Our right's incestuous behaviour is only helping the left
Joe Cambria
After my last commentary on the dismal state of Australia's so-called rightwing I promised myself that I would not return to the subject. However, Miranda Devine's article Thumbs down put Howard even more up (Sydney Morning Herald, 24/7) provoked me in to breaking my promise.
Now it just so happens that I agree with the main body of Devine's article, the theme of which is that the Australian leftwing elites' bigoted attacks on Prime Minister Howard are boomeranging.
What caught my eye, however, was the final paragraph in which Devine plugged a Quadrant magazine dinner to be held next week and addressed by Tim Blair, blogger and +Bulletin columnist, who will use the occasion to attack the ABC.
I have no objections to Blair attacking the ABC, an organisation that certainly deserves the strongest criticism. My complaint is the hypocrisy of the right. In some ways it behaves like the leftist elites it condemns, and Blair is an example of what I mean.
Blair's articles and blog are, to be charitable, rather long on smart aleck commentary and extremely short on analysis. Furthermore, they suggest, rightly or wrongly, that he is not what one might call bookish. Now how can anyone successfully tackle the left without a reasonable knowledge of economic theory, the history of economic thought, economic history and of leftist thought? Yet Blair gives no indication of being even slightly acquainted with these subjects.
Nevertheless, despite his obvious shortcomings and shallow commentary Melbourne's Adam Smith Club, the H. R. Nicholls Society, the Devines and now the publicly funded magazine Quadrant appear to be presenting Mr Blair as something he self-evidently is not — and that is a rightwing intellectual.
Since my return to Australia numerous business associates as well as people I have met at various cocktail parties have commented on the inward-looking nature of what the left derisively calls the "WMC Club". I believe the relationship between Mr Blair and the 'Club' confirms what so many, including the left, have had to say about the navel-gazing condition of Australia's so-called rightwing.
My views about the nature of the 'Club' were reinforced by Devine's failure to inform readers that she and her family are good friends with Blair. Of course, there is nothing improper in anyway here, except that for Devine to promote Blair without revealing their relations might be considered a conflict of interest. Another apparent conflict of interest is the fact that she sits on Quadrant's advisory editorial board. Incidentally, Frank Devine, her father, has also engaged in a little sly promotion of the 'Blair phenomenon'. (Come to think of it, the Devines' activities might be considered the journalistic equivalent of insider trading).
My main point is that the left and others are perfectly correct in drawing attention to the self-obsessed nature of our self-appointed rightwing elite. My secondary point is that the right's incestuous behaviour has only succeeded in damaging the cause of free markets and classical liberalism, unless you are naïve enough to believe that the likes of Blair are intellectually equipped to tackle the left. The right evidently needs to learn what happens when the intellectual gene pool degenerates.
During my long stay in the US I came to admire the enthusiasm, diligence and generosity of spirit that characterised the country's free market activists, at least the ones I knew. But it was their generosity and inclusiveness that truly impressed me. And that is the principal reason why gave them financial support.
What a difference a continent makes. Here I find pettiness, snobbishness, selfishness, backstabbing — and even blacklisting. Perhaps worst of all, absolutely no sense of shame.
A while ago I was attacked for criticising our rightwing. The following was part of my reply:
"I shall have no respect for it [the right] till it does the right thing by those who are not in the club but nevertheless have done much at their own expense to promote the cause of freedom. Until that happy day arrives, if ever, I presume our right will continue snubbing those it considers to be outsiders while trying to curry favour with well-known columnists like Tim Blair and Andrew Bolt."
Miranda Devine and her father have, unfortunately, only helped strengthen my belief that I shall not have to change my assessment of our self-appointed rightwing elitists.
Joe Cambria was a Wall Street trader for 15 years.
BrookesNews.Com
Friday 25 July 2003