It is not the jaw-dropping murder rate or endemic corruption which marks every aspect of public life and office in the South America nation, for they are but symptoms of the greater affliction: decade upon decade of left-wing government. Reformer Jair Bolsonaro aims to change that

It is past time to bluntly confront leftist thought at every opportunity. Did being polite save Brett Kavanaugh from slanders that will adhere for the rest of his days? Reserve and good manners are the conservative way, but they are of no use when the enemy's motto is 'by any means necessary'

Victims of crime live with the consequences of those attacks long after perpetrators have done their time and been released, more often than not to re-offend. Taxpayers also suffer, as the public purse must cover the steep cost of incarceration. Why not oblige offenders to make whole all those they harm?

The PM has finally said what so many before him should have said: the IPCC's catastropharian jamborees are 'nonsense' underserving of any more taxpayers' dollars. Terrific! Now all Mr Morrison has to do is find the spine to actually walk away from the computer-modelled ratbaggery of Paris

The US Senate finally confirms Brett Kavanaugh, who has endured months of character assassination driven by a vile campaign of lies and distortions. Let his ordeal be a lesson to all who hope for even a mere modicum of decency from the modern Left: they don't have a shred of it

Only a lengthy and voluminously footnoted book could paint the full picture the judge's ordeal on his way to the US Supreme Court. Nevertheless, what Roger Kimball, John Hinderaker and others have had to say sheds a grimly unflattering light on the tactics and motivations of his accusers

To reflect the world as it is, let's put the ratio of women who pursue careers with the uninterrupted vigour that mostly characterises men at, say, four to one. To insist, therefore, on equal representation at each level of management amounts to a demand that women be not equal but privileged

It has been all too easy for politicians to proclaim an urgent mission to protect gay and transgender students and teachers by demanding laws that specifically permit such discrimination be immediately repealed. Trouble is, good intentions can be treacherous when pursued without reflection

Sins of political commission (alienating the base, for starters) and omission (standing for nothing other than ruinous energy prices) sealed the former PM's political fate. But there was an element of bad luck as well. Rather than Sydney, he should have been born in Manhattan, island of the main-chancers

Until the Constitution is changed or  the High Court changes its collective mind, all federal parliamentary candidates need to think carefully about Section 44  -- and that includes independent Wentworth contender Kerryn Phelps

Variously hailed as literary hero or scorned as a verbose hack, I'll leave the merit of his books for others to debate. What I know of the man, rather than the writer, I learned firsthand when he visited the WA of my youth and carried on as egomaniacal ratbags are wont to do

Listen to the arts community's functionaries as they assail the Left's ever-changing roster of anointed enemies and you just might catch echoes of Comrade Stalin's lectures to the Bolsheviks. Like him, as Shostakovich would have recognised, our cultural Marxists pursue not art but power

There are better ways for South Africa to implement land reform than expropriation without compensation. Vast swathes are owned by government and much of this, rather than properties seized by parliamentary decree, could easily be transferred to deserving families and communities

There are words Quadrant Online generally eschews and this essay is about just such a term, recently favoured by the ABC. The minister's complaint was sneeringly dismissed with the advice that he should get a sense of humour. Misogyny equals mirth, apparently, when broadcast by the unaccountable

The new PM can drink a beer without any apparent discomfort at finding himself surrounded by garden-variety Australians, which I suppose is a plus.But on Paris, submarines, free speech, reforming universities and winning back the base he's no better than Turnbull-lite

The prohibition enthusiasts of our age dislike just about everything invented after the Industrial Revolution -- though not Twitter and mobile phones, without which they could not run their campaigns to inflict cost and inconvenience on those less ostentatiously virtuous than themselves

Tell me I'm never happy, accuse me of delight at hearing the door slam behind Malcolm Turnbull only to whine about what, in my estimation, is the lacklustre Cabinet assembled by his successor. And call me a dreamer as well, because this is the all-star front bench that occupies my reveries

Here's a prediction you can take to the bank: the ABC and Fairfax will be running even more inane climate-scare stories than usual. Why might that be? Because the US has taken its money and departed Paris, threatening climate careerists with the unsettling prospect of finding honest work

On the Left, as Brett Kavanaugh's attackers demonstrate, a slur becomes gospel if it furthers a political aim, in this instance keeping a conservative from the US Supreme Court's former 'swing' seat. Assertion is enough, coherent evidence be damned -- and if the rule of law suffers, so be it

We now have a whole generation of academics whose careers are steeped in the lucrative notion that catastrophic climate change is a genuine peril. What's needed is an appropriately resourced science court to police malpractice, of which there is much, and no more grants for the guilty