Reboot Alberta

Sunday, March 11, 2007

Worth a Read

I know a lot of people who wish they had written this - it comes from a friend who knew I would be interested! I trust many of my Blog readers will find it interesting as well!


The Great Moral Issues of Our Time
By David Michael Green03/10/07 "ICH" -- --

You liberals are such losers.Like His Holiness Reagan used to say, “There you go again!” Even after a quarter-century of us regressives running the country, you still don’t get it.

You can’t tell the difference between what is truly important for this country and what is not. You still can’t distinguish the great moral issues of our time from your petty bleeding-heart concerns.

Oh, I know how you guys think.You’re probably sitting there right now whining about how the massive carnage that is consuming citizens and soldiers in Iraq by the hundreds of thousands is a big deal. Wrong.

You probably think that the ongoing failure of the president to provide adequate armor for the troops he sent to fight in this four year-old war is important. Wrong again.

Or maybe you got yourself all worked up when the horrific treatment our wounded soldiers are receiving at Walter Reed Hospital and elsewhere proved that Bush couldn’t care less about the troops. Still wrong.

I bet you think it’s a big deal that al Qaeda and the Taliban – you know, the folks we said did 9/11 – are regrouping in Afghanistan, and that Osama bin Laden remains a free man five years later. So?

Are you upset again about the loss of jobs in America and the growing pressures on the struggling middle class? We’re not.

How about all the corruption scandals and gross incompetence of George Bush’s crony government? Get over it.

I’ve heard you guys ranting on and on about the mountain of debt we’re leaving for your children to pay off, plus interest, in order to finance our twin extravaganzas of huge tax cuts for the wealthy and a useless war costing $1-2 trillion. What’s wrong that?

Ah, then there’s healthcare! All you whack-job lefty clones seem to think its important to provide decent healthcare for our country, especially the 50 million people who have no coverage whatsoever, a large bunch of whom are children. No doubt Hillary told you to think that, so you did. We say, “Let them eat Band-Aids!”

And don’t go getting a bee in your bonnet just because so many people are suffering and dying needlessly from diseases that could be prevented and treated if only stem cell research was permitted. Do you really think the health of millions is such a big deal?

Please don’t go off again about the destruction of American civil liberties. Man, I hate that. You’re always spouting all those goofy ideas from the Bill of Rights – habeas corpus, right to trial, right to an attorney, protection against torture, search warrant requirements, and everything else you learned about in your fifth grade civics class. Who cares?

And then there’s the Constitution itself – all that stuff about separation of powers, checks and balances, and so on. So you’re all in a lather because the president has secretly appended close to a thousand “signing statements” to congressional bills, declaring all by himself how he interprets those laws, and which parts of them he intends to ignore. But what country can’t benefit from a good stiff shot of monarchism every now and then?

Oh, and please don’t play that tired Katrina card again. You think that the failure to protect, save and restore one of America’s great cities from the ravages of a hurricane is a pretty big deal, don’t you? Christ, you liberals are so sanctimonious! Yadda, yadda, New Orleans. Yadda, yadda, Schmew Orleans.

Or maybe it’s the economic polarization of America that’s got your undies all in a bundle. What’s the difference if the top one percent of the country grows fantastically rich while the rest are stagnant or sinking? That just shows your failure to understand the beauty of our capitalist free market system! What next?

You’re bothered that the Mid-East is in flames? That North Korea has gone nuclear, and that Iran is doing the same while growing in power because we destroyed its rival, Iraq? Typical liberal appeasement naiveté about tough foreign policy questions. Stop talking French, wouldya?

Don’t tell me you’re ashamed that genocide is occurring again while we stand by and do nothing? So what if the same government that moved heaven and earth to “bring democracy to Iraq” can’t be bothered to lift its little finger for Darfur after 400,000 people have been slaughtered?
Enough with the bleeding-heart routine already.

Okay, so it must be global warming, then, right? Ozone Man gets an Oscar and you think that saving the entire planet from vast, lethal and massively expensive environmental destruction is one of the great moral issues of our time, eh? Well, that’s where you’re especially wrong.

See, if you really want to know what matters in the moral universe, you should take your cues from us conservatives, especially those of us from the religious right. We can tell you.And what we say is that the great moral issues of our time are not war, peace, protecting our children, fiscal responsibility, caring for our soldiers or defending the constitution. And especially not pulling the Earth off the planetary grill.

No, the great moral issues of our time are: Your genitals. Yeah, you heard me right. Your genitals.Surprised? You wouldn’t be if you’d been following the news during your lifetime. And especially if you heard what happened just last week.Seems that one of our own by the name of Reverend Richard Cizik strayed off the reservation and got himself in some unexpected trouble.

Unexpected because he is a longtime advocate for the Christian right, now serving as Vice-President for Government Affairs of the National Association of Evangelicals.But when the good reverend made the mistake of fretting in public about your so-called global warming, well, we came down on him hard.

No less than those great moral arbiters of our time, James Dobson, Gary Bauer, Tony Perkins and Paul Weyrich called for Reverend Cizik to resign if he “cannot be trusted to articulate the views of American evangelicals”.What are those views? What did they identify as the “great moral issues of our time”? I thought you’d never ask. Opposition to abortion and gay marriage, of course. And “the teaching of sexual abstinence to our children”.

In short, everything to do with your genitals.And I do mean, of course, YOUR genitals. Not ours.

Reverend Cizik was actually supported during this controversy by Reverend Leith Anderson, the new president of the association. Why new?

Seems the old one – a certain Ted Haggard – loved to preach about your sexual morality but had a slightly different agenda when he found himself inside hotel rooms snorting drugs with gay prostitutes.

Kinda like Newt Gingrich, Robert Livingston, Henry Hyde and the others who chased Bill Clinton down for chasing down Monica Lewinsky, while they themselves were fathering children outside their marriages, having serial affairs, and dumping their wives for new ones, as the old ones lay in the hospital, post-cancer surgery.

Kinda like the Catholic dioceses across America that are declaring bankruptcy so they can avoid paying legal claims for all the damage caused by the sexual predators they hired, ignored and protected for decades.Dummies! Don’t they know you’re not supposed to get caught?

Listen, you get a sixer or two of Coors in me and even I’d admit it’s a pretty good rule of thumb that anyone who is publicly obsessed with your sexuality is actually totally freaked out (at least) about their own. But, hey, what’s the point of being a conservative if you can’t be a hypocrite?!

Y’know?You liberals, though – you’re hopeless. You keep thinking that hundreds of thousands of deaths from war and genocide are more important than dudes marrying other dudes.

You keep thinking that preserving democracy is more important than preventing premarital sex. You keep thinking that saving the planet is more crucial than discouraging masturbation.

You keep thinking there are greater and weightier moral issues than what you do with your genitals.But you’re wrong, and our country is falling apart because of all those misplaced priorities Satan got you to believe in.

And Hillary.It’s time to restore the moral greatness of America again. We need a new campaign of sexual authoritarianism to purge this country of our evil influences. We need to purify our precious bodily fluids and refocus our priorities.

Only then can we safely turn to lesser national priorities. Only then can we plot for our next invasion, our next raid upon the treasury, our next abandoned city, our next ignored genocide, our next assault upon the ecosphere.

Sure, all that stuff’s important. But none of it can happen until we first get our moral house in order.

David Michael Green is a professor of political science at Hofstra University in New York. He is delighted to receive readers' reactions to his articles (mailto: dmg@regressiveantidote.net ), but regrets that time constraints do not always allow him to respond. More of his work can be found at his website, http://www.regressiveantidote.net/

11 comments:

  1. Anonymous9:22 am

    Fanatastic post! How did the Christian right and Republican party get so messed up?

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  2. Anonymous9:34 am

    Hey Ken, what the devil is going on between Oberg and the federal Conservatives. Alberta had long opposed resource revenues being included in the equalization calculation. Conservatives made a big fuss about opposing it during the Martin years (both of 'em!) and now Oberg is caving on this.

    Why?

    Is Oberg afraid of a showdown with Ottawa? I don't think so. It looks like it was an utterly manufactured fight to gore federal liberals. But now that HArper favours it, the Alberta PCs are falling in line.

    Of course, this huge contradiction will pass without comment in our dismal media. Like was mentioned in a previous post, if Hitler had Albertans, he would'nt have needed to burn down the Reichstag.

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  3. Anonymous9:35 pm

    He is pulling another rug out from under Boutilier...who does not get anything about good governance and Alberta's role in Confederation, continentally or even intercontinentally.

    Stelmach pulled the first rugs out on rebuttal of the Bad Boys of Confederation and Quebec Nation bleatings he made. Stelmach then udermined GB again by putting $400M into Ft Mc infrastructure when GB was constantly opposed to the Klein government meeting public infrastrucutre needs. Boutilier always insisted that industry and business do the government role.

    Oberg gets it re equalization - it matters not to us in Alberta. The objection was built on a myth perpetrated by far right anti-Ottawa types (like Harper when in the National citizen's Coalition days) and then confused with ghosts of NEP and other crap -that never happened. Another stupid myth is that equalization takes resource money away from Alberta and gets gifted to Quebec. It doesn't - it merely uses federal taxes - that all Canadians pay equally within the same tax bracket - and redistributes it as per the formula.

    Harper is gifting money to Quebec and Ontario these days like a Trudeau/Chretien Liberal. He does not need equalization to do that - even though it will pump $1B more directly into Quebec to boost Charest's last hope. Look for it to be announced in the Budget on March 19th.

    So long as we use per capita based transfer payments with accurate population figures - and they don't use accurate figures and therefore Alberta's population growth does not get reflected in the transfer payments as it should.

    Wait to see if Harper will do a new census as part of equalization and transfer payments to be sure we get our fair share. Do not hold your breath.

    THE BIG MYTH is that NEP happened but it did not destroy the Alberta economy. It might have but it was President Bush Sr. who dumped US strategic reserve oil on to the market and that collapsed the commodity prices. that tanked the Alberta economy before NEP could take hold. We changed governments before NEP was ever a factor and Mulroney dumped the NEP. More mythology that ignores facts but make good fodder for angst and angry politics who don cae to know the facts.

    Harper is a firewall guy and one who would let the truth be hidden if it served his political purposes. He may not lie like Dubya did over WMD in Iraq but he will obfuscate the truth to serve his ends. At least Martin called for the Gomery Inquiry even though he knew it would likely cost him the Prime Minister's office - which it did. That is character and governance. Have not seen that in Harper yet.

    I have lots of earlier postings on this Blog about what equalization is and is not if you want to do some searching.

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  4. Anonymous7:55 am

    Oberg doesn't matter if resource revenues are included in the formula IF AND ONLY IF the equalization funds get distributed on a per capita basis.

    "Another stupid myth is that equalization takes resource money away from Alberta and gets gifted to Quebec. It doesn't - it merely uses federal taxes - that all Canadians pay equally within the same tax bracket - and redistributes it as per the formula."

    Merely uses federal taxes and then distributes it as per the formula. YES AND ALBERTA GETS NOTHING UNDER THAT FORMULA. Essentially, the formula does not help Alberta financially; if we got rid of the formula, there would be room for an overall decease in the federal tax rate which would actually benefits Albertans.

    Stating that Martin is a hero for creating the Gomery Inquiry is a little much. There was an elaborate kickback scheme that benefitted the LPC. The MINIMUM they could do is call an inquiry.

    Defending the NEP, a program that violated the Constitution as it impugned a province's power over property rights, is not going to help the LPC cause in Alberta. Remember that the NEP program came with the saying "Screw the West, we'll get the rest."

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  5. Anonymous4:49 pm

    Anon, the "Screw the west" expression was created by Conservatives to damage the Liberals. What is wierd is that Harper is taking the same approach to Alberta as the Liberals and Alberta is happy with it.

    The fact is that Albertans are shockingly apathetic. If the Conservatives are for an idea it is okay. If the Liberals promote the same idea then it is eveil Ottawa screwing the west.

    I have never heard an explanation how the NEP made the world wide price of oil drop. Of course, there is no explanation. It is a political fiction meant to get Albertans to hate the Conservative's rival.

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  6. Anonymous8:30 pm

    Baghdad bob. I think Albertans prefer a party that has 28 MPs from Albertan than ZERO (as well as party with no chance and, thus, no incentive to cater to AB interests).

    It is true that the NEP did not in and of itself destroy the AB economy. However, what is equally clear is that the right to the resource revenues clearly falls under provincial jurisdiction. This is self-evident, but apparently not so to the LPC.

    Screw the west, we'll take the rest is actually from Liberal campaign manager Keith Davey.

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  7. Anonymous6:49 am

    Regarding the original post... that's the most boring list of straw men I've ever seen.

    Aptly-named Guy: I have never heard an explanation how the NEP made the world wide price of oil drop.

    It didn't, and I'm not aware of anyone ever claiming that. What it did do was was force Alberta to sell its oil below the world price (see below).

    Ken: Another stupid myth is that equalization takes resource money away from Alberta and gets gifted to Quebec. It doesn't - it merely uses federal taxes

    Equalization takes money from all Canadian taxpayers (including Albertans) and gives to the poorer provincial governments (not including Alberta). Ergo, it takes money away from Alberta... unless you don't understand the difference between "Alberta" and "the government of Alberta".

    THE BIG MYTH is that NEP happened but it did not destroy the Alberta economy. It might have but it was President Bush Sr. who dumped US strategic reserve oil on to the market and that collapsed the commodity prices. that tanked the Alberta economy before NEP could take hold. We changed governments before NEP was ever a factor and Mulroney dumped the NEP. More mythology that ignores facts but make good fodder for angst and angry politics who don cae to know the facts.

    There's so much wrong with this paragraph, I'm not sure where to start. Let's see...

    - The NEP was introduced in October 1980. The bottom starting falling out of Alberta's oil industry, real estate, and other sectors within weeks or months, while the international oil price crash didn't happen until 1985 or so.

    - Bush Sr. didn't become President until 1989, over eight years after the NEP. I can't for the life of me imagine why you mentioned him at all.

    - Canada didn't change governments until 1984, almost four years after the NEP. Plenty of time for it to "become a factor"...

    - Alberta actually weathered the 1986 and 1998 oil crashes better than it did the NEP aftermath; how does that fit with your claim?

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  8. Anonymous4:04 pm

    Invisible Dude: you mistate the facts. The combination of the Iranian revolution and the Iraq/Iran War resulted in crude oil prices more than doubling from $14 in 1978 to $35 per barrel in 1981. As a result of the rapid rise in oli prices the NEP was an attempt to stabilize costs for consumers in Alberta. Lougheed and the Alberta Progressive Conservative Party approved the NEP in August 1981, over glasses of champagne.

    The world wide price of oil fell and by 1984, when Mulroney came to power, the price stability aspect of the NEP was unnecessary.

    As the price of oil fell world-wide so did the Alberta tax revenues. The Alberta Progressive Conservatives were eager to point the finger somewhere else. There were no Liberal members of Parliament or MLAs from Alberta at that time. Blaming Ottawa and the Liberals was like shooting fish in the barrel. No contrary voice opposed the Alberta Conservatives. The finger pointing became myth and the CONs have dined out onthat myth ever since.

    The CONs are fortunate that the Alberta voter is so apathetic and the Alberta media so compliant.

    It is lazy politics for CONs now to dredge up this 27 year old myth.

    Even Preston Manning, since 1992, has cried that Ottawa will brig in a carbon tax. Harper used that fear-mongering technique to great effect too. The irony is that Stelmach is the one that is introducing and there is virtually no peep from the voter or media. Apathy.

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  9. Anonymous6:00 pm

    The Equalization myth is always framed around the old NEP myth and to the effect that equalization is somehow taking Alberta natural resource money and sending it to Ottawa.

    The far right tries to make it look like a government to government forced transfer of Alberta natural resource wealth - a pure provincial jurisdiction - to Ottawa.

    THAT IS NOT THE CASE.

    Individual Albertan taspayers pay the same federal tax as their tax brackets dictate - just as any other Canadians, regardless of province of residence. Those are the federal funds that are used to pay the Constisutionally mandated equalization.

    Albertan's don't receive equalization payment because we don't need it in order to afford a "equal" level of public services as do "have-not provinces.".

    It is not a question of the difference between "Alberta" and the "government of Alberta." It is a question of individual Albertans as Canadians...nothing to do with the GOA.

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  10. Anonymous6:46 pm

    Exactly, the equalization has nothing to do with the GOA. Provinces cannot control this regime as it is quasi-enshrined in the Constitution. The issue of course is whether Alberta should get any equalization payments; Quebec gets billions each year and to what avail? They'll still swamped in debt with the lowest productivity ratio in Canada. The question is whether the government of Canada should interfere with the market to artificially boost the economies of some provinces or allow the market forces to run their course. It is not surprising that the far left would wholeheartedly agree with such a program.

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  11. eric at 6:46 - Equalization is not "quasi-enshrined in the Constitution."

    IT IS actually Part III Section 36 of the Constitutional Act of 1982.

    Here is the exact wording:

    PART III
    EQUALIZATION AND REGIONAL DISPARITIES

    Commitment to promote equal opportunities 36. (1) Without altering the legislative authority of Parliament or of the provincial legislatures, or the rights of any of them with respect to the exercise of their legislative authority, Parliament and the legislatures, together with the government of Canada and the provincial governments, are committed to
    (a) promoting equal opportunities for the well-being of Canadians;
    (b) furthering economic development to reduce disparity in opportunities; and
    (c) providing essential public services of reasonable quality to all Canadians.

    Commitment respecting public services (2) Parliament and the government of Canada are committed to the principle of making equalization payments to ensure that provincial governments have sufficient revenues to provide reasonably comparable levels of public services at reasonably comparable levels of taxation. (96)

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