Australian Politics

‘How Christianity Informs Classical Liberalism’

In my last two articles for Political Itch, The Shrinking Forest – Part 1 and The Shrinking Forest – Part 2 , I showed how George Orwell’s novel 1984 seems to be coming true, how the size of government grows ever larger and how rent-seekers are not only doing what they’ve always done but are getting much better at it. How this happens without sparking a popular uprising, I invoke the fable of ‘the shrinking forest’. I also explained why our fellow citizens are so disengaged from politics and what they can do to start the fightback.

In this part (Part 3) I’d like to discuss how we’ve reached this position – specifically how our opponents have attacked classical liberalism and libertarianism by first undermining Christianity. You may be sceptical of this. You make not even see a link. But history reveals all and lessons from the past illuminate what our opponents are doing today.

Western democracy was founded in Christianity and in the family. It’s why Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, the co-authors of The Communist Manifesto, were determined to undermine both. Marx and Engels knew faith and family were the enemy. They did not like what families and people of faith talked about around the dinner table.

In his brilliant book, The Subversive Family, British writer Ferdinand Mount argued that marriage and the family, far from being oppressed by the ruling class, were in fact the chief bulwarks against authoritarianism. Family, faith and freedom are without doubt the best bulwarks against division and authoritarianism.

As for faith, removing Christians from the public square seems to be the unstated aim. ‘Net zero Christians by 2050’, quipped by Rebecca Weisser.

‘Every citizen is equal before the law.”

I would argue that the Christian is the model libertarian. Knowing that one day they will stand before their Creator and give an account of themselves, Christians aim to be the personification of personal responsibility. Endowed with a free will to choose right or wrong, Christians cannot blame anyone else for their actions. It follows therefore, that if God is going to hold people responsible for their actions, then God would give them the right to decide how they conduct their lives.

For example, taking away from someone the right to decide for themselves how much they are willing to work for, is to deny them a God-given right to work. People do things for their reasons, not yours, and people constantly make trade-offs depending on a range of factors known best only to themselves and their families.

It is also why the Bible tells us not once, but twice, “Do not favour the poor in court”. This is real justice, not ‘social justice’.

Favouring one group of citizens over another based on socio-economic or racial grounds is not only immoral, it also foolish. It always ends badly – especially for the favoured group.

Note, this is not to be confused with obligations we have towards each other in a personal capacity. ‘Who is my neighbour?’ Jesus was asked, in the famous ‘good Samaritan’ parable.

In this, the Christian has no difficulty with public policy – ie, ‘what is sinful vs what should be unlawful’. Sin is personal, the law is for everyone.

And then there’s family. There has been a relentless push to replace father and mother, male and female, with something else. A village perhaps? There was that leftist trope – ‘It takes a village to raise a child.’ As one wag responded, ‘Yes, and it takes a village idiot to believe that.’

More troubling is the breadth of the battleground.

Just look at the global coordination achieved by the Left with respect to Black Lives Matter, Roe v Wade, transgenderism, climate and Covid. Notice the activists all seem to read from the same script. It’s formulaic for sure and almost robotically applied globally regardless of where the original issue occurred.

The Covid response was near uniform globally and we are only now seeing the effects with little to no accountability. There were protests in Adelaide with pictures of George Floyd – a police excessive-use-of-force issue in faraway Minneapolis USA. The US Supreme Court then ruled that abortion should be a state matter and, out of nowhere, the rapid response pro-abortion rallies were rolled-out city by city in Australia, each jurisdiction of which had abortion laws already in place. Go figure.

Whatever you think of these issues, my point is that the global coordination is chilling.

There is no doubt Australia has economic and social problems that it is going to have to solve – inflation, rising interest rates, high mortgages (forcing both parents out to work), high cost of living (educating and raising children, power prices, water prices) – and social ills caused by the rupturing of family relationships due to mental health and addictions of various kinds.

Our nation also has economic and social goals it wants to achieve – increased productivity, affordable housing, lower crime rates. However, looking to politicians, bureaucrats and regulators to solve these problems and achieve these goals seems to be a lost cause.

As for free markets, property rights, personal responsibility, self-reliance, free speech, lower taxes, the rule of law, and smaller government, these have all but been abandoned.

Major party MPs seem more interested in making friends across the aisle than looking for ways ‘to improve the life of the ordinary citizen’ as described by Charles Taylor in his book, The Affirmation of the Ordinary Life.

Once elected, MPs are easily captured. They like being Members of Parliament and they like being liked – including by members of other parties. They also love socialising; they don’t want to be ostracised or booed on the ABC for making a stand or championing a cause. On issue after issue, they seem weak. They have lost both their philosophical bearings and religious convictions. Take away religious conviction and classical liberalism becomes less grounded. One flows from the other.

I would argue it is not possible to ‘break through’ all this. We have to ‘break with’. We have to force the major parties’ hands through the brutal reality of balance-of-power politics.

Next week I would like to flag a ground-breaking idea for change. Something practical. An innovation which I trust will bring hope and optimism.

Thank you for your support.

And please keep reading Political Itch ….!

‘Itch’ (noun) “… an irritating sensation on the skin that makes one want to scratch the affected part”.

What may have started as ‘an irritating sensation on the skin’, regrettably has developed into a full-blown cancer affecting the nation’s vital organs.

I am talking about authoritarianism.

Shortly after World War II, George Orwell published his novel ‘1984’. The story was set in a country ruled by ‘Big Brother’, a supreme dictator in an all-powerful, one-party state. The central character, Winston Smith, whose job it was to re-write the nation’s history books to fit the current narrative of the state, was continually tormented by his task. The department in which he worked was called ‘The Ministry of Truth’.

Orwell’s novel exposed the true nature of authoritarian governments which hold on to power by generating fear, distorting facts and censoring alternative views. For a book published in 1949, his description of surveillance technology to track and trace citizens is downright spooky.

“Know everything in order to control everyone,” said Adam Weishaupt.
Technology and mass surveillance allow governments to do just that – know everything.

‘The long march through the institutions’ is nearing completion.

More government, more spending, more taxes, more regulation, more state power, more state control. Income tax, payroll tax, land tax, petrol tax, the goods & services tax, stamp duty, excise duty on alcohol and tobacco, power company dividends, water company dividends, the River Murray Levy, the Emergency Services Levy, the Regional Landscape Levy, the Solid Waste Levy, the Medicare Levy, Council Rates and many, many more. Local, state and federal governments taxing us at every turn.

And of course, that most pernicious of all taxes – inflation tax. Pernicious because it so disproportionally affects those who spend a higher percentage of their income on food, petrol, electricity and gas, which are more susceptible to price rises.

Naturally, the government blames everyone else for the price rises – greedy businesses, supply chains, Vladimir Putin … anyone but themselves.

As US economist Peter Schiff puts it, “Inflation is caused by governments spending money they don’t have, accompanied by compliant central banks who not only forsake their mandates to keep inflation under control by putting up interest rates and punishing governments who overspend, they instead indulge governments by printing the money for them!”

Following the 1980s excesses, the Reserve Bank of Australia increased interest rates to 17.5% and the Hawke-Keating government copped a mountain of pain. Yet, despite massive deficit spending over the past three years – the highest in the nation’s history – the RBA last month lifted interest rates to just 3.1%.

So, what happens when spending is not accompanied by revenue measures to pay for it? Where does the money come from? Inflation. Instead of higher taxes, consumers pay higher prices.

The bad news is it is going to get worse. And when it does, the Albanese government will again try to blame greedy businesses and introduce more price controls on them – like the recent coal price cap. Not good times ahead.

Then there’s the government’s bagmen accomplices, the rent-seekers – companies that base their business models on providing goods and services to consumers that are either paid for by the government or the government prevents or limits competition. It is another layer of taxation which disproportionally affects low-income families – those who can’t afford to install solar panels on their roofs, for example.

These rent-seekers are now everywhere – energy, superannuation, pharmaceuticals, higher education, land development, indigenous groups, public transport, manufacturing – you name it. They are a scourge. They tarnish the political process, distort the market and in the case of so-called ‘renewable energy’, distort the entire economy.

Renewable energy rent-seekers have leapt onto the climate change bandwagon with unbridled zeal and are raking in billions of dollars gaming the system, raising energy prices, impoverishing consumers, destroying jobs, and fleecing taxpayers.

Along with unions and industry superfunds, these new Australian oligarchs have limitless amounts of money to both shore up their own positions and resist anyone who might try to challenge them.

Previously, entrepreneurs went to the marketplace to make their fortunes. Today the public purse is the mother lode.

When the NDIS was announced in 2012, it was forecast to cost $14bn a year. In April 2022, actuary firm Taylor Fry estimated that by 2030 the cost will blow out to $64bn a year– a $50bn a year increase.

How was this allowed to happen in such a short period of time? Simple – professionalised politics and sophisticated rent-seeking.

The story is told of a forest that was continually shrinking – but the trees kept voting for the axe. The axe, you see, was very clever; it was able to convince the trees that because its handle was made of wood, it was one of them.