Had guests the other night. Feature line, "I don't know what it means to be conservative anymore." Response, "No kidding." What ever it means, one thing is being made abundantly clear by the Harper groupies. You are either 100% pro-Harper or you're a liberal. Well, I guess I'm a liberal.

You either support the big government, big debt-inducing budget or you're a traitor to the entire movement! "Quitter", "whiner", "angry". I'm supposed to feel empathy to some unnamed 26 year old hack who buries his head in his hands and says he bled over the budget. Good. The pragmatic conservatives need fewer twenty-six year olds and more of the forty-eight year old farmers who put the damned MP's there in the first place.

If pragmatism is such a desirable trait, all the hip-tories are doing it, then maybe we should all be liberals. After all they are the pragmatic party. That's what a "big tent party" means, we use to call it, "having no principles". Remember that far back Tories? Remember that, "no goal except to win", "desire for power", used to be insults we could hurl at Liberals with conviction. Not anymore. Not without being a hypocrite. Now, the only conviction the Tories have is that their signs are blue.

Pragmatic politics...shove it, please. Your principles may be malleable, mine aren't.

Cheers,
lance

Posted at: 09:36 | Comments (15) | [politics] | G

So Ignatieff, "We are putting this government on probation.", apparently has more faith than I do about the Progressive Conservatives in power.

The PC's are way past probation in my court, they should be committed. The only saving grace is that with three guaranteed confidence votes this year on budget results we may find someone who can kill the Harper gov't before the Harperites and their groupies kill the conservative movement in Canada.

Cheers,
lance

Posted at: 16:43 | Comments (5) | [politics] | G

Preston Manning doesn't qualify. I guess I'm waiting for CC to wish to knock some sense into him figuratively speaking, of course. But then, the red tories never were very supportive of Reform's progressive economic platform.

In every situation you have two choices, doing what you believe is right, or doing something else. In almost every case (based on their advertising, party policy, and electioneering) the Harper conservatives have chosen the second option.

The question isn't, "Why am I behaving idiotic about supporting the Harper Conservatives?", it's, "Why are the Conservatives not choosing to do what they believe is right when the options are cut and dry?"

I can understand pragmatism over highly inflammatory issues like abortion, the war, and the transition time towards a smaller gov't. It makes sense to wean the provinces off of the federal teat rather than cold turkey. Decentralizing the Federal Gov't takes time and you can't give power to Provinces if they don't want them.

That is why you don't read me complaining about not introducing a third trimester ban on abortions. You don't hear me complaining about appointing Senators. I haven't written yet how Ontario is blocking Quebec and the West's desire for more autonomy from Ottawa.

The economy is a different kettle of fish though.

Taking out $65B worth of new debt is wrong on so many levels. Firstly, it doesn't work as a stimulus. Secondly it'll cost us a whole lot more later to pay it off. Every dollar of debt going into the economy now will probably cost an extra buck in interest later. Geez, thanks for the tax cut now. That'll help me save up the tax you'll want later to pay for it.

Nothing annoys me more than something like this idiotic thing they're talking about now: Social Housing to get $2B. Let's see, one of the key indicators of the health of an economy is housing; buying, selling, starts. We're going through a deflation of housing prices due to the excess supply in the US and Canada. Lending practises allowed a bubble to develop which created a false demand. The demand stopped and now there is an excess of housing.

So Diane Finley wants Harper and Flaherty to propose to exacerbate the problem by building new housing. Whoop! New housing to supplement the cheap unused new housing! That sounds like a winner, doesn't it? In fact, it sounds positively NDP-ish.

The so-called conservatives have chosen wrong...again.

Cheers,
lance

Posted at: 13:32 | Comments (0) | [politics] | G

Let's see. So far the "more liberal than Liberals" strategy of the CPC has alienated farmers, fiscal conservatives, advocates of scrapping Section 13 and libertarians in general. It's a good thing the social conservatives tend towards turning the other cheek or the CPC would have lost them too.

Well done PM Harper. I wonder if all the Conservative apologists will be using the minority gov't excuse when nothing gets done for conservative causes into the next Liberal gov't?

Honestly, that's all I hear whenever I or anyone else questions the liberals: wahh, minority gov't, wahh, Toronto Media. "Oh, but it'll be a coalition budget . . . ." to give blessing to a massive deficit. Principles be damned! It's all about power! Even the motivation is the same as the Liberals.

One thing I know, those Liblogs and ProgBlogs complaining about the Reform Party taking over the red tory faction doesn't have a clue. Reform died the day Harper got elected.

Cheers,
lance

Posted at: 15:56 | Comments (11) | [politics] | G

Coyne has it right.

This is also why I returned to some old roots and voted Libertarian in the last election. I do not like the supposedly conservative party buying off votes and aiming to avoid controversy. I do not like the party I previously supported bringing in legislation for no reason but to support large lobby groups like the auto industry and their unions, MPAA and RIAA, or the industrialized drug industry.

PM Harper may be on a mission to destroy the Liberal party, but I don't share his vision. I don't share his acquiescence to the demands of the loudest. The squeaky wheel should only get the grease when it's for the betterment of the country and matches your point of view.

I could be accused of being impractical, or unwaivering, but I don't think I'll ever be accused of betraying my ideals. I'm not at all like the new Conservative gov't, it seems.

Meet the new Liberals, same as the old ones.

Cheers,
lance

Posted at: 15:16 | Comments (8) | [politics] | G

So I'm reading Robert Silver's damning condemnation of his Liberal Party and as is my wont I read the comments. I came across this gem.

Brian Baylee from Canada writes: Consistently, what is ignored in this debacle is that in another election, all the Liberals and NDP have to do is not run candidates where they will split the vote.

They have gone so far as to create a shaky coalition, but it seems to dawn on no one that they would take it one step further in an election call and avoid spitting the vote. Under this circumstance, and the fact he has blown any chance of picking up seats in Quebec, there is not way in hell Harper could return with a majority.

What the coalition did and does is avoid a second meaningless election, it allows time for the liberals to put a new leader in place, which will begin to rationalize the political environment. Harper merely tried to take advantage of an irrational circumstance and it backfired, and there is a lot more to come. Start packing Steve, your done.

Okay, Brian Braintrust, you're a fool. This whole coalition third-world thingy started over removing $1.95 of gov't funding to the parties. Do you really think that either the Libs or the Dippers would now choose to voluntarily halve the amounts they get?

Not to mention the fact that if the polls are right, you still wouldn't get gov't.

Cheers,
lance

Posted at: 11:54 | Comments (6) | [politics] | G

And Broadbent is on Crack.

Ed Broadbent is looking desperate not to wear the failure of the abortive coup that he helped engineer. He is re-writing history with today's opinion column in the Globe and Mail. He, of all people, dare accuse Prime Minister Harper of fanning the flames of another National Unity issue.

Prime Minister Harper wasn't the one making bridges between ideological allies of the left.

Prime Minister Harper wasn't jubilant over the disenfranchisement of the West.

Prime Minister Harper wasn't the one who wanted to put veto power in the hands of the Bloc.

Andrew Coyne put it correctly last night on CBC's The National, "How did they think the West would react?"

Ed Broadbent is no more the elder statesman of the NDP and it's killing him. No more the dignified, retired politician to whom others quietly seek guidance. No more the moral standard bearer for the House. His involvement in this "coalition", his nightly television interviews, his opinion pieces in the papers have now uncovered the partisan who's fighting like he's still paid by taxpayers. Ed is proving he's just another power-hungry shark who wears the same slop that all other politicians are wearing over their failure to steal power.

In this episode there were two former political leaders involved, remember who the other one was? That, Broadbent, is who you should have looked to for an example of how to keep your former reputation.

Cheers,
lance

Posted at: 09:06 | Comments (5) | [politics] | G

After breaking the backs of the militant supporters of the coup, the Governor General is being attacked by the progressive blogs. This is the exact opposite of what Dion supporter LeftDog claimed only Conservative supporters were capable of.

Cheers,
lance

Posted at: 12:06 | Comments (2) | [politics] | G

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE,
Catprint.ca - Canadian Association of Slavs
Wednesday, 03 December, 2009
Delisle, SK, Canada

The Canadian Association of Slavs, (CAS) is deeply offended that an icon of our culinary identity is being associated with the childish acts of Canada's Parliament.

If Prime Minister Harper were threatening to "egg" Parliament, Canadians would be rightfully outraged. Yet a threat to pirogi Parliament goes by virtually unnoticed. The Canadian Association of Slavs is calling for an immediate apology from the Office of the Prime Minister for this cultural indignity.

Cheers,
lance

Posted at: 00:16 | Comments (3) | [politics] | G

Liberal Leadership hopeful Bob Rae made fun of his constituents today on Mike Duffy Live. Rae said that they were all a part of some grand Right-Wing Conspiracy™. I would presume it's because they didn't choose to drink the Kool-Aid being offered by the Coalition. As Rae said, "The emails all look the same".

So, for those of you who aren't the most familiar with a keyboard; you who have difficulty typing your thoughts; who have been copying and pasting your emails of outrage to Rae...you aren't being listened to. In fact, you're being ignored. Sorry, but Bob Rae believes that you're nothing but a Conservative shill working for "this great campaign machine called the Conservative Party".

If you're living in Toronto Centre, you may want to look up Peter Kent for your venting. The Liberals aren't taking calls from disgusted Canadians. "I'm sorry, this line has been disconnected. Please dial zero for the operator."

Cheers,
lance

Posted at: 23:07 | Comments (12) | [] | G