A radio station with a conservative viewpoint is long overdue in the state run by the fascist Left

I don't know whether well-known radio figure Steve Price has ever visited my website, but I have been saying for some time that there is no media enterprise in Australia giving consistent voice to conservative Australians in proportion to their numbers - at least half of the population and probably more. There are some conservative commentators - Andrew Bolt and Alan Jones, for example - but these are few and work in companies that one would not characterise as conservative. I covered this issue at length in my comment on News Ltd boss John Hartigan's speech to the National Press Club last year.

It is high time that a media organisation set up some sort of instrument that is explicitly conservative, staffed by journalists who understand what conservatism is. I mean truly understand what conservatism is. (For an idea of what true conservatism is, I refer the reader to my conservatism section.)

There is no lack of opportunity in all forms of media. Fox News in the US with people like Bill O'Reilly and Glen Beck shows just how successful an explicit consistent conservative voice in the media can be financially. Amoral and business-oriented Rupert Murdoch has seen and grasped the opportunities in America. I have wondered why News Ltd's Hartigan does not see it here. So it is to Steve Price's credit that he has seen it.

For me, however, it is not about business opportunities. It is about the moral and political constitution of Australian society in general and that of the state of Victoria in particular. My concern is with the stranglehold the fascist Left has on all facets of the social and political make-up of Victoria. Nowhere else in Australia have these intolerant zealots gained such encompassing power. That power is being presently expressed in the oppressive class legislation the Brumby government is pushing through state parliament.

On the Herald-Sun's website today Andrew Bolt has written a part humorous-part serious piece commenting on the start-up of radio station MTR 1377 in which he will have a role and which, according to Station Manager Steve Price, will be right-wing. Bolt quotes Price as saying:

"The most successful talk stations do occupy the Right-of-Centre opinion on politics in particular but life in general," he said. "I don't know that there's a successful Left-wing radio."

You have to wonder why has it taken so long for someone in the media industry to see it. Why do they think that Alan Jones in Sydney and Andrew Bolt in Melbourne have such a huge following? I think there is a two-fold explanation. Media people in general are liberal-left. Many blindly so. It is simply against their political principles to give an airing to any political vision that deviates from the leftist vision. For them there is no political or philosophical alternative. Bolt and Jones are for these people simply shock-jocks and rednecks. This is all a measure of leftist intolerance.

Price might be right in saying that there is no successful left-wing radio. But that's not the point. The real point is that for a long time the general media has been on the materialist liberal-to-left spectrum with people like Derryn Hynch and Neil Mitchell* representing the soft liberal position to Phillip Adams representing the extreme bigoted Left. The ideological understanding and the motivation to do something different have been lacking.

Second, many of those reacting to the increasing leftist dominance of Australian society have not had a clear understanding of how to articulate their objections philosophically. They are too used to using the vernacular of liberal-left politics. That does not work. Conservatism as (non-rationalist) ideology is fundamentally in opposition to rationalist/materialist ideology, beginning with a different analysis of the nature of reason. Reason is more than simply a linear mathematical process.

In his comment today Andrew Bolt points out correctly that right-wing politics is not the same as conservatism (understood as a political philosophy). His explanation falls short and is unfortunately misleading in that he conflates the ordinary meaning of the word conservative with conservatism as a political philosophy. Perhaps his explanation was appropriate to the mood of his comment.

Bolt is dead right, though, in distinguishing between 'right-wing' and 'conservative'. The critical difference between right-wing political theory and conservatism is that conservatism works from man's limited nature. Morally we are fallible and our reason is limited. These drastic limitations in man's nature dictate a limited field of political action. Overstepping the limits of that field is to risk oppressing the people. Those limits explain why custom and tradition are so important, morally and epistemologically, for the conservative. The saying 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' is an ordinary way of expression a far more subtle explanation of the benefits of established custom and tradition. (See Noel O’Sullivan's first chapter in his book Conservatism for a detailed explanation of conservatism as a philosophy of imperfection.)

The leftist idea - expressed in one or other theory - that man and society is perfectible is so much delusion. In fact, history shows how malignant that delusion has been. Right-wing theory is no different in its reasoning and methods - or in its outcome.

Bolt is also dead right in saying that the accusation of right-wing is merely a political weapon for the fascist Left, and not an issue of conflicting political theory. It is the effective smear and put down of anyone who deviates from Leftist orthodoxy. It is also the manner of evading accountability for failed policy. The fascist Left has got away with it for decades. The Brumby government, overloaded with members of the fascist Left, is getting away with it.

The confusion that Bolt points out in Price's mind is for me not a good sign. Nor are some of the people that Price has chosen for his 'right-wing' radio station. What the ordinary person in Melbourne needs is a radio station that gives voice to their concerns, and not one with people who don't understand what conservatism is, or who want to be controversial for the sake of it. People will get tired of it pretty quickly. And it will give a free kick to appalling leftist bigots like Phillip Adams whose main political weapon is ridicule. Nobody does empty but politically effective ridicule like the fascist Left.

I hope Price and his bosses at Macquarie Radio News and Pacific Star Network get the right act together. Melbourne and Victoria are urgently in need of a consistent coherent conservative voice on radio.

* I should point out that there has been a change in Neil Mitchell's attitudes and manner this year. If this is permanent change, he could no longer be described as 'soft liberal'.

Comment: gerard@gerardcharleswilson.com