On the eve of his first official visit to this country, A Canadian Bush Backer Speaks Out. The letter is featured at Pieter Dorsman’s Peaktalk.
Recently I got into a discussion with a few Canadian friends about the Bush victory in the 2004 Presidential election and the ongoing war in Iraq. These friends are well educated and cultured people with a preference for European wine and movies with sub-titles. I suppose they could be described as middle-of-the-road liberals and made for pleasant company at dinner over a bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau … at least until the subject of George W. Bush came up.
Their reaction to the re-election of the President was unequivocal. Choice of language included adjectives such as “dreadful”, “shocking”, “appalling” and even “bizarre”. Their self-righteousness was more akin to arch inquisitors passing judgement on a proven devil worshiper, rather than dinner companions airing views on a President of the United States.
When I offered a contrary opinion, there was a hush and eyes widened with genuine horror – as though the late hour had induced the first physical evidence of my ‘werewolf within’. One of them even said – “are you feeling alright Aidan?”
Or, maybe they just thought they were being cool.
I’ve seen a little of this myself. When the subject was raised a month ago at a family gathering, my aunt expressed unspecified outrage at the US President, put her hands over her ears and left the room. She didn’t elaborate beyond that. But then, I suspect she spends more time in Beaujolais-sipping circles than I do.
I’ve run into it too. One of the reasons I started posting on a few Canadian sites was because after Canada failed to back the US in the US, I thought we should spend more time talking with each other. Clearly the Canadian-American relationship was becoming estranged. This was disappointing to me, because I really do think of us as cousins.
So I posted on your site and a few others, and everything was fine. Over-confident, I tried to stretch my success to some leftist Canadian sites.
I ran into such hostility and irrationally assumed superiority that was so palpable I didn’t need an argument, I needed an exorcist.
The Canadian, and indeed American, Left doesn’t understand that native Texans, and especially west Texans, don’t like affectations. With exceptions, you can have 6 Ph.D.s and speak 8 languages and still be turned off by it.
You can go to bed every night with a copy of Being and Nothingness and still not be offended by the Baptist Church down the street.
What we don’t understand is how the Canadian and American Left can be so impressed by phonies.
“What we don’t understand is how the Canadian and American Left can be so impressed by phonies.”
Socialism IS a phony belief system. Unless you think that North Korea is some kind of utopia, it should be abundantly clear that freedom and respect for private property lead to prosperity, and lack of same leads to ruin.
Educated elites are in love with socialism because it assigns them a priveledged place at the center of power.
That’s right, because ALL socialism is like that in North Korea, any other type of social progress, like that made in Norway, is to be disregarded.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not exactly a socialist, a Libertarian socialist maybe, and you’ll never catch me defending Calvert’s NDP or any American Democrat party. But you can’t merely disregard any socialist country or program simply for being socialist in nature, and compare them to N. Korea.
“any other type of social progress, like that made in Norway, is to be disregarded”
I don’t think Norway is a good example of socialism. Give me a few billion barrels of oil and only a couple of million people for whom to provide social benefits, and I’ll show you a good time too – until the oil runs out.
Canada also looked like a hip, successful socialist country … as long as we had a huge and protected auto industry (amongst other ripe fruit, such as a great Cod fishery, untapped hydro power, virgin forest, and so on), against whose earnings we could borrow billions and billions of dollars at ‘AAA’ credit ratings. During this period of heavy borrowing Canada rocketed up the ladder of the UN rankings of quality of life.
Once your industries have to actually start innovating and competing, and the borrowing is no longer so easy, and the high taxes start to really bite, watch out. The Big Government you built up in the good times is now a Big Anchor. If you allow the trend to less freedom and more government run unchecked, you will end up like North Korea. But don’t worry, Canada will break up long before it gets that bad. There are plenty of cracks showing already.
“I’m not exactly a socialist, a Libertarian socialist maybe”
In my mind, Libertarianism and Socialism aren’t compatible … the one implies that you are free to choose what to do with your own property (such as to use it to benefit yourself, your family and your community), the other implies that you are too greedy and incompetent to manage your own affairs and seeks to seperate you from your property and control you “for your own good”. You may enjoy the articles posted at http://www.mises.org/. They express the fundamental economic and philosophical arguments for libertarianism, without a lot of the “unlimited drugs and guns” type advocacy that you may associate with libertarianism from the rare mentions that it gets in the press. You may find that you are a minarchist (in favor of broad libertarian freedoms but with some familiar government structure) or an anarcho-libertarian (uninterested in any form of monopolistic government).
You are 100% correct that Norway got a jump start due to lots of oil and small amounts of people, but they are also one of the few socialist countries that are fiscal responsible. Nearly all of the oil surpluses are but into “The Petroleum Fund of Norway” that is expected to counter many of the effects of decline in income and smooth out the disrupting effects of highly fluctuating oil prices.
Also, if things go the way most economist predict, Norway’s water reserves will keep them in the positive well past the oil age has past. Not to mention they have a free trade policy that does nothing but boost their economy.
As far as my personal beliefs go, I wasn’t quite clear as to what I believe. I’m quite libertarian as far as personal freedom goes, although I’m still not quite as big as most libertarians are. I believe that one has the freedom to do what he wants with his body as long as it doesn’t hurt others. Yet I believe hardcore drugs like Coke should remain outlawed, as it’s been proven and observed that most coke user have to turn to a life of crime, and thus hurt others.
Also, I’m for SOME (very little) gun regulation, for, more or less, the same reasons as above.
Another strong Libertarian part of me is Free Trade, the only type of sanctions that don’t make my skin crawl are arm sactions.
Also I’m a supporter of military conservatism, for so many reasons that I can’t even start to list.
I also support government Socialism when it comes to basic human rights, such as healthcare and welfare. But I am a STRONG advocate for FREE SOCIALISM and free socialist programs such as ParEcon and different Co-op type companies. These programs, I believe, will pave the way for a social anarchist future, where the government is no longer needed and the collective can look after itself through free socialism.
So, I’m neither a libertarian, or a state socialist, but somewhere in-between. I have yet to come up for a title for myself that fits exactly right.
Kwas, look into Redistributism. G.K. Chestreton was an advocate of this intelligent form of socialism based on pragmatic principles rather than crack-pot apocalyptic fantasies. Maybe you should also stop worrying about finding a label for yourself, its just not necessary and not being tied to an ideology is actually a good thing.
Shit, I got that wrong its Distributism. Sorry!
Kwas – if you oppose strong drugs, what are you smoking? How many new medicines has socialism developed? What is military conservatism? Based on my long ago experience, you shoot the works today so as to be here tomorrow. A half-assed defense or a half-assed charge don’t get anything but dead.
As for the Canadian opposition, if they keep trying to stick it to us, I believe we need an official declaration that Canada is outside our sphere of defense and that we will no longer defend them.
Re: Walter E. Wallis
Unfotunately, abdiction of responsibility for one’s immediate neighbor, especially one as closely coupled as US & Canada is kind of impossible. It’s like trying to put out fire in the next condo. You don’t really have to do it, but it really is in your best interest least the fire spread to your own.
Cocaine users resort to theft to pay black market prices. Legalise drugs and watch prices return to reasonable levels. It worked for rum, it will work for coca.
Speaking as a Canadian whose views would be considered “leftist” by at least half of Americans, I’d like to advance the opinion that not all Canadians (and people) who think Bush II is an apocaleptically bad president are college professors and wine snifters.
Lumping everyone whose school of thought is anti-Bush (that’s a ridiculously large majority of the Western world, by the way) is as ridiculous an argument as claiming that all Bush supporters in the US are NASCAR-watching, trailer-park-living rednecks, or that claiming that all Canadians are pinko leftist freaks, or that all Muslims are dead-set on reducing the West (and Christianity) to rubble.
Most people I know are against Bush because of what he has done, not who he is.
Chose your side, Canada. If you think Franko-Europe is a better friend than the United States, don’t let the doorknb hit you in the ass.