Andrew Coyne’s Speech to Conservatives

59 Replies to “Andrew Coyne’s Speech to Conservatives”

Instead of attacking Coyne, you all would be doing Harper a bigger favour by pulling him from the right rather than defending him from the left. Harper needs a bunch of “radical” conservatives (I know he kicked out all 13.5 libertarians from his fold) complaining that he is not doing enough so that he can justify doing more. You don’t balance to the centre from the left by starting at the centre. Harper has power because the left is fractured, not because Conservatives outnumber the left. He has to either finesse their continued fracture or appeal to the carcass of the LPC (mushy centrism).
In the meantime he has the power to do just about anything. Unless he is pushed he won’t do much more with it. He knows you have nowhere else to park your vote.

Spectacularly right, The Phantom!
Look at Obama. As an out-and-out ideological marxist (sorry ET!) he wanted a single-payer health care system. He’s on tape saying this. Many of his hard-left marxist supporters are pissed with his failure to get this done.
BUT he saw that this was impossible in a single move. He compromised with the only politically viable approach: step-by-step introduction of socialized health care. Next up will be the destruction of private medical insurance caused by the individual mandate.
I confess to sharing TJ’s view a while back.
But after re-reading a lot of von Mises (including his magnum opus, Human Action) I am reminded that no political operator can do that for which there is no broad consensus.
SURE, I know, as a austro-libertarian that this stimulus/deficit response to the downturn must fail over the longer term.
BUT, I also know that politics is a short, not a long, term enterprise. I also know that intellectually banktupt Keynesianism remains the dominant economic ideology.

Instead of attacking Coyne, you all would be doing Harper a bigger favour by pulling him from the right rather than defending him from the left.
Posted by: John Chittick at March 12, 2012 1:09 PM
Nailed it.
I don’t know if Coyne is Conservative or conservative; Liberal, classical liberal, or Libertarian. But surely that’s not the issue here.
He’s a very bright man and he has made some valid points. Points that a lot of us agree with.
I think he’s got this one absolutely right.

I hear a lot of people here saying “Ignore the facts because the facts were spoken by my ideological enemy.”
Just because a Liberal says the sky is blue, does that mean the sky isn’t blue or that it isn’t worth noticing the fact about the colour of the sky?
Some here seem to agree with line of reasoning. I really wonder about people who think that way. It seems an infection of the mind. I believe the infection is called partisanship.
So it goes…

We do know that Coyne is a Liberal not a classical liberal. He said so.
Taking advice from your enemies is hardly a wise choice. Coyne is not conservative, does not advocate conservative views and has never been a friend to the conservative movement. He is not impartial and has shown little evidence of being so.
Just like the fable of the frog and the scorpion crossing the river, it is not in Coynes nature.

“We do know that Coyne is a Liberal not a classical liberal. He said so.”
Posted by: Jay at March 12, 2012 4:55 PM
No he did not.
He said he was going to vote for the Liberals in the last federal election. That does not make him a “Liberal”, and it does not exclude him from being a classical liberal.
Depending where I was in this Country, what the issues were, and who the candidates were, I can say that I have voted, provincially or federally, for Conservatives, Liberals (once), NDP (once, and on another occasion (when all candidates were equally repulsive)I stayed home.
But that does not make me any of the above.
What Conservatives forget is that they do best when they stand apart from the rest of the crowd. Canadians have a capacity for tough, straight talk.
It’s something Mike Harris understood, but Hudak does not.
Harper’s majority has much more to do with pathetic Liberal leadership than it does with sound fiscal policy or adherence to conservative principals.
The Liberal leadership deficiency will change, but the Conservatives probably won’t become conservatives…that will be their downfall.

I am going to point out ONE MORE TIME for the ‘go slow’ apologists here: Mike Harris and Gordon Campbell. Both implemented ‘far right’ reform, both took the heat, both became political giants. Harper is going to ‘go slow’ right into historical oblivion. Thanks for destroying Canada’s Right y’all!

Campbell became such a political giant he had to escape to exile in London.
He implemented some BIG changes right away. Then he frittered it all away by acting like a Liberal (carbon tax, HST) and bought off the unions rather than dealing with them. What will his legacy be when the NDP take over and reverse all the tax cuts?
Be bold but make changes to the infrastructure too, my friend.

Sorry, not at all worth a read. Drivel.

59 Replies to “Andrew Coyne’s Speech to Conservatives”

Navigation