I'll fight them while jogging on beaches..I'll never surrender...etc.

Apparently John Howard is the new leader of the West.
He is our own Winston Churchill.
I suppose all he needs now is to wack a cigar in his mouth and he's GOIN OFF!!

The infatuation from conservative commentators for John Howard in Europe and the U.S is at a fever pitch.
Conservative blogs such as Michelle Malkin and Jawa report go over the top about Australia being the place they want to be. I suppose it gives more impetus to the Victorian motto on license plates "The place to be".

What do I think?

I'm glad you asked...not!

A great many school teachers in my day were self confessed Communists. Their idealism fascinated me and their passion for a brave new compassionate socialist world, was almost compelling. The only problem was this Utopia could not be argued against and any attempt to argue on the converse was roundly put down. ( Please remember that the works of Joe Stalin were compulsory reading for any serious Marxist).
I had to suffer lectures about how good life was in the Soviet Union compered to the oppression of 70's and 80's Victoria. Of course I was seen as a right wing extremist for actually knowing the truth about the Soviet Union.

I am not a right-wing extremist.
Right-wingers see me as dangerously leftist.
Socialist Alliance types see me as a neo-con devil.
I'm quite happy being on the fence in this situation.

But I do not tolerate Historical stupidity and Australias education system is very much Hamstrung by the bullshit of Socialist Idealism. The greatest victim of this, believe it or not, is the Australian Labor Party.
By becoming a pack of socialist doctrine drones, the Labor party has dis-enfranchised the bulk of would be participants in the labor movement.
The same goes for the Greens, who only survive from left leaning Labor Party rejects.

Howard, of course, cannot lose by attacking the Education system that created doctrine based socialists. For me it is almost the same as comparing Established or Organized religion to independent religious belief.

Reading the philosophy of someone like Jesus or Buddha, and digesting the philosophy as an individual is a wise thing to consider.
But I totally reject their philosophy when coming from the mouths' of those employed by organised religion.

The same goes for Karl Marx. I suggest it as interesting reading to get ideas. But as a doctrine for the extension of group power, it must be totally rejected.

John Howard should not be held up as the leader of the free world. And the secret to his success is that he would reject these assertions. Love him or hate him, he does not live with the same level as doctrine as his opponents, and Australians generally reject any type of doctrine.