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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 22, 2023

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The Australian public service at a line level is populated by those leaning left in their politics. There are exceptions, such as in Defence and Homeland Affairs etc, however basically the APS is a hiring ground for left wingers. As I have said before, it is essentially middle class welfare in disguise.

It is not difficult for those in the 100-120 IQ range to profess their impartiality, particularly when given cover by their colleagues and their institution.

I mean, that's true, but I have two comments:

  • Even if the APS is left-leaning, which it is, there is a commitment to impartiality that is clearly being eroded when events like above are allowed to pass, something that didn't happen before.

  • The APS is become decidedly MORE left wing and woke than it has ever been. This is mostly a flow on effect from the universities and academia. Most non-clerical or mid-high level APS employees are university educated, so as the academy becomes more left wing and woke, so does the APS, and all other instutions which take university/college grads (which turns out to be basically everything). Which is why I maintain the root issue is the academy and the key way to fix this issue is to target them.

Not wrong, but this could have been said, with equal truth at any time in the last 100 years.

Most of those civil servants are pretty ordinary centre-lefties. It is exceptional, and disturbing that an extremist is not only at high level but is so bold about it.