Whining lefties..

Today in The Age, staff writer Martin Flanagan writes the type of column I am thoroughly sick of reading over the last decade - a stupid whinge about how the general public of Australia has supposedly been lulled into selfish indifference by our bad, bad Prime Minister.

This way of thinking is what is holding Labor back from winning elections at the Federal level. They cling to the idea that it is the Left that is naturally morally superior in its attitude to everything from aboriginal issues to the environment, migration etc. Part of the whinge is also that there are no "big ideas" about Australia's future under Howard, which of course assumes that fuzzy "big ideas" are important in the first place. That we have become culturally boring is another line commonly run. (Jonathon Biggins keeps writing articles whining about this in the Sydney Morning Herald.) Of course, our great selfishness under Howard is a common theme in Margo's Webdiary.

Martin writes:

"Sometimes, working in the media in this country at this time, you sense this is a culture in free-fall, that it no longer knows exactly what it believes, or indeed if it believes in anything beyond self-interest, Anzac Day and the fortunes of our various sports teams - these, incidentally, being the interests of the Prime Minister who, as our politics become more presidential, becomes increasingly emblematic of us. Overlooked in this process are such aspects of his past as zero active interest in the environment, repeated flirtations with the politics of race and a farcical victory in the last election that he chose to fight on interest rates."

Giving the game away a bit by calling it a "farcical victory" aren't you Martin.

And he ends with:

"Let's fire up, as we say in sport. Let's have a real debate. Let's revive the idea of Australia."

Oh dear. I can see how useful that suggestion is going to be.

I can save Martin, Jonathon, Margo and their ilk many hours of writing by teaching them to say this: "Jeez I hate John Howard and it pisses me off that people keep voting for him." That's all you are saying guys, over and over and over again.

What's more, the majority have not become morally depraved or uninterested in serious issues. They just don't agree with your take on them. That's all.

And to the extent that the culture might be suffering, to large degree it's because it is generally comprised of dills like you whose material either has the text or subtext that most Australians are bad or dumb because they tolerate this government.

As to "big ideas" how about this one: that a government's job is to defend the country and its inhabitants, manage an economy to be as robust as possible in the circumstances, and to legislate to otherwise protect and provide a reasonable degree of services that governments are best at providing for the general population. (Took me about 2 minutes reflection to come up with that.) How in practice those things are done is a legitmate area of debate. But to suggest that we are bereft of inspiration unless we have sat around and come up with some "mission statement" for the nation reeks of 1980's management theory and is well past its use by date.