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Liberalism, then, has been spectacularly hypocritical though Fukuyama, for one, is unimpressed with the charge, arguing that this leftist critique fails to show how the doctrine is wrong in its essence. The historian Caroline Elkins might beg to disagree. In Legacy of Violence, her recent book about the British Empire, she argues that ideological elasticity was in fact what made liberal imperialism so resilient. She shows how Britains vast apparatus of laws was used to legitimize the violence of its civilizing mission. What Fukuyama repeatedly refers to as liberalisms essence has also, Elkins suggests, amounted to a paradox: emancipation and oppression, all rolled in one.

But such tensions are less interesting to liberalisms conservative critics, who think that its rotten all the way down. As Matthew Rose puts it in A World After Liberalism, the radical right has long deemed it evil in principle because it destroys the foundations of social order. The 20th-century extremist thinkers he discusses in his book among them a fascist savant and a right-wing Marxist derided Christianity, too, for an egalitarianism and compassion that they just couldnt abide. Still, their critiques have found echoes in contemporary arguments by right-wing Christians like Sohrab Ahmari and Patrick Deneen, who blame liberalism for making people comfort-seeking and spiritually lazy.

Liberal decadence doesnt amount just to temptation but to tyranny or so you might believe when reading liberalisms most vociferous detractors on the right, whose sweeping denunciations can make it sound as if theres a liberal regime coercing women into pursuing careers and forcing them to get abortions. Its notable how little liberalisms book-length defenders have to say about sexual and reproductive rights, while conservative critics have long been fixated on them. Gopnik did warn that if the anti-abortion movement truly meant business, it would have to create some sort of invasive pregnancy police force. He didnt foresee that Texas would soon figure out a way to do something even more extreme by putting that power in the hands of civilians a vigilante-enforced ban on abortion, on the cheap.

Theres an old essay by the feminist cultural critic Ellen Willis in which she said that sophisticated liberals seemed so emotionally intimidated by the anti-abortion movement that they didnt quite know how to talk about it: Nearly everyone I know supports legal abortion in principle, but hardly anyone takes the issue seriously. Willis wrote this in 1980, calling the anti-abortion movement the most dangerous political force in the country, one that posed a threat not only to sexual freedom and privacy but also to physical autonomy and civil liberties in general.

Willis pointed to liberalisms weaknesses while also identifying the room it had opened up for liberation. She had gotten her start as a rock critic, a woman in a male-dominated field, ever aware of the possibilities and limitations afforded by the mainstream culture. The late philosopher Charles Mills was similarly attuned to such discrepancies. In books like The Racial Contract and Black Rights/White Wrongs, he offered scathing critiques of a racialized liberalism that kept trying to pretend it was colorblind; Mills argued that liberalisms exclusions were historically so vast that they werent mere anomalies but clearly fundamental to it.

Still, as he told The Nation in early 2021, liberalism is attractive on both principled and strategic grounds. Mills envisioned a liberalism that was tougher and more radical, yet imbued with some necessary humility a sense of how contingent it was. It was precisely the experience of subordination and exclusion that made him alert to what many liberals didnt want to see. He ended an essay for Artforum in 2018 with a warning: As the anti-Enlightenment bears down on us, threatening a new Dark Age, just remember: We told you so (and long ago, too).

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Where Have All the Liberals Gone? - The New York Times

For the past three years, Matt Sienkiewicz, an associate professor of communication and international studies at Boston College, and Nick Marx, an associate professor of film and media studies at Colorado State University, have immersed themselves in the world of conservative comedy. The findings of their inquiry, which they detail in their new book, Thats Not Funny: How the Right Makes Comedy Work for Them, might come as a surprise to devotees of the Daily Show: Conservative humorists arent merely catching up to their liberal counterparts in terms of reach and popularity. Theyve already caught them and, in some cases, surpassed them, even as the liberal mainstream has continued to write conservative comedy off as a contradiction in terms.

[Liberals] are ceding ideological territory in the culture wars to the right via comedy, Marx told me, noting that once-beloved liberal comedians like Stewart are struggling to find their footing in the treacherous landscape of post-Trump humor. This thing that we thought we have owned for the last 20 years has been leaking, and the borders are slowly getting shifted.

The growth of the conservative comedy industry isnt just important in the context of the culture war. According to Sienkiewicz and Marx, conservatives are also using comedy to bring new voters into the conservative coalition and build ideological cohesion among existing right-leaning constituencies. In other words, the lefts unwavering belief in its comedic monopoly isnt just wrong its also bad political strategy.

Our project was to kind of shake fellow liberals and academics by the shirt collar and say, Youre missing this, youre misdefining [comedy] on purpose, or youre burying your head in the sand, Marx said. This is a politically powerful, economically profitable thing that we might [want to] pay attention to.

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

Ian Ward: I suspect that some readers will share my first reaction to a book about conservative comedy, which is, There is conservative comedy? Could you sketch the landscape of conservative comedy and identify some of its major figures?

Matt Sienkiewicz: It took quite a while for the conservative comedy world to find that what we call the big box store, the tentpole, the thing that announced that conservative comedy was part of the American landscape and [Foxs] Greg Gutfeld was ultimately the answer to that. Then [there are] older-school, right-wing comedians, people like Dennis Miller, or Tim Allen. Theyre less overtly political, and theyre more conservative in cultural feel people like Bill Burr, for example, who want to play off a kind of grumpy old man conservativism as part of their comedy.

And then there are newer and sometimes very popular and very powerful offshoots [in] the world of podcasting, which has a very large libertarian zone to it. We compare it to the kind of drunken bar district of the conservative comedy complex: Youve got a character like Joe Rogan, whose own ideology is a little bit murky, but who certainly gives space and voice to very right-leaning and very libertarian-oriented comedians. And [theres] the world of religious or religious-inflected comedy so the Babylon Bee, which started off entirely as a conservative Christian outlet, and we talk about the ways in which Ben Shapiro tries to pull comedy into his politics to differentiate his brand from the old school National Review kind of conservativism. And then we talk about the really ugly stuff [on] the far right. Were talking about people who sort of think Nazi is a good term for themselves.

Ward: When liberals do come across instances of conservative political humor, the most common response is, Thats not funny. That kind of humor isnt eliciting a lot of laughs from liberal audiences. But what are those liberal audiences missing about conservative comedy when they dismiss it offhand?

Nick Marx: This has a couple of aspects to it. Because were scholars, we first noticed a tendency among our brethren over the last 20 years or so to celebrate Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert or Samantha Bee the sort of progressive wing of political satire. [Academics] are getting advancement through their careers by saying, This stuff is good comedy. The other stuff that doesnt align with my political affiliations isnt comedy its something else, its outrage programming. And this is being echoed in popular discourse through articles in major daily newspapers and magazine articles with headlines like, Why dont conservatives like to laugh? or Searching for the conservative Jon Stewart. It was almost a self-fulling [prophecy]: Because there was no proof of a successful right-wing Daily Show, that must mean that 40 percent of the country must not like comedy and must not like to laugh.

The most glaring example of this is the failure of the 2007 Fox News show, The Hour News Hour, which briefly ran toward the end of the [George] W. Bush administration. It was a very clumsy rip-off of The Daily Show. It failed for a whole host of reasons, but scholars as recently as 2020 and 2021 were still citing it as evidence that conservatives cant do comedy. So our project was to kind of shake fellow liberals and academics by the shirt collar and say, Youre missing this, youre misdefining [comedy] on purpose, or youre burying your head in the sand. This is a politically powerful, economically profitable thing that we might [want to] pay attention to.

Ward: Could you give a sense of the scale of the reach of these programs? You mentioned, Greg Gutfeld how big is his audience?

Marx: He landed with his week-nightly show with quite a splash just about a year ago. And as soon as he did, he was routinely beating competitors in the late-night talk show space not only the ones on Comedy Central that youd expect like The Daily Show, but also and sometimes often [Stephen] Colbert, James Corden, Jimmy Fallon. Im looking at the most recent numbers from the fourth quarter of 2021, and at end of the year, he was routinely averaging more than 2 million viewers per day on his show. This is on par and indeed surpassing the broadcast network late-night shows.

Ward: What are liberals signaling about their worldview when they call this sort of established conservative humor not funny?

Sienkiewicz: When you dont like something, and maybe you dont find it personally funny or maybe you do, but you feel bad about that there are different ways to respond. One is to simply say, Thats not funny as a way to dismiss it or a way to castigate yourself for laughing at something that you think is immoral. But more often, [liberals] are saying, You shouldnt find it funny that there is a moral problem or maybe a political problem with finding it funny.

And on the one hand, we can sort of understand that impulse. On the other hand, is that really what funny means? And if theres this whole suite of people who have a different political and moral compass, thats not going to apply at all.

Ward: What impact did Trump have on right-wing comedy?

Marx: It is undeniable that [Trumps] presence as a TV star and as the host of the hit reality TV show conditioned audiences to view him favorably and contributed to name recognition. And perhaps just as obviously, he had stage timing. He was a performer who knew how to work a live crowd. Sometimes that could veer overly into stand-up schtick: He would do crowd work. He would pinpoint journalists in the back and turn the crowd on them. He would joke, he could go off the cuff and go off the teleprompter quite often in his comedic speeches.

But liberals being unwilling to acknowledge conservative comedy because it tends to punch down is something Trump is the sort of exemplar of. Going after a disabled reporter, going after migrants trying to cross into the United States over and over again, he took as his targets and often as his punchline folks who are in positions of social, cultural and economic marginalization. And so we see a lot of that means-spiritedness across much of right-wing comedy. The casual dabbling in racism, the free license to go after folks who would maybe be a little more protected by mainstream centrist and liberal comedy institutions that I think is a tone set most prominently by Trump.

Ward: In many respects, right-wing comedy reflects the ideological diversity of the conservative coalition more broadly. You have free-market libertarians and traditional social conservatives together with paleoconservatives and right-wing, neo-fascist ultra-nationalists. How does conservative comedy help keep this coalition together?

Sienkiewicz: Youll have the podcast of the Babylon Bee, which is this conservative Christian show, and theyll bring on atheist libertarians. And you say, What on earth are they going to agree about? Their worldviews are totally opposed. And mostly it is finding a common enemy. [The target] could be just the liberals, or it could be the Democrats, [or] empowered Democrats. It could be Joe Biden. It could be AOC a very common target. As much as anything, its finding empowered people that they can both attack from their two angles.

Thats how they build their business models. They bring on guests from other parts of the right-wing comedy complex as guests on their shows or sometimes the algorithms do that for them [through] recommendations attach[ing] one to the other and through the chain of comedy, people can find their place in the coalition, regardless of where they enter.

Ward: What does the growth of the right-wing comedy complex indicate about the trajectory of the American right more broadly?

Sienkiewicz: The American right has found a means of adapting to new media environments and new cultural environments. Theyve embraced fully this Breitbartian notion of politics being downstream from culture, and whether or not it has succeeded fully, it shows that that product has been accepted. That is an approach that is going to define the American right: not just culture wars in terms of the old way of blaming rap music, but [in the sense of] making your own assertive culture that aims to flow into your politics over time. Even if its still small in comparison to the cultural influence of more liberal figures, the fact that [right-wing comedy] is growing and that it exists shows that the project can work.

Ward: One of the driving forces of the culture war on the right is the sense that liberals have a monopoly on all of the sites of cultural production: Liberals have Hollywood, liberals have comedy, liberals have the academy, liberals have publishing, liberals have art. And the ironic thing is that in the comedy space, at least, liberals seem to believe that, too even though its not true.

Marx: [Liberals] are ceding ideological territory in the culture wars to the rights via comedy. This thing that we thought we have owned for the last 20 years has been leaking and the borders are slowly getting shifted the more that you get a Gutfeld encroaching into the late-night space or a figure like Rogan who is poaching [viewers]. But theres this tendency [among liberals] to tell ourselves, Thats not comedy.

Ward: Today, youre almost as likely to hear conservatives accuse liberal comedians of being overly preoccupied with speech norms and political correctness as you are to hear liberals accusing conservative humorists of being grouchy and retrograde. Are the tables turning in the sense that liberals comedians are now the ones having to defend themselves against accusations of un-funniness?

Sienkiewicz: Certainly in the discourse and in the way that we talk about it. Whether or not its true is another issue. I think that there is a certain level of censoriousness and risk aversion in liberal spaces. Its not like a Footloose, you-cant-dance kind of banning of expression in some sort of literal religious way. But certainly we need to be aware of self-censorship and risk aversion in liberal spaces in a way that the right used to be very concerned with and seems much less so now.

Ward: Is there a lesson in the rise of conservative comedy for liberal humorists and for liberals more generally?

Marx: The right is very good at overcoming their intramural disagreements on partisan issues to unite behind a common enemy. The left coalition is a lot bigger and more diverse, so there are going to be a lot more sort of disagreements among that coalition. But I think theres a lesson to be learned from the right that comedy can still be a binding agent, that it can be unifying. It neednt be something that we use to draw boundaries among ourselves on the left.

Ward: Wasnt Trump the common enemy for left-wing comedians?

Marx: I think the short answer to that is yes that we spent the majority of our political energy just trying to get rid of Trump. At the level of the culture industries, though the people who make movies, TV shows, comedy I think theres still a good bit of disparity among, say, far-left Chapo Traphouse types as contrasted with the more mainstream Stephen Colbert types, who are willing to have Kamala Harris on as presidential nominee and not give her the business in the way that somebody further on the socialist left might do it. I think various factions of the left would say, The enemy is both Trump and these other leftists that I dont like because theyre fake leftists, theyre corporate leftists. I dont see that same impulse [in right-wing comedy], to say, The enemy is both the libs and this version of right-wing thought that I dont agree with.

The other aspect is that were urging cultural figures [on the left] to take seriously comedys transgressive and exploratory potential, and not to view it as something that is a policing mechanism not to use it to point to something that somebody did wrong, but maybe to something that somebodys doing thats new and exciting and adventurous. I think we both feel like we [on the left] have downplayed that impulse of late in favor of making sure were doing the right things culturally you know, Because the Bad Orange Man was in office, were politically impotent for those four years, so lets make sure we get culture right. So we get The Good Place, and we get all of the correct people on TV making the correct jokes because that makes us feel better. I think we lose a little bit of that edginess that were now seeing so vibrantly, for better or for worse, on the right.

Ward: Is there a political benefit to making left-leaning comedy edgier?

Sienkiewicz: I do think theres a tremendous thirst for edge and for things that are perceived as edgy. And Im not a political scientist, so Ill be a little careful, but I think thats where a lot of the independent, younger, very powerful vote is. And whether or not its true doesnt matter so much as the perception: If it is perceived that you are going to have more fun and be less subject to [scrutiny about] laughing at the correct things on the right than on the left, well, which party do you want to attend if youre not deeply ideological?

Theres a careful line there. There are still ethical implications to truly hateful comments, and Im not defending that. But yes, I think that if theres even the perception of being able to be adventurous and laugh and not get worried about what happens to you because you laugh if that is perceived to be a strength on the right, then its by definition a deficiency on the left. And do I think that could swing elections local and national? I do.

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Liberals Should Be Worried About the Conservative Comedy Scene - POLITICO

The Ontario Liberals and PCs are locked in a war of words over appointments to public roles after a Liberal campaign event called out the Conservative gravy train at Queens Park.

At an announcement Sunday morning, Ontario Liberal candidate Mitzie Hunter said that 40 per cent of 2018 PC candidates that did not win their seats were given patronage appointments by the PC government.

The Liberals said they had identified 16 of the 41 defeated candidates who were given roles in the PC government.

Doug Fords gravy train never stopped it just kept chugging along, Hunter said.

The list of candidates with appointments shared by the Liberals included a range of roles some with salaries worth more than $100,000 and others with per diem payments of less than $200.

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Cameron Montgomery, who ran for the PCs in Orlans, was on the list. He was appointed as chair of the Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) Board of Directors in 2019, a controversial appointment at the time.

Three former candidates held roles within government ministries working for PC ministers, while five held board seats at places like the Ontario Trillium Foundation or the Ontario Science Centre, according to the Ontario Liberals research.

Others received per diem from the government for their roles.

Neither Doug Ford or Steven Del Duca, the two party leaders, have public events scheduled for Sunday.

Governments appoint thousands of people to positions across the province there are a lot of positions that need to be filled by governments, Tim Abray, a PhD candidate and teaching fellow at Queens University told Global News.

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Abray noted that the sixteen positions in question represent a small portion of what a government would typically hire, and while the practice of patronage hires is not desirable, its commonplace in political settings as long as its not abused.

It is extremely normal behaviour for partisan political parties to choose people they know and trust to fill public positions.

Moreover, Abray criticized all the parties for the constant mudslinging and that they should focus on the policies they can bring to the table to enhance Ontarians lives.

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There are much bigger fish to fry in this campaign, and in many ways, I think this going to trivialize the issue and disillusion people further that the people up for election arent paying election to the most salient issues, he said.

The PCs have hit back, saying the Liberals were trying to distract from their failure to recruit a full slate of candidates.

Hunter did not explain how a Liberal government if elected would ensure roles were not given to people loyal to the party. She said the Liberals believe in transparency and governance and the party appointed people from across the political spectrum while in power.

She estimated that two former Liberal candidates had been handed patronage roles.

However, a 2016 press release from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation recirculated by the PCs said that nine per cent of federal and provincial Liberal candidates who failed, retired, or subsequently won an election between 2007 and 2016 were given an appointment.

Hunter made several references to the resignation of Dean French, who served as Doug Fords chief of staff at the beginning of his term as premier. French resigned after it was reported that two appointments to work for the Ontario government as agents in New York and London, U.K., were linked to him.

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Tyler Albrecht, a friend of Frenchs son, was appointed to a posting in New York, while Taylor Shields, a cousin of Frenchs wife, was appointed to a posting in London, U.K.

Mr. French informed the Premier that he will be returning to the private sector after a successful first year of government, as he had always planned, a spokesperson said at the time.

With files from Global News Ahmar Khan

2022 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

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Ontario Liberals accuse PCs of favouring own party in government appointments - Global News

The revelation that the Supreme Court is poised to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision has not motivated left-wing democrats to effectively mobilize on an issue they claim to care about. They are made powerless by their dependence on liberalism and loyalty to people like Barack Obama who undermine them.

By Margaret Kimberley / Black Agenda Report

On May 2, 2022, a memo written by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito was leaked toPolitico.com. Alito made clear that the court with a 6 to 3 conservative majority intends to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision which made abortion legal in the United States.

Reaction to the news was swift and predictable. Liberals expressed outrage and marched on federal courthouses and even to the homes of Supreme Court justices. Barack Obama released a long winded700 word statementdeclaring himself, and his wife, strongly opposed to the courts imminent decision. The statement is amusing because it gives the impression that Obama had nothing to do with the current state of affairs.

As a presidential candidate in 2008 Obamapromisedto sign theFreedom of Choice Act, which would have codified abortion rights into federal law. But once in office he never pushed congress to pass it. In typical Obamaesque fashion he would claim to believe that women had the right to choose abortion, but that he didnt want to demonize the opposition, and he wanted to find consensus on the issue. After his usual routine on the one hand this, but on the other hand that on April 29, 2009 he finallysaidout loud what was clear. The Freedom of Choice Act is not my highest legislative priority. It wasnt even his lowest legislative priority. Obama never lifted a finger to get it passed, even duringhis first two years in office when he had majorities in the House and the Senate.

Knowing full well that Roe v. Wade hinged on having a supportive Supreme Court in place, he dithered on doing what he had the power to do. In 2013 he knew that the democrats might lose control of the senate in the 2014 election. He asked Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, already 80-years old and a cancer patient, to step down. She declined and he didnt press the issue. In 2016 conservative Justice Antonin Scalia died and senate republicans refused to even hold hearings to confirm Obamas nominee Merrick Garland. Obama had the option of making arecess appointmentthat would have put Garland on the court but he didnt do that either. Such a move would have been controversial, and perhaps Garlands presence would have been short, but it would have made clear that democrats were as committed as they claimed to be on the issue of abortion rights.

Instead theyplay gameswith democratic voters. Any unhappiness with the democrats is met with the plea to protect the federal judiciary from conservatives. This ploy is nothing but a cynical effort to keep left leaning democrats in the fold and to discredit anyone who questions the partys continued failures to do what the people want them to do.

Now the liars and hypocrites like House SpeakerNancy Pelosiwho once claimed abortion was a fading issue are sending fundraising appeals to brain washed liberals who will again write checks and declare their devotion like Stockholm Syndrome hostages. Hillary Clintons foolish appeals to conservatives included choosing anti-choice senator Tim Kaine as a running mate and at times saying she was ambivalent about abortion are now forgotten as the supposed left of the party remain lost.

They are lost because they dont know the most basic rules of political mobilizations. Instead of harassing SCOTUS justices at home, they should be harassing their democratic representatives. Why march to a courthouse instead of to the office of democratic member of congress and demand that they make abortion legal? In particular, senators have the ability to end the filibuster which would give the senate the ability to pass a Freedom of Choice Act with their small majority margin. Every democratic senator should be quaking in his or her boots for fear that theyll be turned out of office if they do not act to protect abortion rights.

Of course they know they have nothing to fear. They know their people have been brainwashed into ineffectiveness and are incapable of showing even minimal opposition to their inaction. After all, Joe Biden announced that $40billion is going to Ukraine, or rather to the military industrial complex, with no pushback from people who always claim to be progressives. While MAGA hat wearing right wingers are said to be propagandized, liberals again show themselves to be even more happily captive to their leadership.

Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) members are no more useful than the rest of their colleagues. CongresswomenBarbara Lee and Cory Bushtell stories about the abortions they had as teenagers. The entire CBC weighed in with astatementclaiming concern for marginalized communities and women of color while also bemoaning the actions of the far right. But none of them have offered a strategy for doing what they and the rest of the democratic party have the ability to do, legislate abortion protection.

Personal stories are a poor substitute for action and so are the usual rhetorical fights with conservatives. But rhetoric is all we have as abortion rights will surely disappear across much of the country. Obama admitted the low priority for this and other issues of importance to democratic voters. Joe Biden is no different. As long as what passes for a left wing is in the hands of cynical politicians and deluded liberals, we can expect more of the same.

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Obama and Liberals Killed Abortion Rights - Scheerpost.com

I know he has more spin than a whirling dervish but just how gullible does Scott Morrison think the Australian population is? Several weeks ago, he was telling us Anthony Albanese was pretending to be something that he wasnt. Morrison also told us that, with him, what you see is what you get. Now, days before the election, he tells us that his current bulldozer persona will be shelved and that a new Scott Morrison will emerge after the election, like a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis. John Gray, Belrose

If synchronised eye-rolling and head-shaking existed as an international sport, Australias female voters would be its world champions after hearing a powerful middle-aged man desperately promising to change his rusted-on modus operandi after the election. Sue Dyer, Downer (ACT)

Thanks for your honesty, Scotty. Bulldozers are useful on landfill tips and for knocking down native vegetation. Not much use in parliament. Vann Cremer, Auburn

The prime ministers change of approach seems desperate. He must know his goose is cooked. Unlike his chook. Scott Poynting, Newtown

I wonder which campaign focus group has advised the PM to admit to being a bulldozer politician who will change his tactics and be more conciliatory? Was it the fourth estate, the opinion polls, worried cabinet members or the National Party, the developing cracks in the mirror on the wall or more advice from Jen? Whatever the reason, someone should let him/them know that a born again politician is an Australian furphy. Graham Tooth, Kings Point

Sorry, Mr Morrison. Changing the way you and your government do things isnt related to the times we are in as much as the skin you inhabit. Your tin ear, your bombastic outbursts and your cynical machinations are infamous nationally and on the worlds stage. Cleveland Rose, Dee Why

From bulldozer to feather-duster in one week? Brett Evans, Hunters Hill

Scott Morrison has managed to annoy the electorate in many ways, but one of his most heinous acts must be his deliberate failure to inform the Opposition leader about AUKUS (Labor not told of Bidens bipartisan demand for AUKUS, May 14). He apparently ignored a request by the US that both political parties be informed of the prospective submarine deal. Why did he then ignore this requirement? Bad manners? Spite? Basic lack of integrity? Nola Tucker, Kiama

Peter Hartcher outlines the extreme secrecy around the AUKUS deal. But can someone please explain why secrecy was needed about a deal that was publicly announced a short time later, commits unprecedented amounts of our money and will affect generations of Australians? Isnt that the kind of decision that should be debated in parliament? Alexandra Barratt, Glebe

I thought that we were governed by a parliamentary democracy, and this requires honest communication between parties. There are, and have been, major international implications (ie, with France) for Australia following this decision. All for a gotcha moment in Scott Morrison re-election campaign? Joy Pegler, Picnic Point

It now emerges that Scott Morrison was deceitful over the submarine deal and AUKUS. In my opinion, anyone who is now aware of this latest information and continues to support him is complicit in his abuse of power. Graham Lum, North Rocks

The clear winner in the debate between Marise Payne and Penny Wong was civil discourse (The Coalition is losing the debate on national security and China, May 14). While there were political points of difference, these were papered over by a shared sense of optimism. Missing was the macho type of schoolyard male brawling that delivered all heat but no light. This one debate demonstrated that ideological adversaries can express their views without belittling or shirt-fronting their opponent. Trevor Somerville, Illawong

If anyone doubted the effectiveness of drug law reform they should look to Portugal (Letters, May 14). All drugs were decriminalised in 2000. Drug-induced deaths plummeted, HIV infection dropped and drug use has declined among 15-24 year olds, those most at risk of initiating drug use. If we follow Portugal, our courts and jails will be less crowded and the drug barons will be unemployed. Decriminalisation is worth trying now as nothing else is working. Lindsay Somerville, Lindfield

Your correspondent (Letters, May 14) gives us a telling list of ScoMos misdeeds. I would add his tirade against Christine Holgate under the protection of parliamentary privilege as being the most pertinent indication that he is unsuitable for any management position anywhere. A reflection of the mans character. This outburst alone is reason not to vote for him. Gary Hare, Narrabeen

Fitz and I are normally on opposite ends of the spectrum over issues, but I must praise his outstanding tirade against our morally bereft great white shark. Fitzs Saturday column (Greg, you and your Saudi support are a disgrace, May 14) said it all, but why are other more powerful Australian and indeed world figures not bringing Greg Norman into line over this breakaway golf tour. Phil Johnson, Dee Why

I dont always agree with Peter FitzSimons criticism of Greg Norman, but this time he is absolutely spot-on. How can any sane person think a planned assassination is just a mistake? I think Greg Norman may have been out in the sun just a little too long. Peter Miniutti, Ashbury

The chaos in emergency departments has never been worse in my 50 years as a doctor, but there is silence from the major parties on health (Not enough beds: Eds ambulances in strife, May 14). The sharp end should be on restoring to 50 per cent the Commonwealth contribution to funding of the state-run public hospital system. The ALP is committed to covering 50 per cent of the growth but not to moving the base from below 45 per cent. The Coalition has committed to neither. At 50:50, there will sufficient beds to allow ED to clear and ambulances to get back on the road. It will end the unconscionable inequity between private and public access to timely specialist care, either for essential elective surgery or for out-patient medical consultation for serious, chronic and complex diseases. Chaos and inequity are curable, but it may take the balance-of-power teal independents, two of whom are outstanding mid-career doctors, to write the script. Graeme Stewart, Palm Beach

Your correspondent (Letters, May 14) is predicting the future by extending the trends of the past. We now know that living standards must improve in developing countries and for disadvantaged Australians at the same time as a reduction in net consumption. Scientists and engineers around the world are developing the circular economy which can reverse many previous trends, emissions reduction being at the top of a long list. Any leader suggesting we should revert to where we were before COVID is taking us down the wrong path. David Hind, Neutral Bay

Vote Labor to ensure the Murugappan family can return safely to their home in Biloela. Dont let them down. Judy Copeland, Willoughby

Could Scott Morrisons new-found empathy please extend to immediately releasing the traumatised Murugappan family back to Biloela? Vicky Marquis, Glebe

Richard Glovers musing on literature in the modern era (Banning books is a bloody terrible idea, May 14) was spot-on. The titles he mentioned immediately summoned up those gems from the past. As a retired teacher, I would like to know how the modern cohort can extract the fine details of human interaction from the type of books which seem to be the modern trend. Carolyn Van der Veen, Bonny Hills

Your correspondent (Letters, May 14) wishes for a Scott-free Australia next Sunday. We respectfully ask him to modify his desire ScoMo-free perhaps? The Scotts (Peter & Jean), Killcare

Bravo, Con Vaitsas (Letters, May 14). Seppo Ranki, Glenhaven

The digital viewOnline comment from one of the stories that attracted the most reader feedback yesterday on smh.com.au

Politicians pay has gone up by a third in a decade, but a wage rise in line with inflation is too much?

From djc789: The Liberal Party need a term or two on the opposition benches to come to grips with the reality of an electorate that is in danger of becoming increasingly divided. The major issues that need resolving centre on social equity as Australia drifts towards a nation where the minority rich are getting richer and the rapidly increasing majority of poor are getting poorer. (Shades of the USA?) Drifting further to the right will see the Libs become totally irrelevant.

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Progressive Liberals can step up if they choose to - Sydney Morning Herald