For a fiscal conservative there was a lot not to like in the budget. But whatever else one may say about the budget, one cannot say it was bad politics. Micro-targeted incentives certainly are capable of swinging some votes:
It’s the first time Ipsos-Reid reported the Conservatives, who scored a minority victory 14 months ago, could win a majority.
Grit support plunged to 29% from 34% in a survey conducted a week earlier.
Moreover, the poll indicates the Conservatives have opened up a 10-point lead (43% to 33%) over the Liberals in Ontario…
lberia – first, explain how my posts are ‘sophistry’. Thanks in advance. I’m quite interested in your explanation.
Now – what programs did he cut? You are speaking of the environment. What programs were actually in place?
No, I won’t be disengenous and claim that Harper is not bribing voters with their own money. I’ll be honest and say he’s not bribing voters with their own money.
You see, taxation is a mode of redistribution, as you well know. It takes money from A and distributes to A and B and C and so on. You may call redistribution ‘bribery’ but I don’t. The money HAS to be redistributed. Or – I suppose you could do, as the Liberals have done, and given it to your advertising friends to work on your re-election. But, the point is, it has to be redistributed. Are you seriously going to claim that any group that receives this money is ‘bribed’? How contemptuous of you.
Please define what ethical rules he is breaking. Is he hiring ad firms to work on his election campaign and paying for it by tax money? Is he sending fired ministers off as ambassadors? What is he doing?
Is he instead, at the francophone conference, insisting that they admit that the Lebanon-Israeli war inflicted suffering on both sides? Is he confronting China with human rights questions openly or is he, as the Liberals insist, whispering it behind the screen so no-one will be offended (or bother to hear it)?
No, when the Conservatives win a majority, they will move gradually to a decentralized federation. They will give the people time to adjust and work out their increased provincial and municipal powers.
Again, I await your proof of my sophistry.
‘For example, first, he cuts the programs that he disagrees with idealogically. Then, when it is apparent that the public doesn’t approve, he reinstates them, proclaiming “look at the initiatives we’re taking.”‘
Myth of the left.
I’ll concede that he cuts programs that he disagrees with. The myth is the reason isn’t pure ideology. If you actually listen to what they say when they cut a program the reason is invariably lack of accountability or fiscally irresponsibity or outright ineffectiveness. I voted for a party that would take a hard look at waste and failed fuzzy thinking and not tolerate it because of political correctness.
However, if at any time they have reintroduced a program or funding, it is easy to see the stamp the conservatives have placed on that program. For example, SOW. He cut $5 million from their program only to restore it. Do you think for a second they were happy about the restored funding? Not a chance because the money was set aside in such a way that it would get results for women, not supply jobs for leftist fuzzy thinkers to further their own agenda.
I despise regurgitation of this myth and others like the hidden agenda myth.
‘Second, he is bribing voters with their own money, a clever trick borrowed from the Liberals and especially useful if it means buying the Quebec vote. Don’t be disingenuous and claim he’s not doing that.’
He campaigned on the issue of fiscal balance because he believes that it is the way to solve the Federalist/Separatist gridlock that is such a pain in the ass for this nation. Harper believes a re-balanced federation vs. a centralist system will save this country and I believe it too. I guess we’ll find out if he’s right but to say he is bribing Quebec with our own money is disingenuous. He ran on this platform and it is bearing fruit.
‘Third, he is ignoring his own claims of superior ethics. The Conservatives are behaving like Liberal governments in the past. You think that this is fine…the end justifies the means, eh? I would question your ethics as well.’
Another left myth. Harper is running a clean and ethical government. He may be a bastard to the opposition but comparing him to previous Liberal governments is not a defnsible or responible remark.
The principal difference between the Liberals and the CPC lies in how they approach solving problems and addressing issues. For decades the Liberals simply threw money at a problem and then immediately declared it “solved”. Martin’s idiotic “We’ll fix health care for a generation” response comes to mind. What Harper has done to date indicates, to me at least, that he is actually focusing on outcomes…you, the grown-up approach…
RevDream said: “Lets keep pouring the grease of this Liberal slide till their at about the 10% level. Let the knowledge of their crimes dipped in the sin of pride, be carried far & wide.”
If only it were so RD. Truth be told, Libs are pretty much down to core support (around 25-30%), who will vote LPC not matter what their policies or who their leader is.
I am most disappointed in NDP. They have been moribund. I’m not surprised at all by the equivaliencies echoed by Iberia. What else have they got? Iberia gives a hint – they will bleat about the hidden agenda should Harper win majority, then his Hitlerness will really come out. IOW, they already know they’ve lost the next election; hence their brave faces, acting hurt and demanding apologies for “most negative, mean-spirited, vote buying government ever.” CPC’s true sin is daring to challenge, successfully, the LPC hegemony of corruption and continued move to the left. Dionsky has taken them further left, with attendant wooliness, than either Trudeau or Chretien would have dreamed. I doubt, if he were alive, Trudeau would even vote for him. If I didn’t so keenly remember their antics and treatement of Clark, Day and Harper, I might be tempted to feel sorry for them. I don’t, mostly because they will rise again, once they get rid of Dionsky and the stink of Chretien corruption leaves the nostrils of the voter. So, yes we must keep reminding everyone of their past misdeeds and their continued gaffes.
~~ CANADIAN CITIZEN POLL ~~
*********************************************
Which do you beleive is the most reasonable path for Canada to take on the environment;
o The Suzuki/Gore/Dion carbon-credit Kyoto scam
OR
o The Baird/Patrick Moore environment/pollution protection plan.
************************************
Results 19 times out of 20;
Suzuki/Gore …. 3% –
Baird/Moore … 97% —————————–
This poll is just as beleiveable as any other.
Has anyone EVER seen ANY raw data from ANY OTHER poll ??? Major media or polling firm or whatever. ??
ET:
Sophistry: A plausible but misleading or fallacious argument.
“A brainwashed electorate has to be shown the problems of their socialist welfare slumber – gently, and shown that they can be in charge, they can run their own businesses, can innovate, can be entrepreneurs..etc. “
What nonsense. Who is brainwashed? Everyone but you and those that think like you? “ Socialist welfare slumber?” What’s that? You are implying that all those who don’t think like you are socialists on welfare. Your statements can only be taken seriously by your fellow right wingers. Your words are conceited and misleading. I’d like to see Harper use them during an election: “Canadians are simply a bunch of socialist welfare bums brought up in a culture of entitlement.”
To address your issue about ethics, if Harper is actually doing what you hope for and he was indeed ethical he would say: “After profligate spending to get elected to a majority, I am going to cut government spending on social programs and release you all to the nirvana of the free market, where only the fittest survive.”
What programs did he cut? He cut $395 million from our EnerGuide for Houses Retrofit Incentive; $500 million from the EnerGuide for Low Income Households program; $250 million from the partnership fund for climate change projects with provinces and municipalities; $593 million from the Wind Power Production Incentive and Renewable Power Production Incentive; $584.5 million from environmental programs at Natural Resources Canada; $120 million from the One-Tonne Challenge; $1 billion from the Climate Fund to reduce greenhouse gases; and $2 billion of general climate-change program funding.
Harper said he would abandon the CO2 emissions limits of Kyoto and initiated cuts on the above environmental programs, but after failing to get people to buy into the Clean Air Act, is now on the climate change bandwagon: reinstate a version of the EnerGuide program; “The hydrogen Highway”; carbon taxes, etc.
Yep…the ethics of “whatever it takes to get a majority.”
Probably the most interesting thing in the poll is that those numbers include a 7% drop in support in Alberta. So this 40% is stronger than a 40% with Alberta polling as usual.
lberia – that’s not a good definition of sophistry, for, using that definition, I’d have to accuse you of exactly that – using a misleading or fallacious argument.
I make a claim that out population is brainwashed, and that’s not fallacious. It’s fact; years of education within our schools and MSM have led the majority to believe that a big government socialist welfare statism, within a centralist gov’t is ‘the best’.
‘socialist welfare slumber’ is a metaphor. Your suggestion that a politician use it outside of a debate and within a speech is silly. And no, it doesn’t mean that ‘all those who don’t think like me are socialists on welfare’. That’s a ‘fallacious and misleading argument.
It means exactly what I said – a mentality that views the socialist welfare state as ‘the best’.
Your comment on Harper and ethics is empty and invalid.
As for environmental actions, they weren’t cut. Nice try, lberia. They were changed – now there’s the EcoEnergy retrofit for houses, Wind power and other clean power, 1.5 billion ecoenergy renewable initiative to reduce greenhouse gases, etc. In addition, there’s money for research on clean power, for chemical management. So, despite your misleading attempt, Harper hasn’t cut env’tal programs, he’s changed them or cut them in some cases, increased their funding in some cases and rejected Kyotoism and empty projects.
No, he has openly chastized Kyotoism and said it would devastate the economy. If you are a Kyoto cultist, then, there’s nothing more to be said on this.
” ..If you are a Kyoto cultist, then, there’s nothing more to be said on this.”
And THAT is at the root of it all.
All cults come crashing down when enough people realize the folly of it all. The shark has been jumped.
H. L. Mencken said that: “Democracy is the theory that the citizenry knows what it wants and deserves to get it good and hard”. In a democracy, the party running the state can’t do what the citizens don’t want, because then the citizens will not elect said party. The party must do what the citizens want, at least in the short term, while at the same time trying to shift the citizens beliefs in a direction that causes the citizens to want more of what the party wants, in the long term.
A few weeks ago, a major poll was done on leadership qualities, and Mr. Harper came out way ahead. Astute observers noted that with those sorts of “fundamentals”, the electorate would likely shift further toward the CPC if they played their cards right. A few weeks ago, one of the major polls put the CPC at 40%. It was an outlier at that time (although perhaps a harbinger) and there have been a few major polls since then that found the CPC back in the 35% or less range.
Then there was the budget. And now, a couple days ago, there was an SES poll putting the CPC at 39%, and now this Ipsos poll at 40%. These numbers indicate that Mr. Harper is successfully changing the normative measure of what the citizens want — in the sense that at this point, the most important change the CPC needs to effect is to disabuse the electorate of their unrealistic fear of the CPC. The efforts Mr. Harper and the CPC have been making toward that end appear to be working.
For the last few years I’ve been watching something I call the Vitruvius Experimental Election Predictor, which is computed as follows, where C is the percentage of CPC (or equivalent) popular vote in the election, and L is the percentage of LPC popular vote in the election:
V = ( C – L ) * ( C + L ) / 100
For the last 50 years, when V is greater than about +5 the Conservatives have achieved majorities, and when V is less than about -5, the Liberals have achieved majorities. From -5 to +5 there have been various minorities, but (with one minority exception) when V is greater than zero the Conservatives formed the government, and when V is less than zero the Liberals have formed the government.
Today’s Ipsos poll gives V = +7.6, which is in the range of a CPC majority. Note though that in the only poll that matters – the last election – based on actual popular vote, V was +4.1 (and we have a CPC minority) even though the polls before the last election had the CPC at V greater than +5. In other words, in the last election, the pre-election polls over-estimated the CPC’s strength. Caution, then, remains advised.
The combination of the latest SES and Ipsos polls, combined with the polls on Mr. Harper’s leadership strengths, seem to indicate that the CPC are trending in the right (ahem) direction. People who don’t like that direction, people who don’t like what Canadians want, are being unreasonable if they expect a political party, in a democracy, to decree by fiat a change in what the citizenry wants. It takes a light hand on the tiller, else you bury the spinnaker pole, which has a nasty habit of breaking the mast. Canada doesn’t need to be dismasted, it needs to execute a tack, and the crew (in this case, the citizens) have to be prepped for that operation if the captain is to prevent the ship of state from being caught in irons when the tack is executed.
Iberia:
Your reference to the former Energuide program is a great example of what I was referring to in my 4:36 post concerning the difference between throwing money at an issue (and immediately declaring “problem solved”)and bringing in a program that actually tracks and measures outcomes.
Fact is, the Energuide program as it was formerly constituted had horrendously large administration costs and was rife with fraud.
To quote a prominent Liberal “You just didn’t get it done!”
Come on ET, I don’t know what definition of sophistry you’re looking for…that’s the one in the dictionary (The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition.) Your claim that most Canadians are brain washed is fallacious – I challenge you to prove it. Your opinion is not good enough. I remember how you used to pick apart steve d.’s arguments: “proof, proof, proof!” (I can imagine you pounding the keyboard.) Now it’s up to you to provide proof.
Why is my comment on Harper’s ethics invalid? Because you say so? You must have a different definition of ethics…when someone says they’re going to do something and they don’t, or vice versa, that’s called lying, which is unethical.
“As for environmental actions, they weren’t cut…they were changed.”
Ha ha ha. More sophistry from you. They were cut. When there was a public backlash, many were reintroduced. Rona Ambrose was removed from the environment portfolio. Don’t attempt to rewrite history, especially when these events only happened a couple of months ago.
The “new” programs are better? Please provide proof.
Bruce:
“Fact is, the Energuide program as it was formerly constituted had horrendously large administration costs and was rife with fraud.”
Please provide proof.
Only hope for the Liberals is for Dion to step down, and hope there’s no election called while they’re leaderless. Will Stephane take one for the team?
An excellent account of a pragmatic ‘bricolage’ type of government, Vitruvius. Good government isn’t carried out by dictatorial edicts from the top which could as you say, break the mast, but is done ‘gradually and in bits and pieces’.
This is called ‘bricolage’ (Levi-Strauss, Paquet). This means ‘tinkering’, a tactic of ‘bottom-up’ or introducing small, locally relevant changes, rather than authoritarian universal and centrally imposed changes. These changes gradually change the culture – and suddenly, the system ‘wakes up’ to find that it has evolved, practically on its own, into a new system.
Such a process is far more robust than a top down imposed one – for in that second situation, the people will instead focus their energies on resistance and when the authoritarianism stops, the whole will fall apart.
The old order of the Nobles, the socialist welfare tribe, is extremely resilient and operative at many levels, the Liberals/NDP, the Senate, the bureaucracy. Changes will have to be introduced gradually – even with a majority.
lberia – your definition of ethics is invalid. First, you provided no examples of Harper being ‘unethical’ other than your claim. Now, after repeated requests, you state that such an action is when he promises one thing and changes his mind. That has nothing to do with ethics; that’s realism.
Are you seriously going to state that if a situation in which X is valid, changes to one in which X is no longer beneficial, that the politician is being unethical if he refuses to acknowledge the changed situation and adapt his policies???? That would actually be an unethical act, because it rejects judgment.
And brainwashing is proven by the fact that most Canadians who support welfare statism cannot substantiate this support with any rational argument. They just ‘do’. That includes Dion and Layton.
molarmauler at 3:00 pm:
Glad you enjoyed the Heritage Foundation video with Evan Sayet. I just finished watching all of it myself. A good discussion; he refers to `progressives` as a cult of indiscriminateness.
But the credit for referencing it first on this thread should go to Fred at 11:47 am.
Vitruvius,
Stats and more stats. I went through the seats a few months ago going back about 40 to 50 years looking at, in particular, Alberta to minority/majority gov’ts.
IIRC, every majority gov’t would have been won without Alberta, minority gov’ts were created by Alberta votes. Again if IIRC, there was 1 exception … I can’t remember if it was a minority or majority gov’t.
Thanks for the new word I didn’t know, ET! Bricolage does indeed have some interesting applications. Interestingly, perhaps, it is not defined in my Websters Third or my Compact OED (I’ll put away the magnifying glass now), probably because it’s French. I will take exception though with the Wikipedia entry on the word, where it is claimed that “Bricolage is also often contrasted with engineering: building by trial and error rather than based on theory”. This is an egregious mis-characterization of engineering, which is based on trial and error, that is later captured and codified in best-practices standards. If one wants theory, one should talk to the philosophers and the scientists, not the engineers.
The system we call civilization is a network of cooperating and competing claims. One of the network structures we often use to our advantage in organizing such claims is the hierarchy, or tree. History has shown, over and over again, that the most effective human social hierarchies are bushy trees, in which responsibility is pushed as far out toward the leaves as possible. If one’s tree is too flat, one borders on anarchy and mob rule. If one’s tree is too thin, one ends up with totalitarian authoritarianism.
The key to growing bushy human networks is well embodied in the traditional right to freedom of association. Humans naturally tend to associate more than anarchy, and less than totalitarianism. Our job is to support those natural human tendencies to grow bushy social trees.
Does anyone actually think they would better off if everyone agreed with them on everything?
Vitruvius: “Does anyone actually think they would better off if everyone agreed with them on everything?”
Do you mean other than the libs, gore, suzuki, strong, democrats, UN, EU, castro, IPCC, SOW, etc., etc.?
dion is more of a “de jour” menu item.
ET:
Must you be so obtuse? You are going around in circles trying to make excuses so that YOUR “option three” appears to be ethical. And it’s my fault I’m not giving examples? I’m using your example- “option three.” The behaviour in your example illustrates a lack of ethics.
“…if a situation in which X is valid, changes to one in which X is no longer beneficial,that the politician is being unethical if he refuses to acknowledge the changed situation and adapt his policies?”
Yes, if the only reason he is changing his policies is to get elected to a majority. We’re not talking about changing strategies during a war…this is about tricking the electorate.
“And brainwashing is proven by the fact that most Canadians who support welfare statism cannot substantiate this support with any rational argument. They just ‘do’.”
Oh, so it’s a case of “it is because I say so!”
Your conceit is simply astonishing. Go sit in the corner with steve d.
lberia: ” …this is about tricking the electorate”
Tell me how you were tricked. If you weren’t tricked … tell me how much smarter you are than the Canadian voters who haven’t even voted in the next election.
I mean, Ural, other than the people who didn’t read my comment. It’s Saturday night. I’m in a contemplative mood. I’m wearing my Zen and my Yoda hats. This is a hubris test. It’s a meta-comment on the behaviour of people in blog comments:
Does anyone who is reading this comment actually think they would better off if everyone agreed with them on everything?
If one were to go look up the history of the Sophists, one would find that while when sophistry is poorly done, it is a disaster, when it is done excellently, it is an art form. So is fraud, of course, in a negative sense, which is why fraud has ended up being opposed by ethics.
And thus in the pantheon of philosophy – metaphysics, epistemology, ontology, et cetera – we have axiology: the notion of value based on aesthetics and ethics.
It seems to me that the reasonable man must admit that he has been wrong before, and that he will be wrong again, and that the competition of ideas in a free market of public discourse serves to strengthen his defenses, as it serves to allow him to discover the errors in his models that are brought out by others’ arguments, thus allowing him to increase his axiologic value measure.
Imagine all the people, living without the competition of ideas? Don’t bother: ain’t gonna’ happen. Imagine some people wasting words taking cheap shots at each other when they could be spending their words on advancing their argument? Count on it. Welcome to the species.
Vitruvius,
At the risk of being slapped by Kate … next time I’m in the thawing Frozen North, we should have a beer.
BTW: I was at the UoA in 72 … I was kinda focused on poontang.
“Yes, if the only reason he is changing his policies is to get elected to a majority.”
How about the income trusts? It’s obvious this policy change wasn’t done in the hope of forming a majority. In fact, completely the opposite. Yet, this action was necessary in order to avoid a looming disaster allowed, or at least not dealt with, by the cowardly Liberals.
Ethical or unethical, my little socialist troll?
I’ve said it before, i’ll say it again.
If this keeps up if Harper gets a majority, then we have reason to worry. Until then, we have to grin and bear it.
The thing that really bothers me, though, is Harper thinking he’s going to get one. Don’t get me wrong, I wish as much as the next person around here that he does, but unless the Bloc falls off the face of the earth, it won’t happen.
Irwin:
Ethical or unethical? Well, it wouldn’t have been unethical if Harper and the Conservatives hadn’t made such a big deal of it when the Liberals were considering taxing them. Harper promised to not touch income trusts. Was it a looming catastrophe not to tax income trusts? That’s what the Cons tell us. I haven’t bothered to research this because I’m not personally affected and I don’t really care. However, this whole issue showed us that Harper is just as capable of going back on his word as the Liberals are.
Theft is theft, even when it is done by a minority government and even if it is what passes for “centrist” politics.
If a store window has been broken and many people from your neighborhood are stealing, I could understand if someone declined to stand in front of them and fight them. But to join in the looting, while your cheerleaders claim that “he has to help steal a lot of stuff for now, but when he wins their confidence then he’s really really going to put his foot down and stop all the looting” is as lame as any Liberal excuse for lying and stealing that I ever heard.
I predict it’ll only be about three days after the next election, if they win a majority, some conservative henchman will be standing over a hapless bureaucrat who is hesitating to put his John Hancock on a requisition for some crooked eco-boondoggle, farm payola or exercise-with-your-kids scam, saying, “shut up and just cut the cheque.” If it hasn’t started happening already.
Oh yeah, and for you people who are bothered by “ideologues” complaining about being robbed by fake conservatives … it isn’t the principle of the thing – it’s the money.