I think you only have to look at Q and A or Insight and you see the same sort of crap. Sure it's more subtle, and in the language of inner city intectuals, but the bogan-hatred rings loud and clear, and the political bias is perhaps even more profound.

Example:> Insight the other night interviewing boat people, encouraging emotive 'humanising' stories, and then crossing to a token 'bogan' to inelegantly put a stereotypicall bogan view across, for all in the audience to tut tut and look down on, and attempt to re-educate the poor bogan and appeal for him to empathise and shame him if he refuses to relent to peer pressure emotional blackmail and public humiliation.

It's all very manipulative and it's to reinforce the prejudice of the latte set just as Jones reinforces the prejudice of the 'bogan masses'. Pure propaganda hoisting up the left thinking as morally and intellectually superior, and patronising the right as think as a plank or just plain evil. All over a polite little conversation with lashings of ginger beer.

It's a different love-language, but the love is just the same; Playin' to the crowd, and reinforcing prejudice.

Houlley no wonder you lean to the melancholy. Is there no hope for the human race? Are we all just manipulated organisms with no 'free' thought, and if so when does the rot set in which will determine the path most travelled.

We could discuss the the validity of 'free' thought but the argument is lost before it begins.

As for debasement of public debate, clearly there are no saints ideologically speaking.

The quality of Question Time has plummeted over the years although it has always been 'robust'. I was watching Warren Truss today strutting his strawman arguments about the Convoy of 'no consequence' comment made by Albanese to mean that the government does not care about regional Australia. Really, is that what it meant, I am glad we have these people here to tell us what to think.

The ALP are just as guilty.

The climate change 'denier', 'sceptic' is only matched by the climate change 'believers' or my favourite 'earth worshippers' - none if it contributing to the debate.

It is politicised name-calling that is all.

The battle is not the Left vs the Right;
It is the honestly balanced vs the partisans and profiteers.

The honestly balanced may be Left/Right biassed, but seek the best balance given their knowledge. They at least agree on facts where possible.
The partisans and profiteers are either one-eyed political beasts (Abbott, Jones), guns for hire (Bolt, Jones), or idealists (most "radical" greens). Either way they encourage ignorance and use rhetoric and bullying instead of rational argument.
The anti-science movement (a large part of many extremist groups on both Left and Right) wants a return to the dark ages and "might is right"...why research things when you can decide what they are and then "convince" people of one's rightness? Science allows the humble to gain some truth using transparent (although complex) methods...hence it's status as highly objectionable to authoritarian types!

Ozlandy,

here you have given a prime example of the tactic's of the Hawker School.

We see you open up with the claim about honesty vs dishonesty or as you assert 'the partisans and profiteers'.

Then you name call.
You by inference equate the 'the partisans and profiteers' with conservatives and your name calling is limited to those who don't share so caled l'progressive' views.

Then you dishonestly ascribe positions, that are not held, to those you've name called ... in other unrelated issues.

Then you re-inforce your beliefs and bleat on that because you ascribe to, what you see as, the authority of science and by inference the scientific method, and everybody who doesn't agree is an authoritarian loving arrogrant.

How can anybody rationally and calmly debate the issue of honesty with such emotive uncivil attitiudes.

Any attempt at rational debate of the initial proposition will either be ignored or an attempt will be made to drag the discussion into drowning in the detail of your uncivil and bad-mannered aspersions.

Sadly Ken won't show he agrees with my points nor will he comment on the Hawker type of tactic... which you've adopted.

Ozlandy,

here you have given a prime example of the tactic's of the Hawker School.

We see you open up with the claim about honesty vs dishonesty or as you assert 'the partisans and profiteers'.

Then you name call.
You by inference equate the 'the partisans and profiteers' with conservatives and your name calling is limited to those who don't share so called 'progressive' views.

Then you dishonestly ascribe positions, that are not held, to those you've name called ... in other unrelated issues.

Then you re-inforce your beliefs and bleat on that you ascribe to, what you see as, the authority of science and by inference the scientific method, and everybody who doesn't agree is an arrogrant authoritarian loving ... whatever.

How can anybody rationally and calmly debate the issue of honesty with such emotive and uncivil attitiudes.

Any attempt at rational debate of the initial proposition will either be ignored or an attempt will be made to drag the discussion into drowning in the detail of your uncivil and bad-mannered aspersions.

Sadly Ken won't show he agrees with my points nor will he comment on the Hawker type of tactic... which you've adopted... and which is inflamatory.

During the miners’ strike in Britain in the 1980s, a polemic verse entitled “ode to a scab” circulated among the strikers. One national newspaper picked up on it as an example of the strikers’ malice, but it fact it had been penned decades before by Jack London.

Polemic, vitriol, misrepresentation and discourtesy are not new in public debate or the media – they have been part of public debate for centuries. And, as many posters have pointed out, they are found across the political spectrum, not just the right. Most of us are grown up enough to recognise the fact and tolerate it as a necessary price of free speech and free press. The day you need a licence to public an opinion, we’ll be in deep trouble.

For those who enjoy such things:

Ode To A Scab, by Jack London (1915 ish)

After God had finished the rattlesnake, the toad, and the vampire, He had some awful substance left with which He made a scab. A scab is a two-legged animal with a corkscrew soul, a waterlogged brain, and a combination backbone made of jelly and glue. Where others have hearts, he carries a tumour of rotten principles.

When a scab comes down the street, men turn their backs and angels weep in heaven, and the devil shuts the gates of hell to keep him out. No man has a right to scab as long as there is a pool of water deep enough to drown his body in, or a rope long enough to hang his carcass with. Judas Iscariot was a gentleman compared with a scab. For betraying his Master, he had character enough to hang himself. A scab hasn't.

Esau sold his birthright for a mess of pottage. Judas Iscariot sold his savior for thirty pieces of silver. Benedict Arnold sold his country for a promise of a commission in the British Army. The modern strikebreaker sells his birthright, his country, his wife, his children, and his fellow men for an unfulfilled promise from his employer, trust, or corporation.