Harper and Nixon

[Jonny_C]

And what if they are "members of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood?" Seems to me Uncle Sam don't have much problem with the Muslim Brotherhood. If I recollect right, we gave billions of dollars to a country whose president was Muslim Brotherhood.

Look, I don't much give a damn about Justin Trudeau one way or t'other. You Canadians can elect whoever you want, I don't have a say and don't want one.

I just think as a matter of intellectual honesty, crap like "ties to terrorism" is. . . well. . . crap.

I also note that you have dropped your conniption fit about Saudi Arabia.

Yeah well, no surprise, it all boils down to the same for you.

I didn't "drop" Saudi Arabia, just didn't respond to it. You can google your own sources about Saudi involvement in subversive activities.

 

[Tecumsehsbones]

Yeah well, no surprise, it all boils down to the same for you.

I didn't "drop" Saudi Arabia, just didn't respond to it. You can google your own sources about Saudi involvement in subversive activities.

So, can I assume that if whatever candidate you favor speaks to anyone who has "ties" to Saudi Arabia, you'll disown him?

How 'bout Mr. Harper? If he speaks to the Saudi ambassador, will you be on here implying that he's a terrorist supporter?

 

[Zipperfish]

Look, I don't much give a damn about Justin Trudeau one way or t'other. You Canadians can elect whoever you want, I don't have a say and don't want one.

I just think as a matter of intellectual honesty, crap like "ties to terrorism" is. . . well. . . crap.

It's the only response the Conservatives are capable of. Double-down and attack harder. It's worked in the past, but it doesn't seem to be working well now. Why? The government is stale and rudderless and embroiled in its own scandals now. Trudeau is--probably wisely--laying low--never interrupt an enemy in the process of defeating himself, to paraphrase Napolean.

Things will pick up for the Cons. All they have to do is demand to see Trudeau's long-form birth certificate.

 

[coldstream]

These enemies lists appear in beleaguered and besieged administrations.. that have lost all sense of confidence, vision, purpose.. and retreat into rigid ideological maxims.. and motivated only by a grim grasping for power as it falls away from them.

The are infested with corruption and seek 'friends' who can be easily bought and are not hampered by principle. We are clearly dealing with a government that has become intellectually and morally bankrupt. So the comparison with the Nixon administration is appropriate My guess is it might less than a year before it collapses.. and likely from the inside.. as rebellions appear in the caucus.

 

[Jonny_C]

So, can I assume that if whatever candidate you favor speaks to anyone who has "ties" to Saudi Arabia, you'll disown him?

Depends on how he does it.

How 'bout Mr. Harper? If he speaks to the Saudi ambassador, will you be on here implying that he's a terrorist supporter?

Government officials have to talk to all sorts of unpalatable foreign diplomats. Different thing entirely.

 

[Tecumsehsbones]

Government officials have to talk to all sorts of unpalatable foreign diplomats. Different thing entirely.

Not at all. Domestic groups that you find "unpalatable" are citizens (usually) and have rights and votes. It's the responsibility of politicians to represent all the people, not just the ones you like.

Not that they do a bang-up job of that, mind. But during campaigns we kinda expect them to at least lie to us about giving a damn less about us as anything other than a source of tax revenues.

 

[Jonny_C]

Not at all. Domestic groups that you find "unpalatable" are citizens (usually) and have rights and votes. It's the responsibility of politicians to represent all the people, not just the ones you like.

Absolutely false. My member of Parliament better not represent the views of neo-Nazi's and KKK types.

You couldn't be more wrong if you tried.

 

[Christianna]

I think they are alike in that Nixon was paranoid as is Harper.

 

[Tecumsehsbones]

Absolutely false. My member of Parliament better not represent the views of neo-Nazi's and KKK types.

You couldn't be more wrong if you tried.

Ah. OK. And if a Liberal or NDP gets elected from your constituency, I hope you expect that person to ignore you completely on any and all issues, not respond to any messages you may send her, &c. (This assumes you're Conservative.)

 

[JLM]

I think they are alike in that Nixon was paranoid as is Harper.

From what I can imagine, (having never been in either position and not likely to be) I would guess paranoia comes with the territory. For myself I might more aptly describe it as being "scared Sh*tless" -

Ah. OK. And if a Liberal or NDP gets elected from your constituency, I hope you expect that person to ignore you completely on any and all issues, not respond to any messages you may send her, &c. (This assumes you're Conservative.)

Liberal and Conservative are the same thing. N.D.P. is 90% Liberal or Conservative.

 

[Jonny_C]

It's the responsibility of politicians to represent all the people, not just the ones you like.

Ah. OK. And if a Liberal or NDP gets elected from your constituency, I hope you expect that person to ignore you completely on any and all issues, not respond to any messages you may send her, &c. (This assumes you're Conservative.)

You're so far out in left field that you've left the ball park.

Worse, you seem to pretend not to know it.

It's the responsibility of politicians to represent a majority (or a plurality) of their constituents. My MP isn't responsible for representing the views of the communists in my riding. The failed communist candidate attempted to do that, and was defeated for a reason.

 

[Tecumsehsbones]

You're so far out in left field that you've left the ball park.

Worse, you seem to pretend not to know it.

It's the responsibility of politicians to represent a majority (or a plurality) of their constituents. My MP isn't responsible for representing the views of the communists in my riding. The failed communist candidate attempted to do that, and was defeated for a reason.

It is part of the responsibility of politicians to represent a majority or plurality of their constituents. It is also part of their responsibility to represent all their constituents in any areas where there is agreement between their parties and other parties, and if the politician has brains enough to pour piss out of a boot, in any areas where compromise can be reached.

Hell, I ain't arguing with you. It ain't like whoever gets the seat is gonna represent a damn thing except her own career anyhow.

 

[Cobalt_Kid]

Even Donald Segretti condemns the conservative robocalls campaign.

Is Harperland our Nixonland? | iPolitics

In addition, we’ve heard a Federal Court ruling that said the Conservatives’ data bank was used as the source of a widespread vote suppression campaign aimed at sending voters to the wrong polling stations in the last federal election. The robocalls scandal, as it is called, brought Donald Segretti, one of the perpetrators of Nixon’s dirty tricks, out of the woodwork. He gallingly argued it was worse than many of the abuses his crowd were involved in. “We never tried,” said Segretti, “to do something that would, at the end of the day, take away the right of somebody to vote.”

What's disturbing about the immoral behaviour of the Harper government;

Those callous comparisons are back again. Reports that the Conservative government compiled an enemies’ list for newly appointed cabinet ministers are triggering more talk that this government operates in a way reminiscent of the Richard Nixon Republicans.

I sometimes get questions about how Harperland stacks up to Nixonland. People cite the secrecy, the abuse of power, the bludgeoning of opponents, the attempts to subvert the democratic system and much more.

The term “enemies’ list” certainly has a Nixonian ring. It is toxic vocabulary. I’m not sure what was done in this recent instance by the Harper team is as serious as it sounds. Other governments, we can bet, have compiled lists of adversaries, real or imagined. What is noteworthy in terms of the Harper Conservatives though is that such types of underhanded activities are part of a consistent pattern that dates back to when they came to power in 2006.

These days their dirty work is capturing more public attention because of the glut of revelations. We’ve learned of the Senate expenses scandal wherein a secret pay-out came from the prime minister’s chief of staff to get a senator out of trouble. We’ve learned of dirty tricks such as Conservatives’ use of their paid party interns to disrupt a Justin Trudeau rally. We’ve learned of the Harper gang’s use of millions of dollars in taxpayer money to advertise a jobs program that doesn’t even exist. We’ve heard of petty and classless behaviour such as their plotting to prevent Liberal Marc Garneau, Canada’s first astronaut, from appearing at the unveiling of a Canadarm display.

Is it's treated so matter-of-factly. Obviously Harper has no problem with behaving as if there's no real limits to what he can do to benefit his political career and the sycophants that apparently surround him don't appear to have a problem with treating Canada all Canadians with such disrespect.

There’s been a siege mentality at work here that calls to mind those times. We have a leader who seems incapable of escaping his brooding resentments and authoritarian urges. Many observers talk of a paranoia strain in the Harper team which has led to a reliance on the dark arts, a reliance which, in terms of volume, goes beyond anything we have seen in Ottawa as far as memory reaches.

Where do the comparisons to a Nixon-type morality come from?
Not helping the Conservative case was their leader becoming the first prime minister to be found in contempt of parliament. It was for refusing to share basic information on program costing with parliament’s democratically-elected representatives.

Not helping was the prime minister’s instituting of an unprecedented vetting and censorship system wherein all information is controlled from the centre. Resultant muzzling stories are extraordinary. The science community is so distrusted that Harper operatives, in part of what commentator Allan Gregg sees as an Orwellian obsession, shadows distinguished scientists with chaperones – media minders as they’re called – to see they don’t step out of line.

Not helping have been many other developments. Campaigns to discredit opponents were a staple of the Nixon years and have been, though not to the same degree, of the Harper years. Targets include, to name just a few, diplomat Richard Colvin, Veterans’ affairs advocate Sean Bruyea, Liberal MP Irwin Cotler, and budget officer Kevin Page. Between elections, the Harper team has brought in character-assassination advertising, much of it dishonest or out of context, to a degree far beyond what our politics has seen before.

Nixon used the machinery of state in an attempt to throttle or subvert the democratic process. Among the anti-democratic actions of the Harper government have been the record or near-record use of closure and time limitation tactics to cut of parliamentary debate, the shutting down or prorogation of parliament for crass political purposes, the politicization of the bureaucracy to the point where civil servants were once used as stooges in a fake citizenship renewal ceremony. Additionally there’s been the undermining of oversight bodies and abuse of process as seen in the use of an all-consuming omnibus bill.

Nefarious activities have included the funneling at the time of the G-8 summit of $40-million meant for border infrastructure into what was viewed as a political slush fund. They have included the money shuffling in the “in and out” affair, and several instances of document tampering. In the 2011 election that featured the alleged robocalls, a senior Tory operative leaked fake material in an attempt to tar Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff as an Iraq war planner. Citizens were thrown out of Harper rallies for having the slightest background ties to other parties.

Not unlike that found in the Nixon White House is the anti-intellectual strain of this government. We’ve seen the suppression of research and empirical data, the campaign against Statistics Canada and science and more.

Any enemies’ list this government may have concocted is likely not as long as Richard Nixon’s, but the extreme partisanship, as has been documented in dozens of media reports, has created an atmosphere of confrontation and polarization rarely seen.

With a government that shows such clear contempt for its citizens, I think it's inevitable that sentiment will be returned and more.

 

[Mowich]

yea but he is our phycopath. Yours got the boot a few elections ago.

lol! Rock on ts!

I think they are alike in that Nixon was paranoid as is Harper.

Nixon was paranoid. Mr Harper is a control freak.

 

[Jonny_C]

It is part of the responsibility of politicians to represent a majority or plurality of their constituents. It is also part of their responsibility to represent all their constituents in any areas where there is agreement between their parties and other parties, and if the politician has brains enough to pour piss out of a boot, in any areas where compromise can be reached.

Like JLM said, the mainstream parties are not that far apart on many things. If a Conservative represents a Liberal constituent's feelings on a particular issue, he/she does so not as a requirement or on principle, but as a fortunate co-incidence. And that can often happen.

 

[Tecumsehsbones]

Like JLM said, the mainstream parties are not that far apart on many things. If a Conservative represents a Liberal constituent's feelings on a particular issue, he/she does so not as a requirement or on principle, but as a fortunate co-incidence. And that can often happen.

Maybe it's an American perspective. You may have noticed that our two main parties (the only ones that count) have decided to engage in pissing on each other's shoes to the exclusion of sensible governance. Pretty disgusting, but as Heinlein said "Democracy doesn't guarantee good government, it guarantees representative government." In other words, you get the government you deserve.

 

[taxslave]

An MLA or MP is obligated to represent ALL constituents, not just the ones that agree with their position. How much effort they put into representing those with opposing views is a different matter.

 

[JLM]

An MLA or MP is obligated to represent ALL constituents, not just the ones that agree with their position. How much effort they put into representing those with opposing views is a different matter.

That could be a fairly tall order. People have opposing views on something as simple as parking meters or fences!

 

[Christianna]

Ah. OK. And if a Liberal or NDP gets elected from your constituency, I hope you expect that person to ignore you completely on any and all issues, not respond to any messages you may send her, &c. (This assumes you're Conservative.)

We have a conservative MP, he totally ignores any letters we send him. He won't even acknowledge that he received the letter! We can't outvote the city to the north of us, and they keep voting for him. Considering that this is logging country as it the city you'd think they would have voted against him but no way. I think they don't pay attention to what he is doing or should I say not doing since he has the worst attendance record in parliament, and then brags about how much he is doing for us.

 

[Cliffy]