Wild Bill

You absolutely completely missed my main point! I have no quarrel with arguments about an unelected coalition being legal or democratic. Your knee must have jerked! Again, this is politics! If a coalition took power where none of the partners had received more votes than the Tories (or whoever, it doesn't have to be the Tories!) the PERCEPTION by many of the general public would be that an unelected party had seized power by means of a lawyer's trick! Politics is ALL about voter perceptions! I say again, if the public became angry do you think that if you stood up and waved a printout from your post here on MLW that they would care? In a pig's eye! The public wouldn't care if it was legal! The deal with Karla Homolka was legal! Laws against marijuana are legal! The GST was legal! If you were running a campaign, God help your candidate! A successful politician has to understand this in his very bones. If you want to argue that I'm wrong about the magnitude of negative public perceptions over 'unelected' coalitions I can accept that. However, you seem to be absolutely unable to even understand that it could happen! If that's your true belief then I sincerely hope that you will always be a campaigner for "the other guys".

I posted this in another thread but it's relevant here: http://www.nanosresearch.com/main.asp "The latest Nanos poll shows, with election speculation on the rise, a noticeable increase in support for the Harper Conservatives while Liberal support has remained relatively stable." Perhaps Ignatieff believes with Jerry Fortin that he can grab a big chunk of those undecided voters.

This is a good site if you want to see what's relatively current: http://www.nanosresearch.com/main.asp I guess the trend for the Liberals is not positive. Still, the undecided numbers are way up. Perhaps Ignatieff believes he can persuade a good portion of them to his side.

You and I had the same disconnect when we discussed this back when the coalition idea was first happening. My position is that this is politics! It doesn't matter if you or I agree that the idea is technically democratic or legal. What matters is the perception of the majority of Canadian voters. Although you've given me the "technically legal" argument many times before I don't recall you ever clearly stating your opinion on the public reaction if the Opposition formed a coalition after an election, seizing power without allowing another election. As I've stated before, I believe that an unelected coalition would spark an angry backlash from voters, across the political spectrum. Nobody would understand or care about any legal arguments from the parties involved that what they had done was perfectly legal or quite common in Israel or Bangladesh. It would contradict Canadian perception of what is tradition and/or fair. Polls were taken that support my position but as always, the only poll that would matter would be the public reaction if an unelected coalition actually happened. (Again, please don't give me nitpicking legal arguments that they would indeed have been elected to become MP's in the first place. That's not the context of my argument, as you would well know.) Obviously, party strategists are well aware of a possible public backlash if they went down that road. Statements from Ignatieff and other Liberal spokesmen after he was crowned party leader would suggest that he and they have no intention of testing the premise. After all, how could they fight against a huge negative backlash? Point to some posts on MLW that show they were technically within their legal and democratic rights? You'd have to be as dumb as Dion to risk something like that! The present leaders of the Liberal party seem to be much too smart for that.

That poll is kinda old! It comes from back in August. It might be more interesting to see a recent poll to see any trend.

There's coalitions and there's coalitions, jdobbin! Last time around, the furor was not over having a coalition bring down a government. That's essentially what happens whenever a minority government falls. No, what drove many folks screaming yellow zonkers was the idea of a coalition seizing power AFTER an election, seizing power from whoever got the most seats, albeit still in a minority situation, without the people being allowed to vote on it. If the Opposition parties formed their coalition BEFORE the next election that would be much more fair! Voters would know exactly how things stood and would have the chance to give one party a decisive majority or by default allow a coalition to happen. It's the idea of the losers seizing power, effectively taking the choice away from the voters, that so many Canadians find offensive. It's one thing to choose to be apathetic about your vote. It's quite another to have someone deny it to you. Ignatieff obviously knows this. The present back room boys of the Liberal Party always did! They are well aware that they could win a battle and later lose the war. There's no way they will ever allow it to happen. As a point of interest, Bob Rae was on a talk show the other day. I heard him actually deny that the Liberals had ever even purposed a coalition! That they never signed any such document! As you can imagine, the interviewer was gobsmacked! He kept saying, "Bob, we saw it on TV! It's on video!" Bob just laughed and insisted it never happened! Down the memory hole, Winston!

I don't take a lot of pride just for picking my grandparents. I have much respect for what the CULTURE of my British heritage has brought to the world, from steam engines to British Law and systems of government! However, my ancestors did that, not me. I've always felt that I'm on my own! It's up to me as an individual to do something worthy of pride. Nobody should hand it to me because of my race or the folks I hang around with. I've never felt part of some "tribe". To me, if you have to take pride in your "tribe" accomplishments then you're not doing enough yourself! That's also why I don't feel any "white" guilt. Again, that's a tribal thing. If it wasn't me that did something and I feel no right to take credit then it logically follows that I feel no obligation to take any blame. This is also the way I treat others. I COULD give some of my black friends a hard time, if I wanted. After all, they gave us Jimi Hendrix and rock and roll. Also B B King, who is GOD! Then they followed it up with disco and hiphop! Still, that would be tribal and I just can't see the logic in that. I only discriminate against those black friends that listen to hiphop. They're still my friends, I just feel very, very sorry for them! So when I hear racism I just tune it out, like some fundamentalist Christian trying to tell me the world was created in 4004 B.C. or some such illogical drivel. I WILL debate positives and negatives between various cultures! Culture has little or nothing to do with race, except by happenstance. Raise an Inuit child in Somalia and you'll have just another Somali who looks a bit different from the rest. His culture will be the same, determined by his upbringing. So again, screw the whole racial pride thing, white, black, yellow or green. It's getting to be a Star Trek world very quickly. Nobody cares about your race when we need someone trained and educated enough to fly a starship. If you don't get the job, it's not gonna be because of your race. It will be because we need someone who spent enough time at school learning science and technology. A degree in the Koran or Christian divinity won't cut it. Nor will just being white!

If that were the case, then why in just 2 elections could Reform win over 60 seats when the PC's, having been knocked down to TWO, could barely get enough seats to be a legal party? Reform had been slowly growing while the PC's were obviously dying away. Seems to me that Reform just got too hasty and now has paid for it. Meanwhile, the present CPC has millions of former Reform voters that are only sticking with them for lack of any other palatable alternative. That was exactly the situation for the PC's when Reform was first formed! It was supposed to be a merger, not a total takeover by the far smaller PC party! We didn't even see any compromise on party platforms at all! Just 100% of what we had all abandoned in the beginning, in droves! I say again, why did Manning even bother? It all seems to have been just a pointless waste of time. If those voters ever get offered a more attractive alternative they will be gone in a flash!

I'm not saying that if we thought about it long enough we couldn't think of at least one party plank from the old Blue Book that is still in the present CPC. It might take days of thinking but I'm sure we'd eventually come up with one. I'm just damned sure we couldn't come up with 3! Virtually everything we Reformers believed in seems 'down the memory hole, Winston!" Reform/Alliance may have swallowed the PC's according to the numbers but immediately after the merger it seemed that all the old PC guys got all the power positions and all the old Reformers were pushed to the side. The Blue Book principles are NEVER mentioned anymore! To me the new party looks like a clone of the old Mulroney party that I bailed from 20 years ago. If you want me to believe differently then you are going to have to SHOW me! Everything I see and everything I've experienced as a former Reform Riding Director tells me different. I'd need more than a blanket statement with zip all to back it up from you to change my mind!

What do you expect? The Sudanese political leaders are cavemen!

Good point! And they've proven many times that they will use civilians as cannon fodder for propaganda purposes. So you steal some gas trucks, park them in the middle of a village and yell "Hey everybody! Free gas!" The people come running. After all, they are desperately poor and the gasoline has incredible value to them. The Taliban are on the phone to the news reporters before the first bombs even hit the trucks...

I'm guessing you're too young to remember anything about the Reform Party platform. Spelled out and written down for the whole world to see was the idea that except for crucial bills all MP's should be able to vote freely, according to the wishes of the majority of their home riding constituents. The mechanism for determining that majority was never totally worked out but the idea was that the MP should be paying attention and that if he voted against those wishes there should be a mechanism for the people in the riding to force a byelection to recall their MP. More simply, the MP should be voting his constituents wishes first and his party's wishes a distant second. Contrast this with our traditional system. We have rigid party discipline right down to Bills on where to get the doughnuts for the next committee meeting! The wishes of the home riding folks be damned, our MP's vote the way the party Whip tells them! Once in a while with a very controversial issue, the Whip will take a quick nose count. If he feels it safe, he will allow an MP or two to break ranks. It then will not affect the outcome of the vote but they can afterwards point to him and say "See! We allow our MP's to vote with their conscience!" It's all a sham. Anyhow, if Reform hadn't been conquered by the old Progressive Conservative Party we might very well have achieved some democratic changes. Meanwhile, I guess we got what we asked for so why listen to anyone complaining?

Before you make accusations like that perhaps you should count the number of canoe museums built with government grants in the riding of Shawinigan...

There is no one so righteous as a thief falsely accused, this time!

I agree! Why should we spend blood and dollars just so that Afghani girls can go to school! And if they're raped by the Taliban they deserve whatever they get for bringing dishonour on their families! If they had of been wearing their burkhas like proper women it never would have happened! I'm behind your values 100%, Waldo!

At least he wasn't selling bathroom tissue...

Sheer fantasy! Many other countries are dependent on Saudi oil If someone like Uncle Sam forcibly took over the Saudi regime it would FORCE some of those countries into declaring war on us! Remember, many folks already believe that the USA is an imperialist warmonger. Your approach would only confirm that belief. Moreover, it would set an expensive precedent for America. Once you start down that road it only works if you can afford to keep going. Nice dream, 'though!

Those of us old enough to be fuzzy about what we did in the 60's might remember a Firesign Theater 'radio play' skit called "The Adventures of Porgy and Mudhead", which was a psychedelic spoof of the old late 1930's movies that starred Mickey Rooney as a teenager always getting into trouble. In that skit the opponents were the kids from "Commie Martyrs High School". Porgy and his friends break into the school late at night. While they are wandering around they come across a mural. The plaque beneath it reads "Heroic Struggle of the Little Guys to Finish the Mural!" I was a young lad then and I've always thought that this reference gave me a good perspective on socialism in general!

I took it figuratively, to mean Liberal losses at the next election. Violence is not the mainstream Canadian way, jdobbin. As you well know yourself! We have to import our violence, with a few exceptions such as nutbars like Marc Lepine and the odd mad trapper. We would instead jam our ballots hard into the slot in the polling box! Before we even got to the polling station we would have fired off at least 3 very firm letters to the Editor of the local newspaper! We would sit in our Tim Horton's, decrying "It's people like that wot cause unrest!" And I wouldn't have it any other way!

"Alas my love, you do me wrong..." ---Greensleeves

So? It will still be Liberal blood! Some Tory supporters actually wanted Harper to sit back and LET the Opposition form a coalition, being confident that it would enrage Canadians so much that at the next election it would guarantee a Tory majority. Polls and gossip seemed to support the idea. The idea of a coalition seemed to tick off far more Canadians than it pleased. It only seemed to please a small percentage who were rabidly anti-Tory anyway. This time around even with Dion no longer a factor it's doubtful things have changed much. The idea is moot anyway. Ignatieff has made it quite plain he doesn't favour a coalition. It would set a precedent that could make a mockery of Parliament anyway. No matter which party got the most votes the others could almost always promptly topple them with a coalition, just changing the players each time. Things could easily become more of a joke than they already are...

You missed something, Oleg. Your way and my way leads to exactly the same outcome. The Saudis are going to lose their revenue stream, along with a number of their neighbouring countries. Without boxcars of money you can't afford to finance terrorism. You no longer will be a powerful player on the world stage. Your way is the Klingon way. Beat him up today so that he can heal up and come back at you with a bigger club tomorrow. What's happening is more of a Ferrengi tactic. Destroy a man's income so that he no longer is rich and powerful. Let him live in poverty forevermore. Much less messy and painful than your way. You might be right that my kids would survive anyway but they would have been hungry for a long time. No, thank you.

I don't see how we have enough data at the moment to support the opinion that the only possible outcome is another minority. We still haven't finished summer. Polls historically don't move much when people are still into barbeques and beer! I say again (and again and again!) most Canadians are NOT political junkies like posters on MLW! By the time the writ is dropped, ANYTHING can happen! If there's one thing we've seen over the years, things can change almost instantly during a campaign. Look what happened to John Tory in Ontario, last provincial election. The vote can be won or lost on one event, like stumbling when descending an airplane staircase or failing to catch a football. A scandal or a piece of dirt from a candidate's past can be revealed, stopping his momentum dead in its tracks. The Liberals still haven't revealed much of their campaign plans. True, it makes sense to keep your cards close to your chest before the game actually starts. Liberals know all about stealing campaign planks from your opponents. However, that leaves political seers and prophets totally in the dark. When we haven't yet seen those plans how can we accurately predict if the majority of Canadians will like or believe them? Have you forgotten how the "Green Shift" under Dion fell "like leaden farts upon the stage", to quote a Firesign Theater spoof of Shakespeare? Me, I'm gonna wait some more before I put MY money down! I too have my wishes but it's a sucker who lets his wishes dictate his sense of the value of his hand.

We've talked this out before, a year ago. Polls overwhelmingly showed that the vast majority of Canadians despised the very idea of a coalition. It's the sort of thing that yes, legally the Opposition Parties might pull it off but they would pay a terrible price at the following election. Why do you think Ignatieff moved so quickly to distance himself from the very idea almost as soon as he had become leader? Why do you think we haven't heard him start trumpeting the idea today? Politics is like chess. You have to have the wit to think more than one move ahead. What good is it to capture a rook if 3 moves later you lose the game?

Oleg, if we had done it your way every car in North America would have been stopped in its tracks! We simply could not lose the supply of Saudi oil and all its Middle East allies at the drop of a hat. Like it or not, people have to get to work. Food and products has to be trucked around. Or we starve! Period and end of story! Why do you think that the US and China are setting up deals for our oil sands oil? Why do you think there is such a big push on for hybrids and electric cars? The Toyota Prius apparently has become the number one seller in Japan. What do you think this trend is going to do to the demand for Saudi oil? We've been talking about solar and wind power for 30 years. Why do you think we are finally starting to get serious about it? Did we decide it would be nice to be 'green' all of a sudden? It seems obvious that the West has finally seen the light about the Middle East. It's just that it takes some time to make the necessary changes. Thank God we didn't do it your way! I've got kids to feed.