For The Harper-Hating Half Wits and Nutbars

Quote: Originally Posted by Niflmir

If you don't like his vision, then you end up feeling like a person who won a majority with 37% of the vote shouldn't be able to so easily change the course of the country for the other 63%.

Quote: Originally Posted by Liberalman

My Captain My Captain the east or Ontario and Quebec brought the most important value to the table which was cold hard cash for development of the oil sands when oil was way under the $70.00 a barrel to make it viable.

Quote: Originally Posted by lone wolf

In Harper, I hear a promise of transparency then the reality of omnibus (read cards played in secrecy) legislating. I can't trust that...

Quote: Originally Posted by Spade

In the past I have criticised the Harper government for:
*The cancellation of income trusts
*its handling of medical isotopes
*The cancellation of the Maple reactor project
*its continuation of the Khandahar mission
*Its lack of a balanced approach to the Palestinian-Israeli fiasco
*its use of prorogation to bypass Parliament
*The use of attack ads and character assassination
*Its lack of support for the arts and CBC
*Its lack of civility in debate
*Its pandering to its religious base
*Its handling of the long-gun registry
*Its record on the environment
*The climate-change file
*The fighter-jet misstep
*The use of omnibus bills to imbed unpopular legislation or limit debate
*Its exaggeration of crime and the imposition of mandatory sentencing
*The lack of respect for the UN

I am certain that it has introduced legislation I supported. But,it's Sunday morning and I don't have all my wits about me.

Quote: Originally Posted by TeddyBallgame

Rex Murphy: Vilifying Stephen Harper

Dec 8, 2012 12:01 AM ET

There’s something about Stephen. His opponents have many names for him — the majority of which are, alas, neither flattering nor meant to be.

He is a taciturn schemer, a theocrat mole, loose at the top of the Canadian political system, determined to bend Canada to his grim and twisted design, to curb the liberties of Canadians, to push us and our country back into some fevered neocon darkness. Politically, he is **** Cheney’s illegitimate son. George W. Bush’s half-brother. He’s a lackey of the rich, and enemy of all that is good and Canadian. He’s in the pocket of big oil. He hates baby seals.

My, how the spine chills when some people talk and write about Harper.

Then there are the many “faces” his enemies attribute to him, among them Conspiracy Harper, Vendetta Harper, Christianist-Harper — hope of the hard line, Doomsday-waiting Evangelicals, Secret-Agenda Harper, Tool of Israel Harper, Anti-Democracy Harper, with perhaps a little space for Secret Alberta-Separatist Harper. The caricatures belong more to the old style of detective novel when the villains, projections of untethered fantasy, were eerie amalgams of malice, supernal powers, outlandish ambitions and utterly unbelievable. Harper as Fu Manchu, as it were.

Hating, mistrusting or dismissing Harper is not a transient phenomenon. A poll as recent as this week, seven years after Mr. Harper took office (during which he has not, contra naturum, transformed Canada into a gulag or prison house for the poor, artists, liberals, greens or whomever he sees as his opponents) reveal a majority of Canadians think he still has that famous but, by definition, unseen hidden agenda. Even though he is Prime Minister and has a majority, many still believe he keeps that damn agenda up his sleeve. Query: What’s the point of a hidden agenda that stays hidden? Will it still be hidden when he leaves office? If so, what was or is its point?

I do admit that the poll surprised me. A full 75% of sentient voters from the big parties thought him (I’m paraphrasing) untrustworthy. The fervour to believe ill of the Prime Minister is, however, even stronger amongst the naturists, the Earth-worshipping Greens. A whopping 97 % of them do not trust him, and believe that the “hidden agenda” — perhaps like the lost city of Atlantis, or fabled Shangri-La is “real.” Greens are fundamentalist anti-Harperites. That 97% represents not a trend; it’s a fixation.

It’s not just the “hidden-agenda” cliché, though. It’s the man himself. Go on comment boards, Twitter, read the pundits, listen to conversations on the street and you’ll soon see that the pure bile directed at Mr. Harper, the contempt for the man himself, is shocking and remarkable. They mock his build, his clothes, his relationship with his children (the handshake off to school) his hair, his — well, his very being. How wonderful it is that so many believe they are infinitely his superior — after all, they have the best tables at Twitter Café, and he’s only the prime minister.

In sum, the tenure and even the physical presence of Stephen Harper, for very many otherwise temperate people, is remarkable for the virulence of the opposition and personal antipathy he inspires. It’s not just the politics or the policies. It’s him — the person.

It is not abnormal for politicians to be disliked. Nixon was disliked, and his personality — pinched, reclusive, sullen and curiously self-pitying — fed that dislike. Pierre Trudeau, worshipped by some, conjured savage opposition and distaste from his opponents, but Trudeau the man sometimes earned kudos even for those who despised his policies. Brian Mulroney had the strange knack of inspiring those who didn’t know him to really dislike him, and those who did know him — despite his political errors and that unfortunate bag of cash — to see him as even warm, loyal and charming.

With Stephen Harper the emotions he elicits — especially the extreme ones of contempt and near-hatred, have to be a projection of his enemies, far more than an assessment of Harper’s character or policies.

For, step back a little, make a little space, and you will see that in his personal and domestic conduct, Harper is almost stereotypically Canadian. He’s a mild, unobnoxious, hockey-mad fellow. He doesn’t boast.He shuns the spotlight he could be commanding every day. He keeps his privacy and doesn’t insist, like many public figures, in conducting a soap opera around his position or his family. He’d be the ideal neighbour — he wouldn’t just drop in, too reserved for that (which is great), but I’m sure he’d lend a shovel when needed. Probably even help dig out your car if you were stuck, and take your thanks with a self-conscious smile and reassurance that it was no trouble.

So why is it that people are not content just to disagree with him, to label him simply wrong or misguided but must revile him? Why is there such fervour of suspicion about “the agenda” and so much invective and worse directed at him? I don’t know.

I do know the response is unbalanced and disproportionate, and hurts his enemies more than him.

They make Mr. Harper, in their own white-hot minds, bigger and more scary than he is or could be.

National Post

Quote: Originally Posted by DaSleeper

Sure seems like Harper is doing the same thing he was accusing the Liberals of doing.....running the Government from the prime minister's office...a new example of the pot calling the kettle black.......
He's doing exactly what the Reform party wanted to stop in Ottawa!

Quote: Originally Posted by TeddyBallgame

- N ... I appreciate your reflective post even though I don't agree with some of it.

- Your comment that a person with 37% of the vote shouldn't be able to easily change the course of the country doesn't persuade me.

- With Canada's multi-party federal system, 37-42% of the vote is the new norm for the winning party that gets to form the government. In the past 59 years and 19 elections, only two have given a party an actual majority of over 50% of the votes cast. And if you consider that the voter participation rate is generally around 60%, then no party has even come close to winning the support of over half of the eligible voters.

- So this kind of thinking would mean that no party ever would be able to change the course of the country, no leadership would be legitimate, and we would simply drift along while other leaders in other nations make decisions that would result in changing our country, too, and not necessarily for the better.

Quote: Originally Posted by L Gilbert

Guess it didn't occur to you that some of the voters who didn't vote may not have voted because they were happy with Harpy and confident that he'd win. So stating that no party has ever come close to winning the support of over half the eligible voters is an assumption and a damned tough one to prove..

Quote: Originally Posted by IdRatherBeSkiing

You can't assume what people too lazy to vote would have wanted or not.

But I agree with Teddy, Harper won a majority so he has the mandate to do as he chooses. If the Canadian electorate doesn't like it, they have the option every 4-5 years to change that. The actual popular vote means nothing.

Quote: Originally Posted by TeddyBallgame

- N ... I appreciate your reflective post even though I don't agree with some of it.
- Your comment that a person with 37% of the vote shouldn't be able to easily change the course of the country doesn't persuade me.
- With Canada's multi-party federal system, 37-42% of the vote is the new norm for the winning party that gets to form the government. In the past 59 years and 19 elections, only two have given a party an actual majority of over 50% of the votes cast. And if you consider that the voter participation rate is generally around 60%, then no party has even come close to winning the support of over half of the eligible voters.
- So this kind of thinking would mean that no party ever would be able to change the course of the country, no leadership would be legitimate, and we would simply drift along while other leaders in other nations make decisions that would result in changing our country, too, and not necessarily for the better.
- Harper won a legitimate mandate under the rules of our parliamentary system to govern which includes making choices to both respond to and to influence economic, fiscal and social developments and he should exercise that mandate even if the Ottawa and the downtown Toronto latte loving lefty crowd disagrees.

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Quote: Originally Posted by captain morgan

The flip side to that argument is that while 63% didn't vote for Harper - they also didn't vote for any single voice that would form gvt and in the realm of politics (in general), how often has a candidate promised certain things but never come through with that promise?

The number of times would be staggering and the natural argument is that since a voter 'voted' for these promises and they were not delivered, does that candidate still retain the full load of votes?

Quote: Originally Posted by petros

1984 and 1993 were a couple of elections that were doozies. If Canada had a two party system like the US the 50% mark would have been easily nailed in both those instances.

When Canadians are pissed off they show up to vote in droves.

As for not voting in numbers as a sign of support, I'd have to sit on the fence on that one.

Quote: Originally Posted by lone wolf

In Harper, I hear a promise of transparency then the reality of omnibus (read cards played in secrecy) legislating. I can't trust that...

Quote: Originally Posted by Dixie Cup

Actually, the Liberals were the ones to establish the "omnibus" bills. My understanding of them (I don't necessarily agree with it) is that it's the only way any business can get done in parliament. The opposition can request amendments on each and every item in a Bill. Then they can "discuss" the amendment and each and every member of the opposition can "discuss" this amendment before it's voted on. Then they start all over again on the next "item" in the Bill. In otherwords, NOTHING would get done or passed if the House followed that route. So, the discussions are given a certain period of time, then they're stopped and voted on. Some suggested amendments are made, others not. But one can't say that the Conservatives are the only ones to have these large Bills - it was a prescedent set by the Liberals and the Conservatives are just using the same method to push through their agenda.
I repeat, I'm not particulary fond of the practice but I also see, realistically, how it works. Othewise, the Opposition (be it NDP, Libs or Conservatives) would high-jack everything the governing party tried to do and nothing would be achieved. There should be a better way of doing things and I feel it's incumbant on our Politicians to determine what is fair and proper and to ensure any changes in legislation are given a true and good vetting.
As for hating Harper, I have never understood it at all. I attribute it to his lack of charisma and really...

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Quote: Originally Posted by JLM

I fully agree re Harper but disagree re Obama. Obama had a "tough row to hoe" when he first took over in 2009, but I don't think he should be denigrated for being "too smooth". He comes across as straight forward and doesn't strike me as being evasive. I'd trust him any day over Bill Clinton (slick Willy)-

Quote: Originally Posted by taxslave

Obama strikes me as being much like Jimmy Carter. Not a bad person but in way over his head. Course Obama has been forced to play against a stacked deck.

Quote: Originally Posted by captain morgan

No one has forced him to do anything... Hell, he had control of both Houses when he was first elected in 2009; he has absolutely no excuse to blame the Reps for anything as his own party refused to backstop all of his policies.

Fact is, many of his policies were just that poor that he couldn't even sell them to his own party

Quote: Originally Posted by taxslave

As I said in over his head. Not too sure that all of his party is happy with a black man in the White house either despite what they may say publicly.