Despite Struggling Economy, Parties Still Raking in $$$

After last year’s record-setting $5 billion dollar election cycle in the United States, we should probably not be surprised by just how freely money continues to flow from individuals and corporations into the hands of politicians, either directly into campaign accounts or indirectly to national parties or PAC funds.

But I still cannot help but be amazed by the astounding pace at which parties and PACs have raised money over the course of the first six months of 2009. Despite the struggling economy, the Republican Party raised $46 million and the Democratic Party collected $37 million. (For comparative purposes, the Conservative Party and Liberal Party have brought in just over $8 million and just under $6 million, respectively, in the first half of this year.)

PACs have been just as prolific, with Newt Gingrich’s PAC raising $8 million, Mitt Romney’s $1.6 million, and Sarah Palin’s just under $1 million.

Are you as surprised as I am?

The (Real) Ugly Truth of Panhandling

I’ve been making a subtle observations as summer has rolled in slowly this year that there are a whole lot more panhandlers around this year than in prior years. I happen to live in a very nice area just over an hour outside of Toronto and up until today was mildly curious as to just where all these folks were coming from as we’re far away enough here for your average Torontonian to consider the area ‘civilization’. Yet, what has been getting progressively more noticeable as the months get warmer roll along is that men (I have yet to see any women) with cardboard signs stating something like “Without home. please help God bless!” have been turning up at intersections all over the region, but particularly at those that you reach as you come off the parkway. They stand either on the side of the road or right on the median and I’ve watched vehicles hold up the cars behind them as they take the time to roll down their windows, find their spare change and finish off a process more akin to paying a toll on a US highway. That was all it was until today…

This evening I went out with a friend to a local Swiss Chalet and upon returning to my car, a rather scruffy man literally stood in front of my car and waved me down as I started up the vehicle. Careful not to roll my window down too far, I asked him if I could help him, and listened as he described a story of needing to patch a hole for his tent that he left off-premise from the commercial area we were in. He went on to say that he needed to get it fixed. I gestured him onward to a nearby Canadian Tire, which forced his hand (literally) to show me a $5 bill and say that he needs some money to fix it. At this point, I explained that I only carry plastic (debit or credit cards) and ended the conversation.

Now, before I continue further, let me point out to any readers who feel that they know me (or any other conservative) all too well and feels temped to regard this as just another evil right-winger showing his contempt for the poor that a)I came from a poor family myself (which, believe it or not, is why I’m a conservative today!), and b)I’ve worked with homeless and addicted individuals on numerous occasions and know a great deal about the blessings and dangers of being in the vicinity of them.

It is this background that is leading me more and more to the conviction that Mike Harris had it perfectly right, on both a legal and compassion level when he enacted the tough love legislation that his government did in the late 90s that saw panhandling virtually disappear from Toronto streets before that was revoked by the successive government. As I was made aware of again today, there are a lot of panhandlers who play the downtrodden and ignorant card until you force them to make the true intentions of their initially innocent conversation clear — after that, they become sales reps that I’d seriously hire for a call centre on the spot in a second since they’re aggressive and, often, effective selling machines.

However, it is also clear to this writer that the drugs (including alcohol) have taken their toll on these folks over time, which leads me to my primary reason that I don’t give any money to these folks: I can no more support a neighbour’s drug addiction, even indirectly, than I could a brother’s smoking habits. I used to give the Tim’s cards during my last stint in Toronto, but over time even found that to be cruel since it allows these folks to continue as they are instead of forcing them to seek the serious treatment that they require.

The other reason I won’t give money to most panhandlers is because of a strong conviction that those who can work and chose not to should not be receiving charity. There are starving families who cannot meet the bills each month, or are taxed out of any ability to survive and by giving even some chump change to someone who chooses to spend his day just standing there insults any of the previously mentioned families and houeholds who, despite knowing that the numbers won’t work out at the end of the month, still slog it through labour-intensive and menial jobs just to hang onto their dignity.

This of course leads me back to Mike Harris. Harris, in one of his bolder moves at the end of the last century, moved to not only ban pan handling which, as I mentioned, cleaned up Toronto’s streets pretty quickly, but was also instrumental in disbanding the infamous Tent City in downtown Toronto where a lot of panhandlers lived, including one who Global News literally gave a brand new condo and job combo only to see the gentleman throw the gift back in their face to return to Tent City within a month. If panhandlers are going to start to be aggressive enough to block vehicles in parking lots in order to get money, it is well past the time when we start looking at legislation that would end such harassment and potential danger to frail seniors or lone women who inadvertently provoke the wrath of these folks. The worst kept secret, after all, is that such moves would serve the panhandlers themselves much more than they would any other segment of society.

Bush would be called a moron

(Update: Formerly titled, “Obama is a moron*”)

… I just can’t help but wonder how differently the headlines would read if George Bush were the one inviting a cop and a black man to the White House to work out a racial (non-)issue over beers.  “Moron” would be tame, I reckon.

Yet for some reason I can’t find a single major media report that casts Obama’s invitation in a negative light.

Funny how that works.

(*Actually, I think anyone who makes it to the upper echelons of Western power is at least shrewd and skilled in politics and of at least average intelligence, irregardless of their political stripe.  Obama might bat left but he’s not an idiot.)

Dear Libertarians: The Policies Aren’t Always Greener On The Other Side

Gerry Nicholls reports back today on some of the events at this years Liberty Summer Seminar which was hosted by Western Standard guru Peter Jaworski during this past weekend with a story on whether libertarians would be better served by the liberal (or left-wing) parties of their jurisdictions — an idea proposed by a few like Cato Institute’s Will Wilkinson.

We’ve heard of this theory before because it was precisely what was practiced by many libertarians last year during the US’s presidential election; many small-government post-modernists elected to vote for the party that would at least bring in an attitude of anything goes since the GOP had only delivered big wars and big spending during the past three (2000-2006) congressional election cycles. It made sense, if that’s where your values lied except for one thing: I doubt if there are many libertarians today who are happy with their choice! Barack Obama, only seven months into office, has introduced a massive, 12-digit debt in his first budget, moved to nationalize the American health care industry, and is on the verge of reintroducing the ‘fairness doctrine’ that saw free speech radically censored from the 1960s to the mid 1980s. Outside of the token argument of teaching the Republicans a lesson for being such big spenders (which was admittedly due), what did libertarians gain by sending a boatload of Democrats to Washington last November?

On a more ideological note, I’m skeptical on just how libertarian libertarians can be. While you can never paint an entire group with a single brush, I’ve met a fair share who tag themselves with the label but became very statist whenever there’s an opportunity to get back at those Christian parents, or moral teachers of youth — even if it is just in a cathartic sense. I’m thinking here of examples like when libertarians sat by complacently while other conservatives campaign to make US schools less about indoctrination and more about education, or how few libertarians would defend Saskatchewan marriage commissioner Orville Nichols against a direct attack on his explicit section 2(a) rights are being sacrificed before the alter of political correctness. These folks are quite in their rights to believe what they want, but it is hardly libertarian to cherry pick the times to scream outrage before the ever-aggressive state. So it might well be that for these types of fair-weather libertarians, entities like the Liberal Party of Canada are perfect for their support as that party has proven itself quite anti-Christian of late and is a natural fit for any voter who defines him/herself first and foremost as whatever Christians are not.

For all the rest, the true believers if you will, the question remains: would a coalition with conservatives where there aren’t any abortions in the country and marriages were respected as the legal contracts they are, but there are concrete property laws, unmitigated free speech, and yes, the occasional marijuana coffee shop be such a bad place to live in? Surely if libertarians are willing to entertain the party of Mr. Dithers, there’s room for compromise with social conservatives…

A Realignment in Canadian Politics?

In this week’s National Post Full Comment podcast, Kelly McParland and L. Ian MacDonald assign mid-summer grades to each federal party leader. It’s well worth a listen, I think, because there are several interesting insights in their 18-minute discussion, which Daniel Goldbloom hosted quite ably.

I found one of McParland’s observations particularly interesting. He commented that Canadians appear to have grown comfortable with the Conservative Party. So comfortable, in fact, that the default position for everyday Canadians has now become that “the government’s not that bad, why get rid of it?”

If this is true, in the short-term it’s obviously great news for the Conservatives–and crippling news for the opposition Liberals.

But I wonder whether McParland may be on to something deeply profound about a long-term realignment in the Canadian political landscape.

Is the Conservative Party displacing (or perhaps has it already displaced?) the Liberal Party as the natural governing party of Canada?

If yes, what explains it? Has the Canadian consciousness shifted a few degrees to the right? Has the prime minister’s steady hand in these perilous economic times convinced Canadians that less government is more effective? Or is it merely a simple matter of addition and subtraction: that the fragmention of the centre-left vote has made it virtually inconceivable for any party but the Conservatives to form a non-coalition government? All of the above?

Or is it something else altogether? The floor is yours.

Possible honour killings in Kingston

The media are finally beginning to acknowledge the presence of an extra large, grey, four-legged creature with massive ears, a short tail and a hose-like nose in the room.  We’re even beginning to hear/read its common English name, albeit in quotations and/or preceded with the “so-called” adjective lest anyone dare to do something so un-Canadian as to make a judgment based on objective facts.  Yes, dear Canadians, the Kingston massacre is a so-called “elephant.”

It’s about as good as one might expect in The Multicultural Utopia, as Mark Steyn puts it, where the most grievous evil is to rationalize a significant problem with a particular patch or thread in the great multicultural fabric known as Canada.  Suggesting that the values of another culture have no place in Canada is worse than calling the premeditated murder of four Muslim women by their very own family for their “disgusting lifestyles” in Canada an honour killing.

As to why this is the case, we have Kingston Police Chief Stephen Tanner:

“In our Canadian society, we value the cultural values of everyone who makes up this great country,” Tanner said. “These individuals (the dead women) had the freedom and rights of expression of all Canadians. Whether that was a part of a motive within the family based on one of the girls or more of the girls behaviour is open to speculation.” (Emphasis added.)

To which I offer, No, sir, Canadians do not and should not value the cultural values of everyone who makes up this great nation.

Canadians categorically reject the cultural values that underpin this massacre of innocent Muslim women.  Canadians reject the principles of shari’a law.  Canadians denounce Islamic rule.  Canadians abhor misogyny.  Canadians flatly and emphatically reject shari’a's provisions for justifiable killing.  Canadians reject the cultural value of honour killing, which is prevalent in Muslim cultures because it is arguably justifiable within Islam.

Does this mean we reject all Muslims?  Certainly not.  But Muslims who insist on exercising their rights under shari’a or living by that law??–Yes, we reject you because we reject that aspect of your culture.  Shari’a is illegitimate in this land.  It has no place here.  If you want to continue on that path then kindly get out and make your home in a place where shari’a is in full swing or be prepared to face our rule of law.

To be clear, Canadians value cultural values that do not usurp our rule of law.  The values of other cultures that reflect the spirit and principle of our values and laws, we accept and are glad to include.  Those that do not, we reject.  Immigrants who make their home here have a choice: leave their anti-Canadian cultural values behind and assume our values or face the Canadian rule of law, which is based on Canadian values.  To paraphrase Charles Napier, you build your funeral pyres and we’ll build a gallows.  In this case, you kill your daughters to preserve some sort of religious honour and we’ll lock you in prison for what bleeding-heart liberals consider a lifetime.  I prefer a gallows myself but that’s beside the point.

There is no such thing as an innocuous value.  Imported cultural values are either strengthening or weakening Canadian values.  We dare not include them all. It is ours to judge, and judge we must.  We are all-inclusive (read non-judgmental, tolerant, uncritical) to our own peril.  There can be no middle ground as it relates to shari’a and honour killings or the like.

It’s time Canadians and the media start saying so.  It’s time to clearly define what is and is not Canadian.  It is time for the demarcation of a Canadian identity.

Meet Barack Obama’s Latest Crisis: The Crisis Crisis!

A warning should be given to liberals in the United States who, although usually prone to the usage of hyperbole to make their points, are really testing the limits by suggesting it is somehow racist to remark that President Barack Obama (D) might have met his Waterloo as Sen. Jim De Mint (R, S.C.) famously did earlier in the week. Still, if anyone within the Democratic Party should be avoiding hyperbole right now, it is Obama himself, who could have easily avoided the entire disaster that he is currently facing if he wasn’t so prone to oversimplify every major policy he has pursued since becoming President.

In his book, Liberal Fascism, Jonah Goldberg devoted an entire chapter to exploring how modern liberals have framed every part of their agenda since Woodrow Wilson as a crisis that needs immediate attention. This existed before Obama took over the scene with examples like Al Gore’s global warming climate change crusade and the Live Aid push in 2005 being notable examples from earlier in this decade. All Obama did, quite capably, was to take this strategy to a whole new level by using the market crash of September 19, 2008 as the platform to launch his campaign to deal with the economic crisis, which this writer has no doubt put him over the top in last November’s election.

However, the first mistake Obama is now in the middle of recognizing is that crisis rhetoric can only go so far and once the public eye starts to scrutinize the agent of change that they sent in to fix the mess, it’s time to abandon the old playbook. You can only have one top priority, and for Obama this was the “economic stimulus” package that he wasted the first three months of his presidency pushing through Congress. If the health plan before the house currently was of such pressing concern, it should have been dealt with much sooner.

The other mistake Pres. Obama made was to set up artificial benchmarks for himself. Once he declared the end of July as the expiry date on his own plan, he immediately gave his opponents a goal post that, provided they pass it, allowed them victory on the issue. For the Democrat, this was a challenging decision to make since the absence of a due date was also going to hinder the health care package’s chances of becoming reality as Congress has a tendency to take its time with crucial pieces of legislation and there is little doubt that, with that in mind, the timeline was put in place as a purely political tool to “Rahm it through” before too many congressional Democrats began to look forward to the 2010 midterm elections that are now on the horizon.

This, of course, leaves Obama with one final and fatal mistake: not playing Stephen Harper. That is to say, Obama should have taken a lesson from Harper as soon as his advisors calculated that they didn’t have the votes or support to pass the legislation before the summer break and found a compromise that would have set up the first step in an incremental strategy to introduce socialized health care in to the American system. The details could’ve been hammered out as to what was kept and what went, but once the US adopts at least some sort of government system, it will be nearly impossible to remove it, and the idea of growing that system will only serve to inspire liberal voters for elections to come, even as the GOP manages to retake Congress in the immediate future.

Of course, I say this as one who does not want to see this piece of legislation passed in the US, but it is important to learn from what history, even history-in-action, teaches us. What such a tremendous fall from grace that Obama is currently experiencing demonstrates is that perhaps Hillary Clinton, more than any other candidate on the 2008 campaign trail, had it right when her team launched the infamous 3 a.m. campaign commercials last year. Barack Obama might be able to server up some impressive rhetoric that will inspire Americans in a very momentary timeframe, but he (and his own team) are not visionaries and are presenting continued evidence that they don’t have the tactical smarts to properly navigate the nasty political waters of the Washington Beltway. If Obama’s smart, his strategy will be different in the fall, as will some of the faces that work in his office!

Another day, Another Czar – Obama’s Appointment of Van Jones

It seems like everyday President Obama appoints another unaccountable czar to oversee his radical policy agenda.  Kathy Shaidle does a great job of highlighting the rather unsavory past of his Obama’s newest Czar: Van Jones, ‘Green Jobs Czar.’ Here is Jones in his own words:

I was a rowdy nationalist on April 28th [1992], and then the verdicts came down on April 29th. By August, I was a communist.

(…)

I met all these young radical people of color – I mean really radical: communists and anarchists. And it was, like, ‘This is what I need to be a part of.’ I spent the next ten years of my life working with a lot of those people I met in jail, trying to be a revolutionary.

And you think he’s a bit scary? Have a look at Obama’s pick for Science Czar – things are about to get a lot more “radical” in the Whitehouse.

On April 8, according to the Associated Press, Holdren said that “global warming is so dire, the Obama administration is discussing radical technologies to cool Earth’s air.” Holdren suggested that one option includes “shooting pollution particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect the sun’s rays.”

What Advice Would You Give Michael Ignatieff?

Michael Ignatieff’s early honeymoon with Canadians augured great promise for his prospects. But that honeymoon now appears to be over, at least according to Strategic Counsel principal Peter Donolo. And Donolo is rarely wrong.

The jury is still out on whether Canadians will say yes to Ignatieff. But one thing is clear: Ignatieff remains very much in the hunt and could well be the next camper to pitch his tent at 24 Sussex. He’s got a lot of work to do before that day ever comes, though.

Were I advising Ignatieff, I would encourage him to begin to roll out names of prominent women and men from outside Parliament whom he would invite to join his Cabinet in leading portfolios like finance, justice, foreign affairs and defence. He has already begun doing that, as this report from Jane Taber suggests. But he should do more of it — starting at the end of August, as cottage season ends, yet still long (?) before an election is called — and he should do it in a systematic and very public way. In individual campaign-style announcements followed by press conferences, he should stand next to each new prominent candidate as each expounds on his/her views, plans, and goals for their respective ministries.

This strategy could prove useful in two ways. First, it would demonstrate that Ignatieff is unafraid to surround himself with competent, qualified and outspoken people. This would draw attention once again to the perception/reality that Stephen Harper muzzles his caucus colleagues and trusts neither them nor their ability. Second, it would sharpen the contrast between what some regard as the strong liberal bench and the relatively weaker team that the governing party is currently fielding.

Just some friendly advice for the Ignatieff team.

What advice would you give Ignatieff? (Apart from ignoring my own advice, that is!)

US Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg on Abortion and the “Undesirables”

American tax dollars at work:

Q: “Are you talking about the distances women have to travel because in parts of the country, abortion is essentially unavailable, because there are so few doctors and clinics that do the procedure? And also, the lack of Medicaid abortions for poor women?”

Justice Ginsburg: “Yes, the ruling about that surprised me. [Harris v. McRae -- in 1980 the court upheld the Hyde Amendment, which forbids the use of Medicaid for abortions.] Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of. So that Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion.” [Emphasis mine]

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