A few short years ago, I would never have imagined that I'd be seriously contemplating placing Pauline Hanson's One Nation at #1 on the ballot slip. And yet here we are.
I know exactly how you feel. Pauline (and the Christian Right) were beyond the pale as far as I was concerned (I had even hung onto an old T-shirt with a picture of Pauline and a cane toad with a caption that said 'One of these is a dangerous menace from Qld - the other is a cane toad') but "yet here we are", indeed. I still disagree with some of their non-Covid policy, though with far more respect for the existence of different opinions rather than with ideological malice towards them, now - a consequence of a new-found respect I have for people whom I would have once regarded as political enemies but who have, on the Covid disaster, shown so much common sense, scientific integrity and principled commitment to personal freedom and civil liberties.
Our political journeys have been very similar. The 'old left' that I grew up identifying with was passionately devoted to freedom of speech, civil liberties, respect for opposing points of view, and of course the plight of the working class. The 'new left' polices speech and thought, subordinates personal freedom to its nebulous notion of 'the greater good', falls at the feet of the corporations whose power it formerly railed against, and despises the working class for not being woke enough. The left is unrecognisable to me now.
A few short years ago, I would never have imagined that I'd be seriously contemplating placing Pauline Hanson's One Nation at #1 on the ballot slip. And yet here we are.
I know exactly how you feel. Pauline (and the Christian Right) were beyond the pale as far as I was concerned (I had even hung onto an old T-shirt with a picture of Pauline and a cane toad with a caption that said 'One of these is a dangerous menace from Qld - the other is a cane toad') but "yet here we are", indeed. I still disagree with some of their non-Covid policy, though with far more respect for the existence of different opinions rather than with ideological malice towards them, now - a consequence of a new-found respect I have for people whom I would have once regarded as political enemies but who have, on the Covid disaster, shown so much common sense, scientific integrity and principled commitment to personal freedom and civil liberties.
Our political journeys have been very similar. The 'old left' that I grew up identifying with was passionately devoted to freedom of speech, civil liberties, respect for opposing points of view, and of course the plight of the working class. The 'new left' polices speech and thought, subordinates personal freedom to its nebulous notion of 'the greater good', falls at the feet of the corporations whose power it formerly railed against, and despises the working class for not being woke enough. The left is unrecognisable to me now.