normanchateau

Please stop with the personal attacks. I responded to your comments about the phantom poll on that thread on December 2nd.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}> I'll try again. Pleasse try not to engage in personal attacks.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}> Please try not to engage in personal attacks.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}> You're welcome. Yes.

He'll be as influential as Chretien was in picking his successor.

Please try not to engage in personal attacks.

Please don't hijack this thread. The topic was Harper and the new leader of the Liberals, not Martin.

Svend Robinson should not be a candidate for the NDP...period.

Nope, I disagree that we should do that even though that's the Dutch approach. That's the approach that's already in place in BC and it leads to disrespect and contempt for the law. The Netherlands has a problem in that cafes can sell marijuana and police look the other way. But the Dutch can't cultivate marijuana or they're charged with breaking the law. So the cafes import marijuana from foreign countries. If the Dutch could cultivate it, this would be a source of government revenue rather than sending the revenue to foreign countries. The Fraser Institute advocates legalization and taxation of cultivation in Canada and performed a cost/benefit analysis showing that Canada would generate billions which otherwise goes to organized crime. Hundreds of millions would also be saved in law enforcement costs. The VVD, a right-of-centre, fiercely pro-business political party in the Netherlands advocates exactly the same thing as the Fraser Institute approach. The VVD is fiscally conservative but is not socially conservative.

I agree. Layton must be very, very disappointed that Robinson is running just as Harper must have been disappointed that he was stuck with Gurmant Grewal. Harper lucked out when Grewal quit. But unfortunately for CPC, the anti-aboriginal fisherman that was nominated to replace Grewal as the CPC candidate was the only candidate. He was acclaimed as the sacrifical lamb and that riding will go to the Indo-Canadian Liberal candidate.

Downside? With a new leader in place and social/religious conservative Harper desperately relying on the radical BQ to prop him up as PM in return for Mulroney-style handouts to Quebec, the Liberals will forget Martin as quickly as they forgot Chretien, and will go on to form a majority. Upside is that Canadians finally get a majority government again and CPC will have to wait a little longer to get a palatable leader or better still, transform into the PCs.

Harper said that he would not re-introduce into Parliament the Liberal legislation to decriminalize marijuana possession. True or false? What have I said that's inaccurate?

I already answered that in my previous response. I said a majority supporting a position does not make that position rational. Harper's position on marijuana is irrational, even more so than his position on stripping away from lesbians their legal right to marry. And I have no idea what percentage of Canadians supported C-250 but I still think Harper blundered by opposing legislation which made gay bashing a crime.

And just because I haven't seen the tooth fairy doesn't mean she doesn't exist. I'm sure his policy is so brilliant that he doesn't want to reveal it. I hope it's more brilliant than his policy of putting young people in jail for simple possession. He was willing to reveal that position this weekend so this policy must be an even more clever vote getter.

This is where I got the idea that you support the will of a majority on issues. It was like 3 posts ago. Please, I'm hoping you don't get into another convoluted redefinition explanation like you did with 'bible thumper'. (I refer to a follower of any religion when I say bible thumper, even if they don't actually believe in the bible, they may follow the Koran or some other book but if they thump it then...) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> You conveniently left out the rest of the quote. Not only do a majority of Canadians all agree but so do the Liberals, NDP, BQ and Greens. In any event, even if they did not, Harper's position on this issue is just plain irrational.

A little selective? You mean that Mulroney did not suck up to Reagan? You mean that the US did impose softwood lumber tariffs during that era? If I'm wrong on how ineffective Mulroney was in his approach, why not present the facts and tell it like it was? And while you're at it, explain why Harper would be more effective with Bush since that's your belief. What's especially hilarious here is that you're actually defending Harper's position on softwood lumber. Harper has no position on softwood lumber other than to do absolutely nothing and hope that Bush will return the money. This is a position? This is a strategy? This is leadership?

By socially intolerant I mean intolerant of some members of society whose actions he disapproves of. For example, wanting to throw in jail those who possess a trace of marijuana. So far, more than a million Canadians have criminal records because of marijuana possession and Harper supports this intolerance of a large segment of society. So what that Harper trails Martin by 4 points? Martin is a relative centrist and 70% of Canadians support parties to the left of Harper. Where did I say that a position supported by a majority is "right"? Your comment that "You are all over the map." is hilarious and shows a curious tendency that some have to want to pigeon hole people and predict where they stand on all issues based on where they stand on one issue. For example, some right wingers tend to think that any Harper opponent is a socialist. I can assure you that those people who voted Progressive Conservative in the 2000 and 1997 election were not socialists although probably many of them had little use for the social and religious conservatives in Reform, Alliance and now CPC.

This is one of the funniest explanations I've ever heard. Are you not aware of how Brian Mulroney sucked up to Ronald Reagan to get Reagan to interfere on softwood lumber tariffs unilaterally imposed by the US pre-NAFTA.? Indeed that was one of the reasons why Mulroney and his government introduced NAFTA. No matter how much Mulroney kissed ass, arm-in-arm sang drunken songs with Reagan, Reagan never budged. Do you seriously, seriously believe that Harper has either the personality or negotiating skills to wring from Bush what Mulroney could not get from Reagan?

Yes, that's what I said alright Sharkman. What is that you think I've said subsequently that contradicts that? Harper's plan to send Canadian patients at public expense to private clinics in the US if necessary is not fiscally conservative. Do you think such a plan is fiscally conservative?

No doubt most of us are more tolerant than we were in the past. But Harper's runnihg for Prime Minister in 2006, not 1956. And the socially intolerant Harper is not just to the right of the Liberals, a middle-of-the-road party by Canadian standards today. He's also to the right of the NDP, BQ and Greens. By positioning himself to the right of all four of these parties, Harper guarantees that CPC remains unelectable. For example, Harper inexplicably and bizarrely this weekend in British Columbia let all of Canada know that he opposed the decriminalization of marijuana despite the fact that a majority of Canadians support decriminalization as do the Liberals, BQ, NDP and Greens. Sure, in the 50's Canadians didn't feel this way but Harper's running for office today.

If you want to take retalitory action, taxing exports makes little sense. They should look at taxing strategic imports. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Taxing imports would be less risky then Layton's plan but Harper's plan remains the worst of all, i.e., do nothing and hope that the friendly giant returns the 5 billion that he stole. Why is Harper afraid to take even a modest stand on this issue?

If so, Harper hasn't said so. I prefer the theory that they merely oppose any move away from what's traditional.

I don't think he hates Canada. I think he mainly hates that Canadians see through him, that they remember what he's done and said in the past, and that no matter how angry Canadians are with the Liberals, they won't vote for someone as intolerant as him.

Trusted them so much they wouldn't vote for them. The party was walking dead, on the verge of bankruptcy, without ideas or support. If it hadn't merged with the Alliance when it did it would have been destroyed in the last election. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I stand by my point that the PCs were trusted. The party was dying because many small c-conservatives thought the Alliance could better defeat the Liberals. The alliance could not defeat the Liberals. Neither could Reform. Had the Alliance disappeared and the PCs survived, the Liberals today would be facing a trusted conservative party untainted by extreme positions like opposing marijuana decriminalization, opposing inclusion of sexual orientation in hate crimes legislation, etc. Joe Clark, like the Liberals, NDP and BQ, were not opposed. Quebecc has elected PC governments in the past but they won't elect a Harperite party with socially intolerant Reform/Alliance views. If "uniting the right" was a clever move, why is the combined Alliance/PC vote higher than the CPC vote?

What have you seen? It's the old gateway drug myth. I believe that weed is the least harmfull of any recreational drug, alcohol included. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Marijuana is not only less harmful than alcohol but also less harmful than nicotine. So why does Harper think that marijuana possession should result in young people going to jail while possession of a substance far more harmful to society and the individual, alcohol, is perfectly acceptable? Here's my theory and it's just that, a theory. Conservatives are not huge proponents of social change. Here's one dictionary definition of conservative, "...tending or disposed to maintain existing views, habits, conditions, i.e., traditional." Canada criminalized marijuana in the 1920's and while criminalization was not based on any scientific or medical evidence, it's become a tradition. Previously various provinces prohibited the sale of alcohol but the alcohol prohibition laws were repealed in the 1920's. The US did not repeal prohibition laws until 1933 which meant that Canada supplied illegal US alcohol in the interim. So in Canada, alcohol was legalized and coincidentally, marijuana was criminalized in the 1920's. What if it had been the other way around? Marijuana would today be legal but alcohol possession could result in jail sentences. What would conservatives and traditionalists be saying today? That alcohol is a far more harmful substance than marijuana , that it's a gateway drug, that it's linked to organized crime etc., etc. My point is that Stephen Harper's position today is based on conservative traditionalism and has nothing to do with reason or scientific evidence. If his position is even remotely rational, can a CPC supporter explain it? It's an irrational position based not on reason, not on evidence but merely on random and arbitary tradition. Even on opposition to same sex marriage, I can see rational reasons why some might have this view. I may not agree with those reasons but at least they're explicable. But who, other than Harper, can possibly explain why he wants to throw people in jail for possession of a substance less harmful than alcohol or cigarettes?