I grew up in a conservative family during The Great Depression of the 1930’s.
My mother was the granddaughter of a Lutheran Missionary and the daughter of a devout Presbyterian Elder.
My Dad was a hard working and very reliable labourer who was a faithful member of the right wing Australian Workers Union and a devoted follower of Edward Theodore, the most financially conservative Treasurer the Labor Party has ever produced.
With the benefit of their example, I grew up with a set of values that have been a cornerstone of my life and remain with me to this day.
Those values are not based on any ideology or theology.
They are basic and clear.
Let me list a few of them.
*Work hard and always do more than you are paid for.
*Save hard and be ready for tough times.
*Give away all you can. It puts power into your life.
*Learn skills and use them to find better ways to do your work.
*Never look backwards.
*When you are down, get up and start again.
*Dream visionary dreams and reach for the stars, always taking careful steps forward.
*Never leave your mates behind. Always pick them up when they are down.
*Be a committed working partner of Jesus of Nazareth and walk with him to create a better world.
*Treat everyone the same, no matter what their race or religion or social status may be.
*Foster the politics of commonsense.
*Apologise when you are wrong.
*Never end a day with harsh words.
*In all your dealings, make sure both sides win.
So, I look at the world of today, which is far different to my world of 9 decades ago, and ask if most people still live by these values. I find that the answer is NO. I reckon this is so because few leaders – political, financial or religious – are committed to those values.
Certainly, no political parties spell them out as their basic policies.
So called Conservative Parties are guilty of persistently promoting greed and power and privilege. They have no fundamental core of values and are mostly controlled by those who call themselves the Christian Right but are not Christian. They are more like bigots.
Parties that can be identified as being in the socialist realm go to extremes in trying to change the world by replacing traditional values with short term trends towards progress and rewriting history without putting anything solid in its place.
The only home where traditional conservatives like me can find a meaningful place is in the political centre where the ideology of commonsense prevails. From there, we will always be able to look at every issue and ask,
What is the commonsense way to fix this?
And to hell with the stupidity of both capitalism and socialism.
At this moment, Independents are the only politicians who are trying to occupy the centre ground and move forward with commonsense. The others are hide bound by the rules and ancient dogmas of their Parties and the primitive beliefs that they cling to.
My valued friend, Tony Windsor, was a fine example of how a quality Independent works. Still is.
History records that he, as an Independent, held the casting vote in the New South Wales Parliament during the term of a Liberal minority government led by Nick Greiner, and in the Federal Parliament when Julia Gillard’s Labor Government survived in the minority.
If you ask both Gillard and Greiner, they will affirm that, with every piece of legislation they put forward, Tony Windsor would put it through the COMMONSENSE TEST. If it did not stack up, he would refuse to vote for it and they would have to go back to the drawing boards.
Read his book, WINDSOR’S WAY and be inspired by the story. It is a great read. I know because I wrote the Foreword.
So, I invite you to join me as a TRADITIONAL CONSERVATIVE who is an enthusiastic REFORMER. Indeed, it is not possible to be a genuine conservative without being a progressive reformer. If you don’t want to be a reformer, it means that you may be a fascist.
We will be grounded in our values and use them as our cornerstone on which we will significantly reform and enhance the world by using by using the most powerful weapon on the planet. COMMONSENSE.
Cheers
Everald
Descendant of a convict sent out to Australia from England in 1831 for stealing a bed.
He used COMMONSENSE to eventually earn a pardon.
Then he worked hard and saved hard as a solid, middle of the road Conservative. When he died, he owned 5 workers cottages in Maitland obtained by investing with COMMONSENSE.
