Democracy ... harpercon style

(The picture is just to give the ladies ... or dudes who're into that sort of thing ... some morning eye-candy.)

So, let's remember how stephen harper thinks a representative parliamentary democracy/constitutional monarchy should function:

1. Elections should be decided by out-right lying to the electorate about what your policies are and how much they should cost. In this, he's joined by the Chretien Liberals with their whole "Re-negotiate NAFTA/Kill the GST/Red Book of Promises" shtick.

2. During election campaigns it's fine for parties to harass voters and insult them while pretending to be from the other parties. Canadians are not adult citizens who should be treated with respect and appealed to with facts and arguments. They're a prize to be won or obstacles to be exploited or misdirected.

3. Call voters who are more likely to vote for your opponents and deliberately lie to them by telling them that the locations of polling stations have changed in the hopes that these fellow citizens will either not show up (you've given them locations that you know are far from where they live) or, if they show up at the false location, they will give up in frustration and go home without voting.

4. At polling stations where supporters of other parties are likely to outnumber your own, it's crucial to disrupt the voting by causing a disturbance, ranting and raving about irregularities, so that voting can be delayed long enough to discourage as many voters as possible. (At the same time, the Supreme Court of Canada says that procedures and safeguards to ensure the integrity of the electoral process are optional, as is the hope that Elections Canada will ensure that all votes will be counted properly.)

5. Responsible Government is no longer the basis of legitimate authority anymore. If the majority of the people's representatives no longer has any confidence in the government, the prime minister may badger and harangue the Crown to grant a prorogation of Parliament to prevent the people's representatives from expressing their will, by threatening mob violence and an attack on the office of the Governor General. (This after having needlessly re-inserted the "Royal" to the Canadian Navy and the Canadian Air Force!)

6. It is a healthy thing for the government to foster delusions and errors in the mind of the public, in order to make them believe that such things as coalition governments are illegitimate, thus making such legitimate sources of authority suspect in the eyes of the gullible and the partisan.

7. It is a healthy thing for the government to foster militarism in the mind of the public and to then condemn any and all criticisms of militarist foreign policies as "hating the troops." (At the same time, it is a good thing to nickle and dime wounded soldiers on their health benefits and to use the medical records of veterans' Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder treatment against them if they try to organize any resistance against this.)

8. "National Security" is to be abused as blatantly as possible. Obtaining records of our treatment of prisoners taken in combat or otherwise is to be said to threaten the security of the nation. There is to be no oversight of the use of our military in war zones. (At the same time, top-secret military files that can't even be shared with Parliamentarians with security clearances can be leaked at will to hacks and dupes in the media or academia.)

9. Government ministers can alter official public documents to make them say whatever they want them to say, lie to Parliament repeatedly about this and escape without penalties.

10. The government can spend $1 billion to police political conferences, ostensibly to prevent rioters from rioting and breaking windows. In the process (and with the collusion of provincial premiers and municipal police chiefs) civil, legal and basic human rights can be temporarily suspended. When the rioting occurs anyway and the windows are smashed regardless of the $1 billion [ONE FUCKING BILLION DOLLARS!!!] that was spent, there are to be no penalties. When over 1,000 people are arrested illegally and kept under inhuman conditions, there are to be no penalties.

11. Parliament cannot know even the most basic facts about proposed government policies, including official estimates of their costs. These are to be withheld on the grounds of "cabinet secrecy." Parliament (the people's representatives) are to be content with oral assurances of the estimated costs (which can, and should be, gigantic lies).

12. If, through the successful application of electoral fraud, across-the-board corporate media endorsement and effective lying, you are fortunate enough to win majority government status, impose a shit-licking lap-dog as Speaker of the House of Commons and ram-through 500 page omnibus bills that radically transform the state's regulatory framework in favour of anti-human oil, mining and financial interests.

There's more to harper's Canada, but that's enough for today's reminder. This is the Canada we're supposed to tolerate until 2015? This is the "democracy" that harpercon trolls are defending. Imagine the shrieking were we to do this to them! But we won't do this to them when we bring them down. We will subject their leaders to criminal prosecution where appropriate and impose the maximum penalties the law allows, and this will be enough to destroy these dangerous, anti-democratic hypocrites and loons as a political force for a generation at least.