Category: Baiting the Right

Owner Builder Exams: Good Governance or Government Overreach?

Baiting The Left Baiting the Right Great Moments In Socialism 31 Comments

A regular SDA reader, who wishes to remain anonymous, has drawn my attention to a new Owner Builder Exam in British Columbia.

“There’s some really troubling building legislation that was brought into effect this past summer in BC, whereby a person wanting to build on their own property must pass an exam before proceeding. It’s such an incredible overreach on the part of the government overlords that more people should know about it. My son began building when the permit only required a fee and filling out a form, but since the exam is now required, until he has a good chunk of time to study building codes and WCB law, he can’t possibly pull off the 70 percent required to pass. Furthermore, his friend who helped with the framing, has been a contractor for 40 years, is not allowed to build another home until he is HPO certified. The process for him requires an investment of $20,000 to become certified (the owner builder application is $400). Since he will be retiring soon, he does not feel an HPO certification is a good investment for him. Out of the 48 established contractors in our town, only 16 have been able to certify under the new legislation. The others are now only permitted to do renovations and if they are caught doing new builds, the penalty is $30,000. It’s so crazy!”

Speaking of Fake News

Baiting The Left Baiting the Right Media 17 Comments

Something any regular SDA reader has learned over the years is that the MSM appears to move in lockstep together, especially when it comes to portraying non-Leftists in the most despicable light. So appears to be the case with how the Western media outlets have portrayed Vladimir Putin and Russia. Professor Stephen F. Cohen outlines five false narratives about Putin and Russia.
Here’s a podcast discussing the same.

Are Democrats Capable of Dropping their Identity Silos and Treating Everyone Equally?

2016 Baiting The Left Baiting the Right Trump 10 Comments

A Columbia University Humanities Professor, Mark Lilla, has written a very interesting column called The End of Identity Liberalism. Ignore the obvious shots at Trump & Republicans, remembering what audience he is primarily trying to reach. To Leftists, who have been deeply indoctrinated in the propaganda of Identity Politics for many decades now – younger ones know nothing else – Lilla makes a compelling argument about why this must come to an abrupt halt if the Democrats have any hope of rising from the ashes.

One of the many lessons of the recent presidential election campaign and its repugnant outcome is that the age of identity liberalism must be brought to an end. Hillary Clinton was at her best and most uplifting when she spoke about American interests in world affairs and how they relate to our understanding of democracy. But when it came to life at home, she tended on the campaign trail to lose that large vision and slip into the rhetoric of diversity, calling out explicitly to African-American, Latino, L.G.B.T. and women voters at every stop. This was a strategic mistake. If you are going to mention groups in America, you had better mention all of them. If you don’t, those left out will notice and feel excluded. Which, as the data show, was exactly what happened with the white working class and those with strong religious convictions. Fully two-thirds of white voters without college degrees voted for Donald Trump, as did over 80 percent of white evangelicals.

While some of the commenters are too far gone to grasp the author’s message, many did. Here are some examples:

Continue reading →

Victor Davis Hanson: Why Trump Won

2016 Baiting The Left Baiting the Right 33 Comments

In his usual understated way, the Hoover Institution’s Victor Davis Hanson explains why Donald Trump won the presidential election:

… the more Clinton Inc. talked about the Latino vote, the black vote, the gay vote, the woman vote, the more Americans tired of the same old identity politics pandering. What if minority bloc voters who had turned out for Obama might not be as sympathetic to a middle-aged, multimillionaire white woman? And what if the working white classes might flock to the politically incorrect populist Trump in a way that they would not to a leftist elitist like Hillary Clinton? In other words, the more Clinton played the identity politics card, the more she earned fewer returns for herself and more voters for Trump.
The old blue-collar middle class was bewildered by the leftwing social agenda in which gay marriage, women in combat units, and transgendered restrooms went from possible to mandatory party positions in an eye blink. In a party in which “white privilege” was pro forma disparagement, those who were both white and without it grew furious that the elites with such privilege massaged the allegation to provide cover for their own entitlement.

The big question is, will ANYONE on the Left or in the Elitist Right Hierarchy pay any attention to what the American people are telling them?
h/t Gord Tulk

Who Killed Conservativism?

Baiting the Right 19 Comments

Fundamentally, conservatism is a cultural perspective. It’s a philosophical outlook rooted in ones traditions and heritage. Managerialism is the obliteration of culture and tradition, in favor of sterile technocratic governance. Once the Official Right surrendered to this it ceased to be conservative. No conservative ends can ever be achieved at gun point. Political liberty, after all, is the minimization of the use of coercion by the state in its essential role of preventing one person’s freedom from intruding upon another’s.
That’s why Buckley Conservatism is dying. The challenges of this age are all cultural. Globalism marshals the monopoly of force of each state against the local communities trying to hold onto their traditional way of life. Mass migration disrupts the demographic balance that makes for social stability. You can’t address these forces, much less oppose them, with programs that promise to expand the role of the state in the affairs of the citizens.
The Contract with America promised to eliminate 95 specific government programs. None of those programs were eliminated. Welfare reform was passed and offered the first substantive alterations of these programs in a generation. Even so, the budget for these 95 programs during Gingrich’s time as Speaker grew by 13%. That’s the story of post-Cold War conservatism. Lots of Five Year Plans and artfully labeled agendas, but the result has been a 25 year run of expanding government and retreating liberty.

h/t Me No Dhimmi

Vancouver Real Estate: The Games People Play

Baiting The Left Baiting the Right 25 Comments

“Fun & Games” continue unabated in Vancouver’s real estate market, as illustrated here and here and here. This comment from one of the articles accurately describes the situation:

The offshore elite have nothing to worry about in these trivial rezoning nuisances for their projects. They are fully aware and cognizant of the fact that Canadians have an international reputation of being the most gullible and easily manipulated naive clowns in the world. They would sell their children’s future, environment and literally the land from under their feet for some measly laundered loose change. Simply greasing the appropriate palm, like they do back home, is all that is needed.

Now that housing in Vancouver is unaffordable by most Canadians, now that there are endless streets with empty homes and empty condominiums (50+ weeks of the year), might it be long overdue for the residents of Vancouver to have an honest conversation about what has happened to their city? Nope, because anyone who dares question any of it is immediately deemed a R-A-C-I-S-T!
Last year Premier Christy Clark gave a firm ‘No’ to an offshore investors tax. But the pressure is mounting for her to change her mind.

A Pair of English Lads Discuss All Things Trump

Baiting The Left Baiting the Right 23 Comments

In his latest podcast, James Delingpole talks with Milo Yiannopoulos about Donald Trump and the American Presidential election campaign. The latter has a very interesting perspective about why Trump is so popular with average Americans, especially why many this time around don’t care that he’s not a real conservative. More here.
The strongest counterpoint to a Trump presidential bid comes from National Review.
Should Trump face Bill Clinton’s wife, it’ll be most interesting to see whether his supporters have been talking to themselves in an echo chamber. Should Trump face Sanders, 2016 will likely be one of the craziest years in modern American history.

Real Estate Prices in Vancouver Grow Beyond Absurd

Baiting the Right 20 Comments

A bidding war recently got some homeowners in Vancouver a lot more than they were asking. Not surprising to learn that the highest bidder was from China.
Two questions that are increasingly being asked, mostly behind the scenes, are:

  • Where’s all this money coming from?
  • Is it all entirely legitimate?

Don’t ask too loudly though, lest you be called a racist. Furthermore, most homeowners don’t want such questions asked because it means more $$$ for them. One wonders though, 20 years from now, how the majority of British Columbians will feel about how a huge amount of their province’s property being owned by foreign nationals with little to no connection to Canada’s culture and heritage.
Historians will be bemused to reflect on how simply and easily so many British Columbians were bought off with relative ease. Al Capone would be jealous.
h/t Marc in Calgary

The Aftermath of the Alberta Election

Baiting The Left Baiting the Right 45 Comments

Today’s letters to the Calgary Herald provide for interesting reading. Here are two very different views:

Shameful
Shame on the Alberta PCs for violating the principles of good government, namely the protection of individual rights. Shame on Danielle Smith, whose turncoat flight from liberty arguably handed Alberta to the tax-and-spend NDP.
And shame on the Albertans who voted in socialism — the evil and destructive philosophy that punishes those who are creative, productive and responsible to reward those who are not.
Glenn Woiceshyn, Calgary

People person
Congratulations, Alberta! You have shown backbone and the conviction that hope triumphs over fear.
The smug, self-serving, self-satisfied, condescending Tories are gone. I hold no political office or position with the NDP. I have known Rachel Notley for 15 years and you will find her a woman of integrity, balance and judgment.
She is not hamstrung by ideology. She is a pragmatic, humble, warm person, whom I know you will come to trust very quickly. She and her party will govern, not rule. Her concern is for people, and she knows that people need good employment as much as anything to prosper.
Stay engaged. We need to be led, not preached to.
Lance Rancier, Edmonton

The Roadkill Diaries

Baiting the Right 13 Comments

While I understand that the CPC are actually the party that holds open nominations as opposed to the red-light/green-light Liberals, I found this CBC Commentary funny.

Mr. Trudeau just accepted somebody that Harper thought was too tainted to touch. Think about that for a second. Harper thought she was too dirty. That’s like Rex Murphy accusing someone of “loquaciously rambling in their discourse.”

H/T, Plainsdrifter.

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