Ralph Babet (Victoria, United Australia Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The far left like to imagine that they are on a moral crusade fighting all of the ills of the world, but in reality they are experiencing a crisis of self-worth while using protest signs as props. From climate catastrophists predicting doom every decade or so and LGBTQIAQS+—just keep on adding letters—activists policing pronouns with the intensity of an air traffic controller to socialists who have never even run a lemonade stand, these movements look different, but I will argue that they share a common emotional core: grievance dressed up as virtue.

Consider the hypersensitivity to language. They claim that words must be changed so as to not offend various minorities and that entire dictionaries must be reissued annually lest someone feel a tremor of discomfort. Yet, curiously, the people most outraged by words are typically well-educated upper-middle-class Westerners who claim to be bravely defending minorities, rather than the minorities themselves. There are far more Western leftists rebranding Australia Day as Invasion Day than there are Aboriginal people in Alice Springs truly upset about the issue.

Then there's the far left's fixation on weakness. Progressive activism tends to orbit around groups defined primarily by vulnerability, and I argue that this is not accidental. Identification with the oppressed offers instant moral elevation. You don't have to build anything; you just align yourself with perceived fragility and, by association, inherent righteousness. This is the easiest way of compensating for their own perceived weakness. So-called progressives hate displays of strength, merit and competition, which are viewed with deep suspicion. They love the collective because the group enables them to hide from inconveniences like personal responsibility, and they ultimately come to hate truth itself. The problem with truth is that it ultimately creates a bar of measurement, and that is uncomfortable for people who never want their ideas to be tested or their worldview to be evaluated. If outcomes differ, the system's broken. If facts contradict ideology, the facts are just problematic.

At the bottom of all of this is envy. This movement is empowered by not confidence but resentment. It's resentment of strength, success and standards. When a socialist sees somebody doing well in business and succeeding in life, instead of praising and emulating the actions of that person they yell, 'Tax the rich,' and try to tear them down. When they see a mother staying home and raising her children, doing the school drop-offs and building a family, they just call it oppression instead of recognising it as one of the most meaningful and valuable roles a woman can have. When a socialist government sees an individual working hard and doing well in life, it does not say 'good for them' and it does not ask, 'How can I make this person's life easier?' It asks instead: 'How can we milk this person? How can we make their life harder?'

The far left cannot tolerate success, because success exposes failure. It cannot tolerate strength, because strength exposes weakness. It cannot tolerate truth, because truth exposes ideology. So, instead of improving themselves, they tend to rewrite reality. But reality does not bend to slogans and certainly doesn't care about your many silly pronouns. In the end, their movement doesn't elevate society; it doesn't bring it up. It simply drags it down to the level of their own resentment, and resentment has never once built a civilisation. It only seeks to tear it down.