Andrew Hastie - old school standards

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Andrew Hastie is presented as a man of integrity who will get the job done, as the representative for the Canning electorate in WA.  The problem with Hastie is that "Special Forces" qualifications don't really pass as qualifiers for political life,  and living in some barracks in his electorate is not preparation for public life. It's a narrow government life experience, akin to school, followed by another school experience. There is little appreciation of economics, finance, accounting or anything outside of defence. Maybe he can be Minister of Defence in a liberal cabinet? Can he represent his electorate. Of course he can. The issue is whether he has the values to judge them,  and serve them fairly in his role. In this respect Hastie is destined to be 's carbon-copy failure like Abbott.
It is sad day when the electorate is becoming a conflation of liberal and democrat, and the liberal party is becoming more arrogantly anti-intellectual. They are not just conservative; they are trending the boundaries of fascism.
The Labor Party is full of chimps, however there is something disconcerting about a Liberal Party appointing a lot of Christian self-righteous puritans, with no life experience, who profess the calibre to tell Australians how it is.  It's disconcerting because whilst their rhetoric speaks of individualism, rights, aspiration and integrity; their policy prescriptions are completely on par with Labor. Like Labor, their members are professional politicians and bureaucrats like "tin soldiers" with no life experience. No skills that prepare him for the assaults on his integrity. I'll happily demonstrate as much if Abbott or Hastie ever chat with me on Facebook.
These fakers will defend their past legacy; they are not custodians of our future. The religious right in Australia are going to destroy Australia, just as they did the United States. Abbott is not even Reagan; but you can be sure he will spend on infrastructure like there is no tomorrow. That is not a bad thing, however like Menzies, there will be no other progress. It will be hapless "privileged" self-righteous leadership cowering to old values with no intellectual engagement. For those who don't fit the model, their will be repressive alienation; all for the sake of preserving the interests of liberal party sponsors.
The only defense from such a development will be a switch to the libertarian parties, namely Rand Paul in the USA and the Liberal Democrats in Australia. The ACT Party in NZ more closely approximates a 'right' conservative party. Mere appeasers to old values whilst they offer a respite to the centrist National Party.

There are several defences from such poor government;
1. Anarchocapitalism - denying these authoritarian governments a monopoly in their arbitrary use of force. That is to say no government can be trusted in the basis of the existing political structure.
2. More Liberal Democratic Party in the Senate
3. Not giving the Labor Party a chance because of the union-extortionists they are. 

I cannot see Hastie being anything other than a lackie for an Abbott coalition. The by-election  is a referendum on Tony Abbott. Hastie is his boy.  What we need is politicians who don't just talk about integrity, but who break the political whip, and actually display it because integrity means more to them than their political futures.

A new leader for the "lame-duck decade"

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Australia has its first Prime Minister - and guess what! "Its a girl". Before we get as excited about as we were about the Obama victory, let's take a closer look at her history. Based on my research I think we can expect the following:

1. Labor conservatism - she is by no means a radical. She is boringly old school labor. So don't expect an emissions trading scheme. This has endeared her to the unions.

2. A plodder - She believes in hard work, and reading books. But its not that you read, its more important that you read, and how you absorb the information. She might be knowledgeable, but do not expect a great thinker. This is no doubt where her conservatism comes from - a fear to think efficaciously. Just like her father. The good news is that she is not ambitious, so there are not going to be any leaps in social policy. She is a reluctant leader.

3. Social policy - She is no doubt going to be advancing various old-fashion social policies, but they will be concrete bound and make very little material difference.

Sorry to say Australia, you have a very boring choice to make at the next election. Let's identify 2010-2020 as the "lost decade of moral ambivalence" for Australia. Perhaps we will see political slogans in the election like 'Consolidation' and 'Public trust'...the question is which side will be saying them. Hard to pick. I guess the good news is that the thrust towards fascism has been arrested. Rudd is gone.

So in conclusion, we have a choice between lame duck Abbot and lame duck Gillard. Take your pick! I think it will not matter much, though hard to say what will happen at the next election because I can't see who will replace Abbot. I suspect that Gillard will win the next election. It will be hard for women to resist the nostalgia of having a woman PM. Anyway, this 'reluctant PM' will be judged a 'lame duck' and dumped for the sake of Wayne Swan. So its musical chairs all around.

Really Australia, I suggest dumping this system of government. You will not get credible public policy this way. Centralised government and representative democracy does not work. Its empty promises equate to voter slavery and extortion. We need a meritocracy based on electronic submission of policies to committees where reason is the standard of value. If you can imagine a succession of 'vested interest groups' lodging submissions, some back office analysts picking over those ideas to establish policy, having a lawyer crafting them into coherent policy, you have my lower cost and more distributed form of government. Policy based on principles that integrate with other principles...just like human knowledge. Principles of nature, not 'numbers' counting which politicians selling out principles.

PS: In fairness to Abbot...I have not closely examined his psychology.

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Author

Andrew Sheldon

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Applied Critical Thinking | www.SheldonThinks.com

Comparing Russian and Australian politics

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Do you look at Russian politics and think you are glad you don't have to contend with fascism like in 'that country'. Well maybe you do. Here is a story by CNN about Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former CEO of Yukos, the oil company he purchased in an oil privatisation. This story is basically that he is in prison because he under-stated or evaded taxes. He is close to being released, so a number of other charges are being made against him by President Putin. Now the reason why Putin is alleged to have placed him in prison is because he was an prospective political opponent of him. He was considering running against Putin in the election, and was otherwise financing opposition parties to Putin. The implication is that you have no rights is you challenge power in Russia.

Now lets look at government in Australia. Some years ago this awkward, naive Queensland woman was receiving a great deal of political support in Australia because she did not fit the usual political mold in Australia. She spoke honestly, and argued for some issues which a segment of Australians were concerned about. I don't support her views, but she received a lot of support from those who agreed with her 'white Australia' agenda. This women was of course Pauline Hanson. Prior to the coming election, this women was rolled by interests associated with Tony Abbott and the Liberal Party. We do not hear any defence of Pauline by the Labor Party, so you might conclude that they had some sympathy with the Liberal Party on this issue. Maybe you were thinking that Labor just didn't like her politics. But there is more to this. This was an intent to preserve the duopoly in Australian politics - between Liberal and Labor.

Consider the example of the Liberals going after Kevin Rudd in the case of 'Ute-gate', where he was supposed to be the benefactor of election contributions which were not registered. The Liberals really went after Rudd. That's ok for Labor, because it might discredit Rudd, but not the Labor Party. The party is a brand, or independent identity, so it tends to preserve its amoral agency. i.e. We do not blame the brand for failing, we blame the CEO. But what if that organisation or political structure is flawed in its construction because of a lack of competition, perhaps because it preserves certain financial benefits for politicians. i.e. Life time pension as an MP. Does that not support my argument that Hanson was rolled in the same way that Mikhail Khodorkovsky was rolled in Russia? Of course Russian politics are so much more 'extreme' than Australian politics.

Tony Abbott orchestrated the arrest of Pauline Hanson for election contributions. She served 3 months in prison if I remember correctly, before a judge overruled the decision. Perhaps the judge ruled that it was a trivial complaint compared to what other parliamentarians do in the grand scheme of things, with their abuse of MP allowances. Consider though that Abbott had done what he wanted to do. He had discredited a political aspirant. To be sure she was not going to be an important force, but she threatened to divide the Liberal Party vote, and in the process she was going to cost the Liberal Party the election. She was rolled because she was a threat. Mikhail Khodorkovsky was rolled because he was a threat.

So do you think the answer to fascism under Kevin Rudd is to vote for a Liberal Party member? I don't think so. I think you're best prospects for freedom in Australia is to vote for Libertarians, both in the House of Representatives and the Senate. Is that enough? No, not for sure. The Libertarians are not an intellectual group, so they are not going to overturn the intellectual issues which are undermining the country. They will however be a reprieve from statism.

Interested in why Russian politics are more extreme that Australian politics? See my next post.

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Author

Andrew Sheldon

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Applied Critical Thinking | www.SheldonThinks.com

Ethical implications for our CEOs

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I have long argued that wealthy business people are partly the problem. They are partly the reason why we have declining freedom. The reality is that there is some measure of 'material' practicality in their philosophy, but they really don't want to identify the nature of the statist which controls their economic well-being. Whether they are 'intellectually-challenged', compartmentalised thinkers or repressed, or simply goal-orientated in a different direction, the implications are the same as for the parent who chooses to focus upon the growth of the business, as opposed to the proper development of their children. Years later they will disparage the child for their decisions, with no regard to the values they have modelled, or the choices they have made. Just as they are dumb-founded by the final reality of their child which has become a delinquent, so they are dumb-founded by the decline of their country into fascism. They did not see it happen because of their selective focus, and failure to analyse ideas.

So when I had the opportunity to challenge the ideas of our society with a CEO. At first I found him surprisingly agreeable. Well I should not be surprised, as my politics were consistent with his economic interests. Consider his politics:

"What we are seeing with Rudd and co is indeed fascism. They believe they know what is best for us all and that they can have a command economy. This is much worse than the Whitlam years which were bad enough. I don't see how anyone with half a brain could be anything but sceptical about climate matters. We are dealing with really evil people in Federal government just now".

The problem is that he does not grasp the ethical implications of his ideas. Clearly he is opposed to governments imposing their values on him, regardless of what they are. My counter-argument was multi-faceted because I wanted to give him the utmost possibility to integrate a lot of ideas across a range of subjects. e.g. The ethics of his friend/partner, his own values. I think I overwhelmed him and made him feel threatened. For a person with a great deal of pride in his acc0mplishments, influencing people is really a hard task. So I failed in this regard. My reply was very long, so I will only address his response to it:

"I disagree that “capitalism is selfishness”. The quality applies to the individuals, not to “isms”. There are selfish capitalists, selfish socialists, selfish people of religion, etc, just as there are unselfish people with the same political or philosophical bents".

The problem here is a lack of understanding of human motivations. He is not identifying the underlying motivations behind human thought and action. He in effect lacks 'humanities' science, which might be a good thing if he studied the topic at a university because he might have ended up a conflicted humanitarian. This is a flawed conception of selfishness and selflessness in the general community, including business leaders. We are raised with the belief that it is moral to serve others. Its the ethics underpinning socialism and fascism (Hitler: You are nothing, your nation is everything). It is not simply a moral imperative, it is a value alternative. People choose to be altruistic; it is not simply a case of having it thrust upon them by statists. He makes no distinction, so he does not see the underlying science.

He also makes no distinction between competing priorities. i.e. Masalow recognises that people have a hierarchy of values, and that they will prefer one to another. i.e. The love and satisfaction of one's wife to one's pet dog, to the extent that there is a conflict between them. Rather than regarding love as a trade - value for value - he sees love as altruistic. He does not recognise that altruistic love would mean loving her for her flaws (not in spite of them). Why then does he wonder why he did not fall in love with the most worthless girl who threw herself at him. Because he made a value judgement based on her virtues. Mind you, I don't wish to imply that all people make healthy value judgements. But these are psychologically healthy people with good values.

The other aspect of his reply was that 'selfishness' relates to psychology, not to philosophical values. In this regard, he does not identify the integrity of politics and ethics. Pity! I even provided him with a clue, i.e. Trade is based upon the exchange of value for value, which is inherently selfish or self-serving. You don't screw people out of self-interest, you screw people because you are self-loathing, which is the providence of altruists who create nothing, and thus have nothing to trade by flaws or vice. Their tools are guilt, coercion, manipulation like the promise of unconditional love. In fact most people are some blend of these attributes.

My conversation to this gentleman did not have the desired response. Pity I am too busy or overwhelmed to craft a better letter. Too busy to invest in anyone person. I do respect him. The reality however is that people are simply overwhelmed by the implications of these ideas. CEOs are hard nuts to crack because they are not accustomed to feeling vulnerable. We are raised to be strong, even to the point of denying reality. He really doesn't want to deal with these issues. Better to know on the first letter than invest a great deal of time in a relationship which was destined to fail. Keep..keep trying. :)

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Author

Andrew Sheldon

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Applied Critical Thinking | www.SheldonThinks.com

Conservatives and abortion

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One might think that I am expressing conservative politics here...nothing could be further from the truth. It is easy to categorise people, still harder to engage in philosophical arguments to establish the origin of your ideas.
Here is a George Carlin attack on conservatives.

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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com