If history has taught us anything it’s that freedom is a good thing. Communism, socialism, and fascism all failed. They failed because people like freedom and societies work better when people are free.
Unfortunately in Australia we live in a nation where freedom seems to be misunderstood and central planning is rife. So why do Australians seem to have forgotten the evils of central planning?
Well, maybe we’ve been brainwashed. Maybe the government’s central planning has worked to control our actions and even our thoughts.
One example of Australia’s horrendous central planning is the government’s proposed National Cultural Policy. It’s central planning gone berserk. There’s no reason or justification for our culture to be centrally planned. A nation’s culture is a reflection of the people, all people, not only the elite ruling class.
Why should the government produce our films, handpick our artists, or dictate cultural doctrine taught in schools? Why is the Australian culture being dictated from above and why do people stand for it?
Of course one reason is clear: money – cash grants to the elite artists, filmmakers, educators and bureaucrats. Our government spends around two billion dollars annually on the arts, not including education spending. And two billion dollars buys a lot of votes. Why not just give tax breaks? Of course tax breaks would mean the government would lose control. Of our minds?
And what about the true artists, the independent artists who don’t fit within the government’s artistic or cultural blueprint? Of course, they’re left in the cold, with an almost impossible task of competing with the state.
Centrally planned cultural doctrine is suffocating the Australian spirit, killing individuality and crushing innovation. This is the price we pay for not defending our freedom and not even understanding it. This is the price of state oppression.
Freedom empowers the individual rather than the state. Freedom respects individual thought rather than groupthink. Freedom liberates our innate human desire to communicate and connect.
Australian politicians don’t talk much about freedom and it certainly doesn’t rate very highly in the government’s cultural doctrine. Even though freedom is supposed to be fundamental to our western way of life. Not here. Not in Australia.
In Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott’s maiden speeches to parliament they didn’t even mention the words “free” “liberty” or “democracy” once. Not once. Yet in Barack Obama’s maiden speech to the Australian parliament he used these three simple words a total of 29 times. Words have meaning and he used his to promote freedom. Maybe he thought we needed a lesson or maybe he had another reason.
One reason a polarized left wing politician from the U.S. needs to promote freedom is simple: democracy. In a democracy or a place where people are free to vote (or not vote) leaders must empower the electorate because if they don’t, people will simply switch off and not vote. The logic being – why vote if you’re not free? Or why vote if you don’t think you have any real power?
Barack Obama knows this, which is partly why he sells freedom. Can you imagine our red PM selling freedom? It would be very hard for her to sell the world’s biggest carbon tax, nationalized internet and draconian media controls, and freedom at the same time.
In a true democracy where voting is purely democratic, i.e. with no government coercion of voters whatsoever, leaders who can not motivate, inform, inspire, educate and ultimately empower the electorate are replaced by leaders who can: true democratic leaders.
In Australia this doesn’t occur. In Australia, leaders don’t need to motivate or inspire anyone. They don’t need to lead. They certainly don’t need to promote freedom. All they need to do is keep their heads down and be slightly better than the other guys. They need to win the votes of the swinging voters at the centre because the swing-votes are the only votes that matter. Under compulsory voting political parties don’t need to motivate the base.
This creates a very dangerous situation.
Communism or fascism evolve when political opinion is centralized or when a distinct majority of people unite under a single authoritarian rule. At least, that’s how it starts. We’ve seen where it ends. Remember what Martin Luther King Junior said, “Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.”
A democratic system works when multiple political opinions represent different ideas or distinctly different opinions along a spectrum. In some ways the major political parties represent poles, which pull in opposite directions and result in balance.
Our system is not balanced. It teeters around a central point—vulnerable to slip in either direction. Our system is like two people trying to balance a plank of wood above their heads and both heading to the centre rather than standing at opposite ends.
And all the while the poor souls standing about trying to direct those two people, can’t even tell the difference. They can’t tell which side needs more support. They can’t tell if our system needs more or less government. And the result is always more government because the guys holding the plank have complete control. Government wins and the people lose.
Our system is centralized to the extent that partisan politics, strong political ideals or rigorous debate is shunned as being extremist or even dangerous.
Groupthink grips Australia. Groupthink that imagines government is the answer to all our problems. Groupthink that says central planning can save us and protect us from the slippery slope of partisan politics. The slippery slope of democracy!
If our parties must be united, if they must stand together as one to defend and promote anything, then let it be freedom.
Jason Kent
Quote:-[Unfortunately in Australia we live in a nation where freedom seems to be misunderstood and central planning is rife. So why do Australians seem to have forgotten the evils of central planning?]
Because you have a whole generation who know not what it's like to live without freedom.
And you have the likes of Gillard, Hawke, Keating , etc , who have lulled the people in to believing they are working for them.
Australians are yet to wake to the fact these people have lied to them for many many years.
It may take another generation, or the trappings of communism , to wake Australians to the realities of these people.
The older generation are mostly well aware of the rot these people are up to .However , in today's world , the older generation is irrelevant.
Sad for the future generation.
Posted by: barry | August 4, 2012 at 04:14 PM
"Because you have a whole generation who know not what it's like to live without freedom.
And you have the likes of Gillard, Hawke, Keating"
And John Howard!
Posted by: Cy | August 5, 2012 at 01:00 AM
To know what it's like to live without freedom, you have to know what it's like to live WITH freedom. How can you know what it's like to live with freedom when you grow up in a nanny state that creates laws to protect us from ourselves, taxes the air we breath, crushes free speech, and even dictates our very culture through propaganda in schools and the so-called 'arts'. We've been losing this battle for decades and it's time we stand up and take our power back. First of all we need to be free to vote. Then the politicians will know the value of freedom and know the risk of not promoting it.
Posted by: Jason | August 5, 2012 at 07:41 AM
To hold Barack Obama up as some sought of leading light of freedom is a joke. Barack Obama is the worst President in the history of the US especially as far as freedom for its people are concerned.
Obama is a dedicated Marxist same as Gillard!
Posted by: Vivienne | August 5, 2012 at 11:11 AM
Maybe Vivienne, but even a very left wing politician in the U.S. still needs to promote freedom in order to get people out to vote. The U.S. is a leading light for freedom. Go and read the speech Obama gave to the Australian parliament and tell me he didn't promote freedom.
Posted by: Jason | August 5, 2012 at 11:26 AM
Barack Obama promotes Barack Obama just as Gillar promotes hersef as does Abbott.... what AUstralia needs as a thrid party ... not ties to one of the others... the joke going around was for a SENIORS PARTY - but really it aint no joke!
http://www.nationalseniors.com.au/page/Membership/Blog/Blog_archive/Seniors_political_party/
Posted by: JustMEinT | August 5, 2012 at 02:35 PM
Unfortunately Jason the saying that 'words are cheap' is totally correct, no one should rely on a 'free America' anymore, that is the sad state of affairs we face in the world today. Obama is nothing more that a Marxist Con Man
Posted by: Vivienne | August 5, 2012 at 05:01 PM
Communists are certainly very good at lying and cheating their way to the top but I haven't spent a lot of time in the U.S. since Obama came to power so I can't comment too much on him. But there are still a lot of freedoms in America that we could only dream of here. We need a Ron Paul revolution.
Posted by: Jason | August 5, 2012 at 07:03 PM
"We need a Ron Paul revolution." Yes, I agree.
Posted by: Cy | August 5, 2012 at 10:53 PM
History tells us that the only way governments have to stop the peasants revolting is to keep giving them stuff.
Unfortunately for green bob-julia he she has only been good at giving stuff to his her own public service.
Posted by: RossCO | August 10, 2012 at 01:04 AM