Harper Gets Free Ride From Disjointed Liberals

A strong federal government necessarily means weakened individual rights. As Ed Deak stresses, there ain't no such thing as a free ride, and there ain't no such a thing as a free market. If it seems free now, one pays the piper down the road. Hence, for the federal government to be all-powerful, the citizens must be least powerful. And all-powerful governments do not serve the people well at all.

So.....do we want a strong citizenry to check the proclivities of government, or will we "trust" government to 'do the right thing'?

Whatever, we choose, we cannot have both.

---
RickW

My heart just sank when I heard that the Liberal convention wasn't going to be till December. They're just handing Harper an opposition-free year. Why, we must ask.

And despite the long wait, they still haven't got one good candidate. Makes the future look pretty gloomy.

Ultimately, the major parties all work for the same hidden group of people who live in high places. There is no choice in Canada unless you vote for a nobody that nodody votes for. I may as well give up voting because no matter how I vote, the same old government always gets elected. <br><br> If there's to be a change, Canadian's must first understand what the problem is. If you look at our history, after so many elections, if our democracy really worked so well, then why have we gotten no further ahead after all these years? In fact, we're falling behind. <br><br> The 2004 election saw the lowest voter turnout in history at only 60.9%. 2006 saw only a 64.7% turnout. <br><br> It looks to me that people are tuning out due to a lack of choice. Who cares who gets elected when they are all the same?

<blockquote>Ultimately, the major parties all work for the same hidden group of people who live in high places. There is no choice in Canada unless you vote for a nobody that nodody votes for. I may as well give up voting because no matter how I vote, the same old government always gets elected.</blockquote> So for "them", it's a win-win situation. If you vote for either major party, it's a vote for "them", and if you don't vote, it's a vote for "them" as well.......... <p>I don't quite know what's gotten into the collective heads of Canadians, but if the present system isn't perceived as working (verified by dropping turnout rates and insistence at replacing one of two parties with the other periodically), the <b>why not</b> "...vote for a nobody that nodody votes for"?</p> Obviously we've nothing to lose. But there seems to be a certain fear of doing this.<p>---<br>RickW

"Turn-around is fair play".

For 12 years or so the Libs had a free ride until the Reform and Pro-Con parties joined in holi matrimony. Or was it a gay wedding?

"May you live in interesting times" as a Chinese curse has it.

H.F. Wolff

Brilliant Insight Chantel...

Jeez that's why I read the MSM to find out what everyone knew the minute Martin resigned...

That's probably why I have lost interest in all this; the urgency of the Opposition parties supporters don't match the lack of urgency of the actual elected leaders.

It all seems a little stage-managed, while the various elites are negotiating behind the scenes as to what they should object to and what they want, regardless of which doofus non-popular party happens to get the magic number.

Extraordinary that in a minority gov't this can happen...but I suspect the fact that the Big Name Liberals© are staying away in droves, is hidden in the numbers. McKenna, Manley et al consultants must have crunched the numbers at the top and know that the Tories are safe. So the rest of this pantimone is simply to provide a front to democracy...with the usual supporters waiting for their scripts.

I agree with one comment here; why bother with voting--if you live in a large city, you'll get the Lib/Dem incumbent and really only a handful of places in the 'burbs are up for grabs anyhow. As such all the parties will pander to the group of 'bread and butter' conservatives and soccer moms and assume their 'base' is secured and they can take them for granted.

Then when the winner gets a plurality, anything they damn well do, no matter how unpopular an issue, is given broad unquestioning mandate and the various politicians are usually simply there to lobby the public to accept some bullshit--it gets passed--and the quesling lefty parties NEVER re-visit the question again, where as Right parties always do, when they never get their way.

So for forget--I'll put CanPolitics back on the back burner where it belongs...

<blockquote>But there seems to be a certain fear of doing this.</blockquote> I don't think it's fear, instead it has more to do with getting nothing back in return for your vote. <br><br> The problem is that we do not have a proportional representation system (or something similar), which means that when you cast a vote, even for the winning party, your vote is essentially wasted unless you are the single vote that tipped the balance. <br><br> Why vote, when at least 99.99999% all of the votes are wasted? All you need is 1 person in each riding casting a vote to get the exact same resuts we have with millions of people voting. <br><br> With only a few dozen votes cast, you can end up with a majority government that can act as a dictatorship for 4 years! A system that operates in this way is seriously flawed. <br><br> In the last election, the only reason why I voted, was because the Green party had enough support that my vote would translate into giving the party $1.75. Had I voted in any other way, my vote would have been completely wasted as if I had not voted at all. So, at least when I voted Green, my vote actually did something that could help the Greens become another opposition party, and I figure the more opposition we have the better. <br><br> Without that $1.75 for my Green vote, I would have had absolutely no reason to vote at all, and that's pretty damned pathetic if you ask me. <br><br> <a href="http://www.greenparty.ca/reasons_to_vote_green.html">Top 10 Reasons to Vote Green on Monday</a>

Someone mentioned being disheartened to find that the Liberal Party
had delayed its leadership vote until December ... darn near a year from
when the Harpoons got elected. Well, me too: disheartened and just a
bit angry at Mr Dithers.

Q. What kind of stupidity leaves the Natural Governing Party without a
leader for almost a year, at the time of Harpoon's greatest vulnerability?

Q. What's to prevent Harper from provoking an election right now, while
the Liberals are leaderless and disorganized?

Nothing is preventing him and I think he would dearly love to do that only he thinks the voters would not like that? Ha! I dare him to bring himself down, I think many of us would vote for the other guys. Why not start acting as though we do not have a Liberal or Con party in Canada? They are useless as far as I'm concerned. Neither of them are working for Canada any longer. I have no problem voting Green or NDP depending on the person in my riding. But even though I was a Liberal voter most of my voting life I find they have not been representing anything I value for the last 3 elections. I had no problem changing to another party after looking at them to find the "best" of them for me. I'm still waiting for the day that only independents run. Think I'll live that long?

---
"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music." Friedrich Nietzsche