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Friday, December 17, 2004
Daily dose of CanCon
With reference to Mr. Spector’s comment about CanCon on this site, I must admit that he has a point. I guess I am guilty as charged, although I think my posts are more international in nature as opposed to American. I think this boils down the problem outlined in Mark Steyn’s latest article in our host’s magazine entitled “What’s the big idea?”
…Successful conservatives don’t move toward the political centre. They move the political centre toward them. That’s what Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher both did.
…not just because they were powerful personalities, but because they had powerful ideas.
Since the Conservative Party of Canada has not presented any such big ideas, their reason for being is to replace the Liberal Party. Also, lacking such big ideas forces Canadian conservatives to fight internally (so-cons vs. fisc-cons) over policies. I present as evidence the lack of postings on this site (some in the comments, but generally ignored by posters) on the same-sex marriage issue. I would contend that this is because half the group is perfectly ok with the issue and the other half is afraid to add fuel to “hidden agenda” charge.
Sorry to bring up the US, but I think the conservative situation in Canada compares to the liberal situation in the US. Here they have the liberal hawks vs. the MoveOn.org/Michael Moore wing (see Peter Biernat) fighting to move to the center or further to the left. Here we have the PC ideology vs. Reform ideology. Again I will reference Mr. Steyn:
…But the point about moving toward the “political centre” is that, in doing so, you move the centre. If the Liberals are at one on the scale and the Tories are at nine, and their focus groups tell them to move to five, all they’ve done is ensure that henceforth the centre will be three, and they’ll be fighting entirely on the left’s terms and the left’s issues.
Until we determine which hills we are prepared to die on, how do we dig in and fight?
Cross-posted to PoliticalStaples
Posted by Greg Staples on December 17, 2004 | Permalink
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Comments
Seems to me that Steyn's thesis would be worthy of debate, and the analogy to US liberals is provocative.
Much better use of our time, in any case, than becoming master debaters of US issues.
Posted by: Norman Spector | 2004-12-17 9:37:06 AM
The Komissar approves! Long live the Komissar!!
Posted by: Kathy Shaidle | 2004-12-17 11:08:46 AM
Doesn't this whole thing kind of flow from the point that Adam Daifallah was making a few months ago about the lack of a real Conservative intellectual infrastructure in Canada?
For what it's worth, if someone in the Conservative party actually took the position that they were trying to get government out of your conscience and your pocketbook, I think it would sell. Here's hoping that it will come out of the policy convention.
Posted by: Tach | 2004-12-17 1:21:30 PM
What gets my goat though, is that the same people who bitch and moan about the Conservative party not being this or not being that, are the same people that are first to walk away from the best vehicle we have to influence the country's direction.
Until the big thinkers of Canada's right start getting into the game a little, it's no surprise to me that conservatism in the country suffers.
I think Montreal is going to be telling, but not for the reasons that many would hope.
Posted by: The Hack | 2004-12-17 1:58:37 PM
"Until the big thinkers of Canada's right start getting into the game a little, it's no surprise to me that conservatism in the country suffers."
I am only interested in fiscal conservatism, because I believe that social conservatism will arise naturally and without coercion or controversy in a nation which keeps its fiscal house in order and which keeps its nose and hands out of peoples' business.
But who else has an interest in fiscal conservatism?
Other than a few bloggers, academic outcasts, renegade journalists and one or two other categories of crank, the only significant group of people who have an interest in small government and low taxes are the owners of small businesses. Every sector of big business has been bought off, protected, intimidated or chased out of the country. Media and academia mostly function as the propaganda and indoctrination arms of the government. Except for evangelical protestants and a few outspoken Catholics, religious groups seem to have been either bought off or have bought into the socialist state.
So it will have to be small business owners. The trouble is, these people are so thoroughly harassed by government and pushed into working extreme hours in order to survive, as a general rule they have no time and no money to devote to political causes. Many of them are sailing very close to the wind, legally and taxwise, and cannot afford to have any scrutiny directed their way. They may also have envious and surly employees who interpret any sign of conservative political action by their bosses as evidence of an untoward greed - "they want to take away our benefits".
In the long run, everyone has an interest in fiscal conservatism and personal freedom, because they are the only road to wealth and happiness. But the power and rhetoric of socialism has been deployed so masterfully in order to split up the country into these various interest groups - government, big business, media, academia and all the various poverty and welfare industries - that hardly anyone in these groups can see where their true interest lies.
I'm not trying to discourage anyone, I'm just trying to describe the political landscape as I see it. I can't think of a better place to start on the road to freedom than here in the blogosphere - lots of left-leaning but intelligent and skeptical people will stumble in here over time, and I think that they are bound to have their eyes opened if you bloggers can rise to the occasion. In other words, the "big thinkers of Canada's right" are ... you folks, not Stephen Harper, Belinda Stronach, or Ralph Klein.
Posted by: Justzumgai | 2004-12-17 9:06:17 PM
"Other than a few bloggers, academic outcasts, renegade journalists and one or two other categories of crank, the only significant group of people who have an interest in small government and low taxes are the owners of small businesses."
But that's not necessarily true however. The right has effectively lost the battle thus far this century over social spending as the left has managed to make a social agenda more important to the average Canadian than say a few hundred dollars in tax cuts.
But the right *has* won battles for Canadian hearts and minds. At the beginning of the 90's, who would have thought that deficit fighting would be a major plank, not just for conservative governments, but those of left-wing persuassions as well. Today, no government in Canada dares to openly deficit finance, lest the voters turn against them.
Goes back to Mark Steyn's line, loosely-paraphrased: We need to move the center to us, not try to move to the center.
On deficits, the center moved. We all know that a more conservative fiscal policy tends to lead to stronger economic prosperity. Now we just need to convince the country's voters.
I don't believe that to be as impossible a task as it sounds. Course, I've been accused of being to idealistic before too. *grin*
Posted by: The Hack | 2004-12-18 1:08:51 PM
"... the left has managed to make a social agenda more important to the average Canadian than say a few hundred dollars in tax cuts."
I'll tell you why most Canadians think that the social safety net is so important. Look over these economic indicators and pay particular attention to the line titled "Personal savings rate". Note that it is down 0.5 percent from the previous quarter and is now equal to precisely ZERO.
http://www.statcan.ca/english/Pgdb/indi02a.htm
This means that the average Canadian is saving nothing for retirement, nothing for their children's education, nothing for medical emergencies, and nothing for investment into factories, mines and other wealth-creating industries. And whatever savings they do have, are being eaten away by inflation and taxes.
It's a bonanza for socialist politicians, government workers, and government contractors. After all, what good is a nanny state without millions of helpless dependents?
And by the way: from these bare facts one can easily see the roots of the controversies which plague so many other aspects of Canadian life.
Immigration - no savings means no wealth creation and a sluggish economy; high taxes and social security mean no incentive to have kids; must try to jumpstart economy with warm bodies from ... anywhere
Gay marriage - no savings; more people need welfare; must find new ways for people to qualify for government benefits
Kyoto - no savings; more welfare dependence; government must find new revenue to pay for welfare (and entice swing voters in areas which have already maxed out on traditional welfare)
Abortion - no savings for parents or grandparents to raise kids; no good jobs for young parents to raise kids; not enough government money to pay for obstetrical and pediatric care; babies unable to pay their way into Canada with bribes to government officials; gotta get rid of that bun in the oven
Military funding - no savings; sluggish economy; more welfare dependents; must squeeze money out of other government budget items
Marijuana decriminalization - no savings; sluggish economy; high unemployment and underemployment; people sit around smoking drugs; welfare costs less than prisons, so to hell with the war on drugs
Mad cow disease - no savings; no investment in high-value-added industries; so thousands of Canadians end up working in a marginal, wasteful, non-capital-intensive, unskilled, unprofitable industry whose "craft" consists of using long tubes to shove semen into cows, feeding corn, dead sheep, growth hormones and antibiotics to calves until they weigh 2000 pounds, then trucking them to the US to be hacked up and made into unhealthy and nearly tasteless food
And so on ...
Posted by: Justzumgai | 2004-12-18 10:39:47 PM
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