I consider myself as a personally conservative person, albeit someone who reluctantly describes himself as a libertarian (very reluctantly – I loathe the word). As such, I would have some guarded sympathy for the Liberal Party, albeit as someone who very much regards himself as an outsider looking in.
As a responsible and engaged citizen, I need to keep informed about such matters, given that I do not believe that we can ever take our democracy for granted.
At the moment, I am in a situation where I find myself wondering what Elvis would do, or, as he sang in one song:
Stop!
Look and Listen baby
That’s my philosophy
It’s called rubber necking baby
That’s all right with me!
You see, there appears to be a lot of dissension within the organisational base of the Victorian Liberal Party at the moment, based around a website and related email newsletter called Abalinx. Here, read the website for yourself: http://www.abalinx.com
The author of this website, retired army warrant officer and excessively enthusiastic Liberal Party volunteer Peter Adamis, currently, after publishing his epistles for some time, has incurred the wrath of the state executive of the Liberal Party, and appears to be facing some sort of hearing in March, which might result in expulsion or something such.
I do not know this chap, although I know, at least by reputation (and at best very vaguely), various of the people whom he names in his website and his related email newsletters.
I must say, on reading the various articles he publishes on his page, that I do not necessarily agree with him. He seems as enthusiastic about the Liberal Party as Joffa is about Collingwood Football Club, which is probably a little too one eyed for most people, including most Liberal sympathisers. However, unlike Joffa, he is not enthusiastic or uncritical about the organisational leaders of his beloved organisation, and that appears to be what has got him into trouble.
His writing sometimes is a little too obscure and rambling, and sometimes a little repetitive and critical in an ad hominem way, and sometimes too uncritical of those people with whom his sympathies lie (some of those people, to be honest, are perhaps best described as a-holes). And the writing is not that great.
However, putting his thoughts out there, in the way that he does (raising his dissent against matter which are shut down by the leaders of the supposedly grassroots based party he supports), is important for our democracy, especially at a time when Communist China has been buying many people within both of our major political parties with donations or consultant fees (look at Sam Dastiyari for example, or Santo Santoro, as frightening examples of the insidious attack on our democracy).
Transparency is important, especially at a time when the major political parties are becoming political machines increasingly unaccountable to either their members or their voting bases, and increasingly receptive to cheques from rich people who happen to be members of the Chinese Communist Party.
Expelling Peter Adamis from the Liberal Party would be a sad mistake. It would be better to expel the politicians and apparatchicks who accept fees and donations from members of the Chinese Communist Party, especially as the Liberal Party of Australia was established to be a Liberal, anti-Communist party, defending individual liberty.
Lost For Words! 