Mark Richardson is a bit unique in the Australian blogsophere. One, he is a genuine conservative rather than a partisan conservative; two, he recognizes that left-right is meaningless since the collapse of marxism and that the new rival to liberalism is conservatism; and three, he is one of the few writers that is willing to engage the liberal blogs which includes progressives, liberals, republicans and libertarians, and question the basis of their political philosophy. This makes him much more interesting than the 'red meat' chucking that most blogs seem to do these days.

Mark asked recently:

How do rank and file liberals explain their beliefs? Last month I wrote two articles which eventually drew out some serious comments by Larvatus Prodeo readers.

What most seemed to stir the LPers was my argument that liberals don't want such things as religious, ethnic, gender, national, class or cultural identity to matter.

There are a couple of things I like about that question. One he called LPers liberals rather than lefties or luvvies or whatever the current Australian slur/hip name is.

This is an important distinction in modern politics. The traditional left and right have collapsed. The tension in political philosophy that now informs governance is liberalism and conservatism.

LPers are definitely in the liberal column and should embrace that argument within liberalism by branding themselves as progressives. I have called Polemica's brand of politics, in particular Guy's view of governance and the state as progressivism. I believe I am absolutely correct in this characterisation.

The second reason I like this question is because it is a bloody good one that goes right to the heart of the difference between liberalism and conservatism. This is a core question of political equality and does the state have the authority to discriminate politically and legally. Does identity, ethnicity, religiosity, nationalism and other higher-order collectivisms have any authority on the form and conduct of governance?

For the republican the answer is no. I have made this argument in the past in two forms. One that the liberal republican view of government is that the individual is politically dominant over the state. Whereas conservatism sees the state as being dominant over the individual, enabling the state to act discriminatingly in the name of identity, ethnicity etc.

A republican rejects this as political inequality. This is best expressed in Avocadia's Australian Bill of Rights where he explicitly denies the government these choices.

Does this mean identity, ethnicity, etc don't matter? No. It is fine that people see common cause in this manner, but it is a second order effect - an emergent one - not an intrinsic component; consequently it is denied to government and cannot inform governance. I went into this issue in detail describing social organisation. These are the social and cultural forms of individual self-organisation; not the basis of governance.

A good example in Australian history is ethnic-nationalism informing governance. One of the beliefs of ethnic government was that the Aboriginal race was dying out and that half-caste Aboriginals should be integrated into white society. This was done forcibly, originally in Western Australia, but by the 1930s all states and the federal government had government policies to remove half-caste Aboriginal children from their parents. This is nothing more than tyranny. Under republican governance the government is prohibited from removing children from their parents based on race, ethnicity etc.

Again, there is nothing wrong with ethnic expression, as long as it remains a societal and cultural artefact, an emergent property of individuals interacting, rather than an intrinsic political form that informs governance. In the latter case, once these forms of governance leak in, they inevitably lead to despotic policies and in the worst cases executive emergency governance where the state dominates an individual absolutely .

cam

More Reading on Liberalism

• Liberalism
• Conservatism
• Republicanism
• Intrinsic
• Emergent
• Mark Richardson
• Liberalism, Civic Nationalism and Republicanism
• Liberalism's Cadaver
• The Discrete Political Entity
• Senator Fifield's speech on Bruce Smith and Liberalism
• Deconstructing the 'isms
• Republicanism and Hostility
• Is Classical Marxism Compatible with Liberalism and Republicanism?
• Ley Habilitante - Venzuelan State of Exception
• Albrechtson Arguing for a Permanent State of Exception
• Conservative Collectivism and Liberal Republicanism