Australia is basically America minus the Angry Left. A glorious land where freedom reigns. Steve Irwin summed up John Howard well when he described him as "the greatest leader in the world."

ES:

As someone who lived in Australia, I can tell you: BULLSHIT. You have no idea what you're talking about.

Other than John Howard's foreign policy, and some immigration issues, there is next-to-no conservatism in Australia.

There is extreme gun control, socialized healthcare and yes -- a very loony, angry Left. When I was there, there were riots (yes, riots) outside of Parliament, because public universities were going to start requiring students to pay $4000/year tuition (gasp!) while they were enrolled, instead of years later.

Australian politics? Picture the Democrats (Liberal) and the Green Party Lite (Labour) battling it out, while the closest thing to the GOP -- the National Party -- is the fourth biggest.

Joe,

John Howard is a conservative who has been returned to power five times. Usually by wide margins. In the most recent election, his liberal party also won control of both houses of parliament. His years in office have been animated by privatizing government services, lowering taxes and reducing burdensome regulation. Australia is now the 11th most free economy, according to Cato.

Sure, people protest tuition hikes, but that doesn't quite equate to the same leftist idiots who see America as the primary source of the world's evil and have little hesitancy equating Bush to Hitler. And, btw, what happened with that proposed tuition hike? Did the government bow before the protestors as France did this summer?

Australians are perhaps the most pro-American peoples around, certainly more so than the Brits. They have fought w/ the Americans in every war in the 20th and 21st centuries.

When I lived in Australia, I was impressed by how the media actually seemed to have a conservative bias. Local stories were often to the effect of, "so and so was pulled over for riding his bike without a proper decal today. His fine is $100. Why should someone have to pay just to ride their bike around town? Whatever happened to the ideal of limited government? Is this what we're paying the police for?" That's how the media ought to be used -- to preserve freedom, not encourage new legislation whenever someone dies in some freak accident, which is what so often happens around here.

As anyone who has ever been to Nimbin or King Cross in Sydney is well aware, Australia is pretty lax about what it allows people to do legally.

If someone is looking to escape to a country with a healthy amount of liberty left, Australia is a place I'd recommend. If you know of some place better, please let me know.

I guess it depends on which issues you look at; point taken and sorry for the hostility.