The human rights cabal and the fascist spirit driving them signal a critical moment in Australia's history for conservatives - will they rise to the challenge?

During the final year of John Howard's time as Australia's second longest serving prime minister I sometimes had the impression that he was the only person in public life indisputable conservative - I mean, in the philosophic sense. His social and political discourse had an unashamedly Burkean flavour which naturally incited his ideological opponents to increasing heights of hatred. Of course, there were other true conservatives, but they did not shine publicly as philosophical conservatives. Tony Abbott was the closest but, whether I had the wrong impression or not, he did not seem as manifestly conservative philosophically as he is now appearing.

I also had the impression that John Howard was like Hans, the little Dutch boy, holding his hand in the dyke to stop it collapsing. If he took his hand away, the political dyke would break and swamp us with the political dogma and prescriptions of Australia's dominant political class. Now two years down the track from the defeat of the Howard government and the Bennelong electorate going bonkers, my impression if anything was understating the reality of the situation.

The resounding defeat obviously left many Liberal Party people depressed and feeling lost. That is understandable. But we expected resilience from the people who make up the political party that Sir Robert Menzies founded. We expected them like any group with backbone to get up off the ground, review where things went wrong, if and how much they had strayed from the Party's principles, reboot their political consciousness with a clear understanding of those principles in relation to prevailing circumstances, and then move forward.

Instead, we got this sort of paralysis and navel-gazing with a string of commentaries in the media from friends and opponents alike saying it was time that the Liberal Party 'updated' itself, 'moved into the modern age', and other such cliches that are usually the preserve of the oppositional 'progressive' class. Melbourne's feminist Age headed the pack with a number of disingenuous articles informed by a gender theory mentality which insisted it was time the Liberal Party showed enough gender flexibility to change from the boy of politics into the girl of politics - the Labor Party - so that we could have a one party state where the correctly gendered parties reigned supreme - that is, exclusively as the girl of politics.

During this time I commented a number of times that many in the Liberal Party, liberal party supporters, and ordinary people of a conservative bent seemed no longer aware of what philosophical conservatism entailed and thus were unable to defend their conservative world view against the rigid ideology of the dominant class who held the public square and whose discourse has become de facto the political vernacular.

This has to change if that class's legislative campaign of oppression is not to have an unimpeded run, ending with the tentacles of the state reaching right inside our private lives and its suckers fixing onto every move of our daily lives. People have to understand that the octopus of the state goes by the name of 'human rights', that the human rights tag has been self-bestowed, and that human rights is not a concept that has one unassailable meaning arrived at by way of one unassailable line of reasoning. It is proper here to repeat one of Edmund Burke's many warnings about the rhetoric of (theoretical individual subjective) human rights.

Far am I denying in theory; full as far is my heart from withholding in practice...the real rights of men. In denying their [the revolutionaries in France] false claims of right, I do not mean to injure those which are real, and are such as their pretended rights would destroy. If civil society be made for the advantage of man, all the advantages for which it is made become his right.
Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790, Penguin Edition, p. 149

It is of the greatest moment how one analyses human rights. The human rights cabal that is behind the present rights legislation at both federal and state level is in the process of one the nation's biggest cons. Their legislative proposals are deeply partial aimed at the disqualification of a large section of the community. No doubt, as in the past, accompanying penal provisions will make sure their laws will not be a dead letter. It is urgent that this be understood if conservatives are to raise an effective challenge on behalf of ordinary Australians.

Last Friday Cardinal Pell gave a keynote address at an Australian Christian Lobby conference. One can hardly do better in arriving at an understanding of what's at stake than to read this address: Cardinal Pell on Religion, Human Rights and Policy

Comment: gerard@gerardcharleswilson.com