14 January

I wanted to talk about 2 things we’re told not to talk about, but I think we must. Politics and religion. My views on them, so people have a reference point. Politics first. My personal political leanings are to conservatism, but not in the way people now understand that word. Conservatism means putting custom and tradition at the heart of running your societies, for the simple reason that any custom or tradition has emerged over multiple generations of testing. Nobody invents a custom or tradition and we all live it tomorrow. Multiple generations live and test it, and keep it if it works. So I’m a conservative because I think road-testing something for generations is a good test that it works. People will have noticed my constant criticism of the NSW and federal LNP. This isn’t because it’s the LNP, and I’m Labor or Green, or whatever. Couldn’t give a toss about any of that. Politics isn’t footy, with your favourite team. I’ve criticised the LNP in both of these places in recent years because they’ve been hijacked by an extreme group, the libertarians. The ideological cousins of the UK and US libertarians, ruining those countries for decades. A libertarian thinks only individuals are real. So they’re obsessed with destroying government, regulation, taxation etc. This has NOT ONE connection with political conservatism. Right now you can see our libertarian PM’s and Premier’s handiwork, in the lethal chaos of our pandemic response. We also saw it in the bushfires. ‘Leave it to individuals’ is a recipe for the destruction of society. Libertarians WANT that, they don’t believe in society. Several prominent Liberals resigned from the party when John Howard introduced this libertarian focus. Its damage can be seen here, in the UK and in the US, right now.