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COSY CONS
Cosiness between the Australian Government and its intellectual fellow-travellers is bad for both sides, argues Sydney Morning Herald columnist Michael Duffy:
One example is Iraq. In Britain and even America there has been vigorous and loud debate among the right over the question - which lies at the root of American policy - of whether democracy can, in fact, be introduced from outside. In the US the Cato Institute has argued against this proposition, while those associated with the leading foreign affairs journal The National Interest recently split over the issue.
In Australia the right has largely ignored it ... it has been ignored because the right-wing commentariat is still more interested in arguing with the left over whether the reform of Iraq is desirable than in asking whether it is possible.
Is it possible to reform Iraq, and to introduce democracy? We’ll find out in time. Arguing over this at any greater length, given that a conclusive result may be decades away, is largely pointless. “In general,” writes Duffy, “the right has not engaged with this argument.” What’s to engage? Either you believe democracy can be introduced, or you don’t. This kind of open-ended geo-political future gazing is best left to unlistenable word-generators at Radio National, where Duffy seems to be spending too much time lately.
One thing we do know: ain’t no way reform and democracy were coming to Iraq if Uday, Qusay, or Big Daddy Underpants were left in charge. Removing them—the Hussein clan, that is, not underpants—creates at least the possibility of positive change.
The right’s closeness to local party politics seems to have cramped its thinking. The pity of this is that while the Government can automatically dismiss criticism from the left, it might have listened to it if it came - I mean real criticism here, criticism that is passionate and persistent - from the right.
Just what the world needs; more arguments against the Howard government. A problem here is that “passionate and persistent” argument is only possible if one believes in the case. As it happens, most on the right support the Howard government. We’ll leave it to our intellectual superiors on the left to run their anti-Howard line.
Such openness might not have changed its policy on Iraq, but could at least have improved its thinking in other areas ...
Duffy seems to imply that opposing the liberation of Iraq would represent “improved thinking”.
What concerns me is that the right seems too often to be incapable of seeing beyond the tactical and short-term requirements of this argument; it has allowed itself and its agenda to become defined by its opponents. (This time last year, for instance, there was an Alice-in-Wonderland atmosphere as the right commentariat took up the Government’s claim that Mark Latham was either a traitor or a coward for having views on Iraq that would have been quite acceptable in the British Conservative Party.)
Puzzling argument, this; the right are accused of simultaneously “taking up the Government’s claim” and “allowing its agenda to be defined by its opponents”. By the way, I’m not sure that too many in the right commentariat accused Latham of cowardice or treachery. Some examples might help. In fact, this time last year was more notable for ridiculous commentary in the Sydney Morning Herald:
Paul McGeough: “New allegations of abuse of Iraqi prisoners, accompanied by some of the worst images so far, are overwhelming the White House’s efforts to contain a scandal that is swamping President George Bush’s re-election campaign.”
Louise Dodson: “Labor would win in a landslide if an election were held now, as more Australians than ever regard the Iraq war as unjustified ... “
Hugh White: “Iraq needs the power of the US and the credibility of the UN.”
Marian Wilkinson: “The beheading of a US citizen by Islamic terrorists in retaliation for abuses at Abu Ghraib prison has rocked the Bush Administration ... “
A reminder: Nicholas Berg was kidnapped twenty days before any Abu Ghraib photographs were revealed. Back to Duffy ...
Another problem is with economic reform. John Howard’s failure in this area is considerable - consider, for example, the cover story of the May 7 issue of The Economist. There is now a real chance history will see this Government, as we do Malcolm Fraser’s, as one of major lost opportunities.
I’m as disappointed as any free-market conservative with the level of economic regulation in Australia. Yet this government—unlike Fraser’s—has never had the Senate control that would allow wide-ranging reform. This changes on July 1; let’s see what happens afterwards.
As an admirer of much that is written and done by the right, I struggle to understand this situation. A certain amount of compromise is acceptable in the world of politics and polemic: the question is why it has gone too far here. Maybe it’s because Australia’s intellectual right is relatively small and ageing.
Or maybe Duffy is struggling for a point. Still, he’ll likely generate substantial mail; SMH readers will lap this up.
Well, the democratization campaign can be considered an experiment to which there seems no reasonable alternative. Given the connections between tyranny and terrorism, and given the ongoing general development—in power, accessibility, miniaturization, deadly combinations, etc.—of technologies adaptable for mass destruction, an old saying has taken on new meaning for the whole world, as some of us had noticed in September 2001: Live free or die.
Wonderful, the Cato Institute. Once again, the left decides to define the conservative movement for us, although instead of simply picking neo-isolationist thugs like Pat Buchanan for their chat shows, they’re presuming to tell us what we think.
Libertarians and isolationists (not to mention good ole-fashioned bigots, left and right) may scorn the idea of democracy in the Middle East… but we’ve seen the alternative, and it can no longer be tolerated…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 05 21 at 01:00 PM • permalinkThe pity of this is that while the Government can automatically dismiss criticism from the left, it might have listened to it if it came - I mean real criticism here, criticism that is passionate and persistent - from the right.
At last a new argument from the left, even if it merely amounts to a laughter-inducing “What we say is right; we’re just not the right people to say it.”
Time for the Left to ask themselves, “Why do they ignore us so?”
Must be something in the hot nourishing broth at the ABC canteen ...
the right-wing commentariat is still more interested in arguing with the left over whether the reform of Iraq is desirable than in asking whether it is possible.
How will the government benefit from this kind of criticism when it amounts to no more than agreement with the left’s weasel defeatism and passivity? What’s possible is what can be made possible. And you make it possible because it’s desirable.
But whether Australians are to be trusted with their own money is a question that the Howard government has yet to settle.
Stop Imposing Freedom!!
In Britain and even America there has been vigorous and loud debate among the right over the question - which lies at the root of American policy - of whether democracy can, in fact, be introduced from outside.
No, not in America there wasn’t a “vigorous and loud debate among the right”. I remember a few lefties telling us that brown-skinned people can’t understand democracy, that muslims actually like tyranny, etc, and then we steamrolled those whiners and kept going.
In 2005 there’s nobody on the American right who is arguing for “stability”, at least nobody I can think of.
In the US the Cato Institute has argued against this proposition, while those associated with the leading foreign affairs journal The National Interest recently split over the issue.
Yeah, well. Those guys at the NI are ok, but sometimes it seems that what they really think is that the greatest thing on earth is to write fancy schmancy articles disagreeing with the other guy at NI.
Posted by zeppenwolf on 2005 05 21 at 01:29 PM • permalink“...the question - which lies at the root of American policy - of whether democracy can, in fact, be introduced from outside.”
Tacit Assumption 1: Unlike Germany and Japan after WWII, Arabs don’t really want democracy or are incapable of maintaining it. (Call this the soft bigotry of low expectations—we can’t expect any better from Arabs.)
Tacit Assumption 2: We were better off with the status quo ante of brutal dictatorships, religious extremism, political unrest and exported terrorism. (Because, you know, that was better than American hegemony.)
Posted by Bruce Rheinstein on 2005 05 21 at 02:15 PM • permalinkAnd then there is the timeless myth of” engagement”: the right is not “engaging…” What any lefty means when he says that is that he is not having any luck getting a conservative to talk to people who are determined in advance not to agree with him, and so keeping the conservative from talking to people who might…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 05 21 at 05:09 PM • permalinkActually, there could be a grain of truth in Mr Duffy’s column, even though he probably goes too far. You could summarise some commentary boosting of the Government as either:
The enemy of my enemy is my friend - in that we think the left is soooo bad, Howard is a paragon of virtue in comparision; or
he may be a bastard, but he is our bastard - self explanatory.But i think he is being a bit unfair with regards to the level of reform (or restructuring, to give it another name) that the Howard Government has undertaken. As Tim has noted, to date they have had to deal with an obstructionist senate with the numbers to block reforms, so anything that got through in the end was by nature heavily compromised.
In addition there is the Howard philosophy of making sure that as far as possible, people are ‘relaxed and comfortable’ about change. This philosophy is clearly not ‘crash or crash through’, but more incremental in nature.
Besides, in regard to the upcoming supposed senate majority, the libs know they don’t really have a majority - the national party is already feeling its oats. They will have to be accommodated in every bit of contentious legislation, as it is clear that the greens will continue being lunar, the democrats no longer matter, and the ALP will continue to be obstructionist.Passionate and persistent argument is a specialty of the left, and is not often found on the right.
What we do have is rational and consistent argument. It doesn’t make for soundbites the way leftist nonsense does, because it’s based on facts and logic rather than oratory and sophistry.
The thing about rational and consistent argument is that one can actually come to a conclusion, after which the argument ends, and people agree with the outcome. How disappointing that must be to the left.
for having views . . . that would have been quite acceptable in the British Conservative Party.
Given that some of the views that are quite acceptable to the British Conservative Party included throwing Margaret Thatcher out of office, I must say I don’t see it as a compelling argument. As near as I can tell, Bill Clinton would have been a relatively right-wing backbencher had he held a seat in the British Parliament as a Tory.
Posted by Warmongering Lunatic on 2005 05 21 at 07:54 PM • permalinkIf democracy had no chance to grow from inside, how else but to introduce it from outside? I don’t understand the argument. The Iraqis have been handed democracy. What they do with it from now on is up to them, but at least they got to experience some of it firsthand.
Perhaps this is too simplistic?
There is an ongoing charge hurled at the US that it (on the one hand) cooperates with imperfect countries like Pakistan, Egypt, or Uhzbekistan. The shame of it all. Then we have (on the other hand) these claims that we cannot impose a better system from the outside.
Perhaps the commentariat engaged in this tail chasing believe that they are being even handed by opposing both courses, or pehaps they are just confused while determined to be anti whatever the US does.
This is, after all, the ALP approach to political statements. In taking on the moonbat colouration they continue to look unelectable, but it does not seem to worry them. Eventually the message recently taken out to the NYT staff (get back in touch with your readers!) might even permeate the ALP Think Sink. Would someone please put the plug back in, all the ideas are going down the drain!
Duffy’s role of token rightish person at the ABC certainly exposes him to a lot of social pressure to colour himself a bit right but not excessively so. He has to get along with so many leftish types at both the ABC and the SMH that life could be uncomfortable for him if he was too much like Andrew Bolt or Piers, or Janet. This article may be an attempt to show that he has an independent position and is not one of those reflex-action rightists. I regard his thesis as something of a straw-man construct.
Conservatives might regard the government as heaps better than the claytons alternative (ALP). They might still regard the government as a politically pragmatic group who are always keeping an eye on the next election rather than always doing what we would want them to.
There are lots of things I want them to do, but I know that they are likely to be too controversial - like having a discriminatory immigration policy, withdrawing (rather too late but never mind, remember the Baltic States!)recognition of Indonesia’s takeover of “West Irian”, and introducing a stint in the army for long term unemployed!
The ALP could get my vote back if it changed its spots back to looking after Australia. At present they are dazed and confused, and they just are not making sense on anything.Australia’s intellectual right is relative
...Australia’s intellectual right is relatively small and aging.
And yet by some inexplicable method beat on you like a dirty rug at the last election… I think this guy’s in the barrel next to Gowena’s…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 05 21 at 10:27 PM • permalinkI read the article and thought: here’s Duffy trying to avoid a label again. Sure you can be right wing and against the war. You could think, for example, fine idea, but can’t ask any of our young men and women to go die unless really really sure it is necessary. Can’t think of any other serious argument though.
The NRFD argument is classic. I actually think it is probably true. It takes a long time for people to be prepared to lose an election. Hell, look at the Labor party the last 10 years, it’s probably lucky some of them don’t have gun licenses. But, whether you think the Iraqis are ready or not, everyone deserves the chance to proof us wrong.
The Fraser lite argument is just crap for the reason Tim gave.
In defence of the non-left commentariat, there are not enough troops to cover all the issues and do all the work that needs to be done. Consequently people have to operate with a set of priorities, chief of which is to counter the lunar left and silly ALP policies. To some extent that means that the left and the Opposition do set the agenda for debate, which is a pity but it can’t be overcome with existing resources.
I agree with Michael Duffy that we need some commentators who are not hewing a party line, so they are prepared to be critical of any or all parties, depending on the issue at stake. But that only means being critical when criticism is called for.
Those of us who support free trade and small government etc can only sweat on July 1 and hope that the Coalition has not been so corrupted by the vote-buying that is required to get into office that they have forgotten what needs to be done. Some of the signs are not promising but that just means we have to work harder to explain the benefits of further reform.I should have added that the main reason the left and the ALP get to set the agenda for public debate is the overwhelming majority of leftwing or ALP supporters among journalists and commentators. They were a little subdued after the election but they rapidly showed their true colours and their real priorities whenever there was a chance to spin the news in a way that caused problems for the Government, for example the leadership issue.
On the left: “...Passionate and persistent argument…”
On the right: “...rational and consistent argument…”
Pixy nails it on the head!
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 05 22 at 10:02 AM • permalink
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I’m as disappointed as any free-market conservative with the level of economic regulation in Australia. Yet this government—unlike Fraser’s—has never had the Senate control that would allow wide-ranging reform. This changes on July 1; let’s see what happens afterwards.
I don’t doubt things will change. But I suspect it will be a change for the worse…