It is very difficult being a conservative person. It does not mean that I am a right wing person. It means that I am of the centre. To be right-wing actually means to be to the right of left of centre. Right wingers, such as former Prime Minister Paul Keating belong to the right wing of the ALP. The ALP itself is on the Left of politics. This creates an interesting issue that some people have failed to address when they make certain accusations about people who express conservative views. They are the ones who actually fail to understand what is meant by Right and Left.
Conservative people can in fact be members of opposing political parties such as the ALP and the Liberal Party in Australia. There are people such as Malcolm Turnbull of the Liberal Party who should in fact be a member of either the Green Party or the ALP because of the position that he takes on various issues. There are people who vote for the ALP who are conservative by nature. At the same time there are people who are conservative who vote for the Liberal Party. What they have in common are things like their views on marriage and abortion on demand – these are just two issues where there is some commonality of opinion.
The confusion that is created about Right and Left is due to members of the Socialist and Communist Parties making false claims about the politics of the 1930s. One example of the confusion is what people are taught about the right wing Bob Santamaria who initiated the Democratic Labor Party here in Australia. The good little Greenies love to make slurs about Santamaria mixing him up with people who are members of the Liberal Party. Such people are wrong because Bob Santamaria was a member of the ALP until the split within that party in the 1950s. This split was caused by the Communists that had taken over the ALP. As a result of that split the DLP was formed and it remained a minor player until the 1970s when it finally disappeared. For this reason, the views of Santamaria regarding such things as the Spanish Civil war have nothing at all to do with the views of conservative people or the Liberal Party for that matter.
To be more specific here, the Spanish Civil War was a fight between the Communists and the Fascists who were trying to take over in Spain. Eventually it was the Fascists who won and took power until General Franco passed away. After Franco died the Spanish royalty was returned to power. With regard to Hitler and Stalin, they were friends before they were enemies and they had much in common where their views were concerned. Hitler was of the Fascist point of view, whilst Stalin had a different idea about State control… either way, both believed that the State should control the lives of everyone. Socialism has always appealed to the Europeans and that is why in Europe the fight between Right and Left continues even though both sides believe in the same thing. France for example has a Left wing President at this moment, and he took over from Sarkozy who had belonged to the Right wing… but Sarkozy was in fact the Right wing of Socialism. He was not someone who believes in free enterprise. It is pretty much the same in every European country where Socialism and the Welfare State remain the priority. The Welfare State is not something that is necessarily advocated by conservative people.
At the same time, it seems that the Media has been feeding us with a wrong idea about Islam and what is termed fundamentalism. It should be noted here that any form of Fundamentalism is not necessarily equated with being conservative. Fundamentalism is in fact an extreme version of an ideology or theology. In the case of Islam fundamentalism has led to the rise of people taking the Koran literally, and then acting upon that literal interpretation. This is the issue with the hate preachers, especially those who are pushing for the return of the Caliphate. The views of the Islamic State for example have a lot in common with the views of the Nazis during the 1930s. Their enemy is the Jews and anyone who stands in the way of them achieving their goals.
