I did write to Quadrant on the subject of the Left and the Right:
‘The idea that no one reading Quadrant could belong to the target audience for Barack Obama’s “you didn’t build that” speech (“The New Politics of Data-Driven Elections”, January-February 2013) is illustrative of the weird world that Quadrant has become. I am part of the target audience – or would be if I were a US citizen – and a regular Quadrant reader.

‘I, however, know exactly what the “that” referred to is and the political motivation for giving only part of the quote as I am also aware of the rest of it:
“If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business – you didn’t build that.”
The “that” is not the business; it is the society that empowers the business.

‘In a country in which the Right – under both Coalition and Labor governments – has loosened the centralised labour market, freed up international trade, sold off public enterprises, turned public schools into autonomous competing small businesses, contracted out welfare and employment services, lowered tax rates and entrenched the idea that government itself is the problem, it is fanciful to believe in total dominance by the Left….

‘The Left controls culture (gay marriage and all that trendy stuff), but economics remains in the firm hands of the Right. Those of us in the social democratic tradition can only wonder at how right wing our politics has become. We who fought the totalitarian impulses of the communists at university 40 years ago are likely to be members of the ALP now, while today’s Liberals proudly claim the label, “conservative”, in defiance of Robert Menzies’s ideal that he was not forming a conservative party.

‘Quadrant has become one long whinge that amounts to no more than the fact that the Left dominates in jobs that the Right can’t be bothered doing.

‘Yours sincerely,
Chris Curtis

‘Emailed to keithwindschuttle@quadrant.org.au
as The Left… The Left… The Left… The Left…’

The letter was not published.

Yep, the church communities do well at educating students but need to be more present throughout adulthood thereby providing vision and purpose to everyday life.

"Although perhaps well intentioned, the groupthink of Left orthodoxy is accelerating the demiWestern hberal values on which Western culture was built."

There is nothing 'well intentioned' about the Left. The Left is a Fifth Column, white-anting the West with relativism.

Peter,
Good article. I am in then middle of reading Rowan William's "Faith in the Public Square" It addresses many of the concerns you raise and also is a corrective of the opinions often expressed in Quadrant.
Peter Sellick

I agree with Sells, although I think Chris C’s “the Left controls culture (gay marriage and all that trendy stuff), but economics remains in the firm hands of the Right” is also to the point.