My Most Gracious Enquirie to the Esteemed Shit-for-Brains, Peter1

Sometimes I think Dr. Dawg is completely wasting his time by allowing trolls and/or absolute idiots to comment repeatedly on his site. I especially can't see the point of allowing the vile lunatic ksarroafh-skdf to pollute the environs on a regular basis. But sometimes, through the quality of trolls that he attracts, you'll get the odd clever attempt at an argument from some of them and you can whet your blade against them. Even still, that utility pales in comparison to their overall lowering of the tone of the culture of the blog and, in their own little way, of Canada's democratic health.

The commentator Peter1 is someone I've written about before. He's reasonably bright and fairly articulate and often gives the impression (to others) that there's more to his typing than there is. Ponder his offerings for but a minute though, and it becomes clear that he's either a shameless lying hack or he's a complete shit for brains. Among the many gems he's farted out:

• The Left in North America is just as boorish and violent as the Right. 
• The Theory of Evolution (or Evolution via Natural Selection, since when he gets excited he forgets what he's trying to say) is just a theory and can't explain everything and therefore should be replaced by he knows not what.
• Evolution (by any means) is a totalitarian endeavour that cannot bear the light of true scientific scrutiny 
• Science itself is apparently nothing more than a religious clique whose priests jealously guard their baseless authority in order to continue to bamboozle us
• He feels special (the center of his own universe next to God) and therefore he's not bound by any silly so-called scientific laws, but he, in fact, possesses a completely Free Will. So there.

Another of his irritating habits is that any reference to one of the myriad crimes against humanity (literally) or crimes against democracy and human rights of the harpercons is met with some obvious attempt at false equivalence through Peter1's mentioning some barely connected action of the NDP's. (Even if the absurdity of his efforts here are recognized, you can tell he gains gratification if he has successfully changed the subject.) 

It is the latter trick of his that makes me question whether he's a shameless hack, rather than the tiresome mediocrity-imbecile that the earlier beliefs would lead you to think he is, or whether he's a deliberately lying hack. I was rude to Peter1 (because I think he's both contemptible and a moron) and it sent Dawg reeling to the fainting couch. I thought I'd take apart Peter1's asinine outpourings, both to demonstrate his ridiculousness and to take another whack at those of his revolting fellow travellers who still attempt to bluster their way through harper's electoral fraud, war crimes and overall contempt for democracy.

It is in this spirit then, that I reply to Peter1's idiotic and anti-democratic efforts in this post. In a response to a post where, ironically, Dawg is celebrating Canadian constitutional scholar Peter Russell coming right out and calling the harpercons "A lot of disgusting people" for their revolting, hypocritical attempt to stir up the anger of the ignorant among the populace during his first controversial prorogation in 2008, and which in the comments was used to extend condemnation for later examples of harpercon perfidy, Peter1 trolls thusly:

You can keep talking about rigged elections all you want if it makes you feel better, but as no one has yet produced one testimony from a voter whose vote was affected or who didn't vote when he/she intended to, it's all pretty hollow.

The question I would put to Russel is what should be the sanctity of a parliamentary convention when public opinion is strongly in favour of breaking or bending it. ... In the King/Byng affair, King ignored longstanding convention to the howls of the purists and then was vindicated at the polls. History books now teach it was an important step on the road to Canadian nationhood and independance.

Trudeau threw a nuclear bomb at what had until then been seen as the most sacred of Canadian consitutional conventions--the feds wouldn't change provincial powers without the support of most of the provinces--, but today most of the public remembers him as a Moses descending with the Tablets.  

I think there is a pretty good argument to the effect that breaking a convention with public support is not an outrageous anti-democratic abuse of power, it's the whole point of basing so much of the system on convention, not law. If you break or bend a convention and then are vindicated at the polls, the convention evolves or changes, again the whole point. As Harper won the election despite Dr. Dawg's new math, it's Harper 1, the Others 0.

With regards to the stupid argument that the criminal behaviour might not have helped them to obtain any of their intended prize, we must first point out the obvious fact that massive, nation-wide, deliberate election fraud is ILLEGAL. The ACT is illegal. It doesn't matter if you pull a gun on somebody and they tell you to fuck off and you run before they hit you without getting any of their money. The crime began when you pulled the gun and threatened them.

Even IF it's true that their fraud had zero impact, do we REALLY want to be seen as acquiescing to such behaviour in our country's political climate? Do we REALLY want to have our elections go the way of elections in the United States? Evidently, Peter1 does. Because he's sure that only his team will practice the disgusting behaviour that he secretly applauds.

Have we EVER (in the postwar period) had an election with thousands upon thousands of complaints of electoral irregularities as the 2011 election produced? My god, just writing these words makes me shake with rage at Peter1's moral imbecility. This is not how you conduct democracy!!!

Peter1's attempt to conflate the controversial 2008 prorogation with the King-Byng Affair is laughable. The King-Byng Affair went thusly: In 1926, as a result of a scandal which would result in a vote of non-confidence in his minority government, Liberal PM Mackenzie-King as the British-appointed Governor General Byng to dissolve Parliament and call an election, rather than see if the Conservative Party could form a government with the third-place Progressive Party. Mackenzie-King's actions the whole time were hypocritical in the extreme. Byng apparently wanted Canada's Parliament to sort things out but Mackenzie-King, in desperation, asked him to call London (England) for advice. When Byng refused King's call for an immediate election, King called Byng's actions an affront to Canada's sovereignty that a Canadian PM was being overruled by a British appointee and used all sorts of jingoist appeals to convince the Progressives to vote with the Liberals to defeat the Conservative government and force an election.

Notice however, that although King's behaviour was that of a buffoon, a liar and a hypocrite, at least he was asking to go to the people. His government was going to be defeated and he wanted the Governor General to bring his government to an end and call an election. He didn't want Meighen's Conservatives to form the government, whereas harper wanted to cling to power even in the face of having lost the confidence of the legislature. This is how far we have sunk, that Mackenzie-King's behaviour in the King-Byng affair is almost virtuous in comparison to harper's and moral dunces like Peter1 cheer for harper!

Peter1's next turd is his attempt to equate Pierre Trudeau's bare-knuckle treatment of the government of Quebec in his desire to patriate Canada's Constitution in the face of the Quebec government's disagreement. Very simply, Confederation in 1867 involved a number of British North American colonies ("Canada" which included "Canada West" [Ontario] and "Canada East" [Quebec], New Brunswick and Nova Scotia) within the confines of the British Empire. (Other BNA colonies would join, willingly or not, up into the 20th Century.) The British North America Act 1867 was signed into law as an Act of the British Parliament. It mainly focused on the distribution of powers between the federal government and the provinces. Britain has no written constitution outlining the limits of government power and the rights and freedoms of British subjects. It did not include any formula for amending it. It was assumed that if Canadians ever did want to change their system of government, they'd get together and come to an agreement and then propose it to the British Parliament. 

Eventually though, Canadians began to feel embarrassed that national issues were being appealed to British law makers. At the same time though the government of Quebec was always leery about re-opening Confederation in the face of increasingly activist-minded federal governments. They resisted each and every attempt to amend the Constitution up until Trudeau. Trudeau himself had always held Quebec nationalism in contempt. In his youth, it was represented by the stultifying, oppressive, insecure and downright provincialism of the Quebec Catholic Church. When he became a national politician himself, he felt that the Quebec nationalism of the post-"Quiet Revolution" period was based on the same insecurity, insularity of the old version, with terrorist bombs thrown in. Anglo-French Canadian nationalism was represented by Quebec politicians among the Liberal Party of Canada.  In his view, neither provincial nor national Quebec politicians could lay claim to a monopoly interest in representing the views of Quebec voters. 

When it came time for Trudeau to feel the need to patriate the Constitution, he asked the Supreme Court of Canada if he was legally obligated to get the unanimous consent of all the provinces (meaning the consent of Quebec) to amend the BNA. Since there was no amending formula, or anything remotely dealing with the topic, the Supreme Court said no, he wasn't, but custom and convention meant that he should pay serious attention to the government of Quebec's views. Trudeau happily accepted the first part of their ruling and disregarded the latter, enraging the Quebec government and Quebec nationalists from moderates to independistes. 

Trudeau upset convention to patriate the Constitution. Violated the convention that all provinces must agree before the constitution is reformed. A PM from Quebec, with significant Quebec support, overruled the objections of another party from Quebec (the PQ at the time forming the government) and brought home the Constitution and created the Charter of Rights and Freedoms with the support of nine provinces out of 10. One can argue about this in good faith, but one CANNOT argue that it is at all the same thing as utterly negating the principle of responsible government, or violating the right of Parliament to know the costs of the government's policies, or using prorogation to avoid investigation for war crimes, or lying routinely to Parliament or committing massive election fraud. There is simply no comparison. 

Read what Peter1 says here:

I think there is a pretty good argument to the effect that breaking a convention with public support is not an outrageous anti-democratic abuse of power, it's the whole point of basing so much of the system on convention, not law.

So, demanding that the people's representatives vote for budgets without giving them the actual costs of what you want to do isn't an outrageous anti-democratic abuse of power?

So, proroguing Parliament to specifically avoid a vote of no-confidence from the people's representatives isn't an outrageous anti-democratic abuse of power?

So, lying to the people's representatives while you're asking them to trust your verbal assurances of your budget's costs isn't an outrageous anti-democratic abuse of power?

So, putting an entire legislative season's policies into one bill and ramming it through because you have a majority isn't an outrageous anti-democratic abuse of power?

So winning a majority through fraud and avoiding calls for an inquiry into your crimes isn't an outrageous anti-democratic abuse of power?

So torturing people and then using your power to avoid investigations into your crimes against humanity (including proroguing Parliament) isn't an outrageous anti-democratic abuse of power?

Peter1 stands as a hopeless goddamned shit-for-brains scumbag. And Dawg reveals himself as a deluded sap for harbouring this piece of shit and protecting him against the abuse he so richly deserves.