Harper, Bush Share Roots in Controversial Philosophy

[Figleaf]

I don't agree that being against gay marriage is gay bashing nor is it 'homophobic' - words used to stifle legitimate debate.

No 'legitimate debate' remains, if there ever was any. No-one who opposes SSM has been able to formulate any sensible argument against it, despite months and months of complaining about it, and being asked what their beef was. I myself inquired endlessly at the time it was a current issue what harm the opponents feared, but none ever presented a single intelligible objection. What were offered were objections based on religion or prejudice.

[Canadian Blue]

QUOTE

"-anti-daycare;"

Nothing to do with social conservatism. This is a "small" government arguement which fits perfectly in the classical liberal tradition.

Opposition to daycare can be premised on a person's view that 'proper' families have a mother at home which is a social conservative position.

Opposition to publicly funded daycare or daycare in general. Once again I think you are confused about the policy. Do you prefer government to provide daycare, health services, social services, etc. All of which would be free, then your a liberal not a classical liberal. A classical liberal is in the same league as a libertarian, which I would assume what you believe you are.

[Figleaf]

QUOTE

"-anti-daycare;"

Nothing to do with social conservatism. This is a "small" government arguement which fits perfectly in the classical liberal tradition.

Opposition to daycare can be premised on a person's view that 'proper' families have a mother at home which is a social conservative position.

Opposition to publicly funded daycare or daycare in general. Once again I think you are confused about the policy. Do you prefer government to provide daycare, health services, social services, etc. All of which would be free, then your a liberal not a classical liberal. A classical liberal is in the same league as a libertarian, which I would assume what you believe you are.

Opposition to publicly funded daycare may be because you oppose daycare because you think there should be a mother at home. It could also be because you don't want the public to spend money on it. I don't know whether Harper believes one or the other or both. I am describing a set or pattern of beliefs that fit Harper within social conservatism.

I am not a libertarian. I am a classical liberal. I believe that the individual is the basic unit of society and that individuals may act collectively if it is in their individual interests to do so. Libertarians ideologically oppose the last part of that.

As between classical liberal and the word you used 'liberal', I don't know what you mean by the latter.

[Canadian Blue]

Liberal, not necessarily federal Liberal, but believing in maximum on individual freedom, however supporting government intervention in the economy, and the government acting as a force to make everything more equal.

Check out this website: http://www.politopia.com/interactive_map.htm

It sums up most of the political beliefs out there. Take the test if you'd like to see exactly were you stand.

[normanchateau]

-pro-drug prohibition;

Of course, many people liberal and conservative think crack, heroine, and ecstacy should remain illegal

Yes many people, liberal and conservative, think that crack, heroin and ecstacy should be illegal but it's mainly social conservatives like Harper who think possession of less than 30 grams of marijuana should also be a criminal offence. The Liberal decriminalization bill of the previous government was supported by the NDP and BQ. But Harper thinks it's acceptable for teenagers to have a permanent criminal record for mere possession.

Sounds like a social conservative position to me.

[Figleaf]

Liberal, not necessarily federal Liberal, but believing in maximum on individual freedom, however supporting government intervention in the economy, and the government acting as a force to make everything more equal.

Check out this website: http://www.politopia.com/interactive_map.htm

It sums up most of the political beliefs out there. Take the test if you'd like to see exactly were you stand.

That's a terrible survey. It fails consistently to capture all available options in any given category, and it lumps together concepts that one might have differences on. Furthermore, it is quite specific to U.S. policy issues and therefore doesn't capture Canadian attitudes accurately.

There's another quiz out there that is better ...

http://www.politicalcompass.org/

[bradco]

"Actually, liberalism is concerned with the freedom of individual people, not protoplasm. To pretend pro-forced-childbirth is a liberal position is fallacious."

-Its all a different opinion on when something is considered to be a living person. The pro-life arguments, whether you find them incorrect or not, are put forth in a liberal manner by arguing for "rights" for the fetus. Im more inclined as you are to give rights to individuals that are l"iving" but you cant argue that the manner that pro-life people make their argument isnt inherently liberal.

"Opposition to daycare can be premised on a person's view that 'proper' families have a mother at home which is a social conservative position."

-You would have to prove thats what he believes which would be very difficult. Especially since he moved on giving rebate cheques to send kids off to daycare.

"I don't know what writings of Mill you refer to there, but it would be necessary to demonstrate some substantial level of harm inevitable harm resulting drug use to cause a true liberal to think the state should prohibit peaceable private use."

-From Mill's On Liberty: "That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection........the conduct from which to deter him, must be calculated to produce evil to someone else". Arguing that drug use causes harm to others and society in general isn't all too difficult. Granted that marijuana, specifically, is a little bit trickier. It is up to society as a whole to make the determination of harm and if they do so with a decent amount of evidence prohibiting marijuana is not in opposition to the liberal tradition.

note he argues that, "those who are still in a state to require being taken care of by others ("young persons the age which the law may fix as that of manhood or womanhood"), must be protected by others"

-As far as marijuana and anyone not of the age of the legal majority Mill would say prohibiting things that harm them is good. Marijuana kills braincells and isnt good for the lungs.

"The law would exempt religious expression from laws that would otherwise apply if it weren't religious."

-I haven't read the bill, just reports on it. Please elaborate with specifics.

"I am a classical liberal."

Do you support publicly funded daycare, a large sociel safety net? If you answer yes you might want to rethink defining youself a classical liberal. Classical liberals are in to "small" government.

"1. Branded? I thought they were happy to be social conservatives!"

-maybe a bad choice of word, why is anyone happy being intolerant?

"2. Social conservatism and liberalism are NOT the same thing at all, in the least."

-"social conservatism" is a relatively new term. I argue that if you look back at the liberal and conservative traditions you will see Harper fits into the classical liberal tradition. Society has evolved so that a large amount of liberal thinking exists in present day "conservatism". Contemporary conservatism in Canada is really classical liberalism.

[scribblet]

Opposition to publicly funded daycare or daycare in general. Once again I think you are confused about the policy. Do you prefer government to provide daycare, health services, social services, etc. All of which would be free, then your a liberal not a classical liberal. A classical liberal is in the same league as a libertarian, which I would assume what you believe you are.

I am gainst a fully universal day care program and I'm no social conservative, I'm against it because I don't believe in the Nanny State concept.

Harper is an economic conservative, he has always believed in limiting and reducing gov't, reform of Senate etc. He has changed and does seem to be leaving his libertarian tendencies and leaning more a centrist position. I don't think the old Stephen Harper would have ever defended our bankrupt healthcare system,

[hiti]

The founder of the neoconservatism movement was a man by the name of Leo Strauss. He was a staunch, harsh political philosopher who believed Liberalism planted the "seeds of decay" into society because of the lack of morals and spiritual direction etc: here is a bit of info about him and his beliefs.

Straussism 101 (thankyou google for the details, I'll list sources at the end of this post):

"Many neoconservatives like Paul Wolfowitz are disciples of a philosopher who believed that the elite should use deception, religious fervor and perpetual war to control the ignorant masses. "

"Strauss was born and educated in Germany, relocated to the UK in 1934, then emigrated to the U.S. in 1937. After lecturing for several years at the New School for Social Research in New York, in 1948 he accepted a post at the University of Chicago, where he spent most of the rest of his career. A charismatic teacher, he attracted a coterie of brilliant students, many of whom became prominent neoconservative thinkers and polemicists; a sizable number of Strauss devotees have served in Republican administrations, starting with Reagan and continuing through Bushes I and II. (Abram Shulsky, the apparatchik you mention, works for the Office of Special Plans, currently under fire for cherry-picking intelligence during the buildup to the Iraq war. And maybe the name Paul Wolfowitz rings a bell?) Strauss's best-known protege is probably Allan Bloom, author of a best-selling critique of U.S. higher education, The Closing of the American Mind (1987)."

Strausse also took a bizzare interest in ancient estrotic texts.

His philosophy can be summed up in 3 major principles:

Rule One: Deception

It's hardly surprising then why Strauss is so popular in an administration obsessed with secrecy, especially when it comes to matters of foreign policy. Not only did Strauss have few qualms about using deception in politics, he saw it as a necessity. While professing deep respect for American democracy, Strauss believed that societies should be hierarchical, divided between an elite who should lead, and the masses who should follow. But unlike fellow elitists like Plato, he was less concerned with the moral character of these leaders. According to Shadia Drury, who teaches politics at the University of Calgary, Strauss believed that "those who are fit to rule are those who realize there is no morality and that there is only one natural right, the right of the superior to rule over the inferior."

This dichotomy requires "perpetual deception" between the rulers and the ruled, according to Drury. Robert Locke, another Strauss analyst says,"The people are told what they need to know and no more." While the elite few are capable of absorbing the absence of any moral truth, Strauss thought, the masses could not cope. If exposed to the absence of absolute truth, they would quickly fall into nihilism or anarchy, according to Drury, author of 'Leo Strauss and the American Right' (St. Martin's 1999).

Second Principle: Power of Religion

According to Drury, Strauss had a "huge contempt" for secular democracy. Nazism, he believed, was a nihilistic reaction to the irreligious and liberal nature of the Weimar Republic. Among other neoconservatives, Irving Kristol has long argued for a much greater role for religion in the public sphere, even suggesting that the Founding Fathers of the American Republic made a major mistake by insisting on the separation of church and state. And why? Because Strauss viewed religion as absolutely essential in order to impose moral law on the masses who otherwise would be out of control.

At the same time, he stressed that religion was for the masses alone; the rulers need not be bound by it. Indeed, it would be absurd if they were, since the truths proclaimed by religion were "a pious fraud." As Ronald Bailey, science correspondent for Reason magazine points out, "Neoconservatives are pro-religion even though they themselves may not be believers."

"Secular society in their view is the worst possible thing,'' Drury says, because it leads to individualism, liberalism, and relativism, precisely those traits that may promote dissent that in turn could dangerously weaken society's ability to cope with external threats. Bailey argues that it is this firm belief in the political utility of religion as an "opiate of the masses" that helps explain why secular Jews like Kristol in 'Commentary' magazine and other neoconservative journals have allied themselves with the Christian Right and even taken on Darwin's theory of evolution.

Third Principle: Aggressive Nationalism

Like Thomas Hobbes, Strauss believed that the inherently aggressive nature of human beings could only be restrained by a powerful nationalistic state. "Because mankind is intrinsically wicked, he has to be governed," he once wrote. "Such governance can only be established, however, when men are united and they can only be united against other people."

Not surprisingly, Strauss' attitude toward foreign policy was distinctly Machiavellian. "Strauss thinks that a political order can be stable only if it is united by an external threat," Drury wrote in her book. "Following Machiavelli, he maintained that if no external threat exists then one has to be manufactured (emphases added)."

"Perpetual war, not perpetual peace, is what Straussians believe in," says Drury. The idea easily translates into, in her words, an "aggressive, belligerent foreign policy," of the kind that has been advocated by neocon groups like PNAC and AEI scholars, not to mention Wolfowitz and other administration hawks who have called for a world order dominated by U.S. military power. Strauss' neoconservative students see foreign policy as a means to fulfill a "national destiny" as Irving Kristol defined it already in 1983 that goes far beyond the narrow confines of a " myopic national security."

As to what a Straussian world order might look like, the analogy was best captured by the philosopher himself in one of his "and student Allen Bloom's" many allusions to Gulliver's Travels. In Drury's words, "When Lilliput was on fire, Gulliver urinated over the city, including the palace. In so doing, he saved all of Lilliput from catastrophe, but the Lilliputians were outraged and appalled by such a show of disrespect."

The image encapsulates the neoconservative vision of the United States' relationship with the rest of the world as well as the relationship between their relationship as a ruling elite with the masses. "They really have no use for liberalism and democracy, but they're conquering the world in the name of liberalism and democracy," Drury says.

http://www.alternet.org/story/15935

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/031212.html

[Figleaf]

"Actually, liberalism is concerned with the freedom of individual people, not protoplasm. To pretend pro-forced-childbirth is a liberal position is fallacious."

-Its all a different opinion on when something is considered to be a living person. The pro-life arguments, whether you find them incorrect or not, are put forth in a liberal manner by arguing for "rights" for the fetus.

It's not liberal to posit rights for objects. Rights are for people. The woman who will be forced into chlidbirth is a person. The object on behalf of which she would be forced is not.

"I don't know what writings of Mill you refer to there, but it would be necessary to demonstrate some substantial level of harm inevitable harm resulting drug use to cause a true liberal to think the state should prohibit peaceable private use."

-From Mill's On Liberty: "That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection........the conduct from which to deter him, must be calculated to produce evil to someone else". Arguing that drug use causes harm to others and society in general isn't all too difficult.

No, it's not "difficult", it's impossible. Mill didn't mention drugs, did he?

-As far as ...anyone not of the age of the legal majority Mill would say prohibiting things that harm them is good.

Prohibiting THEM from having them, perhaps. Prohibiting people of majority age, no.

"The law would exempt religious expression from laws that would otherwise apply if it weren't religious."

-I haven't read the bill, just reports on it. Please elaborate with specifics.

No. Do your own research.

"I am a classical liberal."

Do you support publicly funded daycare, a large sociel safety net? If you answer yes you might want to rethink defining youself a classical liberal.

Those policies could be justified in classical liberal terms -- review the Mill quote you provided above.

Classical liberals are in to "small" government.

That's Libertarians. Classical liberals want limited government, not government of some formulaic size.

"2. Social conservatism and liberalism are NOT the same thing at all, in the least."

-"social conservatism" is a relatively new term. I argue that if you look back at the liberal and conservative traditions you will see Harper fits into the classical liberal tradition.

SoConism is essentially incompatible with the individual freedom philosophy of liberalism. Harper cannot be both.

[scribblet]

SoConism is essentially incompatible with the individual freedom philosophy of liberalism. Harper cannot be both.

Which is why he's not a 'socon'

[Figleaf]

SoConism is essentially incompatible with the individual freedom philosophy of liberalism. Harper cannot be both.

Which is why he's not a 'socon'

Since he's not a liberal, liberalism isn't preventing him from being a socon. But maybe it's Straussian crypto-fascism that causes him to endorse so many socon positions.

[scribblet]

Since he's not a liberal, liberalism isn't preventing him from being a socon. But maybe it's Straussian crypto-fascism that causes him to endorse so many socon positions.

Surely you jest

[normanchateau]

-As far as marijuana and anyone not of the age of the legal majority Mill would say prohibiting things that harm them is good. Marijuana kills braincells and isnt good for the lungs.

What would Mill say about alcohol which is more harmful to health than marijuana, and actually destroys brain cells?

What would Mills say about cigarettes which actually damage the lungs?

Would he also say that alcohol and cigarettes should be criminalized given that they are more harmful than marijuana?

Why does Harper want teenagers possessing a few grams of marijuana to have a permanent criminal record?

I suspect it's because he's a socon, not a liberal.