Apolitical Staples

I am not sure Harper would be too upset to see some of those cranks leave. They didn’t even like the Arar compensation!

However, the Globe also has this which should get everyone’s blood boiling.

It is almost comical.

When I read that story from the Globe, I almost fell off my chair. I pray to GOD that conservatives in this country have learned from the wilderness era (1993-2005) and that we never go back.

A truly competitive democracy is far more important than an ideological purity.

“A truly competitive democracy is far more important than an ideological purity.”

What the hell does that mean?

Ideas don’t matter, it’s just government “getting things done for people” that matters, right? Oh, wait, that sounds like, well, like an idea. A statist idea.

The light bulb ban was a great idea: it is 5 years in the future, sounds good to enviro types symbolically, and will have no real substantial effect. It will also be easy to drop or postpone once the green fever has run its course.

Remember: blame the voters.

The light bulb ban was a great idea: it is 5 years in the future, sounds good to enviro types symbolically, and will have no real substantial effect. It will also be easy to drop or postpone once the green fever has run its course.

Remember: blame the voters.

It always amazes me how many conservatives still see climate change as a gimmick. That kind of cynical attitude is very Liberal like and one of the very reasons your public support has gone south. If you oppose it, oppose it openly and take your lumps. At least you will have your principles in tact. Pretending to “get it” while “secretly” undermining efforts to do something about climate change, will leave you with no support and no principles.

Anonymous: “If you oppose it, oppose it openly and take your lumps.”

But it’s okay to post anonymously, right?

Climate change isn’t a gimmick, but the idea that economic sacrifice on Canada’s part will motivate China to abate its emissions is a delusion. Anyway, for a very large fraction of people who are concerned about the environment, their concern is more emotional and symbolic than practical. Therefore, a purely symbolic response is exactly what the voters want.

I am not sure Harper would be too upset to see some of those cranks leave.

Ex-actly. Harper knows that once he buys the votes of the “reasonable people” by promising them every loopy redistribution policy currently being hyped, the power of the state can then be used to confiscate money from the cranks and they can’t do diddly about it. His only problem then is to figure out how to make the “reasonable people” stop demanding more and more of OPM, and how to make the cranks keep all their money and skills in the country - without turning it into a gulag.

A truly competitive democracy is far more important than an ideological purity.

Remember what your Mom said - “If all your friends voted to jump off a pier, would you do it?”

One is not an ideological purist if one holds in contempt a rhetorical contest between weasels over who gets to steal their money. You are not a fussy purist if you stand up to them and tell them to shove their gimmicky, revenue-enhancing “crises”.

It always amazes me how many conservatives still see climate change as a gimmick.

Last night I passed a 10-m long, 12 ton articulated city bus with the aerodynamic properties of a brick tooling down the highway spewing diesel exhaust at 95 kph as it drove 2 passengers the 10 km from the city to the suburbs. On the front of the bus under the driver’s side window a sticker proclaimed: “Green Bus - Eco Friendly”.

Climate change isn’t a gimmick, but the idea that economic sacrifice on Canada’s part will motivate China to abate its emissions is a delusion.

If it looks like a gimmick, smells like a gimmick, lies like a gimmick, costs like a gimmick, delivers nothing like a gimmick - it’s a gimmick.

I wish Nicholls wasn’t so right.