A Word From A Sane Conservative Leader

A-freaking-men, Bruce!!!

Intelligent Quote of The Day

I think another thing a lot of conservatives don’t consider is that being poor is scary.

It’s scary when your car is running badly and you don’t have the money to get it fixed…and you also know if it breaks down, you’ll have no way to get to work and your boss will fire you if you don’t show up. It’s scary when you don’t even have a car to get to and from that desperately needed job, and have to rely on the whims of public transportation. It’s scary when you don’t get paid until next week but they’re going to turn your heat off tomorrow. It’s scary when you have an illness that keeps you in constant pain, and you don’t have the money to visit the doctor or afford pain medication. It’s scary to know that your paycheck might not be able to cover your next meal, or your children’s meals. That’s assuming you aren’t living on the streets, which is a whole other level of scary.

And when people are scared and trying to survive, hell yes they get selfish. They think about “me, me, me” because they know that no one else cares. No one is watching out for them. No one is going to rescue them if things get really bad.

They don’t want to get off food stamps, because even though subsisting on them is miserable, at least they know they have *some* food coming in, which is far better than the uncertainty of *not* having food. They blow money on liquor because they’re not sure they could face whatever pain or issue they have without it, and goodness knows they can’t afford to actually get the problem fixed. They don’t want to do job training because what if they fail? Or what if they manage to get a job and then get fired 3 months later because the economy is crap? Now they’re back on the streets with no assistance whatsoever. No, better to keep what little I have rather than risk losing it all, because society won’t give two shits if I fail and then I’ll have nothing.

People will fight tooth and nail to keep a sense of security, even if it is crappy security, but out of fear, not necessarily laziness or selfishness. Forever threatening to chuck someone in the deep end while making it clear you don’t really care if they drown and complaining that their parents should have taught them to swim is a really good way to ensure that people never want to leave the shallow end. Because, you know, FEAR OF DROWNING.

---Amaranth commenting  and rightfully condemning on the Confessions of A Former Conservative blog the incredible lack of empathy and sensitivity among the poor and disenfranchised of society among certain political conservatives.

A Sane Conservative vs. Right wing Illogic 101:Single Payer Health Care

Effing kudos to Mort Zuckerman!  A conservative (though there is dispute about that, he did support more Democrats than Republicans) who doesn't mind single payer health care in the United States. There were many conservatives outside the United States and elsewhere in the Anglosphere who made their peace with the concept. Here in Canada, former Premier of Ontario Mike Harris , who could have almost easily passed as a conservative Republican in the United States, had made peace with it. His political guru  in the United Kingdom, former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher also made peace with the NHS but it seems that a conservative living in the U.S. who thinks the concept of having universal insurance in their own country is evil, socialism, the next step to communism but when the U.S. invaded Iraq, didn't it give it's citizens free health care? Yes it did! Read here. So the question is: why is it okay for Iraqis to be given free healthcare, courtesy the U.S.government (more directly the U.S. taxpayer) and a cardinal sin to give it's own citizens free health care? Not only that type of illogic baffles me, it enrages me because it also a form of strange but simple injustice. Oh yes, I discovered two recent articles from the internet The Conservative Case For Single Payer Health Care by Andrew Murphy on the blog Harry's Place and Single Payer Health Care Is A Conservative Policy from the blog Tim's Cogitorium. At least there are some people who tired of the partisan mantra and want to think outside the rigid, narrow, box. Also enjoy Mort Zuckerman' s support of the idea on Real Time with Bill Maher from HBO.

Saying number one and being number one, there is a difference you know

For the record, I am NOT anti-American.  As a Canadian, I am pro-American as one can get. I have the U.S. flag on my wall in my bedroom for over 20 years, courtesy of  from  an old friend. I have on my Facebook cover page, a picture the late great former U.S. President Ronald Reagan. I have been mocked and satirized from friends and relatives who share a leftist worldview because of my love and support of the U.S.  I wish that will go away but I am 42 years old and not 4.  That taunting will continue and if I seek public office---especially the federal level it is going to get much tougher and trust me I am going to need from heaven above, a tougher thicker skin to deal with it.   Much to their discredit, they ignore the fact that though I am pro-American, I can be a critical thinker about the problems in the United States. I acknowledge their is a class warfare, their public educational system is much to be desired,  that Social Darwinism and Christian fundamentalism has taken over a major  political party, their infrastructure is way behind, some of their major cities are in decay and even one city may declare bankruptcy, an incompetent President who apparently knows nothing about economics (and seems to be happy about it) and has not met  anybody from Congress  ranging from 18 months to almost 3 1/2 years (the length of his presidency) and though my friends from the left expect me, as a black Canadian to stand in "black unity" (whatever that is?)  behind the first black president elected despite my terse and at times fierce opposition to some of his policies but that's neither here nor there. I am damn proud of having the United States as my neighbour and glad to share a great portion of their wealth and culture (minus the The Jersey Shore nonsense). It sure beats having Syria, Egypt, Zimbabwe or North Korea as a neighbour hands down (though some leftist masochists might get a kick out of that). At the same time, I know full well the United States can do damn better than it can right now and it is time to stop the jingoistic bumper sticker solutions  and let American people graduate from 13-year old middle school thinking and go straight to  university---graduate studies  to have just for once to have a serious and civil debate on where America should go in the 21st century. On top of that they should be open to  new, fresh, out-of-the-box ideas. Oh yes, STFU about this cosmic dualistic and mentally childish Manichean argument about big vs. small government. At the end of the day, Americans really want "smart government". Period. Deal with it. Yes, it is uncomfortable but change is good and change makes us grow as better people.  It's time to stop shouting number one and start BEING number one. Their is a difference. An astronomical one. This is what Jeff Daniel's character (Will McAvoy who is a registered Republican fed up with the craziness in his home party and can't stomach a Democratic alternative as well) in HBO's The Newsroom was trying to articulate in the clip above and the next clip former Canadian Prime Minister Kim Campbell was trying caution the dangers of American exceptionalism on Bill Maher's Real Time (also on HBO). Anyone wants to scream anti-Americanism from these two clips is on a sad and tragic adventure of missing the point and have gone swimming in a sewer of anti-intellectualism too. Offended? Tough. There is nothing constitutional about the right NOT to be offended.


PS---for those who haven't seen the first episode of The Newsroom, you can see it here in its entirety, thanks to Youtube.com and HBO.

You might be a sane conservative...

Bruce Bartlett, David Frum and Reihan Salam, leaders of the "sane" conservative movement in North America

If you have friends that are left of centre, radical centrist and right of centre. You seek to learn from them all and they are not a challenge nor a threat to your worldview.

You understand that politics is NOT religion.

You believe as  a public official that you believe  that reaching across the aisle is not a dirty and abominable thing. In fact it is beneficial for the democratic process.

If your are public official you understand the concept that those who are your political opposition are your opponents but not enemies.

Though you like to see taxes lowered (when it can be payed for) and if they need to be increased---on a slower and rarer basis, you are mature enough to recognize that tax cuts are not the panacea to all economic ills. In fact if implemented wrong, it causes more harm than help.

That conservatism is more than a fetish with the works of Ayn Rand mixed in Christian fundamentalism.

That if you are a conservative person of Christian faith, you understand perfectly clear that  it is either Jesus Christ or Ayn Rand---but you can't have both.

You understand that conservatism is more than mindless, uncritical thinking, submission to unfettered markets. You believe that conservatism is about,  faith, family, country and community, not unfettered markets that destroy all of these.

You understand that the free markets and big business  are not synonymous. Also you believe North America (Canada and the U.S.)  needs a hell of a lot of the former and a lot less pandering to the latter.

You understand that cutting the social safety net for the less fortunate in society will eventually lead to greater erosion of the middle class. You also understand that with capitalism YOU need more consumers, not less. Willfully disempowering people does not do society good in the long run.

That FACTS do matter! If the facts do not match up with you ideology, you're not afraid to say your wrong and make course corrections. Oh yes, you are not afraid nor against science.

You may at times angrily but  respectfully oppose the policies of U.S. President  Barack Obama but he is not The Anti-Christ, Facist-Communist-Islamicist demon  conjured up by your louder, aggressive brethren on the right. 

That the  supposed beauty of lack of beauty of  the President's wife, Michelle Obama, has no relevance nor consequence on the state of the nation. Her ideas and them alone should be held to highest scrunity when it comes to national policy.

As a Canadian, you have a respect and admiration for your Prime Minister Stephen Harper but you recognize he's not a rock star nor the infallible Holy Father.

I am sure I can think of more and YOU can think of more. I will definitely write down more when more ideas come to me. Looking forward to hearing what you can come with! 

Back On The Block on Blogger.com!

Happy Canada Day weekend to my fellow Canadian brothers and sisters!!! Welcome to the start of a new blog! (Courtesy Toronto Public Library)

First and foremost to all my fellow brothers and sisters in the land I reside (Canada)---I hope all is enjoying the rest of the Canada Day long weekend. I originally started blogging on the internet on Blogger.com  7 years ago. 2 years later I tried something different by going to WordPress.com.  Nearly 5 years it looks like I'm going full circle back to blogger.com. I do remember indicating that there was a possiblity of going back to blogger.com but I still I am surprised that my indication has somewhat materialized. Writing is a hobby and passion of mine for a very long time---I'd go way back to my childhood where I used love writing stories (sci-fi based much to the chagrin of some) and it extended through my teen years where I even started a school newspaper in junior high and was a contributor to a high school newspaper thereafter. In my 20s, I wrote pieces of a script, still have it and if any producer's interested---let's hook-up someday. I wrote letters to the editor in The Toronto Sun (and I am hoping that I will write some more letters to the editors to the competitors like The Toronto Star and National Post). Let's put it this way, if I had the opportunity to write for a living and have a very respectable lifestyle doing it, I could never be more happier! May that day come!  Welcome to my "third" current affairs project, The Sane Conservative!