YankAbroad

Why do Republicans assume that anyone who disagrees with them must be Democrats, or vice versa? Statistically, they're more likely to be independents (which now constitute a plurality of registered voters).

The USA claims the same thing. And it's phoney. Look at soaring housing prices, soaring commodities prices (particularly energy), and stagnant wages, and explain to me how real inflation isn't occurring? Your eyes aren't lying to you, my friend. There's a difference between "not growing the money supply" -- a position I don't take -- and not growing the money supply by 20% to 40% per year. Canadians aren't getting ahead. Real income after taxes and real inflation adjusted value has stagnated and slightly declined in both countries for 20 years now. Canada's government continues to increase its indebtedness (albeit at a slower rate) and continues to have a massive debt load which translates into high marginal tax rates for decades (perhaps even centuries) to come. That's a fact. Canada's tax rate could be 1/3 lower if not for that indebtedness. Real inflation is significantly higher than 3% per year in Canada and the USA alike. The government dilutes the figures by mixing in voluntary consumables from China (which have reduced prices in that sector significantly) with necessities like energy in order to show "low inflation." The reality is that cheap plastic crap at WalMart is indeed much much cheaper (thanks, free trade!) but the value of your dollars continues to decline at an astonishing rate -- especially relative to housing, rents, and energy. Meanwhile, tax rate growth and real inflation continue to outpace income growth by a significant margin. Everyone is poorer as a result.

Then perhaps you could explain to us why the Republican "conservatives" in the USA increased federal employment by over 50% and government spending by over 30% since taking over. Also, please explain why Stephen Harper's government will spend more in its budget than the prior "Liberal big government" did. I cannot think of a single recent "conservative" federal government in either country which actually significantly reduced the size and scope of government -- or even the growth of government spending. Actually, it's quite easy to understand big government. Big government is a government which provides virtually all the job growth in Canada. Big government is a government which created 2/3 of the new jobs in the United States. Big government is a government whose marginal tax rates makes it so average Americans are working just to pay the federal government's taxes from January 1 until April 17th, and in Canada, from January 1 to June 29th. I suppose that you'd say that handing over 30% to 50% of every dollar you earn to a bloated bureacuracy which grows without end under both parties isn't big government -- but that's because you support big government. . . so long as it's big government which achieves your own political goals.

Canada is a functioning bankrupt society (as is the United States). Unemployment remains higher than natural levels and taxes are not on a downturn when you consider the increase in long-term indebtedness which continues even with a "budget surplus." Reduction of tax rates in and of itself is not a tax decrease when government borrows, or especially when government encourages inflation by increasing the money supply. Look at the havoc this has wreaked with the Canadian dollar relative to the US one. Not that long ago, the Canadian dollar was worth more than the US one. Of course, it helps now that the US dollar is similarly inflating -- the Fed plans to increase money supply in the USA by 30% this year, yet insists inflation isn't occurring (i.e. you're imaging soaring housing, commodity, food and energy prices). Sure you did. But I'm not going to rise to your childish tactic, which apparently consists of one-liners and personal attacks. Come back to the grownups's table when you're ready to talk policy. I have extensive experience with social programs and private charity. I grew up relatively poor in a not-so-nice section of Philadelphia. Our neighbours would disappear for a little while and you'd find out it was because they were shot in a mugging or gang crossfire. Public schools spent massive sums per student -- over $10,000 in the public school in our neighbourhood -- and turned out graduates who couldn't read and write. Teachers went on strike all the time whenever quality standards or private school competition threatened their positions. Our local Catholic school, where I went, was full of lay people who were there because they wanted to make a difference, not because they wanted to make a fortune. I got a great education for about $3,000 a year -- a lot of money for my parents, but less than they were paying in property taxes to keep the failing public school running. Most kids in the neighbourhood ended up going to the Catholic school, which charged only based on ability to pay. Many could have paid -- or even supported a non-religious school -- had they not had their meagre incomes taxed to pay for a failing public system. The local welfare and housing bureaucracy was always bragging about "restoring" abandoned neighbourhoods by knocking down housing. But the real housing that people wanted was what they could own and restore -- particularly with the help of groups like habitat for humanity. However, when the city planning commission found out that we were interested in restoring the grand old brownstones in North Philadelphia rather than knocking them down and replacing them with "urban planned" disgusting high rises, they stepped in to stop the zoning of restored housing. The result? A huge housing shortage -- despite the fact that Habitat wanted to help -- and people got crowded into dangerous and filthy high rise housing rather than owning their own brownstone. Just two quick examples from my childhood. I can also remember the long queues of people who waited for food and money from the local welfare office, and their biggest request being transportation to where work was -- but not getting it. Government completely nuked my neighbourhood. We had what was supposed to be a "socialist paradise" -- government funded health care, public housing, "free" education, etc. -- and the neighbourhood just died. Nobody lives there anymore -- it is an abandoned row of crack houses doomed to be bulldozed. It could have been so much more -- if not for social programs.

The irony, of course, is that Coulter and her ilk are socialists themselves. They just disagree with so-called "liberals" over what big government's tax-and-spend program should do and who should "benefit" -- not that big government shouldn't exist.

Libertarianism isn't about starvation nor a "let them starve" mentality. Big government is. Mass starvation, especially in modern times, is the result of government policies -- including economic wars -- which block individuals getting food and medicine. A libertarian society would be an inherently more compassionate society than a socialist one, since people help each other because they WANT to -- rather than because they HAVE to -- and most of the money raised to help the less fortunate would go to helping them, rather than paying the bureaucrats in the system whose primary agenda is to perpetuate themselves and expand their power. You cannot have a welfare state without "tax and spend." The problem is that there will always be a paradox: 1) If you're at the margins of taxation, where welfare is more attractive than work, you'll eventually opt for welfare -- it's the logical choice! 2) As the population on welfare or other government handouts grow, so do expenditures. But the working population shrinks (or at least declines in growth). Thus, taxes must go up. 3) As taxes go up, disposable income decreases, and more people begin to think "should I just stop working?" Go back to Step 1, rinse, and repeat until the government goes bankrupt. No doubt! And many levels of government (such as "metropolitan councils") could be closed altogether and not missed one iota.

It's only a matter of time. The neoconservative and social conservative wings of the Republican Party in the USA have gone savage when it comes to small-l and big-L libertarians alike in the last few months, which tells me they can see their downfall arriving. Ultimately, about a quarter of the US populace, and roughly 10 to 20% of the Canadian populace, falls within a libertarian ethos in terms of their politics. Just look at all the people who say "I am a social liberal and fiscal conservative" -- i.e. hate big government in "morals" and "tax/spend" alike. They're libertarians, they just don't know it (or are afraid to admit it, because propogandists like Shoop are all over them explaining the hidden liberal agenda of libertarianism and left-socialists "explain" that libertarians are "heartless and selfish.")

I view the whole "federal versus state" issue to be a red herring. It doesn't matter if the big government which steals our money and denies us our freedoms is based in the national capital or the state/provincial capital (or even in city hall).

PS -- if you want evidence of what I'm talking about, look at "conservatives" like Shoop scrambling to defend the existence of public broadcasting, or the CPC's income redistribution policies like tax-n-spend handouts of $1,200 vouchers for "child care." Remember, "conservatives" position themselves as they of the tax cut and smaller government. Well, they'll cut taxes and borrow instead -- a net tax increase -- to fund socialist programmes just like those of the opposition Liberal Party which they claim to oppose. When the largesse is criticized by those of us who want to see smaller government and greater personal freedoms, the "opposition" parties inevitably unite against libertarians in both Canada and the USA -- because both parties's power comes from their socialist redistributionist policies and the influence which such decisions provides their leadership. Right-sizing the government to an appropriately small size and freeing individuals to make their own decisions takes away their ability to be kingmakers -- which is what most politicians ultimately view themselves as (if not kings themselves).

There's a lot of assuming going on about what I'm saying, which is highly inaccurate. I don't expect the SSM vote to go Harper's way -- but that's the problem. His social conservative base is going to expect him to "fight on, forever" if he loses the free vote. He's going to have to abandon them if he loses the vote -- whereas, if he drags on without one, he can string them along long enough to appeal to the centre and win a stronger government. Actually, I answered your post and certainly am not backing down from my prediction. Though I find your partisan, mindless commitment to your leader in the face of actual facts to be touching and quaintly myopic!

It's not a government "mouthpiece" per se. It is a government organ, which distributes news, opinion and content which is determined by employees of the state. The CBC is an arrogant venture, at its core -- it's a group of people who are convinced that you don't know what you need, that they know better than you, and that you should have to pay for their unusually discerning wisdom to be broadcast to the ignorant sheep who need their amazing power. Well, that's what you "conservatives" get when you're all about supporting socialist ventures like a state-run broadcaster.

It's interesting that a usual defender of neoconservatism would accuse someone else of being "disorganized and illogical." After all, this is the same ideology that proudly proclaimed the need to bring democracy to Iraq, but also explained to the Supreme Court in "Bush vs. Gore" that there's no right for a majority of Americans to choose the presidency. Now, to answer the original question: The reason why libertarianism hasn't won in political party form in either the USA or Canada is because socialism in both countries hasn't run its natural course yet. Right now, the political war between the "left" and the "right" is a war over who can dole out the most government goodies, what those goodies will be (welfare payments or military spending, etc.), and who will get them. Of course, socialism doesn't work -- it inevitably leads to unsustainable levels of taxation and disrupts the smooth operation of the economy. The libertarian option becomes viable when people tire of the nanny state in all of its forms -- economic overregulation, state interference in personal and spiritual life, regulation of speech, etc. Unfortunately, the electorate in both Canada and the US are addicted to their big, failing government entitlements like Medicare, Social Security, etc. and won't vote for someone who will free them of those obligations until it becomes clear that they're paying money into a rat hole. Of course, that moment is arriving -- in 2017 for the US Social Security system, and considerably sooner for Canada's insolvent health care system.

Yes, if George W. Bush had been born in my family, he'd have become a truck driver after flunking out of community college. My family tends not to "rescue" the indolent.

Perhaps. Not necessarily. A private network is certainly capable of operating as a non-profit. "Public" networks are all about delivering the information which the government and employees want delivered, whilst describing it as "for the public good." A quick gander at PBS, the CBC or BBC will easily confirm this.

Whereas, by neocons calling for traditional marriage while divorcing their fourth wife, bashing gays while cruising undercover cops of the same gender in public parks, calling for others to serve in the military when they all dodged the draft themselves in the Vietnam era, demanding "sacrifice" (but never providing it themselves), proclaiming a "strong faith in God" while ignoring the precepts of their deity, and attacking war veterans who have lost limbs as "cowards" (while ignoring the fact they dodged the draft themselves) are accomplishing. . . what, exactly? Oh yes, their "moral superiority."

If Harper plans to relaunch the culture wars over gay marriage, he can kiss his government goodbye. That's why it would be prudent for him to focus on more pressing concerns, such as economic reform and free trade negotiations.

It's interesting -- I know neoconservatives who fervently insist that the USA is a classless society, and then barely minutes later talk proudly of their desire to amend the US Constitution to ensure that gay people will never, ever have their rights under the equal protection clause of the Constitution upheld. They don't see the contradiction, which is bizarre.

What's most dishonest is that Bush would come to speak at Mrs. King's funeral, when he disagreed with virtually all of her agenda and slammed a major plank of it in his State of the Union address just a couple of days earlier. Talk about "politicking at a funeral."

Ugh. They've stolen our party's logo to support this bit of statist dreck. . . "Forgive all private debt as a remedy for government fraud?" So private sector lenders should have to suffer because the government is fraudulent? What a bunch of fruit loops!

I tend to place morality above legality. Then again, I am a radical classical liberal. Military "justice," particularly sentences such as "20 years' prison with hard labour," more than qualify under this provision.

There's no such thing as a "trade deficit." It's a term designed by protectionists to "prove" that the economy is "destroyed" by Americans having their purchasing power increase by purchasing lower cost, higher quality products from outside the country.

And most righties of the social conservative stripe as well. So social conservatives = Islamic fundamentalist extremists?

Yep. All gay men are screaming queens, all lesbians are big scary man-hating bull-dykes, straight men are the only manly men, and all heterosexual women yearn for nothing more to be baby makers.

I certainly agree with some of the content of the article, but I also find it ironic that Canada -- which usually directly benefits from US policies without having to invest in their execution -- would condemn those actions which have ensured US power (and thus a healthy market for Canadian goods and services). Canada is, after all, essentially an export-to-America economy. Certainly, both US political parties are socialist -- President Bush being the most extreme socialist to ever be elected to office in the country's history.

I'm an NDP supporter? *catches breath* Oh my. Sorry. *catches breath again* I'm just noting the reality. Obviously the NDP hold the balance of power along with the Bloc. The Bloc will do whatever is necessary to screw the feds, so you've got the NDP as the thing which will prevent an immediate election. And I cannot see them supporting Harper's agenda. He'll have to call another election to ask for a mandate majority, and I see that happening within 9 months to a year. Signed, Your Friendly Neighbourhood Libertarian NDPer