Friends are Electric

Background: cbc.ca

Beyond that, especially the level of ignorance in comments.  My serious question is whether or not anyone reads anymore, or if they just have a knee jerk reaction and run with it.

Elections Canada decided that it was against religious freedom to force people to remove veils in public for the purpose of voting.  They would be required to reveal their face in private to an official prior to getting their ballot.  This was to prevent, for example, men seeing a woman’s face if she did not wish it to happen.  This was an enabling decision made to allow greater participation by every Canadian citizen.

And let me repeat: this was an interpretation of a longstanding law.  Not a new law.  Not rewriting laws.  This was the interpretation of the existing law.

What was announced today was the highly controversial policy to change the existing election laws to prevent this from happening.  I have theories about why such a policy might have been brought forward in the first place, but these are my own personal opinions about the matter and are irrelevant to present discussion.

So let us review the facts:

Elections Canada announces interprets existing law and decides that veiled voting is permissible in our democracy.  The Conservative Party of Canada presents a plan to change the law, realize that there is no will in the House of Commons, which was democratically elected by the entire country, to bring forth such a plan.  The Conservative Party of Canada kills the plan in a huge show of public relations.

An example people might understand:

What if it was illegal (impossible for it to be so, I would not support it) to vote with a cross showing.  Why, I don’t know.  Just say this was the case.  Would we be up in arms?  Yes.  Everyone in the country aught to be, I don’t know if they all would be, but I know that I would oppose such action.  Yes, are other issues with a veil.  No, I am not saying the situation is identical.  Or even related.  There are issues with veils, I honestly think there is a gender issue related to it.  But if a person wants to wear one, they should not be prevented from doing so.

Which brings us to the politics of it.

If the majority of the house does not want to pursue a piece of legislation, then (theoretically) the majority of Canadians do not want a piece of legislation.  We can debate whether or not our MPs represent us until the proverbial cows come home, it changes nothing (I know mine does not represent me) .

The Conservative Party of Canada is in minority government, which means there are more opposition members than government members.  They cannot do whatever they want, which is good for Canadians (the same can be said of any other party, minority governments are inherently much more democratic than majorities).

But I digress.  The point is: read to become informed, avoid knee jerk reactions, think, think, THINK.  An informed and thinking citizen is what this country needs, not clients.

A neoliberal will argue that they support decentralisation because local governments are better able to deal with the ‘facts on the ground’ than a more centralised government.

This may be the case.

Certainly a local government is more in tune with the particular concerns of the people living in a province, region, township, city.   And there is a lot of truth to this fact.  A strategy to deal with poverty in Toronto is going to look different than a strategy in Timmins, Ontario or Churchill, Manitoba.

But there is another reason.  I would argue the real reason.   Related to division and conquest.  Certainly, no party could ever successfully destroy something like medicare on the national level.  The country is too large and diverse for any regional power to get enough strength and will to do so.  If they did manage then they would suffer tremendously during any following elections.

But on a regional level, things are much more prone to wild shifts.  In Ontario, for instance,  Mike Harris was able to rule the province owing to the population distribution.  On a more local level, the lessened diversity of opinion results in the chance of dangerous change occuring much more easily and rapidly.

This is, in my opinion, why neoliberalism is so in favour of decentralisation.  It has nothing to do with imaginary gains in efficiency, since a functional democracy is highly inefficient by design and necessity.  It has everything to do with the increased effectiveness in destroying the public good to increase their own power.

All this is not to say that centralisation is best in every case.  Just that a ballance of powers is best.  Reason is best when determining these things.  It just must be remembered that we should all do what is in the public’s good, not  our own personal good.  We must act as citizens, not selfish individuals.

Just when I thought I was free I get dragged back into it.

So I keep hearing the arguments that people `did not vote for a coalition.’  This is true.  The fact is that they did not vote for the Conservative party either.

We vote for a person, not a party.  Now, most of us do vote based on the party of our choice, however we must realise that our perceptions will not change the reality of our electoral system.  You did not vote for a coalition.  You also did not vote for the Liberals, the Conservatives, the Marxist-Leninist or the Bloc Quebecois.  You vote for a single person who is theoretically supposed to represent your ideas.

Of course, not even I do this.  But I am mature and reasonable enough to realise what my vote actually means.  Please people, stop pretending that intention colours the meaning of the vote.  No individual belief or thought changes that you vote for a person, not a party.

Now we must understand this.  Anyone saying that they did not vote for a coalition is stating a fact, yes, but it does not carry the meaning they wish it to.  They are only revealing their ignorance to our electoral system or, perhaps, merely stating the obvious.  No one voted for a coalition, no one voted for the Conservative Party, no one voted for the Liberals, just as no one voted for any party.

Its just the way our government works.

Now that Parliament has been suspended for a month, it is time to examine the entire crisis as a whole.

Rick Mercer had a number of intelligent things to say on the subject.  He is essentially saying that Harper screwed up and is now clinging to power, while Dion is hell-bent on having his revenge on the Conservative Leader.

Werner Patels is saying that the NDP and its supporters are the biggest losers in the crisis, since as a member of the coalition, no one cares what Mr. Layton has to say.

I have seen people on both sides of the debate call the opposite fascists.

And I’ve seen Americans trying to explain the crisis.

On the whole, I am glad we now have a break.  Although I wish that all parties would stop spewing lies all over the place.  I can now sit back and digest exactly what happened, and perhaps muse on the best way to solve it all.  I’m still hoping that everyone can work together, but I somehow doubt that will happen.

Its time to talk politics again.  This whole ‘crisis’ is really trying my patience.  Especially the ignorance of those who seem to speak the loudest.  So, it is now time to set the record straight.

For some reason, the Prime Minister Stephen Harper, has been able to convince the masses that coalition governments are both immoral and illegal.  This is an utter fabrication.  Truthfully, Harper should have a coalition in Parliament at this very moment, since his party does not have a majority of the seats.  Furthermore, if a coalition wishes to form and have power, it is fully able to.  This is how our government is supposed to function.  Stephen Harper can behave as though he has a majority as much a he wishes, but in reality he has a minority government, and a weak one at that.

There has been talk that Jack Layton and Gilles Duceppe were in collusion prior to the election, and perhaps even the Liberal Party was involved.  I do not know if this is the case, however, judging by seat distribution, I can guess that this is not the case.  One merely has to look to Italy since the mid 1990s to understand why this is the case.

In Italy, they have a multitude of parties but two ‘cartels,’ organisations of multiple parties which run elections in such a way that their power base is maximised.  It works like this: In riding A, there are up to 6 parties which wish to be elected.  This is far too many parties for any to gain a clear advantage.  Parties 1-3 are some variant socialists, parties 4-6 are some conservative variant.  They all differ on the Left-Right and GAL-TAN axis, but they share similar ideals.  For instance, you could have a Communist, Socialist and Social Democratic party in one group, a Conservative, Christian Democrat and Neofascist/Neoconservative party in the other.  Riding A has a traditional (TAN) bias and favours economic conservatism, but there are a large number of Catholics and the youth are somewhat radicalised.  Parties 1-3 know that alone they will not ever win, so they form a coalition and run one candidate between them.  Although the right-tan bias nets parties 4-6 60% of the vote, they divide it equally, leaving the coalition of parties 1-3 with the seat.  This behaviour obviously necessitates the same kind of behaviour on the TAN-right, which forms its own cartel and, by these numbers, would win the seat.  If any party leaves either of the cartels, the vote splitting would reduce both the leaving party and the cartel by a significant number of seats.

Because the NDP ran against Liberals and the Bloc Quebecois in the Federal Election this October, I can be fairly sure that they were not talking to each other beforehand.  And even if they were, so what.  If GAL values would be better promoted by a single party group instead of multiple parties then so be it.  The difference in votes in many riding would mean a vastly different result if the Liberals and NDP were really working together to form a coalition in the ways which Plurality requires.

Conclusion thus far: by the methods which our Plurality functions, the NDP, Bloc and Liberals were not in collusion prior to the election, although they perhaps should have.  Even if they were talking before hand, this is entirely legitimate.  I can recall a day when there were two conservative parties in Canada, they went through similar motions before unifying to the much stronger and more functional party they have today.

I really wanted to keep from writing about politics here.  However, sometimes, we have to do things we do not necessarily wish to.  So here we go.

When people talk about the `Left’ and the `Right,’ they often are quite confused.  On the left they place socialists, greens, communists, social democrats and even others.  They claim the right is populated by liberals*, conservatives, fascists, Christian democrats and others.   They are not wrong, but to pretend that greens, social democrats and communists are the same is foolhardy.  And while many like to compare conservatives to fascists, there exists a world of difference between them.   The whole left/right system is nothing but confusing and, when used this way, useless.

Enter a second axis.  Surely we could use more, and this would further help us characterise political ideologies, however the added complexity is not necessary for an average citizen, only professional political scientists.   Our second axis refers to social policy, leaving the old left/right for economics.

On one side, you have liberals, greens and social democrats.  On the other you have communists, fascists, Christian democrats and conservatives.   The first is called `GAL,’ which stands for Green, Alternative, Libertarian.  The second `TAN,’ Traditional, Authoritarian, Nationalist.

This helps explain differences in ideology in a much more clear way than just using the old terminology of left/right.  GAL/TAN has another use, as well.  The Left/Right divide refers to traditional politics, where class differences were the key issue in elections.  The Left and Right defined an economic standpoint: a continuum from a totally free market to an entirely planned economy.  Of course, most parties were not at the extremes on this scale, but fell somewhere between.

New politics is much more based in social issues, rather than economics.  Here the continuum is between government authority and personal freedoms.  Rather than asking “How much taxation and income redistribution should the citizens face?”, new politics asks “How much control should the government have in peoples’ lives?”  A good example of this divide is if homosexuals should have the right to get married.  Traditionalists believe the answer is no, based on their beliefs, the past, and in many cases religious texts.  The Libertarians believe hat this right should be granted, since they feel the government has no place legislating how people live their lives.

Again, at the extremes, we have very few parties.  On one side, you would have an Orwellian dictatorship of perfect totalitarianism, on the other the government would cease to exist.  Each of these is as undesirable as a completely free market or an entirely planned economy.

Finally, the reason why this was necissary.   When we vote, we have to know what we are voting for.  Thinking that a party’s economic stance is the only important thing is foolhardy, just as ignoring it entirely would be.  Remember to take both new and old politics into consideration when we vote.  There is often nothing wrong with their policies on one axis, however, often there are things hidden on the other.

*A final note: A liberal is someone who believes in total freedom, much like libertarians.  In fact, the world outside of North America, where most democracies exist, use the world liberal where North Americans would use libertarian.  By these definitions, liberals are Right-GAL.  North American Liberals, on the other hand, are centrists, and tend to focus on compromise between the left and right, and usually tend to be on the GAL side of things.