Political Staples

There is on and off again discussion on the Western Standard Blog as to why posters seem to prefer to talk about anything but Canadian issues. Here is my two cents:

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:

Until we determine which hills we are prepared to die on, how do we dig in and fight?

Cross-posted to Shotgun