Christian Conservative Christian "Independent"

I'm an evangelical Christian, member of the CPC, but presently & unjustly exiled to wander the political wilderness.
All opinions expressed here are solely my own.

Wednesday, April 07, 2010

Coyne - "The End of the Liberal Empire"

FANTASTIC article called "The End of the Liberal Empire" written by Maclean's Andrew Coyne. A MUST READ for any political junkie in Canada... of all stripes.

Here's to real reform our our democratic system... DEATH TO THE LIBERAL PARTY OF CANADA!!!

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posted by Christian Conservative @ 2:42 p.m.  

11 Comments:

  • At Wed Apr 07, 03:19:00 p.m. EDT, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    And what about the significant numbers of the population that vote for the LPC? Will they allowed to live in the New World Order? I can guarantee you that the LPC won't spend as long in the political wilderness as the conservative movement did. Your day will come and you will be assimilated.

     

  • At Wed Apr 07, 04:49:00 p.m. EDT, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Not likely!

     

  • At Wed Apr 07, 05:07:00 p.m. EDT, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Good article, but just as much a condemnation of the entire political class as the Liberal Party in particular.

    The problem with partisan big C conservatives like yourself is that you're really more concerned with the election of a majority Tory government than with the implementation of an actual conservative agenda (social, fiscal or whatever). The supposed conservative "wasteland" of the 1990's, as it was usually described was probably the best decade small c conservatives ever had, since federal and provincial govts. of all stripes were cutting spending and taxes, cracking down on crime etc.

    I don't think that the death of the Liberal Party and the establishment of a Tory dynasty will necessarily be such a great thing if all that it means is that the CPC will become the Liberal Party.

    The reality is that Harper governs entirely on the basis of electoral opportunism and is too much of a political coward to even discuss any of the suggestions made by Coyne (abolishing HRC's, slashing the deficit, merging income support programs, individual pension accounts, bringing in a carbon tax shift which, if we have to do anything to fight "climate change" will be much less economically destructive than "cap and trade").

    The result is that when all of the chickens come home to roost, at the peak of the boomer retirements in 2020 or so, you will have a "conservative" natural governing party that will be too morally bankrupt and lacking in credibility to do what needs to be done, and its likely replacement by a Grit government prepared to let "Nixon go to China" in some respects, but unlikely to do anywhere near enough to salvage the situation.

     

  • At Wed Apr 07, 06:49:00 p.m. EDT, Blogger Unknown said…

    hehehe. Try that carbon tax thing again. Coyne thinks its a great idea.

     

  • At Wed Apr 07, 08:59:00 p.m. EDT, Blogger Christian Conservative said…

    Anon@5:07pm... try reading more of my blog posts, and you'll see that you're mistaken as to my goals... I'm NOT advocating that the Tories become the "Natural Governing Party".

    I believe that the breakup of the Liberal Party is necessary to foster real renewal of our system, because once they break up, the left will go to the NDP, and the Liberals will be a smaller centrist group. They'll pull some of the "progressives" from Tories, and the far-right of the Tories will splinter off into a Reform-like movement again. As such, we'll have FOUR viable parties, the NDP, the Libs, the Tories, and a far-right option, which will allow for more realistic coalition building options in each election. Add to that the Bloc, and maybe even a couple of Green MP's thanks to five way vote splitting, and I think there will be a GREATER voice for democracy in Canada.

    Of course, the Tories ruled the 1800's, and the Libs most of the 1900's... maybe the 2000's are our century again. ;-)

     

  • At Wed Apr 07, 10:55:00 p.m. EDT, Blogger James Bow said…

    As desirable as such a realignment would be, I don't see it as likely under our first-past-the-post system. We'd need some form of proportional representation to pull this off. Once that did occur, the Libertarians might finally get a proper voice in parliament.

     

  • At Wed Apr 07, 11:03:00 p.m. EDT, Blogger James Bow said…

    "Of course, the Tories ruled the 1800's, and the Libs most of the 1900's... maybe the 2000's are our century again. ;-)"

    Or maybe somebody entirely new, like the NDP? :-)

     

  • At Wed Apr 07, 11:30:00 p.m. EDT, Blogger Christian Conservative said…

    "Or maybe somebody entirely new, like the NDP? :-)"

    OH GOODNESS NO! NO, NO, PLEASE NOOOOOOOO!!!!! ;-P

     

  • At Thu Apr 08, 12:39:00 a.m. EDT, Blogger Anon1152 said…

    CC:

    I was about to defend you against this comment: "The problem with partisan big C conservatives like yourself is that you're really more concerned with the election of a majority Tory government than with the implementation of an actual conservative agenda (social, fiscal or whatever)."

    You (quite understandably) offered a faster and better defense. I was thinking of blog posts like these as evidence [I like evidence]:

    http://canadaconservative.blogspot.com/2010/03/paul-wells-harpers-hard-right-turn.html

    http://canadaconservative.blogspot.com/2009/12/is-there-glimmer-of-hope-dawning-for.html

    http://canadaconservative.blogspot.com/2009/10/on-verge-of-changing-game.html

     

  • At Thu Apr 08, 12:39:00 a.m. EDT, Blogger Anon1152 said…

    I think that you think of a majority government as a means to an end. And I think the "conservative agenda" is being implemented, surprisingly successfully. Even the increase in government spending isn't an unheard of conservative strategy. And some conservatives have specifically said that they want to reduce government involvement in the economy/society/etc. And to successfully do that, they have planned to cut taxes, increase spending, increase debt, so that in the future, the government won't be able to maintain social programs. The strategy has been called, I believe "starve the beast".

    In this case, I'm reminded of a scene in Lord of the Flies when some kid (Simon?) says [something like]: "Maybe there is a beast. What I mean is... Maybe it's us."

    But I digress.

     

  • At Thu Apr 08, 12:39:00 a.m. EDT, Blogger Anon1152 said…

    I read this article in a hard copy of McCleans a day or two ago. I thought it was very interesting. I like Coyne. He is called a conservative. And I believe that as much as he does. What I respect is that he is not exactly "partisan" (as I think of the term). He calls it like he sees it. He "calls it as he sees it". That is, he is not primarily concerned with the conservative party winning over any other party. So when the conservatives are doing something he considers unconservative, he says so. When he has ideas for them to succeed or do better, he says so. But when he says things like "if the liberals want to do better they should do _____", I think he also thinks that his suggestions will work for the liberal party.

    A while ago a blogging tory said "to liberals" that "you might be surprised to hear me say this"... but went on to say that if you were liberal, you should vote for the NDP. That may or may not be true. But I wasn't surprised at all that a blogging tory would want to "split the vote" and allow the conservatives to win with as small a portion of the vote as possible, given that the anti conservative vote would be spread between the liberals and the ndp.

    I agree with the commenter that proportional representation of some sort is needed. The current system distorts the will and voice of the Canadian people. And at the moment the system we have has not led to majority governments, and probably won't for some time. The country is too regionally divided. Stable coalitions are possible (and have existed in Canada and the UK in the past) but they won't likely happen here if a party CAN acquire 100% of the power with less than 40% of the vote.

    That is why out so called democratic system needs reform.

    I think my point here should appeal to those who were against censoring Coulter. Everyone deserves a voice. Even if we don't agree with it. So if smaller parties gain representation.... if they are elected (proportionately) they deserve that representation. And if a party representing 3% of the vote and representation has disproportionate power... that's the fault of the other 96%. And if people won't tolerate that... the parties representing them shouldn't tolerate it.

    The death of the liberal party may be good or bad for Canada. But it would not be "real reform" for the system. The problem with "the system" is not the parties and people involved in the system. The problem is the system. Which should be self-evident.

    I highly recommend reading the piece by Harper and Flanagan called "Our Benign Dictatorship". I think that for the most part they are right. Though Harper seems to have forgotten his position back then, since he is now in the same position Chretien was at the time the piece was written: in power with less than 40% of the vote.

    What bothers me is that Harper is doing his best to manipulate the system we have, the system he complained about when he was not in power, rather than trying to change the system in a principled way.

    I'm sure you disagree with me.

    But I want to say, for the record, that I think now (and thought then) that the underrepresentation of the PCs and Reform party and NDP and now the Greens etc etc has been and remains bad for what we call our "democracy."

     

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