Throughout the world the left is taking a well deserved beating. Be it American, Britain, Japan, the Philippines, Turkey, Poland, Hungary, Brazil, the Balkans, France, Austria, Australia, Italy; seemingly everywhere the right in all of its manifestations, many decidedly unattractive and authoritarian, is turning the old order on its head.
Dismissed sneeringly by the frustrated left as populism, a better description would be the silent majority showing their true feelings in the voting booths.
In response the bewildered left have become increasingly Orwellian in their shrill clamour for the world to realign to their “correct” thinking and their rich variety of “isms” (sexism, racism, sizism, and all of the other wokisms). It’s not working, rather it’s a massive turn-off to the all-important silent majority.
Perhaps most offensive is their reinvention of the language. In trying to resurrect a well tried and badly failed yesteryear socialist agenda, they ludicrously describe themselves as Progressives. In reality they’re Regressives, seeking a return to the 1970s disastrous statism, most of them being too young to know what a depressing world it was.
Another language abuse is their constant reference to capitalism.
For God’s sake that’s so 19th century. Commercial success in the modern world is based on a rich diversity of services, whether the abundance of cafes at one end of the economic spectrum, or the Internet and the likes of Facebook, Amazon et al at the other.
Finally, there’s “neo-liberalism”, this trotted out as some sort of satanic evil that needs no explanation for its wickedness.
In fact its meaning is simple. It refers to the new order of individual economic freedom that began in the 1980s after the disastrous statism was finally dumped and is better described as the market economy. People making their own decisions rather than the left making them for them has produced an unprecedented global prosperity but is enormously offensive to the we-know-best what’s good for everyone mob. Enjoy their suffering. They deserve no less as they rail away in their bubble worlds to one another about the injustice of people enjoying life without their riding instructions.
9 Comments
Excellent accurate post
My trendy leftie acquaintances call my thinking muddled.
But you have taken my muddled thoughts over the past three months and put them into several well crafted and erudite paragraphs.
Your command of the English language is a New Zealand treasure.
You might like to listen to the No Agenda podcast with “Podfather” Adam Curry and “Buzzkill” John C. Dvorak to further shrink your amygdala #ITM #TBPITU http://www.noagendashow.com/
Bloody spot on.
You have to wonder why so many supposedly intelligent “academics” bleat constantly on about undoing all the freedoms we have. Perhaps it’s because “they know best” and they get upset when we mere plebs don’t realise this.
Excellent article and I hope the rejection of the leftists continues with our general election this year. If Winston and NZ First (an Orwellian contradiction in terms if there ever was one) goes as collateral damage then so be it. My pet peeve is when a government policy (here or abroad) is described as “socialist”. No, wrong, socialism is when the government owns the means of production. All governments implement policies that are for the greater good of the country. That is their main purpose for existing. You cannot be a little bit socialist in the same way that you cannot be a little bit pregnant.
‘The Regressive Left’ – that takes me back a decade/half-decade (which is a fair amount for me).
Yes it’s funny how it’s Populism when self considered ‘elites’ or establishment disapprove, and Democracy the rest of the time.
Most people have no idea how egregious the impractical artificiality of language can get in Academia.
All in all well said Sir Robert.
Case in point – https://read.dukeupress.edu/glq/article-abstract/20/4/439/34905/Black-Anality
well said Sir Bob, keep up the good work.