Liberal?

We've had more than 10 years of government by a Liberal-National Party coalition.
10 years of John Howard.
10 years of ruthless ideological war by a gang of conservatives who are hell bent on extinguishing any shred of evidence that we ever had so-called social democratic government under Labor.
It's been a nasty, mean-spirited time.
The political discourse has changed dramatically and self-interest rules even more obviously than before.
Any sense of corporate responsibility - not to say compassion - for the wrongs done to Aboriginal Australians in our short history has been written off as a 'Black armband' or bleeding heart view of our country.
Contemporary Aboriginal life throughout the nation is now overseen by a gang of zealots in the Office of Indigenous Policy Coordination under Mal the boofhead, instead of by a flawed attempt at Aboriginal self-determination.
The tax system has been largely replaced by a Goods and Services Tax regime and the rich are getting richer.
Any sense of international obligation towards refugees was thrown overboard when the first razor-wire detention camps for 'illegal immigrants'.
Any sense of common decency and politeness in the public discourse is scorned as 'political correctness'; but it is now politically correct to be a rude bastard and be indifferent to the effects of your actions on other people.
Any sense of industrial justice went by the board when Howard's toadies sidelined the concept of collective bargaining and replaced it with a system of individual contracts that needs to be propped up by a new and expanded array of agencies to replace the one-stop shop at the old Conciliation and Arbitration Commission.
Media ownership is just about to be thrown open to the robber barons; telecommunications is about to go entirely into private ownership, with none of the service guarantees for remote and regional Australia that public ownership demanded.
And the coalition is still looking for 'socialist' shibboleths to demolish and bogey men to demonise.
Now they've turned their attention on State and Territory governments, all of which are under majority Labor administration.
Latest target is education, traditionally a State preserve although it's heavily funded by the Commonwealth.
Successive Federal Education Ministers have had a go at standards of literacy and numeracy, but they were just the opening salvoes in the campaign.
The incumbent is making heavy noises about taking over curriculum from the States and territories because they look as if they've been designed by Maoist ideologues and they're teaching values and interpretations instead of 'facts'. History as a school subject, of course, is under the gun.
Yes, the accusations are loopy.
But the real worry is their increasing tendency to attempt to micro-manage every aspect of our lives and every detail of the policy landscape.
And the fact that they are so terribly fucking self-righteous in their assumptions.
But so much for small government.
I guess this campaign of vilification says a lot about the moral and intellectual status of the coalition.
If they're still governed by fear and loathing of Labor, then they're on the shakiest ground just when they seem to be at their most powerful.
Or is that too Zen for you?