The more far out elements of the left, with their ‘HoWARd’ posters, their street theatre, their ‘Whaddwewantblahwendowewanitnow’ and their extremist rhetoric helped keep John Howard in office. The crazy right of the Liberal Party will now repay the favour and help keep Kevin Rudd in office, for which we should be eternally grateful.

“Voters saw through the spin when they couldn’t in 2001.”

And a lot of good it has done them, with our Mandarin speaking PM who seems to be moving in the same direction as his totalitarian Chinese mates.

Anyone, like this author, who bleats about “nastiness” in relation to the Liberal Party, will find out just how nasty Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan are over the next few years. Pensioners have already found out.
And, while I am prepared to believe that Young Liberals were and are obnoxious little jerks – like many university students – what about the other side? Judging political parties by the behaviour of callow youths at university is not very intelligent. It would be interesting to hear what Russell Marks was like.

As for these ‘conversations’ with Young Liberals, anyone can make up a bit of dialogue to suit their purpose.

Russell Marks mentions that hot bed of leftotalitarianism, “Lateline” and the bad behaviour of some ratbag Young Liberals. What about the appalling behaviour of some aborigines and Labor staffers and the same event?

As long as they are left wing, homosexual, asylums seekers, it’s OK apparently.

Like the Young Liberals he so despises, Russell Marks has a lot of growing up to do.

In the last few years, at times it has appeared that the Liberal Party has sought to adopt various strategies used by the Republican Party in the US.

I have always been dubious of the wisdom of that approach, as politics in the US is quite different from Australia. Liberals and conservatives appear more evenly spread across the two main parties in the US, and Australia lacks the large conservative Christian constituency of North America, making the big-C conservatism of the Young Liberals described in this article a more marginal proposition here.

In any case, it is to be hoped that the Liberal Party is able to get back on its feet relatively quickly, particularly at a state level, as Australians will be poorly served by governments which are not properly held to account. And there are some decidedly mediocre state Labor governments in Australia at present, NSW being perhaps the most egregious example.

Russell Marks will one day wake up to the fact that all humanity is depraved and needs redemption. To somehow moralize how his own brand of politics is more advanced than the Liberals is probably typical of many who have been brainwashed in moral relativism. A plus for the Liberals is that they are described as god fearing. Certainly better than being god denying or worse still god hating as demonstrated by the politics of many. A little travel to the outback will teach Russell that Indigenous issues are a little more complex than simply respecting one of the many claimants over a piece of dirt. The dignity shown by Mr Howard in victory and defeat surpasses this grubby little article.

runner: << all humanity is depraved and needs redemption >>

Speak for yourself, you insufferable godbotherer.

CJ Morgan

You are as a good as any when it comes to proving the point of man's depravity.

There's a fairly alarming degree of solipsism and relativism in quotes such as "I only have to justify my views to myself and to God.” or
"We...believe in something based on our own morals and principles."

That kind of talk is scary-wild-eyed prophet type stuff. That's the kind of talk that channels Jim Jones, David Koresh and Tim McVeigh. I guess on that basis they'd admire Bin Laden for his steadfast refusal to justify his beliefs to anyone but God and to base it all on his morals and principles?

Granted, this is probably just late teenage identity-formation bluster and brag, but me-myself-and-I is no foundation on which to build a democratic party platform.

I guess they have a lot to learn about politics, where they actually have to justify their views to the voters, not God, and represent the needs and concerns of their electorates, not themselves.

Any movement in decline -- like political parties, like the Christian religion -- tends to move to extremes as the more moderate members drift away first. As people realise how little power they actually have, political party membership has dropped to an all-time low: as a result the parties are now run by a handful of dedicated extremists.

One solution would be to ban parties altogether and force people to run as representatives of their electorates, but the current geographic electorate system makes this nearly impossible. With the Internet, however, western countries are no longer confined to geographic systems and should be able to come up with much cleverer and more logical electorate methods, giving voters a chance to elect people who genuinely represent their interests, not merely the lesser of two evils.