrees.
How much foreign competition for oil in Norway? : answer none. Where does the oil money go – back to the people of Norway – a very socialist concept
No points for guessing who woke up cranky this morning.
The blinkers being on too tightly, are probably responsible for your headache.
and at a less theoretical level, who is chopping down old growth forests in Victoria and who is mining coal in Queensland? who is demolishing public housing in our cities and who is ensuring refugees remain imprisoned without hope? nobody dares join the dots on the CFMMEU or there will be a pile on ..
Mostly utter nonsense. The first three things you mention are all being done by the private sector, who are all very generous donors to the Right Wing of the political spectrum. The last thing you mention is most ruthlessly being pursued by the Federal Coalition.
So not sure how the heck you manage to shoe-horn the CFMEU into this discussion. Not that the CFMEU is especially Left-Wing these days.
dear marcus, can you see the actual people with the chainsaws and picks, can you see those driving the bulldozers in our cities, and shutting down debate at the Vic ALP conference? are you old enough to remember a union movement not trapped in the selfish Jobs For Me slogan handed to them, and instead, proudly wearing their Social Conscience on their sleeves .. once there were warriors, oh never mind
Ok Susan – I’ll bring a dollar to the table and play you at your own game.
As for “shutting down debate” on immigration do you remember Arthur Caldwell? As Leader of HM Loyal Opposition, do you remember his “two Wongs will never make a White” remark? Are you sufficiently “old” to remember the speeches of Michael Foot and Hugh Gaitskell. I’m tempted to throw in Arthur Skargill but I wonder if it is a good idea.
On that point a “union movement” was very much “trapped” in the “selfish Jobs For Me” slogans or whatever. Such was just the problem and Maggie exploited the hell out of it. She had only to appeal to real-world situations for real-world people to agree with her. Point is Susan that the Left, being bogged down in irrelevancy for decades, have lost all ground to the Right – with no one to blame but themselves.
Probably need to expand on this … evidence would be good.
BTW, Bernard. Keep it up, & I’m sure you’ll be getting your letter of acceptance from News Corpse.