Government by the People

Government by the People

Lincoln’s passion that the populace should have government for the people and by the people resonates throughout Western democracies even if it is expressed in differing terms. However “by the people” is more problematic than it looks.

If we go back to ancient Athens, that fabled birthplace of democracy we begin to see problems. Plato lived through the turbulent days of an oligarchy imposed after the Spartans defeated Athens, then revolution and restoration of democracy. He remained apart from the bloodthirsty oligarchy, who killed off the democratic leaders, even sending death squads after those who fled the country. He saw the injustice of political opponents executed so that their property could be seized. But when democracy was restored he saw that “the people” were scarcely any better.

Plato scornfully noted how easily the demos or people could be swayed by an artful speaker. Particularly one, as he wrote, who promised to “plunder the rich and give to the poor”. However his conclusion, that government should be not “by the people” but by the most able thinkers is exactly what British voters have rejected in their decision to leave the European Union with its burgeoning unelected technocracy.

It is a long time since I studied Plato and Aristotle, but I think it was the latter who made the distinction between “mob rule” and “constitutional democracy”.

If my memory serves me correctly (since Google has let me down!) Aristotle saw the same problem as Plato and said in effect: “If the demos rules unrestrained by law and custom will they not, being in the majority, say 'let us plunder the rich, by God it is just'”. However his solution was to limit what the assembly could vote by overarching rules.

If we look at one element of government: the dispensing of justice this difference is clear. In the Wild West the lynch mob ruled. Then lawmen brought peace and progression to “a fair trial”. Law courts with due process, rules of evidence and the ability of the accused to put their side of the case are are much superior to the lynch mob. Interestingly fair trial was commanded back in the Old Testament, where ideals of justice were repeatedly set out and the danger of lying witnesses and the fickleness of the crowd warned against. However every few generations we seem to have to learn them anew – now we seem to be falling back into the lynch mob mentality with “trial by social media”.

Lord Acton, author of the famous “power corrupts...” quote also said;

“The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority, or rather of that party, not always the majority, that succeeds, by force or fraud, in carrying elections.”

In recent times this has been borne out in Western democracies by the proliferation of regulations ostensibly aimed at protecting minorities which has led to the tyranny by these minorities over the majority – which simply inflicts the claimed injustice on even more people!

The reservations all these thinkers have had about rule “by the people” can, I think, be summed up by saying: “We are all sinners”. We are all capable of being selfish and greedy, so there is a danger that we will elect those who promise us most. We can go with the crowd and the spirit of the age against what is righteous and just.

I think two things are required to make democracy work:

1. Rule of Law. Where there is a constitution, hundreds of years of judicial precedent on what is right and just and an independent judiciary that can curb the excesses even of an elected president

2. Moral Backbone. Where there are enough people of good conscience to save the nation from the particular evils taking flourishing at that time.

Without these, government by the people is only as good as the worst half of the people, and historically, that is not very good.

The West is Streets Ahead of the Rest

The West is Still streets Ahead of the Rest

This is important to remember. We may still be failing to attain not only the lofty but also the attainable ideals of government of the people. We may be in danger of losing even what we have. But we are still so many streets ahead of the rest of the world.

In government for the people, voters are, as I said last post, expressing dissatisfaction with the current situation. In this they have good reason: In too many areas governments are not really acting in the best interests of the population, they are repaying favours to people who helped them to power or responding to lobby groups. In other areas they are remiss in their duty of care for the populace. But compared to others they are still remarkably caring, capable and honest.

To take recent past regimes, the Communists are probably the most horrifying examples. Stalin let 7 million (plus or minus a million or so) peasants starve to death when many could have been saved. Mao presided over a famine mostly due to government policy where 2 or 3 million people who complained about the policies were murdered and some 34 million people starved.

Brutality and government indifference to the suffering of the people on this scale is so awful that our minds don't want to take it in.

On a more homely scale and in our own cultural past has conditions we would not wish to live under. Consider Robin Hood. Look behind the derring-do and there is shocking treatment of the people by the rulers

In the present there are so many contenders. North Korea, Iran, Zimbabwe are only the beginning of a very long list of totalitarian regimes where the ruling elites do not give a fig for the well being or even the lives of the people they govern.

Think of many of the African countries where the people are desperately poor. The West has poured in vast amounts of aid, but most has been siphoned off by the rulers – who live in extravagant luxury and pile up enormous wealth in Swiss bank accounts while the people continue to suffer privation. “government for the people” has never entered the heads of these rulers!

In countries like Zimbabwe this is compounded by terrible government policies. For instance the “redistribution” of farms from the successful agribusinesses owned by whites to political cronies of the ruling party - who as often as not left the land unfarmed and the black workers unemployed, or ran the businesses so inefficiently that they failed, has caused massive suffering across the nation and added to the country's already serious economic woes.

Truly we are so fortunate in the West that generations before us have fought to put good government in place. Understanding this and seeing the abyss into which we could descend should make us determined to strive in our generation, not just to maintain but to improve.

Is Democracy Doomed?

Voters and Politicians

Over the years my wife and I have enjoyed cruising in various parts of the world. Particularly before the Global Financial Crisis, the majority of our fellow passengers were from the U.S. Conversations with them gave us varied glimpses of American life and politics. One theme that frequently recurred was disenchantment with politicians - both Democrats and Republicans. The feeling was that they were all in the pockets of major lobby groups, and were not genuinely interested in the welfare of “ordinary” people.

In Australia we are a cynical bunch and have long thought that too – even when it was demonstrably not true! There was a time when a railway locomotive driver – Benedict Chifley – could and did become Prime Minister of Australia. But we still joked “It doesn't matter who you vote for: a politician always gets elected!”

But recent events have shown this to be far more acutely felt now.

In the 'States the recent campaigns for Democrat and Republican nominees for President have shown extraordinary polarisation.

In the Democratic camp look at the polling by Bernie Sanders. No offence intended, but he is so close to Communist in his policies that his large following in “the land of the free” almost beggars belief. But aside from his economic policies – which have proved disastrous in every nation that has tried them – he had a vision. It would not, could not have worked in practice – but it was a vision. It evoked a utopian longing in (some) ordinary people. My feeling is that his success came because if one did not look too closely behind the smoke and mirrors, he was preaching government “for the people”.

Go back eight years. Barack Obama preached “change you can believe in”. Crown sourcing brought in huge funding for his campaign from ordinary people. Again the dream that a government would care about the general populace. I suspect that history will pass harsh judgement on his presidency, but that is not my interest here. What I am looking at is people's desire for government that does the right thing by the nation, and their feeling of betrayal in this regard.

Donald Trump. The social progressives hate him with such violent passion that I begin to think he must be OK. I read his book, and it says all the right (no pun intended) things. However eight years ago I read Obama's books and thought they were good too! So I had better reserve judgement. But whatever you political leanings you must admit he has been a phenomenon.

Again I suspect this tells us something about the man or woman in the street. Those on the Republican side of politics are also disenchanted with established politics. They too feel betrayed. They too feel political elites are feathering their own nests and in the pockets of wealthy industry groups. They may also be reacting against the failure of the socialist leaning Obama administration by looking for a more outspoken champion.

In the latter regard I am thinking of what Hayek wrote. He maintained that it was the failure of the socialist government in Germany that led to the middle classes feeling disenfranchised and turning to Hitler. He also commented that seemed to be a worldwide pattern that when socialist economic systems failed – as they inevitably did – people turned to a right wing strongman “saviour”. Nothing so dramatic in the US – yet. Nothing so radical. But a little failed swing to the left may be producing a preference for a strong, outspoken leader. As an engineer I know the value of safety valves. Better that it goes off than the boilers explodes! Trump as president may be a safety valve: you may not much like him, but maybe you really don't want the sort of leader people might flock to after another socialist incumbency!

In Australia we have just had an unusual election. The (slightly conservative) government just scraped back in, but both it and the opposition (slightly socialist) party were deserted by voters in favour of little splinter parties further to the right and left.

Naturally newspaper columnists have had theories galore as to why this is so. When you cut out the campaign related ones there is a common complaint. Voter alienation.

The perception among voters that both big political parties are living in their own little dream world rather than looking after the people who have to struggle on in the real world.

It seems to me that voters in both America and Australia (possibly many other Western countries too) have recognised the signs of imminent failure of democracy. Harsh words? Compare what is seen to be happening in our countries with these familiar words:

“… And that government of the people, for the people and by the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Orlando Massacre

Orlando Massacre

In thinking about the Orlando killings, John Donne's famous poem “For Whom the Bell Tolls” is pertinent: Every human death “diminisheth me”.

We may be, we generally are, blind to this insight. Our feelings for others, like the light from a candle do diminish rapidly with distance. The death of one close to us can be a grief to heavy to bear: Whilst news of the deaths of a million foreigners in a distant land barely makes an impact.

That “just is”. We probably could not function if it were otherwise. So am I being unfair to Donne if I suggest that his vision was more of a God's eye view of the world? Certainly he was, at this stage of his life a passionate Christian. I see this as a poem by a man who has glimpsed the heart of God. I don't think I am stretching things to say that he is depicting the feelings, not the human-of-this-world, but of the person who is coming to understand how God feels about things.

That is perhaps a long-winded way of stating my belief that a godly person would view the deaths of the victims in Orlando as an “every manne's death diminisheth me” moment. Having said that, I think what further reaction people displayed may be indicative. About the same time as this shooting, 19 young Yazidi women in Iraq were burned to death in cages for refusing to have sex with ISIS fighters. Clearly a martyrdom for their religious and moral beliefs.

In Woodend where I live both Mosul and Orlando are “over there” although of course culturally we identify closely with the U.S.A. However the news coverage of the fate of the Yzidi women was brief, whilst the coverage, not of the Islamic terrorist angle but the “gay” angle of the other was over the top. Indeed the local Anglican church here (no, I do not attend it!) flew the gay rainbow flag at half mast!

Perhaps I understate our news media's ethnocentricity. The Paris massacre, again by Islamic terrorists did receive huge coverage, and people holding vigils and lighting candles. But that is where it stopped. With Orlando there has been the unique addition of “gay rights”.

I think this says two things about Western social mores.

1. Homosexual culture, once taboo, has gone straight through being permissible to being a sacred cow.

2. It is on the way to becoming a shibboleth to trap and persecute Christians.

The word “shibboleth” may have gone out of currency. It came from one of the Old Testament wars. Soldiers of the defeated side fleeing the wrath of the victors had to cross the Jordan river. The victors held the fords. Both groups had slightly different accents. So the victorious soldiers demanded of any men trying to cross the fords that they say “Shibboleth”. The losers could not pronounce it properly, and were promptly killed.

In old Japan, villagers were routinely made to stamp on a crucifix. Christians would not do so and so were revealed – and killed.

We seem to be moving to a position where Christians will be identified and targeted (we are more civilised now than olden times aren’t we so they won't be killed) by being pushed to say that homosexual practices are not just an acceptable but a superior model of Christian behaviour.

Christians should be free to believe and to say that XYZ behaviours are sins according to the Bible even if they are socially acceptable.

Come to think of it the Bible calls “sins” a very great number of things that are positively endorsed by our society! Think about: drunkenness, indigence, gossip, greed, gluttony, envy, factional intrigues, abuse of power of market position, fornication, adultery, pornography (Jesus slammed even “looking at a woman lustfully”). As well as ones that are illegal such as: political corruption, false weights and measures, dishonest trading, stealing, murder, assault, slander, domestic abuse. And these are only the ones that come to mind as I sit here!

We are all sinners in need of a Saviour. We all have sins that recur like bouts of malaria to plague us. We have all made ungodly choices in the past that have left us scarred and left us in life situations that were not God's plan for us. Recognising things as “sins” is the essential starting point!

BUT and here is the big, big “but”: Fixing our messed up lives takes the wisdom and power of God as well as our commitment and … a very long time! What God chooses to fix first is his call! So for us “judge not lest ye be judged” is good advice.

SO : for Christians, naming any of this multitude of behaviours as “sins” is in no way derogatory of the person: it is more like welcoming them to Narcotics Anonymous …. “we are all substance abusers here, regardless of your drug of choice (“besetting sin” for us).

The Bible labels so many things as “sins” which our society accepts, that the presence of sexual intercourse between persons of the same gender in the list should be unremarkable!

Yet to say that is now to be branded “homophobe” and pilloried. Worse may be around the corner. I think this is developing into a convenient shibboleth to identify genuine Christians and eradicate them.

From Doom & Gloom to Land of Hope & Glory

Doom and Gloom or Land of Hope and Glory

A lot of what I have been saying may look to be “doom and gloom” about the future. On the contrary as a Christian I -with millions of others – am a citizen of heaven, the real “land of Hope and Glory”.

I do want to advertise the seriousness of the threats facing the West. That is the true position

I also want to advertise the sure and certain hope that the God and father of our Lord, Jesus Christ will triumph. This is an important point not only for believers like myself, but also for sceptics. It is important for friend and foe of our Judeo-Christian culture alike. For the former it is a proper source of encouragement and strength – for foes it is not a threat, not a promise, it is just what is going to happen!

The point is that God really is all-powerful. As I wrote in the early posts God has let humans run with their choices – and the consequences. So we do not see him micro-managing the world. However he has – by the sacrificial death and triumphant resurrection of Jesus – done what was necessary to save humans from the eternal consequences. Also while he may not micro-manage, he does care intensely what happens, so he both continually works through people who chose to let him and also steps into history when things are going seriously bad.

The other factor, which I find most profound is this paradox: on one hand he cares about the well-being of people in this world; on the other he treats it as a selection ground for people to live with him in the next.

Jesus said “I am the Good Shepherd … I have come that you may have life; life in all its abundance”. Again wherever he trod as he preached: sickness, demon-possession and even death were rolled back. A powerful demonstration of his character, divine being, and concern for the ordinary people he rubbed shoulders with. Since then there is the continual chain of witness of people who have given him first place in their lives devoting themselves to helping other people, combating suffering and fighting against social evils like slavery, child labour and such like. So we have abundant proof of God's concern for human welfare here and now.

Also those who have let a personal relationship with Jesus blossom, know by repeated experience the sheer abundance of God's kindness, goodness and unearned generosity.

Sadly cults has arisen by preachers misrepresenting God's kindness for their own worldly ends. There have been snake-oil salesmen posing as Christian preachers from the beginning – just read Paul's exasperated outbursts in the latter part of 2 Corinthians! But in our time the “me” generation has generated a raft of distorted gospels encouraging people to “be in it for what they can get out of it”. Miracles? Sure I believe God still does them: to give his imprimatur to the gospel of Jesus, when he chooses that means. Actually from experience I know he sometimes does them just as gratuitous gifts to encourage his children … you might even say just “because he can!” But I also know he does not cure every Christian of every disease. To believe that requires rejecting the truth of ample evidence!

Perhaps we could picture God as a super-wise, super-caring parent. One that provided all good things necessary for the child, but did not spoil them. One who wanted the child develop their individuality, but still disciplined them. One who loved the child to be able go and play, but still made them stay in and do their homework.

The other side of the paradox is this: The New Testament has a major theme running through it saying essentially: “Our sufferings in this world are nothing compared to the glory to be revealed in heaven”. Paul even speaks of the opposition we encounter because of our Christian loyalty and outlook as producing a refined character. He uses the graphic image of it producing in us the dependability under pressure of the veteran soldier compared to the raw recruit.

So we are confronted with this scenario that even when evil seems to be winning, God still manages to work sifting out people. Giving them opportunity to choose Him rather than evil, and refining their character so that they will find it pure joy to meet him in person.

That has been a long winded way of saying this: God has already won the war, but individual battles may be won or lost depending on the people involved.

If those in the West do not chose to fight for the heritage they enjoy now, they may lose it. That would be a bad outcome for millions of people. But God would still find ways to let people chose him.

The Western Roman empire fell and went into the Dark Ages – but eventually emerged to what we see today. The Eastern Roman Empire won the battles at that time ans went on for nearly another thousand years, but then fell and is now Muslim. Who knows that a new empire, a benign one because it is Christian may emerge in China or Africa.

The point is this:

Like it or not God will win whatever happens to the West.

But we have a choice: To fight, under God, to bring our civilisation back from the brink.

For those who chose to fight, now that we have recognised the prospect of doom and gloom, we turn out faces to the land of hope and glory, and in its name consider what we can do.

What Happened to our Morals

What Happened to Our Morals?

There is a line in the film Sabrina where someone says of the multi-milli0naire: “He thinks morals are painted on walls and scruples are Russian currency”

Now this attitude is not just the province of the likes of the men and women who tipped us into the GFC, but have permeated our whole society. Personal morals, and the sort overarching moral scruples that can make company directors, executives, union officials and “ordinary” workers say something like: “This may be clever, it may be legal but it is immoral: I will not do it!” is rarer than diamonds.

A friend recently posted on facebook a speech by someone I had never heard of before: Rabbi Lord Sacks as he was accepting the Templeton Prize. Sachs was, far more eloquently than me, predicting the fall of the West if we did not change. One of the essential changes was to recreate a personal morality. The whole speech is brilliant and can be found on http://www.rabbisacks.org/danger-outsourcing-morality-read-rabbi-sacks-speech-accepting-templeton-prize/

Let me give you some excerpts: (emphases mine)

“... we have forgotten one of the most important lessons to have emerged from the wars of religion in the sixteenth and seventeenth century and the new birth of freedom that followed. Even to say it sounds antiquarian but it is this: A free society is a moral achievement. Without self-restraint, without the capacity to defer the gratification of instinct, and without the habits of heart and deed that we call virtues, we will eventually lose our freedom.

That is what Locke meant when he contrasted liberty, the freedom to do what we ought, with licence, the freedom to do what we want. ... It’s what Washington meant when he said, “Human rights can only be assured among a virtuous people.” And Benjamin Franklin when he said, “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom.” And Jefferson when he said, “A nation as a society forms a moral person, and every member of it is personally responsible for his society.”

At some point the West abandoned this belief. When I went to Cambridge in the late 60s, the philosophy course was then called Moral Sciences, meaning that just like the natural sciences, morality was objective, real, part of the external world. I soon discovered, though, that almost no one believed this anymore. Morality was no more than the expression of emotion, or subjective feeling, or private intuition, or autonomous choice. It was, within limits, whatever I chose it to be. In fact there was nothing left to study but the meaning of words. To me this seemed less like civilisation than the breakdown of a civilisation.”

He then said he finally worked out what had happened in society. Morality had been “outsourced”.

a) Moral choices were outsourced to the market; good was what gave us what we wanted now, bad was what frustrated our desires.

b) The consequences of our moral choices were outsourced to the State.

“As for the consequences of our choices, these were outsourced to the state. Bad choices lead to bad outcomes: failed relationships, neglected children, depressive illness, wasted lives. But the government would deal with it. Forget about marriage as a sacred bond between husband and wife. Forget about the need of children for a loving and secure human environment. Forget about the need for communities to give us support in times of need. Welfare was outsourced to the state.”

c) Internalised “right and wrong” externalised:

“As for conscience, that once played so large a part in the moral life, that could be outsourced to regulatory bodies. So having reduced moral choice to economics, we transferred the consequences of our choices to politics”.

These changes, says Sacks, seemed to work for a while – even a generation or so – but their failure was inevitable, and their failure brought on the following problem (among other problems!):

“When you do, (delegate moral responsibility) you raise expectations that cannot be met. And when, inevitably, they are not met, society becomes freighted with disappointment, anger, fear, resentment and blame. People start to take refuge in magical thinking, which today takes one of four forms: the far right, the far left, religious extremism and aggressive secularism. The far right seeks a return to a golden past that never was. The far left seeks a utopian future that will never be. Religious extremists believe you can bring salvation by terror. Aggressive secularists believe that if you get rid of religion there will be peace. These are all fantasies, and pursuing them will endanger the very foundations of freedom. Yet we have seen, even in mainstream British and American politics, forms of ugliness and irrationality I never thought I would see in my lifetime. We have seen on university campuses in Britain and America the abandonment of academic freedom in the name of the right not to be offended by being confronted by views with which I disagree.”

“We owe it to our children and grandchildren not to throw away what once made the West great, and not for the sake of some idealized past, but for the sake of a demanding and deeply challenging future. If we do simply let it go, if we continue to forget that a free society is a moral achievement that depends on habits of responsibility and restraint, then what will come next – be it Russia, China, ISIS or Iran – will be neither liberal nor democratic, and it will certainly not be free. We need to restate the moral and spiritual dimensions in the language of the twenty-first century, using the media of the twenty-first century, and in ways that are uniting rather than divisive.”

I think this calls us to action! To find out what motivations and attitudes made our societies great: The Bible, the statesmen and moral thinkers whose works have survived the test of time. These are the ideals we need to re-introduce.

Aggressive secularism

Aggressive Secular 'Religion'

Today's post is out of the order I had in mind. This comes about because of two insightful but disturbing opinion articles in yesterday's “Australian” newspaper, which I read.

Both are by self-declared Roman Catholic writers. So they are approaching the problem from that particular perspective. They also then tend to conflate Christian faith with the institution of the church. Given that I differ from them in these respects, they have expressed very well the ideas that have been shaping up in my own mind.

The first is by Greg Sheridan, the paper's foreign editor. For those who would like to read the full article. It is online at: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/greg-sheridan/christian-churches-drifting-too-far-from-the-marketplace-of-ideas/news-story/e641fab1f62b1a63b08cc1ec75634af5

His premise is that a new religion has swept what I have been calling “the West”. Extremely aggressive, intolerant of other viewpoints; it is modern secularism.

In his own words:

“In Western Europe, on the east and west coasts of the US, and in Australia, the new religion of aggressive secularism is on the rise, more self-confident and fundamentalist than ever.

Widespread, prolonged affluence has been more effective than oppression ever was in killing religious belief and practice. To take one figure almost at random, in 1954, 74 per cent of Australian Cath­olics attended mass each Sunday. Today the figure is substantially less than 10 per cent.
The churches cannot recognise and come to grips with their strategic circumstances. They behave as though they still represent a living social consensus.
They remind me of South Vietnam’s government in 1974. It over-estimated its strength and tried to hang on to all of its territory, including the long narrow neck of its north. It did not retreat to its formidable heartland in the south, which would have been vastly more defensible. Had it done so, it might have survived. Instead, the next year, the armoured divisions of North Vietnam invaded and Saigon lost everything.
Across the past 120 years, the Christian churches in Europe and Australia have lost every significant, long-term battle about social norms and legal measures to underpin them.
Consider just a few: birth control, no-fault divorce, abortion, Sunday trading, blasphemy, film and television standards, same-sex adoption and soon same-sex marriage, and no doubt euthanasia and much else. On some of these issues it was right that the churches lost. In these 120 years no victory was ever more than a temporary slowdown in secularism. While there seemed to be many tactical wins, the war was lost. In each case, the church misunderstood the extent and nature of its support and the long-term threat it faced.”

And pointing out that the secular religion was not going to tolerate competition from Christianity :

“The real danger now is the increasingly frequent direct attacks on religious freedoms. The Greens have called for an end to the exemption for religious bodies from the operation of anti-discrimination laws. This is a direct assault on religious freedom and indeed freedom of association. Christian schools would not be able to insist on hiring Christian teachers.
Yet no one imposes such restrictions on other bodies, such as political parties. Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews [a semi-socialist] is not required to offer equality of employment opportunities to Liberal Party [conservative] members when he hires a press secretary.
The aggressive secularism of public culture has become increasingly a state religion in itself and will use the coercive powers of the state to enforce its new orthodoxy. Thus Tasmania’s Anti-Discrimination Commissioner was willing to hear a complaint against the Catholic Archbishop of Hobart for circulating a pamphlet of the Australian bishops entitled Don’t Mess with Marriage.
People should read this document. You could not imagine a more temperate, mild and respectful stating of the traditional Catholic view of marriage as being between a man and a woman. It stresses the inalienable dignity and respect with which every human being should be treated and opposes any discrimination against gay people. But in its view marriage is between a man and a woman.
The complaint was eventually withdrawn. But the fact it was entertained at all is a sure sign of the future. The process itself is the punishment. The process is designed to intimidate. Soon, apparently, it will be positively illegal for Christian churches to publish their traditional teachings.
The intolerance of Australia’s secular religion, which adds to legal harassment the effective tactic of ridicule and endless public abuse, is evident.”

On the same page appeared an article by Angela Shanahan, who in her regular contributions describes and shows herself a devout Catholic.

Her article concerns the innocently named “Safe Schools” program, which is about to be made compulsory in all schools by the State government. And that the concern is not that Roz Ward who led its development is a Marxist, but the damage it will do. It pretends to be be anti bullying but is transparently aimed at sexualising children from a young age and at that biasing them against heterosexuality. Objections by parents and churches have been summarily dismissed as “bigoted”. The point of crossover with Sheridan's article is where she details the targeting for destruction of the social institution of the family by what is in Sheridan's words the new secular religion.

“The issue was the damage that could be done by an extreme philosophy of gender fluidity and sexual libertarianism now embedded in the school curriculum. However, that Ward is a self-confessed Marxist is no great surprise. After all, where did all those Trotskyist activists at university in the 1970s go? They went into the environmental movement, the extreme feminist movement, and the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex lobby groups. They undermined the old Labor movement with its roots in the working-class family and formed a new set of green-left alliances to push their barrows. Within that ­alliance they can keep on deconstructing, breaking down social pillars.
And the strongest social pillar is, ironically, the family, the same conservative family from which the Labor movement originally sprang. The natural family is the No 1 enemy of every extreme ideology. Even today in Marxist societies the family plays second fiddle to the state. The state instructs and controls the family, not the other way around.”
“The queer gender theory that much of the Safe Schools program is based on is about breaking down the heteronormative view of the world and the natural binary view of sex. It is destructive of the natural family.”
find the article on: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/angela-shanahan/roz-wards-safe-schools-role-should-have-raised-red-flags/news-story/49eb3bf06d7810b40f77821e6e88d395
Linking back to the ideas I have taken from Hayek that morals are evolutionary in the sense that societies with ones that allow the necessary cooperation and coexistence of humans to function better eventually dominate; I would add social institutions to the list. For a start, the Family. Also though maybe down the list a bit, churches. Once you start knocking down the pillars that support our modern extended and complex society what do you think will happen?