Australia : Many young conservatives no longer feel safe on campuses

[Feral Camel]

I'm confused, it keeps saying liberal club and liberal party but then the Title says conservatives? Are liberal and conservative the same thing down under? They are pretty much direct opposite ideologies in the states.

Our Liberal party in our conservative party. The typically follow the ideas Neo liberalism (privatisation, deregulation, free trade).

Its pretty confusing to outsiders.

[Sneezeburger]

Our Liberal party in our conservative party. The typically follow the ideas Neo liberalism (privatisation, deregulation, free trade).

Its pretty confusing to outsiders.

It's actually not that confusing to anyone who paid attention in civics class or is even vaguely familiar with international affairs. I don't mean to sound like a twat, but it's true.

[Mormolyce]

Incidentally Australians tend not to use the term "liberal" to describe political affiliation, but "left vs right" or "Labour (left) vs Liberal (right)". Although I've noticed it's becoming more common due to American cultural influences.

I'm unaware of a single riot of Conservatives in my lifetime (born 1974). If you are aware of one, I would like to know of it.

No they just stage armed invasions of bird sanctuaries.

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Our Liberal party in our conservative party. The typically follow the ideas Neo liberalism (privatisation, deregulation, free trade).

Its pretty confusing to outsiders.

To be fair, "Republican" should be left wing too.

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Are Australian conservatives and liberals similar to the U.S. kind? Or is that just assumed by many here based on the replies?

Liberal Party - right wing conservatives.
Labour Party - left wing "liberals". Small "l".
Greens - same as the US

Generally speaking Australia has the same left/right divide as the US though society as a whole isn't so far right and our lunatic fringe is much tamer (consists of like 5 guys who post on this forum I think). Some issues in the US are essentially non-issues here, our most conservative government in living memory passed very strict gun control and few Australians objected, for example. Also Australia is considerably less religious.

Oh and P.S. - over here a "republican" is someone who is (typically) extremely left wing. Because we still technically have the Queen of England as the head of state and a pretty small group of people want to change that and become a strict republic. It doesn't seem very popular.

[kmcain32]

Conservatives no longer feel safe!? isn't it the other way around!

[Unhinged]

Are Australian conservatives and liberals similar to the U.S. kind? Or is that just assumed by many here based on the replies?

Americans would probably think our conservatives are still too left wing.

[Setheria]

Americans would probably think our conservatives are still too left wing.

No doubt.

This whole thing is pretty hysterical. I worked at the University in question for a few year (around 4 years ago) and I can't say I'm surprised.

Universities (in general) in Australia, are more left of centre than society as a whole. What this tends to mean is that anyone who joins a conservative student group are more noticeably conservative or even reactionary than the liberal party itself.

I saw many many occasions where people calling themselves 'liberals' did things that would really only fall under the umbrella of the extreme right. Racist stuff, Nazi stuff, sexist stuff. It was all part of the wonderful melting pot of the right.

Every now and then, it comes up in the media when one of them has gone on to feature in say a pre-selection for the liberal party proper and someone digs it up.

I'll add that the labor party had it own share of problems on campus that my work involved, but not to the same degree. I think the lack of a group to the right of the liberals meant they cast a wide net in membership. The same could not be said of the campus left which went from young labor all the way to trotskyists, maoists, etc.

[Deleted]

Where are these fascists in day to day life, outside of the handful of protests they've shown up to shit up?

Could say the same thing about all the "right wing lunatics" you people keep shouting about.
Have never met one in my life except for all the news sites that keep saying we are all right wing lunatics.

[Puupi]

Liberals and liberal parties are quite exclusively centre-right parties/persons all over the world.

Except for some reason US decides to be the complete opposite on this compared to everyone else - there's something in the water there that makes you do everything backwards.

[Noradin]

Please. Hit up google and do a search. This was already a thing on campus when my old ass went to school, and from the sounds of it, it's only gotten worse.

So your echo chamber agrees with you?
Why do you assume that if we entered anything in google it would give us the same results you got?

[Adolecent]

Something tells me you wouldn't agree when certain sexes or other 'minority' groups were in the same situation.

Maybe the handicapped next? You should read up on eugenics, sounds right up your alley.

No. I'm trying to point out the hypocrisy among conservatives that they somehow think they have rights that they don't give to others.

But i'm glad to see also conservatives want to protect minorities, i'll use that the next time conservatives disgard others again snowflake.

[Deleted]

Liberals and liberal parties are quite exclusively centre-right parties/persons all over the world.

It depends and I wouldn't subscribe to that blanket statement. The primary Liberal party in Austria, for example, is right-leaning on economic (towards neoliberalism) but quite left-leaning on social issues (even inline with the Green Party when it comes to a lot of things). Overall, I'd say they are more towards the left, though.
The Christian Democrats on the other hand are liberal on economic but conservative on social issues, indeed putting them more at the centre-right.

[Deleted]

Liberals and liberal parties are quite exclusively centre-right parties/persons all over the world.

Except for some reason US decides to be the complete opposite on this compared to everyone else - there's something in the water there that makes you do everything backwards.

The US doesn't quite use the same "left-right"-spectrum the rest of the world is using. What they call left wing is probably center-right in Europe. :P

[Deleted]

I hope the conservative people will gather and unite with alt-right. Two big groups clashing would be much more interesting than this kind of boring discrimination.

[Puupi]

The US doesn't quite use the same "left-right"-spectrum the rest of the world is using. What they call left wing is probably center-right in Europe. :P

The US are a weird bunch. Especially the conservatives. They hate liberals and consider them "un-American". They love the constitution. Here is the first sentence from wikipedia on the description of liberalism: "Liberalism is a political philosophy or worldview founded on ideas of liberty and equality.^[1][2][3] Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally they support ideas and programmes such as freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, free markets, civil rights, democratic societies, secular governments, gender equality, and international cooperation."

​What does that sound like? Oh yeah, the god damn US constitution.

[Adolecent]

I hope the conservative people will gather and unite with alt-right. Two big groups clashing would be much more interesting than this kind of boring discrimination.

"Right" = peace

[Deletedaccount1]

Gee I wonder why

[tankbug]

Remember guys

It is OK to have a women's only group
It is OK to have a Hispanics only group
It is OK to have a lesbians only group

It is NOT OK to have a white conservative group because rest assured you will be deemed a racist and will be targeted.

People like that groups that have been oppressed by society stand up and fight for their rights, because it seems justified.
People don't like groups representing the most powerful in society trying to oppress the rest.
So, they have the right to have a group like that, but they can't expect it to be popular.

[skitzin]

I'm confused, it keeps saying liberal club and liberal party but then the Title says conservatives? Are liberal and conservative the same thing down under? They are pretty much direct opposite ideologies in the states.

Liberal here in Australia is not referring to leftist ideology. ‘Liberal’ in Australia typically refers primarily to economic liberalism - which advocates the personal freedom of the individual, and therefore that private actors should be able to interact in open economic competition without governmental sanctions.

It's actually not that confusing to anyone who paid attention in civics class or is even vaguely familiar with international affairs. I don't mean to sound like a twat, but it's true.

"Economic liberalism" is not a fancy made up term though.

It is a part of the economic spectrum. The issue is that people have blended economic and political classifications together which makes it hard for people to tell the terms apart. So when someone says liberal these days they automatically think in political lines and think left ideaology. They seldom consider that "liberalism" has an economic meaning too.

Liberal Party - right wing conservatives.
Labour Party - left wing "liberals". Small "l".
Greens - same as the US

Generally speaking Australia has the same left/right divide as the US though society as a whole isn't so far right and our lunatic fringe is much tamer (consists of like 5 guys who post on this forum I think). Some issues in the US are essentially non-issues here, our most conservative government in living memory passed very strict gun control and few Australians objected, for example. Also Australia is considerably less religious.

It's more like LNP is center-right and the ALP is more center-left.
The Greens are a left wing party and Pauline Hansons's Crew is right wing.

The distincition is important to make though since both the ALP and LNP cross the political spectrum on different issues and neither is truly that far off the centre of the political spectrum.

Gee I wonder why

Ah yes, Curtin University. The very university that I went to for both my degrees.

I will say that this wasn't that common but when it did happen it was almost always somehow connected to "Left Action". But to be fair we had our fair share of trolls at Curtin. People who would wind these people up and watch it all burn.

[Jakexe]

Gee I wonder why

What exactly does that have to do with a conservative group of men not allowing women, who are also members of the same conservative group, to come to a party meeting because it would make the men uncomfortable.

Or is this just a 'clever' attempt to smear a group of people you disagree with while making yourself look like a fool?

[Anon56]

As true conservatives they should appreciate Spencer's/Darwin's "survival of the fittest"

Survival of the fittest is not that. It's to punch a degenerate tranny or people that think there are more than 2 genders in the face until they cannot move and reproduce anymore, but that's illegal nowadays.