Of course Conservatism matters. It has its roots in true law, as established during the "age of reason" when our ancestors destroyed the religious mystics who were enforcing the "dark ages", forming the basis of ANY viable civilization, independent of political form. It is the previous basis of OUR civilization, before the law discovered it is more profitable to encourage rather than fight "democratic excesses". As a consequence, we have become Nazis (All persons are NOT equal in terms of rights and responsibilities).

The "rule of law" is a precisely defined law. It is the highest law of mankind, stated below:

“the suppression of forceful and fraudulent methods of goal seeking”

“all are treated equally by the law”. This means ALL, including king and judges

“absolute property rights”

This in turn is based on the fact that human behavior (the topic of law) is about goal seeking. In the seeking of any goal, there are only three possible methods: force, fraud and honest trade. Any transaction that is not an honest, mutually agreed trade will cause a self-defensive response (conflict) from the victim whose survival has been affected.

"The Rule of Law" is the glue that keeps all of mankind acting together in common interest, tied together by mutual dependence of trade, on an evolutionary path to excellence. Force and fraud creates conflict and destroys civilizations. Mankind is now on a devolutionary path to extinction because the co-operation once forced by "the rule of law" has been replaced by legitimizing force and fraud for those who incorrectly believe they wield power.

Rule of Law, Defined: http://www.nazisociopaths.org/modules/article/view.article.php/c1/34

Purpose of, Reasons For: http://www.nazisociopaths.org/modules/article/view.article.php/36

Mathematics of Rule (explains current economic stall):
http://www.nazisociopaths.org/modules/article/view.article.php/c1/32

Bill Ross
(Electronics Design Engineer)

Actually it was the people later called liberals, people like John Locke, who with their writings brought us into the age of reason and completed the process started with earlier legal codes that we understand to be the rule of law today.

The conservatives were simply trying to preserve ancient institutions; primarily the Monarchy, with writers like Burke and they came later in history than writers like Locke. Monarchy was not, in general, well known for promoting the rule of law for anyone other than the little people. Of course the liberals of then were very different than those called Liberals today, and to show that of course most who have that original liberal notion today call themselves either Classical Liberals or Libertarian.

For a sampling try John Locke's "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding" - which is a seminar work that separates the dark ages from our times in terms of understanding the separation of superstition and the real world (of which politics and the rule of law is only a portion).

I note Harper, who used to identify himself as a classical liberal and perhaps still does despite the reality of his actions, uses the word Libertarian a few times. I think he must be feeling the heat of dissatisfaction as he moves the Conservative Party increasingly into just another socialist party. I know several libertarians who are still trying to move the conservative party into a more free market direction, but sooner or later with high spending and draconian laws (3 years for a single pot plant??) he will totally alienate everyone except the authoritarian wing of the party. He also shows an incredible naivety of the libertarian idea. For instance of course business will not show responsibility when they fail if they can leverage the government to bail them out, but the government should be showing responsibility by not bailing out the failures and thereby encouraging and rewarding failure. Maybe Canada has to take co-ordinated action given other country's reactions and our tight linkage in the economies, but to blame this on a failure of wall street shows a scary denial of the root cause. His earlier comments about unfettered capitalism made publicly are taken right out of any socialist manual, and now he is even saying this to the party faithful??

He seems to be taking credit too for the better position that Canada is in with the current hard times, but of course the condition here in Canada is in was not his doing. He inherited a very strong surplus and fairly low debt from the liberal party (the surplus he had frittered away with earlier vote buying even before the latest increases in spending) and the banking sector has seen no significant regulatory change under the Conservatives. I shudder to think where we would be today if he had been in charge through for the last 15 years with his high spending.

John

John, thanks for the critical feedback. I am aware of the historical breakpoints and the supreme irony of current Liberals stealing the name of "Classical Libertarians" to be the opposite. Harper has his warts, to be sure, but, at this point, he is the best we have. His most important trait is, he is ADAPTABLE and is able to learn from events. We are on a highly chaotic trajectory and, sound economics is mandatory.

There is no longer such a thing as our social / intellectual "understanding" of the "rule of law". Politicians LIE to us, get in power and do a "bait and switch". The worst historical example is the democratically elected Nazis, whose machinations made it "necessary" for tyranny, which our ancestors had to fight. They broke the equality provisions of the "rule of law" by declaring Jews "subhuman". Our current politicians have learned well how much "power" can be achieved by pitting group against group (at the expense of social cooperation - civilization)

Politicians write laws which divide and conquer us, creating conflict. The judiciary has their own agenda and "interprets" or ignores laws to the advantage of their profession. For example, denying equality and property rights in the matter of divorce (or "progressive" income tax).

I have studied these matters and the intellectual "greats". All of them, to some degree suffer from the mistake and hubris that mankind is to some degree not bound by the laws of nature and are solely products of our environment and perceptions. Our "rulers" use environmental manipulation to "control" our choices, thinking that we are STUPID enough to believe we are free when different rules apply to different groups.

I have had the supreme misfortune of having my personal (and now general social / economic ) survival threatened by these criminal parasite a*holes and their LIES. As our far wiser ancestors did, we must wake up and :

Learn how to THINK

All of our perceptions, education, social / economic institutions and history has been subverted. If you rely on it, you will be misled. The laws of nature (inevitable relationship between action and consequence) do not LIE. This is the only place that TRUTH can be found. And, once you have found it, history and current events are a lot more comprehensible.

Thanks:

I have to respectfully disagree Harper is the best option as he is "adaptable". He has certainly backed down anytime there is a public outcry, but I think your talking policy direction? He has shown as far as policy goes anyway he is only being influenced by the authoritarian and socially conservative wing of the party. He was to be the change from the bad old Liberal days - but he is demonstrably worse than the Liberals had been (perhaps Dion excepted). Don't forget that Harper's spending promises of $92 billion to get elected over Martin were double Martin's promises and even significantly higher than the NDP promises in that same election.

It is not like Harper just needs little push - he was in the wrong direction from day one and is moving in the wrong direction and I cannot see anyone even stopping him from getting worse at this point given the comments of the last few months.

It would be easier to try to influence the Liberal Party from within I strongly suspect. I really don't think that would work either, but it has a higher chance of working since you are starting with a base than is closer to where the libertarians (of course that includes me) want to be. Chretien already moved the Liberals to far more fiscally conservative than the Conservatives have shown themselves to be. Move the Liberals farther towards economic freedoms and start dismantaling some of their earlier mistakes on the personal freedoms - that I think could happen. Unlikely, but at least possible.

John

For those who cut+paste is beyond or too much effort:

Rule of Law, Defined

Purpose of, Reasons For

Mathematics of Rule (explains current economic stall)

Mr. Akin, thank you for providing the audio of PM Harper’s speech. It gave me the opportunity to verify the claims made by one of your journalist colleagues, who wrote an article with this headline: “Harper attacks Liberals, Obama in 'private' speech to conservatives.”
IMO, the journalist needlessly uses emotion-charged language in sentences such as these (my highlighting):
"sharply partisan remarks that ripped into the Liberals, libertarians, the Obama administration's tax policies and Wall Street.”
“He twice pointed disdainfully to tax hikes U.S. President Barack Obama introduced for the highest tax brackets.”
“He went on to deride the spendthrift culture in the United States and the recklessness of Wall Street."
Thus the journalist in question grossly overstated the PM’s message by using such emotion-charged words.

Perhaps that should be one of the topics discussed when you deliver your talk on March 24 before The National Press Club. Your journalist colleague I alluded to above uses expressive language where informative language is called for. (cf. http://www.philosophypages.com/lg/e04.htm)
I would have gladly pointed that out to the journalist in question, but she does not appear to welcome feedback, as there is no email address given with her "report."

BTW, I have transcribed verbatim what is heard on that audio you provided. I will post it in full if you wish.

God bless you Gabby! If you want to e-mail me the transcript, I'll put it up here in a separate post. Thanks!

Well, shame on me. I guess I wasn't fast enough getting back to Gabby -- Gabby has passed the transcript on to Sandra Crux (who has a very low opinion of the work I and my friend Jennifer Ditchburn do but there's no pleasin' everyone, so what can you do?)

Here's the link to Gabby's transcript (which, as I was the one who made the recording posted here) looks pretty accurate to me.

David,

If you can't see what you and Jennifer did, there is nothing I can do to enlighten you. You both completely distorted what was in the speech. Moreover, you actually had a link to a "summary" of the speech to your own article which was nothing of the sort -- and from what I could see was not an opinion piece.

I am a supporter of the PM and his government but I am not a diehard conservative. I write lots of things that are non-partisan.

I just ask that you give both the Liberal leader and the PM the same treatment.

And, when you are reporting news, stop the partisan bias. Just report the facts. Of course, as you say, you never can please everyone.

But, of the two of you, Jennifer's piece was the most unprofessional. I don't know who her headline editor is but to say that the PM "attacked" the Liberals and Mr. Obama's administration was completely false.

Now, let me end with that I like you, although you probably don't care. In fact, you are one of my favourites on CTV's politics program -- whether its with MD or Tom Clark. So, it was one reason I was really disappointed.

But, hey, this is a democracy and thankfully we can agree to disagree. Re Gabby, I had suggested in one of her comments on my blog that it wouldn't hurt having the transcript on two sites. She meant no slight and it wasn't that you didn't get back to her fast enough.

My thanks also to you for posting the audio. It was appreciated.

Whatever ...
By the way -- I work for Canwest News Service and Global National and have for about a year now. I haven't been on a CTV program since last spring.
But glad to know you're paying such close attention to the facts I report.

The fact that you have moved indicates how often I watch the politics shows -- which obviously isn't that much. Mind you, I do turn on Global at 6 with Leslie and Anne Marie. Global is one of the more balanced networks. Kevin Newman used to be a favourite but not so much now given the awkward 5:30pm time slot. However, now that I know that is where you are, I will tune in tomorrow.

Anyway, I am a retired academic and special education consultant and spend most of my time writing about educational and disability issues.

But, as a Conservative supporter (at the moment), yes, I do tune in to what you and your colleagues write.

Tonight, I am on the Toronto Sun's Christina Blizzard's case for worrying more about tourism dollars than kids getting enough school days in the year. A year ago, school started on September 2nd. Now, because they want to move the school year back to September 1st, because Labour Day is late this year, the sky is falling. Bizarre!

Anyway, take care. I appreciate that you respond to your comments.

Oops, sorry about that. I think (?) I checked in here very briefly yesterday morning to see whether you'd taken me up on the offer, and didn't see any reaction, so I went with Sandy.