I'd be a lot happier with the Conservative Party, and the possibility of a Conservative majority, if Harper wasn't in charge. I'm just unable to trust the man, in my view he's shown himself to be autocratic, authoritarian, secretive, controlling, anti-democratic, and contemptuous of Parliament and the political opposition. I believe his instincts are basically fascist, I cannot vote for the party as long as he's in charge.
While I agree with everything you said, Even if they swapped Harper out tomorrow, I doubt the mentality inside the Conservative party would suddenly and drastically change much from what it currently is.
After all, the Conservative party has continually let him remain as leader and the party continually follows his lead..... it's not just Harper who should be punished at the polls, it should also be the Conservative Party itself that should suffer at the polls for not getting rid of Harper sooner.
The whole "I was only following Harper's Orders" goes only so far and the fact that very few Conservatives ever bothered to stand up for whom they represent but just tailed along with what Harper wanted.... just goes to show that it's more then just Harper who's the problem within that party.
The only Conservative I remember ever standing up against Harper was Danny Williams..... and while I know some here hate Williams, he's the only one in just about all of Canada who cuts out the BS and tells it as it is without pampering people's arses while still sounding like he knows wtf he's talking about....... He's like the Don Cherry of Politics.
If through some freak accident Williams somehow became leader of the Fed Conservatives...... I might actually consider voting Conservative.
For me, it's not about the party or their general philosophies of the parties that sways my vote...... it's the people within the parties, how they act, what they do and how they best represent those who voted for them in the first place that get my vote.
If the person I'm to vote for just appears as yet another one of those Yes-Men for their party leaders and full of talk, no action..... and they only care about special positions within their party then they care about the people who voted them in in the first place (ie: Peter McKay)..... then those type of people can kiss me sea salted arse.
I think that you have been conditioned to think this way due to negative campaigning, partisan rhetoric, and media. If you are told that somebody has a secret agenda long enough you will start to believe it.
Wonderful way to generalize and over simplify the situation.
Yes.... all those things.... every single thing Harper has or hasn't done that got people upset and angry at him and the Conservatives are all just negative campaigning, partisan rhetoric and the media picking on poor little Stephen.......
No, it couldn't have anything to do with the well documented
FACTS of all those things he and/or people in his party have done since they came to power..... indeed, he and the Conservatives all had perfect justifications for their actions and decisions they made...... they're completely flawless, can't do any wrong whatsoever, and anybody who thinks otherwise have fallen prey to propaganda and biased reporting.
Yeah.... that must be it. :roll:
If Harper and the Conservatives were so damn perfect and flawless in everything they did and if they really and truly were getting everything they do right...... why would the rest of the country have so far been reluctant in given them a Majority?
Because of the other party's propaganda machines and media bias?
Funny..... I've seen far more Conservative attack ads and propaganda flow past my TV screen and on the radio for years now then I've seen from any of the other parties.
But I guess everybody else is wrong or simply just misunderstand poor little Stephen..... and nobody could possibly dislike him or the Conservatives for their past and current/continuing actions due to following along in an informed matter to what all has been going on..... no, anybody who doesn't like Harper or the Conservatives are just impressionable simple folk who can't think for themselves and need to be told what to believe by you.
Don't get me wrong, I don't have much more love for the Liberals either.... but there are reasonable and justified reasons for people not liking one party or another.
No one party, and yes, even the NDP, are perfect..... they all screw up from time to time..... and while I feel both the Liberals and Conservatives have been screwing up beyond any belief recently, I feel the Conservatives being the leaders of the government are the worst threat overall.
A month or two ago I posted in another thread the long list of blunders, screw ups, failures and corruption that followed the Conservatives so far that can not be refuted or argued not to be true
(though everybody has their excuses and justifications for why they did each thing) ..... but I can't be bothered to type it all out again.....
If anything Harper should leave because he ignored core conservative values.
Agreed.... though only one of many reasons.
Change is good, the Liberals should be thinking about this as well.
Also agreed.
As long as you mean funny=peculiar, not funny = ha ha, I agree. l haven't been happy voting for anybody for a long time, and I'm starting to think seriously about the wisdom of the "Don't vote, it only encourages them" aphorism.
Agreed and it's also the reason why I never voted for the first few years after I was legally allowed to vote..... nobody represented my interests, nobody seemed to be any different from the next person and even if they were, they'd end up being the exact same person once they got into power....... Every politician promises us all the world and a perfect utopia, but when they're in power, they realize just how screwed up things are from the last group who was in power, realize all their promises except the bones can't be made, so they toss a couple of those bones our way and brag about meeting their promises..... then they increase taxes, cut funding for needed projects/programs, cut jobs and let everything go to hell because they need to balance the books......
..... then the public get's all PO'd and votes someone else in who has a long list of miracle promises, who also come into power and see how screwed up things are, realize all their promises except the bones can't be made, so they toss a couple of those bones our way and brag about meeting their promises..... then they increase taxes, cut funding for needed projects/programs, cut jobs and let everything go to hell because they need to balance the books......
And so on....
I got sick and tired of trying to voice my own opinion on how screwed up things are and how corrupt the parties seem to be these days, only to hear people bitch back about me not voting and thus, shouldn't have a say in what happens.
So I started voting...... nothing has changed, the same idiots are still in power, the country is still going down the drain and my opinion now is still the same as it was before...... not that it matters since our opinions amount to fk'all cuz the parties just keep doing the same old routine.
They act like they're listening and care about what we want/need...... but in reality they only care about themselves and their comfy jobs with amazing benefits, retirement packages, perks, things being paid for by the tax payer and hefty severance packages when they leave..... and in order to make sure they keep those things and keep living the good life.... they need to bend over backwards for their party leaders and do what they say, not what their representatives say.
I too have gotten to the point where I'm about to put my voting gloves back on the wall and just say to hell with the whole thing once again..... because whether I vote or not doesn't make a licking difference in what ends up happening.
And even if who I voted for does get into power..... it still doesn't matter because once they open those doors to their new office, everything changes and they forget about the people who put them there in the first place.....
Our Democracy begins and ends at our trivial little votes...... the votes that really don't amount to anything..... the votes that hold no control over our "Leaders"....... we vote in the person who can cut us the best deal or is the least worst of the bunch.... they'll promise to do what we need them to do in order to get into power and when they finally do.... they begin to just decide and make up sh*t all on their own and tell us it's in our best interests and that they know what's best for us because we're too god damn stupid..... and if we don't like what they're doing.......
..... too bad.... we voted them in, so therefore we must agree with what they're doing without asking us.
So then the voters get all riled up and PO'd over what they're doing..... they shake their fists and scream "We're not going to put up with this anymore..... come the next election in a couple more years, we'll send a message by voting them out!"
Great.... so until then, they still get to make sh*t up as they go along and dictate to us how our lives will play out.
Eventually after they had a good run of screwing things up more, the election comes along..... people vote them out and replace them with someone else who promised to solve all our problems..... the cycle repeats and that clown does the exact same thing......
..... and then the voters get all riled up and PO'd over what they're doing..... they shake their fists and scream "We're not going to put up with this anymore..... come the next election in a couple more years, we'll send a message by voting them out!"
^ Yeah.... cuz that message has been so god damn effective so far..... but people keep deluding themselves into believing we have some sort of say in this so-called "Democracy"
This is a farce of a Democracy filled with politicians who claim to be representatives of the people, but who are really only out to represent themselves and their own party/leader.
And the US's system isn't any better off.
