John Singleton with Bob HowardRip Van Australia (Stanmore: Cassell Australia, 1977), pp. 49-50, under the heading “Conservatism”.

A thumbnail sketch of a conservative would show a person who believed in democracy, freedom, corporate capitalism, God, the family, an effective defence force, Rotary, Lions, Apex, and the Young Liberals.

He/she would be nationalistic, very anti-Communist, and completely intolerant of other people’s sexual permissiveness, of drug-taking, gambling, homosexuality and prostitution. He/she would believe strongly in Law and Order. Particularly Order. And as he/she got older he/she would become more authoritarian.

Conservatives should never be confused with Libertarians; and vice versa. Libertarians believe in freedom, suffer democracy, and believe in real free enterprise.

There isn’t much similarity between libertarians and conservatives and yet, too many still confuse the two. Probably the worst offenders are the conservatives themselves, who like to think of themselves as libertarians. Ronald Reagan for example, is fond of referring to himself as a libertarian. Malcolm Fraser has expressed his fondness for Ayn Rand. Ayn Rand has expressed her fondness of Malcolm Fraser. Obviously neither knows what the other is talking about.

Conservatives regularly find themselves defending either the status quo or “The good old days”. They tend to be opposed to social change, but are very much in favour of technological change. They make up a large portion of the Right-wing, control-in-social-affairs and freedom-in-economic-affairs (for some), section of people. We believe they are rational-dominated and hence more emotionally repressed than their Left counterparts. Hence the importance of Law and Order (controlled freedom), the opposition of promiscuity, permissiveness, gambling and so on and the tendency to authoritarianism (always referring to “them”, not “us”).

If you look through the characteristics of a conservative then you’ll see that on almost every count, they are (1) a minority and (2) completely out of step with the whole  momentum of human development. Conservatism is quickly heading for extinction taking most business along with it. And “most” is being conservative.