Leftwing vs. Rightwing

[Michael Hardner]

Not really. Government spending in Canada still composes over 50% of our GDP, which is insanity. In America, I think it's around 35 (which is also insanely high). This is the untold travesty of government encroachment. As you can see by naomi's post, there are no shortage of Canadians who wish to grow the government pie even more. Probably because people like her lack practical skills in the real world, they can only have a "career" doing "research" for the government on meaningless endeavours. As I type this out I'm reminded by a point made in Fareed Zakaria's book "The Post American World" regarding how America (and by extension Canada) needs to mobilize more of its university students towards REAL programs, like engineering, science, mathematics, physics, etc. More phony degrees = more future Liberal and NDP votes, if you ask me.

When you pepper your arguments with personal values and subjective things, it goes against your objective. Also, let's try to use cites when quoting statistics, ok ?

The best I could find on government expenditures as % of GDP was this blog:

http://anepigone.blogspot.com/2008/03/government-spending-as-percentage-of.html

It puts Canada at 43rd in the world, between the US and Europe. That seems accurate to me. Does that qualify as 'insanity' ? That means that over 1/4 of the world's nations are at the insanity level.

This is what I mean when I refer to subjective values being put into your argument. You may find it insane, but if you're trying to convince people of something, it doesn't help to tell me how you personally feel about things. You alienate those you're trying to convince right off the bat.

I think what you describe as major victories for the right are small - the new citizenship guide, for instance? Slightly tougher young-offender legislation? Recent movements to review foreign criminals' eligibility for return to Canada? These are common sense ideas, and look how much resistance they meet. We've probably got more battered women's shelters than engineering firms in this country I'm exaggerating with the last statement, but it is sickening how many fake organizations we have in this country where people are clearly unable to provide real value and seek government support for wishy washy endeavours.

Remember what I said earlier, we are a country that tolerates a separatist party. We are a country that recognizes as a separate nation Quebec and First Nations. We are a country that hands out "life sentences" to serial killers, child molesters, and rapists (no eligibility of parole for 25 years), we are also very weak on white collar crime (government AND business), we are a country that taxes up to approximately 55% of income tax (plus other service taxes and duties), we are a country that bails out failing industries with an allegedly 'conservative' government, etc, etc, etc.... this country is LEFT.

Right - but we're following up here on a point YOU made which is that the parties have "converged on the left". I have shown you policies and trends that show the right has made advances, and you concede that although you say the advances are small.

Your last paragraph doesn't include anything that is new over the last 30 years, so from my perspective my point stands that the parties have converged since that time. I'll add that the parties have converged to the right economically and to the left socially in that time.

[Michael Hardner]

Apologies to smallc - I didn't see his Wiki link.

As such, I have copied and sorted the list - highest % of GDP to lowest

1 Timor-Leste[5] 109.7

2 Kiribati[4] 91.6

3 Denmark 50

4 Sweden 49.7

5 Zimbabwe 49.3

6 Belgium 46.8

7 France 46.1

8 Cuba 44.8

9 Finland 43.6

10 Norway 43.6

11 Austria 43.4

12 Lesotho 42.9

13 Italy 42.6

14 Bosnia and Herzegovina 41.2

15 Germany 40.6

16 Iceland 40.4

17 Swaziland 39.8

18 Netherlands 39.5

19 Slovenia 39.3

20 United Kingdom 39

21 Brazil 38.8

22 Ukraine 38.1

23 Hungary 37.3

24 Spain 37.3

25 Portugal 37

26 Russia 36.9

27 Israel 36.8

28 Cyprus 36.6

29 New Zealand 36.5

30 Luxembourg 36.4

31 Czech Republic 36.3

32 Botswana 35.2

33 Malta 35.2

34 Bulgaria 34.4

35 Serbia 34.1

36 Ireland 34

37 Moldova 33.8

38 Mongolia 33.8

39 Poland 33.8

40 Greece 33.5

41 Canada 33.4

42 Barbados 32.6

43 Turkey 32.5

44 Seychelles 32

45 Guyana 31.9

46 Estonia 31.1

47 Australia 30.5

48 Latvia 30.4

49 Dominica 30.3

50 Switzerland 30.1

51 Slovakia 29.5

52 Macedonia 29.3

53 Namibia 28.8

54 United States 28.2

55 Romania 28.1

56 Montenegro 28

57 Trinidad and Tobago 28

58 Japan 27.4

59 Jamaica 27.2

60 Bolivia 27

61 Tonga 27

62 South Africa 26.9

63 Kazakhstan 26.8

64 Korea, South 26.8

65 Croatia 26.6

66 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 26.5

67 Samoa 25.5

68 Venezuela 25

69 Solomon Islands 24.7

70 Papua New Guinea 24.5

71 Belarus 24.2

72 Saint Lucia 23.1

73 Uruguay 23.1

74 Cape Verde 23

75 Colombia 23

76 Albania 22.9

77 Argentina 22.9

78 Morocco 22.3

79 Suriname 22.1

80 Fiji 21.8

81 Georgia 21.7

82 Belize 21.6

83 Kyrgyzstan 21.4

84 Jordan 21.1

85 Uzbekistan 21

86 Lithuania 20.9

87 Ghana 20.8

88 Malawi 20.7

89 Maldives 20.5

90 Turkmenistan 20.2

91 Macau 20.1

92 Djibouti 20

93 Senegal 19.2

94 Gambia 18.9

95 Bahamas, The 18.7

96 Kenya 18.4

97 Cameroon 18.2

98 Mauritius 18.1

99 Azerbaijan 17.8

100 Nicaragua 17.8

101 Vanuatu 17.8

102 India 17.7

103 Burundi 17.4

104 Sao Tome and Principe 17.4

105 Chile 17.1

106 China, People's Republic of 17

107 Thailand 17

108 Tajikistan 16.5

109 Zambia 16.1

110 Egypt 15.8

111 Honduras 15.6

112 Malaysia 15.5

113 Togo 15.5

114 Benin 15.4

115 Mauritania 15.4

116 Côte d'Ivoire 15.3

117 Mali 15.3

118 Sri Lanka 15.3

119 Peru 15.1

120 Dominican Republic 15

121 Tunisia 14.9

122 Lebanon 14.4

123 Philippines 14.4

124 Armenia 14.1

125 Rwanda 14.1

126 Costa Rica 14

127 Vietnam 13.8

128 Mozambique 13.4

129 El Salvador 13.3

130 Congo, Democratic Republic of 13.2

131 Ecuador 13.2

132 Liberia 13.2

133 Singapore 13

134 Hong Kong 12.8

135 Uganda 12.6

136 China, Republic of (Taiwan) 12.4

137 Micronesia 12.3

138 Comoros 12

139 Paraguay 12

140 Tanzania 12

141 Guatemala 11.9

142 Ethiopia 11.6

143 Burkina Faso 11.5

144 Guinea-Bissau 11.5

145 Indonesia 11

146 Niger 11

147 Nepal 10.9

148 Laos 10.8

149 Bhutan 10.7

150 Madagascar 10.7

151 Syria 10.7

152 Pakistan 10.6

153 Panama 10.6

154 Sierra Leone 10.5

155 Gabon 10.3

156 Mexico 9.7

157 Haiti 9.4

158 Bangladesh 8.5

159 Guinea 8.2

160 Cambodia 8

161 Algeria 7.7

162 Central African Republic 7.7

163 Iran 7.3

164 Yemen 7.1

165 6.4

166 Sudan 6.3

167 Nigeria 6.1

168 Congo, Republic of 5.9

169 Angola 5.7

170 Saudi Arabia 5.3

171 Burma 4.9

172 Chad 4.2

173 Libya 2.7

174 Bahrain 2.4

175 Qatar 2.2

176 Oman 2

177 Equatorial Guinea 1.7

178 Kuwait 1.5

179 United Arab Emirates 1.4

Edited November 27, 2009 by Michael Hardner

[Dave_ON]

Apologies to smallc - I didn't see his Wiki link.

As such, I have copied and sorted the list - highest % of GDP to lowest

Interesting to note about this list is most of us here likely wouldn't want to live in any the countries that are lower than the 26% range.

[M.Dancer]

There's quite a few above the 26% I wouldn't want to live in either...

[Michael Hardner]

There's quite a few above the 26% I wouldn't want to live in either...

Like #1 - Timor ?

[eyeball]

Last trwo times I took the political leaning survey(someone should look that up again) I was less than 2pts in any direction.

The Political Compass

There's abundant evidence for the need of it. The old one-dimensional categories of 'right' and 'left', established for the seating arrangement of the French National Assembly of 1789, are overly simplistic for today's complex political landscape.

This compass only measures one more dimension to an individual's particular bent that is represented along an Authoritarian Libertarian axis. It seems to me that if more people lean towards the Libertarian side we would have smaller governments and the more Authoritarians we have the bigger our governments would be. It appears however governments are always getting bigger and more powerful faster than our population. They're also increasingly more secretive and distant from the governed.

Something other than our individual economic and social beliefs or tendencies must be causing this. What though?

[fellowtraveller]

BUt the leftiews believe in rehabilitation instead of firm punishment.

Of course, the primary purpose of incarceration is neither.

The prime purpose is to protect us from criminals.

[Moonbox]

Interesting to note about this list is most of us here likely wouldn't want to live in any the countries that are lower than the 26% range.

Part of the problem with most of these countries is there is often little/no infrastructure in place to collect and enforce taxes and nothing to tax the people for anyways. How much taxes do you think you're going to pull out of a Laosian subsistance rice farmer?

It's not low social spending that's causing poor living conditions, but rather poor living conditions/lack of economy that are preventing high taxes.

[Oleg Bach]

Do you actually believe that the powers that be - the real movers and shakers in society actually care about LEFT and RIGHT? They play both sides as our line of vision vacilates between the two causing a blur...smart people are centralists and take what is best from the left hand and the right hand..advesarial politics is for chumps - Just like that stupid colonialist advesarial judical system - the us and them thing - what a con game ......soicalist are very useful to the rich and powerful....Politics that is based on continuous strife is useless - If our parlimentary system was useful we would have seen evidence of it in the last 500 years - there is no such evidence of good functioning leadership coming out of this system - It would be better to have a king or a benevolent dictator than the massive group of left and right that fight all day long at our expense.

[Gabriel]

No it doesn't. I'm not sure where you got that information. Government spending (when governments are running surpluses, which until recently was common) is 33% of Canada's economy because that's how much of the economy is taxed, lower than in recent time. The number in spending is similar in the US (actually, probably higher), but taxation only makes up 28% of the economy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_revenue_as_percentage_of_GDP

Hi Smallc,

I'm unable to cite proof right now, but I guarantee you that information is incorrect (which is disappointing considering it's a link to The Heritage Foundation). I may have overestimated government spending as a share of GDP in my original post (saying it was over 50%), but I guarantee you it's very close to 50%. When taking into consideration federal and provincial income taxes, specific duties and taxes on other goods (i.e. gasoline, cigarettes, alcohol, imports), penalties and fines, municipal taxes (i.e. property taxes), sales taxes, and other service fees (i.e. licensing, etc), the government pulls in WAY more money than that estimate indicates. Back in 2001 it was over 40% (I remember speaking to two economics professors about this), it's only grown since then. I'll come back with more reputable information soon.

Here's a good general rule about Wikipedia - it is unreliable for complex issues that require a lot of thought :-). Calculating government spending as a share of GDP is not the easiest thing to do, it is a research-heavy endeavour. Obviously it isn't easy to get all the relevant figures for all the relevant information.

I'll come back later after I find some reliable sources.

Michael Hardner - I'd advise against posting the Heritage Foundation ranking of countries as accurate, as I'm certain they're missing many sources of government revenue and underestimating the total spending of the government.

Edited November 28, 2009 by Gabriel

[Michael Hardner]

Michael Hardner - I'd advise against posting the Heritage Foundation ranking of countries as accurate, as I'm certain they're missing many sources of government revenue and underestimating the total spending of the government.

Ok, well I posted two sources, and they both show Canada around the 25% MARK in spending relative to the world.

Of course, you'd say that 1/4 the world or more is insane but you should understand in your argument that you're outside the mainstream of thought on your opinion.

[Smallc]

Here's a good general rule about Wikipedia - it is unreliable for complex issues that require a lot of thought :-).

That's why you always check the citations for the wikipedia articles.

The OECD page which is the source of the second column numbers is linked to clearly shows where we are and how much we've gone down. Note that this takes into consideration all taxes within an economy (this probably doesn't include service fees as those aren't taxes. They also would make up quite a small percentage of government revenue and spending). It clearly shows falling taxes in Canada.

OECD link

Note also that taxes are (according to the Government of Canada) lower in 2009 than in 2007.

Edited November 28, 2009 by Smallc

[Smallc]

A very interesting article from earlier this year:

http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/3924

And the source article:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/opinions/pages/canada/index.html

I would say in reality that Canada has become far more fiscally conservative than the US.

Edited November 28, 2009 by Smallc

[Gabriel]

That's why you always check the citations for the wikipedia articles.

The OECD page which is the source of the second column numbers is linked to clearly shows where we are and how much we've gone down. Note that this takes into consideration all taxes within an economy (this probably doesn't include service fees as those aren't taxes. They also would make up quite a small percentage of government revenue and spending). It clearly shows falling taxes in Canada.

OECD link

Note also that taxes are (according to the Government of Canada) lower in 2009 than in 2007.

Thanks for that link smallc, I think I stand corrected. If those links are accurate (and they look like they are), then I've been wrong for a very long time about this issue. It would be interesting, however, to find information regarding the volume of revenue that all levels of Canadian government pull in through licensing fees, penalties, etc. I'd also like more and more and more details from the links you sourced, but I'll take them at face value for now. For more context, though, we should analyze previous years debt-financing. In other words, for a really accurate analysis of the portion of GDP comprised from government spending, we also need to look at years where the government borrowed beyond its means. How many years were we in surplus?

Again, thanks for the link. I've been busy lately (and lazy), but I want to find more information regarding this matter - I find it interesting.

[Smallc]

I agree that during the years of deficit (now), our spending would probably be close to 50%....it probably was getting there in the early 90's. I'm hoping it doesn't get that high this time.

[Hydraboss]

No, nothing is that simple or cut and dry. It never has been and never will be. I know people that have killed others at a young age. They spent the rest of their lives (so far) as absolutely decent people.

Who the hell cares how they lead the rest of their lives? We are talking about people who murdered other people. For that they should die. I'm sure Jeffrey Dahmer would've been a hoot around a poker table. Again, who cares?

Steal money.....spend time in jail and then get out to do it again.

Rape a three year old girl.....spend time in jail and then get out to do it again.

Violently rape, murder and eat a dozen people.....spend time in jail and then get out to do it again.

People with attitudes like yours are those that destroy people's faith in a justice system (which is why we don't have one in Canada).

[eyeball]

We are talking about people who murdered other people.

Who's this "we" you're referring to? The same "we" who would hand out a life sentence for stealing a slice of pizza?

[Hydraboss]

Who's this "we" you're referring to? The same "we" who would hand out a life sentence for stealing a slice of pizza?

"We" would be Smallc and myself. Look at the post I replied to and try to follow along. It's not that complicated.

You would hand out a life sentence for stealing pizza? Wow. Hope you never go buy the university dorms.

[Smallc]

Who the hell cares how they lead the rest of their lives? We are talking about people who murdered other people. For that they should die.

Because....you say so? Sorry, but I don't really put much faith in your opinion of the matter. We can't shoot everyone that commits a crime. We have laws that this society has developed for a reason.

[Who's Doing What?]

Who the hell cares how they lead the rest of their lives? We are talking about people who murdered other people. For that they should die. I'm sure Jeffrey Dahmer would've been a hoot around a poker table. Again, who cares?

Steal money.....spend time in jail and then get out to do it again.

Rape a three year old girl.....spend time in jail and then get out to do it again.

Violently rape, murder and eat a dozen people.....spend time in jail and then get out to do it again.

People with attitudes like yours are those that destroy people's faith in a justice system (which is why we don't have one in Canada).

Why would you want to give these sicko's a chance to get out and contribute to the gene pool? IF you are screwed up enough to find a 3 year old attractive, and don't have the ability to control yourself, then you should be put down, like any dog that is uncontrolable.

And don't hand me the crap about medication etc. Medication is easily forgotten, and therapy sessions easily missed.

Make it clear, if you do these things you will die. End of Story. No loop holes, no procedural errors, none of the sneaky laywer crap that gets the guilty off. IF you are a monster you need to be removed from society, totally.

[Guest TrueMetis]

Why would you want to give these sicko's a chance to get out and contribute to the gene pool? IF you are screwed up enough to find a 3 year old attractive, and don't have the ability to control yourself, then you should be put down, like any dog that is uncontrolable.

And don't hand me the crap about medication etc. Medication is easily forgotten, and therapy sessions easily missed.

Make it clear, if you do these things you will die. End of Story. No loop holes, no procedural errors, none of the sneaky laywer crap that gets the guilty off. IF you are a monster you need to be removed from society, totally.

Screw that just keep them in jail permanatly. Why because the justice system is not and can not be perfect eventually someone who has done nothing will be killed. Better to keep them in jail so if they are found to be innocent they can be realeased. So they aren't to big of a drain use them for cheap labour, give them normal working conditions and minimum wage then take out cost of living.

I for one refuse to condone a system that can kill an innocent.

[Who's Doing What?]

Screw that just keep them in jail permanatly. Why because the justice system is not and can not be perfect eventually someone who has done nothing will be killed. Better to keep them in jail so if they are found to be innocent they can be realeased. So they aren't to big of a drain use them for cheap labour, give them normal working conditions and minimum wage then take out cost of living.

I for one refuse to condone a system that can kill an innocent.

Minimum wage v. Cost of living??? LMAO There is no comparison.

$235

Daily cost to hold a man in federal prison (2005-06)

$467

Daily cost to hold a woman in federal prison (2005-06)

source

[Guest TrueMetis]

Minimum wage v. Cost of living??? LMAO There is no comparison.

$235

Daily cost to hold a man in federal prison (2005-06)

$467

Daily cost to hold a woman in federal prison (2005-06)

source

Plus the cost of the cheap labour they will do. It shoud more than cover the cost.

[Halfempty]

Who the hell cares how they lead the rest of their lives? We are talking about people who murdered other people. For that they should die. I'm sure Jeffrey Dahmer would've been a hoot around a poker table. Again, who cares?

Steal money.....spend time in jail and then get out to do it again.

Rape a three year old girl.....spend time in jail and then get out to do it again.

Violently rape, murder and eat a dozen people.....spend time in jail and then get out to do it again.

People with attitudes like yours are those that destroy people's faith in a justice system (which is why we don't have one in Canada).

The justice system in Canada is primarily focused on rehabilitation, and so far it's having good results in helping make former criminals fully functionning members of society.

Keeping someone in jail forever, or even invoking capital punishment like they have in the states, won't lower crime rates. Focusing our justice system around deterence and punishment does not work, if you want a real world example just look at the population in prison per capita in U.S.A. compared to Canada; they have a much harsher justice system and yet it's not as effective. It may seem morally correct to have harsher punishments for hardened criminals, but in the long run morals mean nothing, they're just ever changing views shared by society and this is one decision we shouldn't base on them, as it doesn't even achieve the result we're looking for (lowering crime). IMO we need to help even the most disturbed pedofile/murderer/whatever "try" to become a fully functionning member of society, maybe by using psychologists and such...? That's just my two cents though, to each his own thoughts!

[jbg]

I consider myself extremely liberal, probably hard-left. I believe strongly in not allowing class, racial or ethnic fetters to restrain human opportunity or liberty. I believe that legal immigrants and racial minorities must absolutely have equal oppotunities (if not equal results) with the majority population.