Why American Socons are More Successful Than Canadian Socons

Canadian social conservatives tend to envy American social conservatives, who seem to have more political clout.

In today’s New York Times, David Brooks goes some way in explaining why American social conservatives, most notably evangelicals, are more successful. He argues that they have reached beyond abortion and gay marriage to engage in broader issues, most notably poverty.

By confronting and embracing issues like domestic and third world poverty, they not only take away an important issue from the left, but they also make a strong argument that interventionist policies are unnecessary and unwanted when it comes to fighting poverty. Moreover, they can make common cause with people on the left. For instance, while U2′s Bono is associated with the Liberal Party of Canada, in the US he has associated himself with numerous conservative evangelical groups because African poverty is one of their primary issues. George W. Bush’s compassionate conservatism is an attempt to reach to these people, and is an attempt to harness their arguments that civil society institutions including churches are the most appropriate institutions to deliver various social services.

Brooks notes how American Evangelicals work within the American system which encourages coalition building, and they’re able to do this while maintaining their distinctive theological and social identities:

Today I’ll be at a panel discussion on a proposed antipoverty bill called the Aspire Act, which is co-sponsored in the Senate by social conservatives like Rick Santorum and social liberals like Jon Corzine.

And when I look at the evangelical community, I see a community in the midst of a transformation – branching out beyond the traditional issues of abortion and gay marriage, and getting more involved in programs to help the needy. I see Rick Warren, who through his new Peace initiative is sending thousands of people to Rwanda and other African nations to fight poverty and disease. I see Chuck Colson deeply involved in Sudan. I see Richard Cizik of the National Association of Evangelicals drawing up a service agenda that goes way beyond the normal turf of Christian conservatives.

I see evangelicals who are more and more influenced by Catholic social teaching, with its emphasis on good works. I see the historical rift healing between those who emphasized personal and social morality. Most of all, I see a new sort of evangelical leader emerging.

Millions of evangelicals are embarrassed by the people held up by the news media as their spokesmen. Millions of evangelicals feel less represented by the culture war-centered parachurch organizations, and better represented by congregational pastors, who have a broader range of interests and more passion for mobilizing volunteers to perform service. Millions of evangelicals want leaders who live the faith by serving the poor.

Serious differences over life issues are not going to go away. But more liberals and evangelicals are realizing that you don’t have to convert people; sometimes you can just work with them. The world is suddenly crowded with people like Rick Warren and Bono who are trying to step out of the logic of the culture war so they can accomplish more in the poverty war.

The lessons from this for Canadian social conservatives are many.

They need to branch out from abortion and gay marriage to other issues, especially ones dealing with poverty though the environment might be another area. This does not mean ignoring abortion and gay marriage. I’ve argued in the past that Canadians need to think of controlling abortion by thinking of abortion primarily as a social welfare issue and secondarily as a criminal justice issue. Until Canadian social conservatives can demonstrate that civil society institutions can protect vulnerable pregnant women who might consider abortion, they will lose the abortion debate each and every time. Ironically, such a shift in thinking would require an adjustment for both social conservatives and their partners in coalition, the libertarians, who are loathe to consider anything in terms of a social welfare issue.

Broadening their scope enables social conservatives to form coalitions with other interests on a issue-by-issue basis that has the long term benefit of creating trust among political operators. One of the reasons why socons are so “scary” is that their rivals simply do not know them. In addition to building social and political capital, building coalitions also enables social conservatives to drive bargains with partners to get their support on various issues. Helping someone on the left with African aid might be a way of leveraging someone to help with abortion, for example.

Fundamentally, I think American social conservatives can teach Canadian social conservatives about building and sustaining the institutions of civil society. Canadian socons all too often share with their left wing rivals a tendency to look to government for solutions, usually in terms of criminal justice instead of welfare (as is the case for the left).

UPDATE: Joe Knippenberg makes some insightful comments at No Left Turns.

Globe and Mail Spins Poll Against Socons

The Globe and Mail spins a Leger poll to argue that Canadians “fear” the Conservatives because of the social policies and their pro-US position. However, a closer look at the numbers that they report indicates the following:

When respondents were asked whether they were “afraid” of Mr. Harper’s positions on “abortion, the death penalty and same-sex marriage,” 39 per cent said yes and 43 per cent said no. The remaining 18 per cent said they did not know or declined to answer.

The response was almost evenly split when voters were asked whether they were “afraid” of Mr. Harper’s “pro-American positions,” with 41 per cent saying yes and 42 per cent saying no. The other 17 per cent were undecided or declined to answer.

I’m unsure what’s meant about being “afraid” of a party. I wonder whether they ask people if they’re “afraid” of the Liberals robbing them and of undermining the constitution. I suppose they wouldn’t, since Globe and Mail writers haven’t primed them to think that way.

Anyway, a significant plurality says they’re “afraid” while a significant plurality says they’re not. A large minority, just under one fifth, is undecided.

So, over half the respondents aren’t “afraid” of the Conservatives.

But the Globe will do its best to ensure that those undecideds will become afraid.

Angry Journalism, Destructive Journalism

Last month, during the Alberta Conservative Party Convention in Edmonton, Rockyview MLA Ted Morton held a breakfast for friends and supporters. Media pressed Morton about the breakfast but he wanted to keep the gathering out of the media’s eye. Asked why, Morton was rather coy and replied: “I often meet with friends.â€?

Tom Olsen, who covers the Alberta political scene for the Calgary Herald, was personally insulted by the reply. Olsen wrote the next day: “You Need the Media, Ted.” He qualified Morton’s simple answer with two words as a single paragraph: “Smug. Arrogant.” Then, he continued to write:

Those are just two of the applicable terms.

Maybe he’s intimidated by the cameras, so has to cover up his insecurity with what he perhaps believes is cleverness.

Bad strategy, though, to anger the media.

“Doesn’t make you want to write anything nice about him,� said one hack, after witnessing Morton’s brief performance.

You need us Ted. Alienation is not step a leadership hopeful should take.

Visible in Olsen is a sense of entitlement that reporters be given what they want, when they want it. Morton is a public figure, and that is granted. But even public figures have private get-togethers.

Olsen’s reaction is self-centredness in disguise: “You need us� is Olsen’s way of saying “you need me.� It has an unmistakable tone of self-importance. Morton did not rebuff reporters but just gave a “brief performance,� Olsen admits. So, he is upset because Morton didn’t say what and how he wanted him to say it.

Olsen’s sensibilities were offended and things became personal. The brief performance elicited “anger in the media,� in Olsen. While he is implying that Morton angered them, balanced characters understand that anger is not a sentiment that originates outside. It has external triggers, but it dwells in he who gets angry. Professionals typically keep anger in check and don’t react whimsically on it. So, when Olsen makes of anger an issue, it is personal.

To say that anger does not make media want to write “anything nice about [Morton]� is to suggests that you’ll write unkind things –a desire which Olsen indulges in his piece. The statement implies a blackmailing boycott or a vendetta. Refusing to write about worthy things is dereliction, and as blackmail, it shreds the veil of neutrality in the duty to inform the public. In so doing, Olsen undermines the credibility of the profession.

To imply boycott is bad enough, but it is worse to write unkind things in vengeful reflex because it transforms journalism into an instrument to castigate someone –an abandonment of journalistic ethics.

Olsen’s anger becomes actualized in an attempt to hurt the “offender� who did not give him what he wanted. He will hurt and teach a lesson. He has become judge and jury, pedagogue rather than observer, however dressed in different garment.

Olsen’s is a tyrannical soul. Tyrants react in anger when they do not get their wishes, when something they want (often qualified as a need) is taken away or their perceived needs are unmet. Children are the typical example of tyrannical souls. They want what they want and they want it immediately. My not-yet three year-old son will sometimes scream wanting his shoes tied immediately, but he will not let me help him because he wants his mother to do it. The pressing desire is deferred to the greater capriciousness about the person he wants to perform the service, while at the same time being irate for the delay. Olsen’s attack on Morton is similar, but it is more akin to the child in the sandbox who, feeling insulted, threatens to take his toy away with him and clubs the supposed offending parties in the head with his toy.

Olsen’s report is about a desire gone unsupplied, and the resulting angry reaction. It is worth reproducing again the most offensive sentence of his piece:

Maybe he’s intimidated by the cameras, so has to cover up his insecurity with what he perhaps believes is cleverness.

Those words appear soon after Olsen claims to have exercised the restraint of presenting us with only two applicable words. He abandons all objectivity. He hints that the one who hurt his feelings is cowardly, timid, and therefore unleader-like. He means to hurt, which is a self-serving (unprofessional) act. It is not journalism. Suddenly, what is supposed to be a political commentary finds itself swimming in self-indulgent pop psychology. Olsen’s reaction shows an inability to judge in detachment from personal preference.

The tyrannical nature of journalists like Olsen has serious implications for the political community, reaching further than attacking a politician. Journalists are a public conscience in a democratic setting. When they betray impartiality with personal feelings, they compromise sources of public judgement and undermine the public interest. The distortion of misplaced personal sensibilities invades the public sphere to corrupt public perceptions. The amplified personal disorder becomes political.

How little reaction there was in the media about Paul Martin’s rejection of centuries of constitutional tradition. Martin acted on what was good for him, dismissing constitutional standards and the duty of the office he holds. It is little wonder that the country’s media hardly blinked, if Olsen is representative of it. When one is self-absorbed, outside standards fade beyond the horizon.

Olsen’s “journalism� mirrors the structure of Ottawa Liberal politics. Both activities are practiced in satisfaction of a personal passion. Both activities seek to reward or punish in relation to personal (or tribal) passion: Olsen wanting to punish Morton for not giving him what Olsen wanted; Liberals rewarding friends and co-religionists for giving them what they need. Both are also punishing the public and public life itself.

While Olsen owes Morton an apology, that would simply focus on the personal again. It is far more fundamental that Olsen apologises to his profession, and to the community which his craft is supposed to serve.

Cross posted from Civitatensis

Martin and Adscam: The Smoking Gun?

Lorne Gunter finds more proof that Martin not only knew some of what was going on with Adscam, but had direct control over some of the money. Referring to the auditors report, he writes:

At Section 6.1 (p. 50), the auditors trace the origins of the sponsorship funds, in other words, which government departments did the money come from in the first place?

The bulk, 95%, came from two sources, Public Works and the Unity Reserve. PW contributed $206 million, the UR $134 million. Of the $134 million from the unity funds, $22 million was washed through the Canada Information Office, the other $112 million went directly from the reserves to the sponsorship program.

Why is this significant? Why does it matter that 31.5% of sponsorship monies came directly from the Unity Reserves? Because as finance minister, Paul Martin was responsible for putting money into the reserves every year. When the fund’s existence was revealed (until it was shut down in the 2004 budget, the reserve was a secret), Martin originally denied any knowledge. But shortly there after, and ever since (including when he testified at Gomery back in February), Martin has admitted he knew of the UR but that Chretien made him do.

The important part is that Martin must have known of at least one-third of the Adscam funds.

This coincides with Daniel Dezainde’s claims that everyone, including Martin, knew about the separate funding organizations that were set up.

UPDATE: Gunter posts more comments. He argues that the evidence doesn’t directly implicate Martin, but it:

but it does tighten the rings around the PM and what he knew of the sponsorship program years before he has admitted any knowledge even know.

UPDATE 2: Andrew Coyne, as always, has more.

The Morality of Freedom Versus the Ideology of Self-Creationism

Thanks to our friend Hugo Chesshire for providing an opportunity to clarify the difference between the moral notion of freedom and the silly belief in unlimited self-creativity.

Hugo points out that the public school system tends to stifle children’s freedom by forcing trendy leftish notions upon them. He’s absolutely right. Public educators are inconsistent to the point of hypocrisy in their suppression of freedom in the name of a mangled version of liberalism.

Let’s clarify things by distinguishing the morality of free will from the nonsense of voluntaristic self-creationism.

Moral freedom lies in our ability to make choices from among the options available to us – and, more importantly, to take responsibility for those choices. Hence real freedom of will is a moral notion conveying personal responsibility.

But that’s not what the ideologues of self-creationism believe. They think that freedom is the voluntaristic ability to make reality conform to our will. They think free will gives us the ability to create any options we want. They believe we have the ability to remake human nature into whatever we want. They believe there are no natural limits on human self-creativity.

True liberty is about making difficult choices given the constraints of reality and taking responsibility for the consequences. False liberty is the foolish notion that you can do whatever you want because reality is a social construct, blah blah blah.

The ideology of self-creationism is based on the unlimited voluntarism that makes nonsense of true moral freedom. Self-creationists never have to take moral responsibility for anything, because for them morality is just another product of their own will.

Self-creationism – the belief that humans have the magical ability to make themselves into whatever they want – is the popular ideology of the public school system. That’s why they make a fetish of spontaneity and creativity. That’s why they don’t want to teach.

More broadly, self-creationism is the underlying belief system of the trendy modern and post-modern left. It’s a silly notion, but that’s what these people believe.

Stronach’s “Career”: Selling Her Female Assets

In today’s National Post, Barbara Kay (sub required) points out that Belinda Stronach has always traded upon her sex – and has always received a free pass from the media while doing so.

Would any man never before active in politics be taken seriously as a Conservative leadership candidate? Would any man with genuine leadership ambitions have shrunk from public debates? Would any man of mediocre intellect, however wealthy, have been considered a worthy leadership contender with no French, no rhetorical skills, and no history of consequential leadership or meaningful civic service? No, no and no.

Furthermore, she always did so by playing upon powerful men:

You can see how she’d gravitate to Bill Clinton �?? he’s an ageing politico, like the other male mentors provided by her father �?? Bill Davis, Brian Mulroney, David Peterson �?? and she seems to bring out strong mentoring instincts in graying, still-powerful men. Father figures who protect, reassure and counsel. Stephen Harper, never one to cosset anybody, wasn’t Belinda’s type. The ageing Paul Martin, on the other hand, fits her mentor template to a T.

She may not work the street, but those are the only skills that Belinda has ever really mastered.

Liberals To Continue Undermining Responsible Government

The Globe and Mail reports that the Liberals plan to ignore the upcoming confidence votes if it suits them:

The federal Liberals would consider ignoring a House of Commons defeat should they lose any of the several coming votes that are matters of confidence between now and the end of the spring session, Chief Government Whip Karen Redman says.

Although no final strategy has been decided, Ms. Redman said the government could respond to a defeat by bringing in a motion on whether the government has the confidence of Parliament to make sure MPs actually want an election.

This is even more arrogant than when they got away with ignoring the confidence motion a couple of weeks ago on the grounds that it was literally a procedural motion (though I’ve noted how, in the end, even that difference didn’t matter – it was a confidence motion in purpose).

This new strategy is even more arrogant because they’ve announced that they would ignore a confidence motion even though they’ve acknowledged that yes indeed it is a confidence motion.

Their reasoning? Not all MPs will be in the House at the time, which is their reasoning for citing the 1968 Lester B. Pearson precedent when he called another confidence motion 10 days after the original one that didn’t give him the answer he wanted. However, they can also look at the 1979 precedent of Joe Clark who accepted his government’s defeat despite the absence of 7 his MPs (though their presence wouldn’t have prevented him losing).

Even so, with the Liberals winning the bye-election in Labrador, it’s unlikely that the Liberals would even lose the upcoming confidence votes, especially since the NDP look like they’ll support them, at least until the end of this year.

In the meantime, say good-bye to your hard earned money while you say good-bye to the constitution.

UPDATE: Andrew Coyne provides a 5 point summary of why the 1968 Pearson example does not give today’s Liberals license to ignore confidence measures.

UPPERDATE: Civitatensis compares the Liberal straategy of ignoring confidence votes to the Quebec separatist strategy of ignoring “no” votes in referenda until they get a “yes” vote. Recall the wisdom of Stephen Harper’s dad (and Nietzsche): don’t let your battle with the monster turn you into a monster. Right now the Libranos make the separatists look pure wool. ;)

UPPITYDATE: According to Politics Watch, Prof. Andrew Heard, one of Canada’s leading experts on constitutional conventions, regards the Liberal strategy of ignoring confidence motions as totally illegitimate:

But Prof. Heard disagreed with such a practice and said as long as there was proper notice there is “absolutely no excuse” to ignore the results of a confidence vote.

“It’s an illogical contradiction to say that we will respond to defeats on matters of confidence to say we will have our own vote of confidence,” Prof. Heard said in a phone interview. “It doesn’t make sense.”

He reiterates his point made a couple of weeks ago that the original procedural motion was also a confidence motion:

However, Prof. Heard is not in an agreement with Prime Minister Paul Martin’s decision to ignore the May 10 passage of a Conservative motion recommending his government resign.

Martin waited nine days before having a vote on two budget bills that passed second reading by the narrowest of margins after he was able to have an opposition MP, Belinda Stronach, defect to his party.

“This is part of the problem,” Prof Heard said. “Constitutional conventions are based on precedents and he’s kind of pushed the envelope of what we’ve seen in the past. And he pushed it in a very large way by refusing to accept that first defeat on May 10 as an actual vote of confidence.

“In my own view it was a clear test of confidence. He was able to kind of bafflegab his way out of it and that is probably the more problematic precedent rather than the nine-day delay he had.”

Arab Americans and Their Success

Dan Drezner has an interesting post on economic and demographic information on Arab Americans.

On average, Arab Americans are wealthier and have higher educations than the average American. He quotes Moses Naim’s article in a recent issue of Foreign Policy:

Whereas 24 percent of Americans hold college degrees, 41 percent of Arab Americans are college graduates. The median income for an Arab family living in the United States is $52,300�??4.6 percent higher than other American families�??and more than half of all Arab Americans own their home.

This economic picture differs from the plight of Arabs in Europe, who are chronically underemployed, undereducated, and overimprisoned. One could compare the social and economic status of Arabs in Europe with that of African-Americans in the US.

Does America being the land of opportunity explain the difference?

Perhaps, but not necessarily. Drezner also observes that the backgrounds of Arab-Americans differ from that of Arab-Europeans. For instance, Lebanese compose the largest group of Arab-Americans in terms of country of origin. Also, 35% of Arab-Americans are Roman Catholic, as opposed to 24% Muslim. The backgrounds of Arabs in Europe differ. One should also point out that European countries have taken on a much larger proportion of Arab immigrants than the US, and that their political systems have done more to facilitate the creation of enclaves and ghettoes that prevent social and economic mobility.

Hugh Segal Slips Hint of Wider Foreknowledge of Stronach Defection

The old Red Tory ex-PCer, Hugh Segal, inadvertently hinted on CBC radio this morning that the Stronach defection was more widely foreknown than anyone has previously admitted.

In the first half-hour of the CBC program, The Current, Segal was asked whether her defection could be considered a form of corruption, given that Stronach received political power as a quid pro quo for crossing the floor.

Struggling to defend her, Segal claimed to have foreknown that she acted only from principle. He said the following, verbatim:

Certainly, ah, Miss Stronach had been making it clear to a lot of people, ah, prior to, um, her decision that she was having great difficulty with the notion on principle of, ah, voting with the Bloc Quebecois and, ah, voting to bring down the government.

This comment raises the possibility that a wider circle of people, perhaps others like Segal with Red Tory leanings and old PC party connections, were involved in Stronach’s move. Maybe Segal was just puffing up his own importance with claims of inside knowledge, but the comment requires an explanation.

At the very least, Segal should be asked to explain the following: What exactly did he know about Stronach’s plans? When did he know it? And, most importantly, who else knew it too?

Politics is a dirty game, but the voting public at least has a right to know who the players are.

Update:

In the next day’s National Post, the president of Stronach’s old Conservative riding association denied that she had talked widely of her general unhappiness — so Segal appears to have been referring to something more specific.

An excerpt from the letter in the Post:

As president of the Newmarket/ Aurora Electoral District Association for the Conservative Party of Canada, I find the stunning hypocrisy of Belinda Stronach’s defection to the Liberal party breathtaking. She did not consult with her political base �?? either the riding association or the voters in the riding. She also did not, according to her own statements during the press conference with the Prime Minister, spend much time reflecting on her decision, as she said her deliberations only began a few days before, after a conversation with former Liberal premier David Peterson.

So what was Segal talking about?

Literacy Versus Ideology in the Classroom

Much hand wringing in the press, once again, about stagnant literacy rates. But few have seen the underlying problem: It’s political and ideological.

No, it’s not testosterone-hating feminism – not this time, anyway. It’s not Earth-worshiping crypto-paganism, though that’s pervasive too. It’s not anti-professional unionism and the hatred of capitalism that goes with it.

No, the ideology that keeps teachers from teaching kids how to read is more basic than any of these. It’s the fetishism of spontaneity, originality and creativity. It’s the ideology that sees the magical power of self-creativity as the true essence of humanity.

We could call it expressivism, the belief that self-expression is the essential characteristic of humanity. Or call it voluntarism, the belief that spontaneity and creativity are the essence of free will – and free will is the essence of humanity.

(Amusingly, the academics who believe these things also call themselves “anti-essentialists,” because they think we should be free to create our own essence. But that’s stupid, so never mind them.)

Whatever you call it, it’s the belief that every child should be free to create her own goodness. The boys too, as long as they learn to be like girls.

Here’s what the ideology of expressivism and voluntarism does to teachers. They don’t want to use proven rote-teaching methods like phonics because they think it stifles a child’s creativity. Children should be free to discover their own meanings in words spontaneously, blah blah blah. That’s the ideology behind the “whole language” movement and related trends.

So what if the kids can’t read? Self-expression is more important than rote learning. So what if they act like hellions? Look how spontaneous they are! So what if it’s the disadvantaged who most need rote methods? Expressivism was never the ideology of the underclass.

If you think about it even for a moment, you’ll see how silly it is to say, except in the most vague metaphorical way, that people should be free to create their own essence. But that’s the ideology of the public schools. For the minority of real teachers – teachers who actually want to teach – that’s what they’re really up against.

« Previous Page — Next Page »