Liberalism - The Politics of Fear

Greg Staples says it well... "What are you, new?" Come on guys... we've seen this playbook before.

Greg's post deals more with the media, relating to a story in today's National Post, however, I'd like to put it to my fellow BTer's who are already roasting John Tory, before the writ has even dropped... really stop and think long and hard about the typical Liberal election ploy you may be falling for.

Division, fear, scare-mongering, and half-truths... par for the course in a Liberal election campaign. In my mind, that should be enough to encourage everyone to stand up and say to the Liberals, "WE'VE HAD ENOUGH OF YOUR LIES AND YOUR FEAR-MONGERING... WE WANT CHANGE"

Here's the National Post article Greg was commenting on...

The bogus case against Tory
National Post
Published: Friday, September 07, 2007

Canada is a two-faced country. Most times, we are a moderate, tolerant, easy-going people. But when election time comes, things change. Once the writ is dropped, our elites suddenly become dogmatic secularists. Such is the case now in Ontario where, as we write these words, one can hear a chorus of left-wing pundits tut-tutting at John Tory's common-sensical acknowledgment that some Christian Canadians take God seriously.

The circus began on Wednesday, when the Ontario Conservative leader told reporters that Christian academies that include creationism in their curricula would not necessarily be excluded from his plan to provide public funding to religious schools. In the local media, this earned Thursday headlines such as "Tory downplays religious schools flap" and "Tory gets 'F' for faith-funding idea." Respected commentators are suggesting the comment could cost Mr. Tory the Oct. 10 election.

But there should be nothing controversial about the Conservative leader's position -- especially given that Mr. Tory says his comment referred only to religious studies, not science class. Indeed, creationist material is already included in the religious studies courses taught at publicly funded Catholic schools across Ontario. Any number of creation stories also are taught at the province's various independent Muslim, Jewish, Hindu and (insert your favourite faith here) religious schools. When it suits them, our political and media elites laud these schools and their curricula as hallmarks of our multicultural society. (The same goes for aboriginal creation myths, which many Canadian students learn about in their history courses.) Has political correctness advanced to the point whereby every story of creation is politically acceptable except the one that happens to originate with the country's Christian majority?

We have seen this before. In 2000, the federal Liberals successfully lampooned Stockwell Day after the Canadian Alliance leader mused about his creationist beliefs. And in 2004, Paul Martin based his election campaign on bizarre claims that Stephen Harper was a religious social conservative who would destroy cherished rights and threaten Canada's secular character. Having thus been conditioned to treat every mention of Christian faith as an explosive blunder, the media are now giving John Tory the same treatment -- notwithstanding the reasonableness of what the man actually said.

The trumped-up controversy surrounding Mr. Tory's comments helps explain why more people of his high calibre do not enter Canadian political life. His treatment reflects poorly on both his opponents and the political culture they have been allowed to create in this country.

© National Post 2007