What is a Conservative Government

This is what the Paleos call "the managerial state". It doesn't matter who gets elected, the real masters are the manager class, the class of bureaucrats and planners that are unaccountable and invisible to the public at large.

"I’ve been saying in this space for two years that the governmentalization of health care is the fastest way to a permanent left-of-center political culture."

Posted by Cjunk at March 9, 2010 8:57 AM

It's plain as the nose on ones face.
Beware America, the Hopey changey Guy you elected last year is about to turn you into a socialist state by the back door.

State run Health care.

"What is a Conservative Government

... but a temporary caretaker of a vast left-wing bureaucracy"

I think I made this observation about Harper 3 years ago - just as I made it when Mulroney was in his second term. The nanny state has 3 expansionist parties and a maintenance party that takes over to correct finances when the other parties expand government too far, too fast and it creates a tax burden that is not inflation friendly. The impotency of the PC Caretaker of the nanny state function is why Reform party rose to become opposition.

Full circle in 19 years. From the hope of reform to the gloom of statist socialist mediocrity. Thus is the fact of Canadian "federalism".

Makes more sense in this light that the MSM is feverish in their negative depiction of Sarah Palin. They see her as a genuine threat to the gravy train.

I must confess this is a eureka moment for me. Steyn's article makes so much sense. I don't know why I didn't see it this clearly until now.

For the past 2-3 years I have railed against the CPC for its lack of revolutionary/reformist action, its abject failure to roll back any layers whatsoever of the massive statist onion foisted upon us by decades of neo-liberal rule. Admittedly, I was deceived into thinking this Harper-CPC thing might actually be reformist but it is undeniably simply neo-Conservative (read not even conservative); maintaining the neo-liberal status quo and refusing to even begin to downsize the state.

It's hard to not be depressed reading that article.....

Watcher: "From the hope of reform to the gloom of statist socialist mediocrity."

Too true. And so sad.

I am not really sure about the care-taker statis of the current Canadian Government....
Nanny-state will not expand but it will not shrink......
On one hand, the minority government forces them into that role. The opposition denies any rollback...of even the CHRC's....or the Registry.
However I cannot express any genuine confidence that given a majority anything would really change......

This is why I believe that the biggest terorist org in Canada is the government of Canada.

I think this is a key insight - the existence of that massive unaccountable, unelected government that is the bureaucracy, and their commitment to statism.

Our bloated, enormous left-wing bureaucracies work very hard to hinder, slow down and sabotage any Conservative agendas at reducing the power of the state. Consider, for example, how hard the CBC, which is a left-wing bureaucracy, works to smear and damage Harper and the Conservatives, and to promote its own agenda of statism, AGW, anti-Americanism and anti-capitalism.
Why the CBC has actually been the source of our two most recent Governors-General!

Consider how these so-called public servants receive wages, benefits and pensions two to three times that of the private sector. And, they essentially can't be fired; if incompetent or too brazenly disruptive, they simply get moved to another position, or are retired with full benefits.

Consider how massive new departments are set up, whose existence is far-from-reality and yet, who set up a broader and more powerful bureaucracy.

What about the gun registry? Functionally useless as such but provides hundreds of bureaucratic jobs in the Maritimes. What about bilingualism? We aren't, functionally, a bilingual nation, yet we must pay billions each year for thousands and thousands of employees, translation services, and so on, to live within that fiction.

In the US, Obama's infamous stimulus hasn't enabled the private sector to expand its job creation; instead, it's the public sector that has both maintained and expanded its hiring. So, the taxpayer pays to retain and hire more public servants. But the source of an economy is never, ever, the public sector, but the private sector.

In Quebec, the massive bloated public employee sector has led to an overtaxed population that has, as a result, set up a huge black market economy, based around small to medium scale transactions and outright corruption.

In Ontario and Toronto, the unions with their focus on increasing their dues income by increasing the wages and benefits of their members, has resulted in an elite set of employees with wages and benefits twice that of the private sector - BUT - with no money left for repairs, infrastructure development etc. So, for example, the Toronto Transit system pays its ticket collectors 100,000 a year but its buses, escalators, subways, routinely break down, are unrepaired, its stations are dirty, its services erratic and insufficient. However, those workers, who can't be fired, have great wages and pensions.

Cut the civil service, get the unions out of the public service.

I think Steyn is entirely too negative. Yes its true the Conservatives move slowly. Yes its true their current stated policies look entirely too much like a Trudeau wet dream.

But just imagine what would happen if it were otherwise. Reality check, the Liberals completely own the media at all levels, top to bottom. You literally can't read anything other than chosen Liberal propaganda anywhere other than the Internet.

Given that reality, even the most raging Conservative (which Harper is, if history is any indication) cannot do anything other than mumble the accepted platitudes in public and grind away at the Liberal support system by dark of night.

Conservatives started the grinding in two places, the Arts and the judiciary system. They canceled the "free lawyers for Leftists" program, they cut back "arts" funding every year since they've been in office.

The insane regulatory/taxation socialist hole we find ourselves in has been getting dug A SPOONFUL AT A TIME since Diefenbaker was PM. It arguably began with the cancellation of the Arrow, or at about the same time, and it has continued to this day, fifty freakin' years of endless, hidden labor by countless Liberal idiots.

Such things do not get filled up in an afternoon. Harper is not going to ride to our rescue on a shiny white backhoe. I'm sure he'd love to, but he can't. The power required to do something like that would be Stalinesque. It is nothing less than telling most of the population that the gravy train is over, you're not getting all the freebies you're used to, so shut the F- up and go get a F-ing job. Oh, and you're a bunch of lazy a-holes too.

That is called adding insult to injury. No government short of a totalitarian terror state could make that stick.

So, -the- most important thing for Conservatives in Canada and Republicans in the USA to do, is STOP DIGGING.

And, Harper has indeed pretty much stopped digging in a lot of areas. You can tell because the media freakin' hates him. They never really hated Mulroney, because Ol' Brian never really stopped doing what they love, expanding government, creating nice cush jobs nestled in the brier tangle of the bureaucracy, safe from prying eyes and sniffing noses.

Stopping digging looks like no new tax increases. Filling in the hole looks like tax cuts. When we start seeing actual CUTS in personal tax levels, that's when we will know the job is getting done.

Government is a hydra. Cut off one head, two grow back. You can't kill it with a sword, you can't poison it, you can't blow it up. You have to -starve- it.

Sssssssllllllooooowwwwwwwllllllyyyyy.

Besides, what's the alternative? Waste our efforts creating ten competing conservative parties? The Liberals love it when we do that.

Phantom: Harper has stopped digging? I beg to differ.

In the past two years the government has run a combined $60+ BILLION deficit. It has increased spending to monumental proportions, and this even before the "economic crisis." It has not reduced the size of the State.

In order to cut taxes, the government has to stop *spending*. To cut spending, the government has to cut itself down. This only comes through reform.

Get a load of Chris Christine in New Joisey. THAT's reform. That is what Canada needs if it wants to climb out of the hole at any point in my grandchildren's life times.

For the past several years I've been saying the real power in Ottawa lies with Deputy Ministers and Assistant Deputy Ministers and a change of government changes very little. At least in Washington change of government also means change in senior bureaucrats. If Harper had fired most Deputy Ministers when he took office these Mandarins wouldn't have had opportunity to sabotage CPC agenda as they have done. Instead of being master of the bureaucracy Harper is now running scared and takes orders and advice from these unelected powerbrokers. The tail wags the dog.

Sure Mark. And I agree with you.

So, how's that going to play in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver, where more than half of Canada's population lives?

Rhetorical question of course, its going to crash and burn like the Hindenburg. Result, Liberal majority and $160 billion deficit in one year post election.

One spoonful at a time.

Also take note of Dastardly's post above. How are you going to cut government jobs when the guys who actually do the work are -government employees-?

The answer is, sneakilly. By hook and by crook, by dead of night, by smoke and mirror, all the while appearing to be Liberal Lite and warming toilet seat for the Liberals while they pull themselves together.

You think Chretien put the firearm registry head office in Miramichi New Brunswick by accident? Nuh uh, he put it there to ensure two things. First, that the entire area would vote Liberal, which it does. Second, that there would be a major uproar if the gun registry got killed, because those registry jobs are the ONLY GOOD JOBS for 100 miles that an average person can get. The Premiere of New Brunswick will (and is!) be fighting to keep those jobs.

The whole freakin' government is that way. Hell to pay every time you even suggest closing something down.

So you either do it really sneaky-like, or there's basically a complete social breakdown and civil war, with casualties. Like in Russia. Which isn't much further ahead freedom wise, just now.

We've seen this show on TV, I don't want to see it on my front lawn. So if Stevie Harper takes his time, I'm good with it.

Phantom ...

If the state will exist in the current form, the question is not how many parties, but how much room there is on the right? From the strategic point of view NDP provides extra counter-balancing leveraging public (democratic) opinion to the left, the there is BQ. With smart tactics on the ground it would be helpful to have another visible party pulling away from state/socialist/bureaucratic paradigm.

btw.. Jim Flaherty is not digging as much deep as he is expanding on the width.

On another note in the same subject, I've always wonder what is psychological impact on politician when they have Ottawa minions clapping day and night?

All of the above comment's sound to true and to scary.

Phantom: I agree that strong conservative ideology won't sell in much of Canada; but your "sneaky-like" method means one step forward, two steps back. You still lose ground; just like Steyn said, and that is exactly what has been happening to us.

At the current rate of change, Harper would have to be in power for decades ... no wait; he's increased the deficit massively to about the per capita size of the US deficit ... so he's more than a care-taker ... he's a full blown statist; even cutting military spending in order to ingraciate himself to Quebec and the GTA.

That's why I believe that, failing an economic melt down like in NJ, strong, clear, convincing leadership may offer reason for centrist Canadians to take a chance on the CPC. You will never change leftists, but centrists drift around in the middle and I'd bet none of them want their grandchildren paying for grandma's and grandpa's bills. Right now though, there is nobody in CPC leadership to convince them ... especially the current PM who is becoming, day by day, the ultimate in care-takers just biding time until the LPC can find a leader with a pulse, who will then crush the CPC in an election.

Harper apologists are here about as quick as one would expect with their utterly unverifiable claims that Harper is 'sneakily' shrinking government. Complete crap. He even brought back the free lawyers for leftists program with some minor adjustments. Paul Martin in the '90s was a better conservative. He actually led some serious cutbacks in the civil service. Overall, we were much better off then. It's been almost all downhill since.
Odd, that an 'ism' that seems to be the only alternative to what is so wrong should fail so often, should produce 'leaders' like Harper (HAHA) far more often than Thatchers. When something produces that many mistakes, there is something wrong at a systemic level. And that something is conservatism itself. Conservatism is a shambolic mess that can mean 50 different things to 40 people. It is totally lacking in the moral, philosophical, and intellectual equipment to seriously challenge let alone reverse statist growth. Bond vigilantes do a better job of it. Ayn Rand understood this decades ago. Now more than ever we need to move up from conservatism.

I must agree with Watcher and I think ET covered the problem well. Every time a government (at any level) creates a program, an agency or bureaucracy it creates a beast in the sense that it in the very nature of the beast to survive and grow. How many times has one been created supposedly temporarily that actually ceased to exist. In relation to the population Canada has one of the highest number of people working for government, especially when federal, provincial and municipal levels are combined of the world. There is no end to duplication and waste.

As long as such exists it will not matter much which political party is elected, since the country will continue to be truly governed by the non elected bureaucrats and judges.

It's true we need a Thatcher.

Someone who will chop the bureaucracy. And not necessarily. I incline to Sean Gabb's idea that the proper way to change the culture would be to do ALL the cutting at once. The individual screams would be lost in the turmoil.

Go to http://www.seangabb.co.uk and click on
Read my book on the Culture War.

His thesis is that any attack on one corner of the 'Enemy Class' stirs outrage from the others. But if all are punished, the sound of the outrage remains about the same, and if the real enemy class (CBC etc. and PR fart-catchers) are nobbled, the sound level will be less.

The Conservatives lack leaders, and Harper is the caretaker he's just keeping the seat warm for the Libs. Now I realise why the Libs only allowed people in the Otawa, Hull and GTA zip code to apply for federal jobs to ensure the snivel service remained loyal to the Liberal Party.

; he's increased the deficit massively to about the per capita size of the US deficit .

Not even close. The US deficit is about $1.2 trillion (opinions differ), which is 20 times Harper's deficit. US population is only about 10 times that of Canada, so the per capita deficit figure is roughly twice in the US what it is here.

Before reading this Steyn piece, I was toying with how I'd approach the next election -- with what breathless predictions I'd make at sda:
Here's what I came up with: A statist will win!

I'm having a laugh now remembering what John Bolton said when asked who he thought would be the next UN head: his droll answer, "a proletarian".

We need a Thatcher? Well, she did not shrink the state, only the growth of the state, and that only infinitesimally. As to Reagan, it's clear to me now that "supply side" economics was really about the optimal tax rate for MAXIMIZING STATE REVENUE. Love the guy, but he didn't reduce the state either.

The state cannot be shrunk.

It can collapse though. Nothing to discuss, nothing to debate. Protect yourself.

KevinB: I get a Canuck per capita deficit of about .6 of the US one. So you are correct, they are not equal, but yet not nearly as far apart as you claim.

Re: Phantom's comment, "You think Chretien put the firearm registry head office in Miramichi New Brunswick by accident? (...) First, that the entire area would vote Liberal, which it does"

Miramichi's MP is Conservative Tilly O'Neill-Gordon.

http://webinfo.parl.gc.ca/MembersOfParliament/ProfileMP.aspx?Key=128471&Language=E

When Conservatives refuse to make conservative arguments using the excuse that the electorate won't listen to them, they concede arguments and policies to Liberals by default. You can call it cowardice, or refusal to treat the electorate as adults, what have you. It does nothing to advance conservative fortunes.

The gun registry jobs in the Miramichi are minimal compared to the ones in the registry held in Ottawa.
kruton must have known that would happen..crafty fugker.

Try reading The Economist! In a recent issue there were several charts that showed Canada's deficit and debt per capita were the third lowest in the G20 While the US was second only to Britain. Any comparison of Canada's situation is spuious ande uninformed.

IMO, Phantom is correct on all accounts. Stephen Harper is NOT boring when he speaks, he is charming, he is informative and he and cracks solid, laugh out loud jokes.

The msm present our Prime Minister in every and any negative light that they can dream up in their stupid, fanatical minds. The msm/troika believe that they are superior to the Prime Minister and all Conservative people; this is a nasty reality for the Prime Minister because he is forced to converse with these tweeny minded hacks, as part of his job.
Some criticism comes from within Conservative ranks; when I was at the Conservative AGM meeting last year all that the executive and the members did was rag on the Prime Minister for not being 'progressive' on things like 'Climate change/Glo Bull warming', increasing the Northern allowance, putting more money into housing, subsidies for gument workers, shoring up pensions...when I said that Glo bull warming was a hoax they looked at me like I had two heads and would not recognize me. In 2006 when I insisted that the Yukon Conservative candidate not lie about the Conservatives' intentions on the Kelowna Accord (she said the Conservatives would recognize the Kelowna Accord to get the vote of the North American Indian people who live up here!) they told me I was not a team player! Then there is the opposition that calls itself the enemy.

The Prime Minister is up against this ilk of people all of the time and he has to listen to them; he does not have to be thrilled to be around them, though, and it shows; for this rather glorious reason, most people never see the personality of this good man who has a wicked sense of humour. PMSH does not endure fools with the ease of a Liberano/PC/dipper/Blochead ilk Prime Minister (probably because like attracts like). I think PMSH grinds his teeth in question period.

Conservatives want some action on our policies, and I do too but if a government has a minority and they have Liberal lite whiners within their own ranks and squawking Bolsheviks across the aisle in the opposition and msm; goading and fanatically opposing every common sense move, one has to 'endure'. The former threatening to 'move' to the Troika if his/her 'concerns' are not recognized; the later spouting irritating, irrational, rhetorical, non relevant redundant opposition ---if you wish to stay sane you sit in the house and think of anything but the squawking of the murder of crows on the benches/press gang. People who think that they could do a better job than the Prime Minister should think about the circumstances.

Under the present circumstances, our Prime Minster is doing an incredibly good job of running this nation; he has a limited mandate, a thankless, shrewish batch of citizens (including many Conservatives!)to deal with, and a young Bolshevick running the show next door. Conservative people are not in powerful positions right now.

Walk a mile in the Prime Minister's boots before you diss this good man - I dare anyone here to try it!