Is much as I dislike the iconography of hate I don’t know if such things are effective. They get media attention and their followers think they are martyrs but it feels like virtue signalling and easy options.
We need to have a serious adult public discussion about fascism, why people want it and what the consequences are because it tends to be catastrophic for everyone. Our lives aren’t perfect but they are way too good to euthanase our society in pursuit of hideous intolerance.
The leader of the opposition’s mask keeps slipping and the media refuses to examine the issue seriously. The party of Bob Menzies always represented a set of values in opposition to the progress of the Australian working class but they were still generally committed to a democratic and moderately liberal Australia which provided a voice for the many self-employed, small business owner types and others who shared their values. They were never generally more or less bigotted than the ALP or Australian public of the time to my knowledge. In the old days the ALP strongly supported White Australia as a form of labour protectionism and they still have a strongly religious conservative branch. It was never a cartoonish dichotomy between the sides.
While I would say I am generally center left now I have voted for Liberal and National parties in specific elections based on local issues or representation. Choice is good and once we lose our commitment to the rule of law and pluralistic democratic values we lose that choice and people will need to fight to get it back at great cost.
The import of Trumpism and the bigotted dogwhistling slowly pushing the boundaries from the leader of a major party needs to be discussed seriously and unfortunately it won’t be in our current media and tech environment and that concerns me greatly.
Western democracy turning to the fascism which our forebeears helped defeat wasn’t on my bingo card.
The most annoying thing is the commies 100 years ago being right about this lmao. I certainly had to revisit some of my assumptions when a lot of leftist theory predicted the declines we’ve been seeing.
Is much as I dislike the iconography of hate I don’t know if such things are effective. They get media attention and their followers think they are martyrs but it feels like virtue signalling and easy options.
We need to have a serious adult public discussion about fascism, why people want it and what the consequences are because it tends to be catastrophic for everyone. Our lives aren’t perfect but they are way too good to euthanase our society in pursuit of hideous intolerance.
The leader of the opposition’s mask keeps slipping and the media refuses to examine the issue seriously. The party of Bob Menzies always represented a set of values in opposition to the progress of the Australian working class but they were still generally committed to a democratic and moderately liberal Australia which provided a voice for the many self-employed, small business owner types and others who shared their values. They were never generally more or less bigotted than the ALP or Australian public of the time to my knowledge. In the old days the ALP strongly supported White Australia as a form of labour protectionism and they still have a strongly religious conservative branch. It was never a cartoonish dichotomy between the sides.
While I would say I am generally center left now I have voted for Liberal and National parties in specific elections based on local issues or representation. Choice is good and once we lose our commitment to the rule of law and pluralistic democratic values we lose that choice and people will need to fight to get it back at great cost.
The import of Trumpism and the bigotted dogwhistling slowly pushing the boundaries from the leader of a major party needs to be discussed seriously and unfortunately it won’t be in our current media and tech environment and that concerns me greatly.
The most annoying thing is the commies 100 years ago being right about this lmao. I certainly had to revisit some of my assumptions when a lot of leftist theory predicted the declines we’ve been seeing.