every once in a while i plow through some pieces, to make sure that the keyword still signals turgid nonsense.

"libertarian"?

yep. no change, although i was disappointed that ayn rand wasn't cited as the guiding hand in the howard ascendancy.

Howard's Australia is a long way down the road to facism, if he is re-elected this nation won't be worth living in unless you are wealthy.

I agree with Jonathan and Mr Denmore, John Howard's political philosophy bears little resemblance to libertarianism. It's high taxing, pays record levels of benefits and subsidies to households, is pro big-business, regulatory, puts the so-called "war on terror" ahead of civil liberties, and is opposed to fully equal treatment for gays, against liberal drug and euthanasia regimes ... This is conservatism, not libertarianism.

John Howard lives in the real world. This is yet another attack by Howard haters. Mr Howard is smart enough to know that the 'freedom' that so many of his detractors dream about really lead to bondage. Look at Mr McGinty's attack on the rites of a child to have a mother. Look at France's dumb idea to allow Muslim ghettos to create chaos in a once civilised place. This article is a joke. It belongs in the ABC shop were all their bandwagons are promoted. THankfully John Howard leaves in the real world with real people and is not guided by fanciful philosophy.

A quick browse of runner’s posting history reveals that s/he is nothing but an anti-intellectual, red-neck shock-jock who is incapable of spelling correctly, let alone stringing together a paragraph that is in the least bit logically coherent or philosophically sound. Runner demonstrates the use of an overwhelmingly juvenile approach to reasoning that is premised on a simplistic set of dualisms drenched with the stench of small-town parochialism.

Runner, insofar as you have bought Howard’s rhetoric, your concept of freedom will inevitably remain undeveloped and distorted by the obvious presence of an Orwellian inversion of meaning. The so-called real world you talk of is nothing but a world of puerile philistinism, in which the cost of petrol is deemed more significant than matters of global urgency, such as climate change, world poverty, weapons proliferation, and so on. As for your thoughts on the ABC, claims of bias – such as those you have made – need actually to be backed by evidence, which you might find a little hard to come by.

If anything or anyone is a joke, runner, it is you and you childlike ramblings. No doubt you will respond with more unreasoning jargon, but just keep in mind that in doing so, you, too, are employing philosophy - even though you attack philosophy as not being concerned with the ‘real world’; remember, it takes philosophy to argue against philosophy. So seeing as you will no doubt be engaging in more philosophising in the near future, you may as well learn how to do it properly…

LHS

I agree with your assessment of runner, but he lifted my spirits when he wrote:

"THankfully John Howard leaves in the real world..."

Has he told Peter Costello yet?