It’s time that conservatives stopped being so damn nice and finally decided to stand up for what they believe in and fight back against the ever-encroaching armies of political correctness, totalitarian neo-Marxism and the relentless assault on our Anglo-Celtic, Judeo-Christian cultural heritage. That’s the theme of this week’s cover, and cover story by Christopher Akehurst. As Christopher brilliantly argues, ‘If ten per cent of people who agree with Alan Jones or Andrew Bolt could be persuaded to take to social media in a concerted campaign, they’d be a force to be reckoned with.’

For many years now, indeed since the tumultuous social revolutions of the ‘progressive’ 70s, a subversive war has been waged against the institutions, practices, beliefs and priorities of what might loosely be labelled ‘mainstream’, or conservative Australia. From time to time during the Howard years we saw little flashpoints on the horizon, as odd tussles broke out in the realms of academia or the corridors of the ABC over obscure issues such as the ‘black armband’ view of our colonial history or whether we needed a new anthem or flag. But these cultural skirmishes always seemed to be taking place in a different dimension — out there somewhere — with little day-to-day relevance to the financial well-being of those proud ‘Howard battlers’.

The culture wars took on a new and puzzling prominence during the strange and surreal Rudd and Gillard years where we learned, much to our astonishment, that random shifts in global climatic temperatures were suddenly ‘the greatest moral challenge of our lifetime’. Really? Not alleviating poverty, providing charity or helping the sick? Nope. And then, just as we were getting used to that peculiar neo-pagan concept, up popped the notion that looking at your watch when a woman was speaking to you, particularly if you happened to be wearing a blue tie, was a mortal sin deserving of swift and severe condemnation.

As ‘political correctness’ became the new catch-cry to describe such strange attitudes and the ever-growing list of behavioural regulations that increasingly frame our lives and curtail our freedoms, the conservative classes in Australia remained for the most part politely mute. This was as much out of simple good manners as out of what Mr Akehurst describes as ‘the belief that democracy will ensure that everything comes right in the end.’

But what if everything doesn’t come right in the end? What if we are witnessing the irreversible erosion of the free-wheeling, happy-go-lucky, exhilarating Aussie culture we always assumed was ours and our children’s birth-right? What if we are wilfully gallivanting down not a shiny marble path of enlightened progressivism, but rather, being sucked down an ugly, well-trodden and terrifying mud track leading irrevocably towards intolerance, division, envy, socialism and tyranny?

Conservatives have by and large sat silently by as one cultural pillar after another has fallen or been chipped away by the vandals of the Left. Straight, white males meekly accept that they will be overlooked for promotion, regardless of their abilities and hard work, or even sacked, because it is more important to pander to ‘diversity’ and ‘inclusion’. Boys dare not cast an approving eye at a passing girl for fear of being labelled a rapist. Jews are told they may not build a new synagogue lest it offend Islamist terrorists. The elderly switch off their heaters during winter in order not to offend the planet. A tent city of vagrants in the middle of our most important business centre must be ‘negotiated with’ so as not to upset the derros’ feelings.

Uncomplaining conservative frogs in gently simmering water, perhaps?

And now we learn we have to cast a postal vote later this year. Not about whether we should have signed the pointless Paris climate change agreement that is crippling the finances of our industries and our households. Not about whether we think our little children should be taught gender fluidity and ‘penis-tucking’ away from their parents in secret classrooms. Not about whether an exclusively Muslim suburb should be given the go-ahead. Not about whether January 26 should be known as a day of infamy and cruel invasion or a day of celebration.

No, we are voting on the word ‘marriage’. But of course, thanks to the forces of political correctness who are so determined to divide the nation and denigrate any who have even the slightest doubts about their agenda, we are inevitably voting on so much more than that. It’s time for conservatives to recognise that if they want to hang on to the Australia they grew up in and the Australia they love, perhaps they need to fight a little bit harder to keep it.

Also in this issue, David Flint comes up with a more satisfactory way than a postal vote for the government to bypass the anti-democratic elements within the Senate and go straight to the people on marriage equality — via a referendum. Moreover, this would not be one of Mr Shorten’s fake referenda, but a real one, specifically authorised under our Constitution.