The Status Quo

Okay. Let me see if I've got this straight: Me and all the other Canadian leftists that I know, ... ALL of us, share the following principles ...

We're "Stalinists." Which is to say that we advocate locking-up our political enemies and then executing them, with or without the benefit of a show trial. This is because ... I don't know really, I'll need someone to explain it to me.

We're also "fascists" because fascism and Stalinism are two sides of the same leftist, authoritarian coin. This is because fascism is a movement of the left. This is because ALL leftists believe in worshipping the collective over the individual.

It stands to reason, then, that all rightists are champions of the individual. Unless, and until, all individuals are free from any obligations to any society anywhere, ... unless every individual is free to do anything but break a business contract (and the only power the state must have is to be able to enforce contracts between consenting individuals), we are not truly free.

The right-wing is about individual freedom.

Except that the roots of "conservatism" are in the protection of ancient cultural traditions, which are not to be lightly discarded.This is the conservatism of Edmund Burke, who, besides recognizing the powerful importance of tradition in maintaining the peaceful social order, regarded the masses as "the swinish multitude." The traditions that Burke and others upheld were based on the feudal past, of rigid hierarchy and religion.

So, there's a disconnect between present-day conservatives (who are now some variant of 19th Century liberals) and the roots of their own political organizations.

But anyway, the Conservative Party of Canada is the best guarantor of individual freedom for Canadians, and the Liberal Party of Canada is really a close second, given the impotence of its "progressive" left-wing.

Both parties would also be the champions of democracy against the inherent "Stalinism" of the NDP and its supporters, with the Conservatives, once again, being the best defenders of democracy (within the limits of a democracy that is restrained by a respect for individual rights a-la 19th Century liberalism as enshrined by the 20th Century Liberal liberal Pierre Trudeau's Charter of Rights and Freedoms).

Furthermore, it is the Conservative Party that should naturally be the best defender of our Westminster system of parliamentary government.

Have I got that right?

Because it's all a little confusing. What with the fact that it's the mainstream, respectable, Conservatives, Liberals, Republicans, and Democrats who believe in locking people up without charges, indefinitely.

It's the Conservatives who have recently trampled all over the basics of Westminster-style parliamentary democracy; shutting down Parliament to avoid a vote of non-confidence, and again, to avoid handing over evidence to establish whether the government is complicit in the war crime of torture.

It's the Conservatives whose last outrage is to refuse to divulge the cost estimates of their policy proposals, prepared by state bureaucrats paid by the taxpayers.

It's the Conservatives and the Republicans who want to impose their perverted religious values on all of us, and who seek the freedom to start wars without any oversight. (Actually, given Obama's blatantly illegal aggression in Libya, and the Liberals conniving with the Conservatives to avoid any debate when extending our occupation of Afghanistan, it appears that neither mainstream party has a monopoly on lawless, arbitrary war-making.)

Anyway, ...