Socialists Don't Understand The Nature of Work

This article exemplifies the difference between those that do deserve bonuses and those that don’t. Pat Martin’s statement that; “The Bank of Canada is not a private business. It's not tied to performance or productivity outcomes, it's not a profit-making venture where you can measure a good year from a bad year ... What is the merit they are being rewarded for, coming to work on time?" is absurd, ignorant and disrespectful.

The comment is absurd because as long as this country has a public service it should strive to have the best possible public service. That means to have people who work their asses off to do the best possible job. It is common for corporations to give huge bonuses to their top performers if the public service wants to attract any of that sort of talent they must compete, they must show their employees that they are valued and that their work is valued and that productivity and excellence is recognized.

Mr. Martin’s comment demonstrates his ignorance of the nature of the work that goes on in the Bank of Canada. Canada has come out of the global recession far in advance of the rest of its G8 and G20 counterparts due in no small way to the prudent fiscal policies and monetary controls instituted by none other than The Bank of Canada. For Mr. Martin to then lambaste the Bank’s executives (people who work so very hard behind the scenes) as not deserving of bonuses because the crown corporation doesn’t produce profits is to ignore the immense benefit that those policies and controls provide to Canadians and Canadian corporations,,, Talk about the creation of profit! When the rest of the worlds banks are being wiped out not a single Canadian Bank has even come close. When sovereign debts in Europe are being downgraded and nations fear economic collapse Canada is rebounding stronger than any other country on the planet.

Mr. Martin’s words are disrespectful of workers and executives everywhere. They imply that Mr. Martin believes only if a profit is made is a person working hard enough to earn a bonus. Perhaps he, as a public servant, isn’t deserving of a gold plated pension for only working 6 years maybe he ought to work for 20 or 25 years first. After All Mr. Martin has produced even less profit as an MP than the good people at the Bank of Canada.

But the ideological heart of the matter is revealed when “Martin argues the system creates divisiveness among public sector workers -- labelling some as winners and some as losers -- he's most worried about their effect on productivity.”. You see in the socialist world everyone is a winner, which is to say that they all loose equally. There is no such thing as equality among and between people. You can’t create it, enforce it or demand it. There is no way to have a functioning society if you can not even bring yourself to admit that some people are smarter, more industrious and more driven than others. The blind equality that would see no one
praised for effort or productivity is the end result of the failed socialism of the USSR and its satellites.

If you want to negatively effect productivity in a workplace tell everyone that no one will be recognized for their effort. What is the end result of a place like that? Well it isn’t a rush for excellence. It’s a slow and steady decline, a march to the lowest common denominator. As Russians working in state sponsored factories used to quip about that very same sort of system. “They pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work.”

It’s a strange sort of schism that a socialist like Mr. Martin, indeed I would argue all socialists, do not understand the nature of work as being an essential part of the human experience. The benefit in work to the individual is not in the work itself but in the personal satisfaction in and the recognition of the work itself.

Only a complete imbecile would believe that the world will be a better place when everyone from the Doctor to the ditch-digger is equally valued and earns the same wage and praise.

Why?

Why is it always a chore to get our government to do the right thing? Why is it that every Tom, Dick and Harry on the street from Toronto to Tuktoyaktuk knows what the right thing is and what should be done but our elected officials don't?

From Letting the Auditor General see MP's expenses to the Afghan Detainee "scandal" how come these people are so damn obtuse?

Are these "issues" some sort of political version of a head-fake? While we are getting the run around on a simple matter of transparency what else is happening?

We need a new way of doing politics in this country, and fast.

Fire. Them. All.

Canada's evolution to a two party state

Canada's political left should unite if they want electoral success.

The NDP may manage to split left leaning Liberals, but I think they are more likely to court and win over the Greens, as their actual philosophies are much more closely aligned. The Greens must be frustrated in both the total lack of electoral success and the antics of Liberal Senate wannabe Elizabeth May, so I think they will be receptive to overtures.

However, the big turning point will happen post 2014, when new seats are created in the House and it becomes possible for any party to win a majority without seats in Quebec. This will marginalize the BQ, and Quebec voters will abandon the BQ in droves to keep a “seat at the table” in Canada's Parliament. Since the NDP is a Social Democratic party and the BQ is a National Socialist party, the BQ voters will move to the NDP as the national party with the closest political philosophy.

Will everyone on the political Left want to join or merge with the NDP? of course not. Given that 51% of the Greens reject it, there are still 49% of Green voters on the table (and I think the 51% is the older, more libertarian “Greens” from the founding days). After all, not 100% of the Reformers or PC party moved over to the CPC when it was founded, and stranded remnants of the Greens, BQ and LPC will probably wash up on the beach between now and 2014 depending on how smart the NDP are and how fast they work should they decide to read this post and act on it! (Anyone want to forward this to Jack Layton? Heh).

The core philosophies or ideologies of the NDP will appeal more to the Greens and BQ than anyone else, and only the NDP has the critical mass of operatives, money and political experience to actually do this. Certainly if the Progressives want to finally gain political power, this combination makes the most sense, uniting similar groups into a single national party rather than several marginal and regional parties.

This also makes the choice very clear to all Canadians on election day, a clear decision between the Classical Liberal philosophies of the CPC (however much they honour them in the breach) and the Progressive philosophies of the new Socialist Alliance Party. The post 2014 landscape will be much clearer for all.

“Unite the Left” will certainly take a while, how long did it take to go from Reform vs PC to Alliance vs PC to merger?

The BQ have no real incentive to merge today, but their voter base will see the changes in the wind after 2014, that should start the process of an NDP/BQ merger, or an NDP takover as former BQ voters move to the NDP to keep a seat at the table.

The Greens will probably come to the NDP if asked nicely (i.e. offered some real incentives), and a large fraction of their voter base will follow since the NDP offers pretty much the same ideology. This is probably something the NDP will have to initiate and manage to completion, and yes, it is something of a wild card as to how and when this can happen. Left leaning Liberals might start flocking to the Socialist Alliance Party in a sort of reversal of the former NDP players shifting to the Liberals since they will follow political power, and a rapidly growing Socialist Party will certainly be an attractive force compared to the constant bickering and searches for a new “Dear Leader” that the Liberals have been reduced to. After all, who will have a better chance at getting the keys to the treasury?

Will this happen tomorrow? No, of course not. Many Liberals are clinging to the idea that the Young Dauphin will be their “Dear Leader” who takes them back to power (and the ones who don’t are probably gathering around the Bob Rae/Power Corp faction). This fight will take some time to play out. There are five years to go before seat reapportion becomes mandatory (and the Prime Minister can upset the entire timeline by bringing in legislation creating the new seats any time between now and 2014), which I see as the trigger. Jack Layton could start the process sooner by reaching out to the Greens, and maybe to disaffected left Liberals, but the big shift won’t come until Quebec voters see that it is really possible to have a Parliamentry majority without having seats in Quebec.
Two notes here:


1. The rush from the BQ might take place right after the 2014 period, or they might need to be “convinced” of their irrelevance in one post 2014 sitting of Parliament, but the Quebec voters will indeed move.

2. “National Socialist” in its correctly political meaning: this is a Socialist party which divides the spoils on the basis of “ethnicity” rather than “class”, “gender”, “victim hood” or other non racial group identifiers.

A Spade a Spade

There has been quite some fervor about the NDP possibly changing its name in the upcoming convention. The word is that they may drop the word "New".

Well, I for one would like to see them all change their names to more accurately reflect their political and organizational beliefs.

The NDP would call itself the Marxist-Socialist Party of Canada

The Liberals would call themselves the Pragmatic Socialist Party of Canada

The Green Party would call itself the Anti-technology and Advancement Party of Canada

The Bloc Quebecois would call itself The Xenophobic Communist Party of Quebec

and the Conservative Party would call itself The Utilitarian Social Conservative Religious Alliance Party.

Oh, The Freedom Party, could call itself The Capitalist Party.

Canada's Pragmatic Politics: Standing For Nothing

Lawrence Martin spends this article praising the mushy middle of politics. The progressive, the pragmatic, the popular position.

Now while I'm not interested in praising the Conservatives for their pragmatism I will note that many political pundits in the last few years, since the fall of the Liberal hegemony in Canada have made much noise, type and hype out of lambasting that party for its lack of direction. They have resoundingly skewered the Liberal party for its whim-driven adherence to, well, nothing more substantial than the power they sought and the votes that would get them there... So, fast forward and suddenly this same course of progressive pragmatism is the course of action for the Conservatives?

Personally I could care less at this point. After a number of years of supporting the Conservatives I now realize that as far as the 4 main parties* in Canada are concerned the average voters choice is bad, worse, disastrous and irrelevant.

What I really want to get at is the notion that pragmatism in politics is somehow a good thing.

Pragmatism is defined as; "A way of approaching situations or solving problems that emphasizes practical applications and consequences." now on the surface that doesn't sound too bad, but the problem is that as it is applied in politics the practical applications and consequences part is lost and the definition more closely adheres to "A way of approaching political situations or solving social problems that emphasizes majority rule regardless of principal."

Gone is the idea that the solution must work or that it must be practical. Consequences are only considered, if at all, as something to be dealt with or "spun" at the next election.

But even if the actual definition was closely followed there is a major problem... Where are the beliefs, the ideals, the principles upon which decisions will be made?

When being in charge, as the leader of a nation you have to be able to enunciate that there are things in which you believe. The foundations of any society are the things that are accepted and believed by the individuals within it, for right or wrong for good or ill.

Obviously we've gotten away from anything so hide-bound as principals as far as politics are concerned in this country. It no longer seems to matter what a political party, or you as a politician believe, the important thing is how many people you can convince that you believe the same thing they do. That's pragmatism, and that is the thing which Mr. Martin extols in his article.

So the pragmatic virtue of the Conservative party is the ability of the party to say on the eve of the recession that they do not believe that bailouts are the solution only to pragmatically bail out any and all takers less than a month later!

The truth is pragmatism is little more than political newspeak for the sentence "We are going to lie to you."

What ever happened to ideas and ideals? Where did the principled politicians go? Why do so few people ask this question?

Who is John Galt?

* I do not include the Bloc because they can not and will not run candidates in any province other than Quebec

It Makes So Much Sense Now...

Jack Layton, as one of the redshirts.

As you will recall the first guy to die in a Star Trek episode was always a redshirt.

With the fall of Jack's salivation encrusted coalition, the rise of Lord Iggy of Liberal Trudopia and Gilles the energizer separatist having survived a leadership review... he may well be.

Redshirt! Haha, the connotation in conjunction with Canada's version of Marx takes on a whole new meaning.

Jack Layton's Radio Check.

"This is Jack Layton to Canada... Radio Check... Over."

"Jack, this is Canada... You are weak, and spineless, but your transmission is loud and clear... Out."

*It's a rare thing when you can actually hear the backpedaling

TIC: the Three Idiots Coalition

Tics, the small blood sucking vermin that drain the blood from their host are an appropriate species to compare to the Liberal/NDP/Bloc coalition. And just like the lecherous ideologies they represent, when any host country becomes too infected with these political vermin it dies, just ask the USSR.

Many Canadians are rightly outraged that the TIC’s are banding together to dispose of Canada’s duly elected Conservative government. And had this as a plan since before the speech from the throne. In other words since before any of the “reasons” they gave for their outrage in the first place.

But there are others that have taken the opinion that the Government asked for it. That by cutting hard and deep, the government was being a bully and poking the opposition in the proverbial eye. I can’t understand the reasoning behind this line of thinking. The Prime Minister is supposed to be responsible to Canadians, not to the political pork barreling and pet projects of the opposition parties.

What is the first thing that politicians say when the economy starts tanking? What is the very first thing we hear from government? “Canadians (listen up dummy, that’s you and me) are going to have to tighten our belts.” Well ladies and gentlemen, for the first time in my memory we have a government that has begun the process by practicing what it preaches.

The Conservative government has had auditors going through the various departments for quite some time, rationally identifying places where cuts could be done and should be done. This is the kind of forward thinking I would expect from a government that sees trouble on the economic horizon.

The TIC’S believe that our government should follow the rest of the world lemming like into huge stimulus packages. My question is why should we when we have been told by organizations like the IMF that Canada is head and shoulders above the ROTW.

Is Canada in for a recession, I don’t know, probably, but if you talk to anyone who has studied economics the huge projects and billions in “stimulus” undertaken during the Great Depression prolonged that crisis. In addition the “New Deal” (of which we are being offered a watered down version by the TIC’s) didn’t end that crisis, WW2 did.

Furthermore, what is $30 Billion Canadian dollars to the world? What is it supposed to do? For those of you who don’t understand what is wrong about the idea that our government can spend its way out of an economic recession caused by runaway spending Fred Thompson has a video for you, and Publius over at Gods of the Copybook Headings does a fine job as well.

This is a global slow down. With trillions and hundreds of billions being thrown around by the heavy hitters (USA, China, EU) what if anything will our paltry $30b sum do? The phrase pissing in the wind comes to mind. It might feel good to get it out, but your just going to end up all wet and looking like an absolute idiot by the time you’re done.

Canada has a resource based economy, with billions of dollars in “stimulus” being force fed into the economies of the real players in this “crisis” won’t that stimulus spur manufacturing? Won’t they be looking for the raw materials they require to actually do the manufacturing?

So to me when I hear people blaming the current government for cutting pork during the most significant economic downturn in almost 100 years it makes me shake my head in bewilderment, and when I hear people screaming for a bailout/stimulus package without any demonstrable proof that Canada needs it or that it will do anything it makes me want to puke.

If the TIC’s get their way they will create more problems than they will solve, and beware friends, as always, only part of this has to do with the economy, like an iceberg liberal/progressive/socialist ideology has a small acceptable premise floating up where everyone can see it and a huge lumbering menace below.

Run up the Black Flag!

Although the Liberals, Bloc and NDP may have pulled one over on the Canadian electorate with their coalition stunt, there are some actions we can take as free Canadians. I outlined a few on Sunday, and now I am going to propose piracy against a putative coalition government.

By piracy, I am following the example of Ragnar Danneskjöld, and will grab for my share of the $30 billion inflationary stimulus package. Like Ragnar, I will calculate my income tax from 1993 to 2006, and also add the GST paid for the purchase of a number of cars and two homes during that period. That is the figure I propose to use when claiming any government "stimulus" grants, which will probably be handed out in indecent haste and with the sort of oversight that allowed the HRDC to perpetrate the "Billion Dollar Boondoggle".

As a free and responsible citizen, I want you to carefully consider doing the same; calculate the taxes you paid from 1993-2006, add any GST for major purchases like houses or cars, then put together a business proposal to hire a few people and apply for a grant of that amount. This is only a self refund of the monies that were taken from you to support the extortionate and ineffectual government schemes that crippled Canada's economy and political culture, and reduced us to a shadow on the global stage.

It seems only right that we use the perpetrators of the last round of extortion to provide the refund now.

UPDATE!!!Don't Even Think About it Mme Governor General.

I've heard it more than a couple of times with regard to this political party tax grab/vote subsidy but anyone want to try and tell me how this money grab is democratic?

I mean if the winning party of an election gets 14 million votes and wins a majority but then proceeds to lie, cheat and steal, elect unpopular people to lead their party, divorce the party from the very people parties are supposed to represent and still get $23,800,000 every year regardless of the poor job they do?

On the other hand, if you eliminate the subsidy the party has to remain loyal to its base, it has to generate it's own funds. It has to be able to come up with leaders, platforms and policies that their supporters will support and it has to hopefully do well enough to gather more support the next time. That is democracy.

Democracy is not being forced to treat a vote like a post dated cheque.

The other concept being hoisted upon us is that these parties (all of them) are somehow part and parcel of our democracy and they must survive or our democracy won't function. Absolute bullshit.

There is no party that has to exist. If the party can not survive on it's own then like a business it shouldn't. There is no legal, democratic or constitutional mandate for any of them. They are supposed to be private entities separate from and unconnected to government qua government in any way. Anything less than that is an aberration of democracy the likes of which we see in Banana Republics and communist "Peoples Republics".

I hope that the Conservatives stick to their guns on this one. It's sink or swim time and I'm sick and tired of the political parties using my money to keep themselves afloat.


The word you're looking for is breathless indignation.

But before these leeching slimeball waste of skin political backroom dolts try to rob me of the right to vote for who leads this country they should probably take a breather.

They should take a good hard look at the second chart here.

If you think that western Canada is going to roll over and suck the teat of a socialist Government that they overwhelmingly rejected, that is imposed on them by an unelected Royally appointed babysitter, you're smoking dope.

Look at the numbers from Manitoba west... 71 CPC Members of Parliament, 7 Liberal, and 14 NDP. 71 to 21, you do the math...

Try to pull a fast one Mme Jean and the separatists in Quebec may get their wish courtesy of Liberal NDP and Bloc greed and delivered by the long ignored western provinces.

Still Not The Prime Minister

Yes, that means you Jack

"In the first case, it's going to be a speech from the throne that will be a confidence motion, and we've set out today the five fundamentals that we must see ... for us to even consider supporting it."

What part of fourth place don't you understand?

Why fund the Arts?

Watching the BRAVO! "election special on the arts", I was struck by an even greater sense of unreality than usual (and after sitting through a "Woman's Issues" all candidates debate, that is saying a lot...)

Two points in particular struck me:

1. Artists claim that they have "freedom" with State funding but not with private funding. Why does producing art approved by bureaucrats provide more freedom than producing art approved by any other patron? Apparently these "Artists" have no knowledge of the history of "Socialist Realist" art.

2. The mantra of "investing in the arts because it is an $8 billion dollar a year industry is totally nonsensical. If an industry is as mature and as profitable as the Canadian "artistic" community claims, then they clearly have no need of further State funding, from ANY level of government.

If any Conservative party supporters are reading this, feel free to use these points. For that matter, if any Liberal, NDP or Green supporters are reading this, please enlighten me as to why artists who's works we never have heard of or who's names we don't know are entitled to our hard earned money?

The Other Socialist Shoe Drops

If there was ever anything that proved to me, beyond a shadow of doubt, that the NDP don’t give a rats ass about the people and are only interested in pushing a communist agenda down the throat of every single man, woman and child in Canada it is this.

Forgetting for a moment that I despise socialist ideology and any governmental interference in the provision of services from the free market, aren’t the NDP the same brain-dead morons that have been harping on about the lack of daycare spaces in Canada since, the last election, or last several elections? Aren’t these mental midgets purposely sabotaging (or trying to) the provision of this vital service?

The answer to both questions is yes.

The reason is simple. The NDP and their communist fellow travelers believe that it is immoral for any business to make a profit. Examine this policy closely and you will find within it the ideal that reduces every man to a carbon copy of another. It extols the “virtue” of the lowest common denominator, a nameless faceless communist drone, malleable and meek. To them the individual is worthless, the collective is God, and the tallest nail is the one the hammer drives home.

In their socialist utopia the incapable feed off of the capable, the slothful off of the industrious, and the dim-witted deride the gifted for their innovation.

Moochers, scavengers and parasites, the lot of them.