There is no participation trophy in real life

There has been a trend afoot for a number of years to give people participation awards, particularly children in sporting competitions. They are told that turning up and participating in an event is what really matters and it’s not important if you lose. Former Olympian and LA Galaxy soccer star Cobi Jones, does an excellent job of debunking this mentality is this video from PragerU and explains why feeling the pain of losing is so important to winning.

I am sincerely hoping that this mode of thinking is not taking hold of conservatives across Australia and that the pain of losses in 2017 will instead spur us on to even greater efforts in 2018. The last few years have seen large setbacks in Australia on the federal and state level as cultural Marxists continued to entwine themselves further into every part of our country’s social and economic life while using our money to do it. Our Prime Minister essentially told conservatives that there was no place for them in the Liberal Party and then spent all of last year implementing Labor policies, making Bill Shorten’s Christmas very merry indeed.

When Tony Abbott was leader of the opposition during the Rudd/Gillard years, he did an outstanding job tearing down the Labor party, made the implementation of their policies almost impossible, and at times was almost governing from opposition. Now the leader of the opposition is likewise virtually governing from opposition but this time the party in power seems to be wilfully cooperating.

On the state level the situation is little better. In South Australia they are nearing 16 years of continuous Labor government and the state’s statistics reflect the abysmal economic performance that long term, big government thinking produces. They have a Premier that is so stupid he actually thinks you can run an industrial economy on wind, batteries and diesel generators. Yet for all of this incompetence the Liberal Party cannot even outpoll perpetual agitprop candidate Nick Xenophon and barely manages to outpoll Labor for the upcoming March election. In Victoria, which has an exceptionally left leaning Labor government, the news isn’t much better. You’d think that a government that spent $1.1 billion to not build a road and was responsible for the disgusting Safe Schools program would be easy to beat. You could be forgiven for thinking that the crime wave that isn’t a crime wave would be putting the totally incompetent Andrews government in polling freefall but apparently not. With all the ammunition in the world to tear down the Andrews regime, the Liberal party cannot poll higher than 50/50 on a two party preferred basis. As the latest by-election in the seat of Northcote has shown, Labor has more to fear from the Greens than it does from the Liberal party.

In my home state of Queensland in the recent election, the LNP did their best impersonation of a friendly uncle coming over for a chat while Labor went about tearing them to shreds. The balance of power role that One Nation was expected to fill didn’t eventuate and we’re faced with the prospect of three years of Labor incompetence. The old axiom that Labor is great at campaigning but hopeless at governing is never truer than here.

So what does 2018 and beyond hold for conservatives in Australia? The prospects are bad in the medium term and good in the long term.

To use the immortal words of Shakespeare, ‘what’s past is prologue’ and armed with that insight we can look ahead and predict with relative certainty what awaits us.

Eye Watering Debt Levels

No government in Australia, of whatever political stripe, seems to be able to live within its means. The federal government hasn’t run a surplus since Costello was Treasurer and the Liberal party at every level seems to have given up its big point of distinction from Labor, viz. sound economic management. The last election held in Australia was in Queensland and state debt was hardly mentioned. Given the performances of the last decade this trend will continue and now not only will your children be perpetual debt slaves, your grandchildren will be as well.

Doubling of Energy Costs

With the implementation of renewable energy mandates (by whatever name), you will see your power prices double within the next few years and triple within five years. This higher energy cost will flow on to every area of life with the higher cost of energy affecting all goods and services. Labor and the Greens have a religious mania regarding this subject and they care not who is destroyed in the process. The weakness of the Turnbull government on this issue is sure to take him down the same road, it is only a question of degree.

Social Division

A favoured tactic of socialist reactionaries around the world is to stoke up divisions wherever they can and it has been used quite effectively in America over the last few years. Whether it’s men against women, children against parents, race against race, employers against employees, the wealthy against the poor or religion against religion there is no social area that the left will not intrude in order to divide and conquer. It creates an excuse for state power to be used to intervene in daily life and serves as a nice distraction from the bigger issues of continual government expansion and intrusion. You will hear multiple cries for ‘equality’ in 2018 but it will be for equality of outcome rather than equality of opportunity. The State’s job is to ensure that all citizens are equal before the law, not for all citizens to live at an equal level. Since not all persons have the same level of talents, ability or ambition you will never have the Corbynite utopia that will be pushed onto Australians.

Everyone Will be Offended

The continual use of ‘offence’ to silence people will be placed on steroids and used at every opportunity to shut you up. The only people who will be allowed to ‘offend’ anyone will be the media when they offend you. Snowflakism will be ingrained into our educational and social institutions where everyone will be taught that if you don’t like something someone says, you not only have the right to be upset but you should expect the state to back up your childishness.

Massive Upswing in the Refugee Intake

If Bill Shorten is our next Prime Minister there will be massive upswing in the refugee intake. Whether real refugees or the economic migrants we’ve seen doing their fake protestations on Manus Island, the result will be the same. If Malcolm Turnbull continues to give ground to Labor and the Greens as he’s consistently done over the last few years, he may well start doing it himself. Australia will start to undergo the convulsions we see sweeping western Europe as the state blames the evil native population for the problems rather than blame themselves for allowing immigrants who are incompatible with our culture. You will start to see ads on TV and through your social media, paid for with your taxes I might add, telling you how intolerant you are and how you need to change the way you think and start putting up with the types of behaviour we are currently seeing in Melbourne. On that note, the issues we currently have in Melbourne will be seen as a picnic within a decade if the socialist are allowed to continue. Then the intention will be clearly seen, multiculturalism is actually the replacement of our native culture.

Safe Schools (or whatever they rename it tomorrow)

As sure as night follows day, wherever there is a Labor government (and the Libs aren’t far behind) the state schools will intrude into family life and teach your kids their morals. It will either happen through direct government requirement or it will be left up to each school to decide and since the teachers unions control almost all state schools, the end result will be the same. Once this practice is cemented it will be forced on private schools. There will be no educational refuge from the state religion.

Restriction on Freedom of Speech and Practice

In the wake of the gay marriage legislation that passed the Australian Parliament in 2017 there will begin a persecution against all dissent against the government mandated view. As warned by myself and many others, there will be no legal protection given and the refusal of amendments to the legislation proved this to be so.  The Prime Minister’s promises were shown to be as hollow as his convictions. This will also be used as a pretence to teach the LGBTQIA (yes, that’s a thing) agenda in our schools to our children.

Another aspect of this is what has been seen in the UK with the immense misuse of police resources where they have all the time and energy in the world to police Facebook and Twitter comments but seem to be ineffective at fighting real crime. In the years to come you can expect a knock on the door from the force if you spoke your mind or ‘misgendered’ someone.

Using the same methodology for prediction, we can look into the long term and see that this is also one of the greatest opportunities conservatives have had for a generation. Some of the most conservative populations in the world at present are the nations of eastern Europe. The very same people who bore the brunt of socialism writ large and they can’t get away from it fast enough.

The greatest weakness of the mess described above is that it is now the dominant culture. The left are actually now in a position where all of the policies they’ve hoped and dreamed for are being implemented. Controlling everyone’s speech, wind farms aplenty, an elimination of our Judeo Christian history, the dilution of traditional family structures and globalist legal entanglements, all aided and abetted by a complicit media. There will be a torrent of negative consequences flowing from this and it’s our job to make sure they own it. Just like the communist nations of Eastern Europe, there was no one the leadership could legitimately blame for their nations woes. It was all their doing, lock stock and barrel.

There is no doubt that in the years to come, once the socialist dream has become our national nightmare, the pendulum will swing hard towards conservatism as it has in Eastern Europe. It is our task to make sure the alternative is available and fully proclaimed with truly viable political alternatives. In the great arc of history, it is conservative principles, when applied by vigorous leadership, that truly improve the lot of mankind. Of all the social systems that have been tried throughout the nations, democratic conservatism with an eye towards libertarian freedoms, leads the way in meaningful progress for the greatest number.

There is no participation trophy out here in the real world of consequences, so let us regroup and set out to win the future conflicts for the heart and soul of the nation. Conservatism’s best days are ahead of us.