Monthly Archives: July 2017

Nationals senator John Williams also says Tony Abbott needs to just fit into the team and be a team player. Photograph: Mike Bowers for the Guardian

National party senator John Williams has warned the Liberal party that a plebiscite on marriage equality is part of the Coalition agreement, signed by Malcolm Turnbull and Barnaby Joyce.

The agreement was signed when Turnbull took the leadership from Tony Abbott in September 2015 and Williams said it was part of the deal for National party support.

I know that it is in the Coalition agreement, a signed agreement between Nats and Liberals by Barnaby Joyce and Malcolm Turnbull, Williams said.

The Coalition agreement is signed by every incoming Liberal and National party leader. In the last agreement, Turnbull agreed for the water portfolio to go back to the agriculture portfolio with Joyce as minister, which happened immediately. The agreement also states there will be no policy move to a carbon price and no change to the definition of marriage without a plebiscite.

Williams chastised the defence industry minister and leader of the government, Christopher Pyne, for telling his moderate Liberal colleagues that marriage equality might be resolved sooner than you think, a boast soon scotched by Turnbull.

Williams said if the Nick Xenophon team or Labor had supported the plebiscite, the issue of same-sex marriage could have been resolved by now.

But instead these issues keep bubbling along and get so much media attention and Chris Pyne shouldnt say those things, Williams said.

He was worried the ongoing Liberal division would risk marginal seat holders such as fellow National MP Michelle Landry in Capricornia in Queensland. Landry holds the seat by a margin of just 0.8% and Williams said her seat creates the one-seat majority that keeps the Coalition in power.

Im annoyed with the Liberals because everyone knows division is death and they are so divided every time Tony Abbott makes a statement publicly, he said.

We need to concentrate on their job, which is to work for betterment of all Australia.

Williams reminded Abbott that Coalition MPs had been team players when he was prime minister but he would not give advice about whether Abbott should leave parliament after the Guardian Essential poll found 43% thought Abbott should resign.

I think what Tony needs to do is just simply be more of a team player, as we were with Tony when he was prime minister, Williams told ABC earlier.

I certainly was. We had a couple of disagreements on the odd occasion but I think Tony needs to just fit into the team and be a team player. What he does in the future is his decision.

He said the continual division made it impossible for the government to talk about its positive messages such as budget commitments on inland rail, roads and education.

These things cant get any light of day because of this division, Williams said.

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Nationals senator reminds Liberals same-sex marriage plebiscite part of their deal - The Guardian

The Fourth of July used to be a happy occasion. It smelled like chlorine and tasted like rocket pops. For a time, it looked like Barack and Michelle, dancing together for the first time as president and first lady as Beyonc sang At Last by Etta James. When the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in 2015, it sounded like a roar of triumph that echoed from coast to coast. That year, the fireworks, and our future, never seemed so brilliant.

When Barack Obama was president, there was a growing sense among us young progressives that the arc of the moral universe was indeed starting to bend toward justice. It was slow and it was imperfect, but our fitful progress along it endowed many of us with a sense of pride. The flag looked a little different. It looked like something that could be ours.

This year, the holiday weekend finds many of us in a darker mood. It is our first Fourth of July with President Trump. The refugee ban is back on. And somewhere in America, Paul Ryan is cracking another cold one while 22 million Americans are at risk of losing their health insurance. The arc isnt bending as fast as we thought.

In light of so much injustice, how should we observe Independence Day? Should we dismiss the holiday all together roll up our flags and boycott the barbecues? Like Los Angeles considering scrapping Columbus Day for Indigenous Peoples Day, we could scrub the Fourth of July and give it a makeover. Instead of red, white and blue, we could don black.

Such a response would be in line with recent trends. Over the last year, patriotism has been dropping sharply among Democrats. According to a Gallup poll from March, 67% of Democrats said they are very proud to be an American, compared with 92% of Republicans.

While denouncing the Fourth may be emotionally satisfying, cognitive science suggests it would be politically unwise. As UC Berkeleys George Lakoff preaches, people are drawn to positive messages far more than negative ones, even when the negative ones are backed up with facts. According to Lakoff, this is why Trump won the election.

It is also why we cant afford to be downers on the Fourth.

If Lakoff is right, we should salute the flag instead of burning it. Instead of railing against Trump, we should talk about why we care so much about the Constitution. If our uncle shows up wearing a This is what a REAL patriot looks like! shirt, we should put one on, too. The point is not mimicry, but reframing.

For too long, progressives have relinquished the word patriot to conservatives and freedom-fry hawkers. In doing so we concede defeat. If we say we arent proud of our country, then we are letting someone else define what our country is. America is far bigger than Donald Trump. In fact, it is 2.8 million voters bigger.

If the left can learn to make the stars and stripes its own, it will appeal to some Trump voters, too. As social psychologist Jonathan Haidt argues in his book The Righteous Mind, conservatives vote based on certain moral values that liberals do not typically articulate. Among these are loyalty, sanctity and authority all of which Trump played to with his Make America Great Again message. The standard liberal response America was never great was correct from a civil rights perspective, but also continued to portray liberals as fundamentally irreverent. If Democrats want to win another election, this is an image they must change.

This Fourth, lets show weve learned our lessons, and are ready for 2018. Fly the flag. Take back the power.

We, too, are America.

Cassady Rosenblum is an intern in The Times Opinion section.

cassady.rosenblum@latimes.com

@cassadyariel

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion or Facebook

Excerpt from:

How should an angry liberal celebrate the Fourth of July? Fly the flag even higher - Los Angeles Times

Thomas Gallatin Jul. 3, 2017

What is a liberal? Or maybe a better question is, what does the term liberal refer to today? Well, according to Jacques Berlinerblau, a professor from Georgetown University who recently wrote an article for the Washington Post, there are liberals and then there are radical leftists. Berlinerblau admits that American academia is mostly comprised of liberal professors and that those professors who identify as politically conservative are utterly under-represented in Americas halls of higher learning, with humanities departments in particular being the least politically diverse. In other words, it is not wrong to suggest that leftist ideology is controlling most of the nations colleges and universities.

But while Berlinerblau rightly concludes that conservatives are not to blame for the recent havoc wreaked in places like Middlebury, UC Berkeley and Evergreen College, he also attempts to shift the blame away from liberals. According to Berlinerblau, three groups exist in academia: a small conservative minority, a sizable liberal contingent and the dominate radical left who he blames for the current campus intolerance. The question remains, what is the difference between a liberal and a leftist?

Berlinerblaus answer to that question ends up sounding more like a difference in the manner of application of ideology rather than an actual distinction in form. He cites as examples liberals reactions to certain events, such as liberals didnt exult over Irans 1979 Islamic revolution, or that liberals didnt refer to the victims of 9/11 as little Eichmanns. He also notes that liberals are generally made highly uncomfortable by censorship, speaker boycotts, trigger warnings, safe spaces and the like. Berlinerblaus argument sounds eerily similar to the one made by Muslims who may reject the methods of Islamic terrorists, yet refuse to disavow Islamists.

The truth is that modern liberalism stands in stark contrast to those classical liberal values expressed by our nations Founding Fathers. It is todays conservatives who hold most closely to those classical liberal principles. Todays radical leftist social justice warrior is merely the logical manifestation of modern liberal ideology a distinction without a difference. It is modern liberalism that can be credited with teaching the ideology of socialism that glories in the utopian ideals of Karl Marx. It is modern liberalism that sees little value in Christianity and has a long mocked Christians as backward fools. It is modern liberalism that has questioned the very nature of truth itself, opening a Pandoras box of relativism. No, Professor Berlinerblau, liberals may not like it, but the radical left is their creation; they are to be blamed.

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Liberal vs Left - Patriot Post