Terence Corcoran reminds us in today's National Post of how Prime Minister Stephen Harper, while speaking to a Manning Centre gathering last month, essentially excommunicated libertarians from the Conservative Party.
I was at that speech and what struck me as odd was that Harper even mentioned libertarians.
Why go after them? Why single them out?
What makes it even odder is that Harper was once more or less a libertarian himself, at least on fiscal issues.
Corcoran wonders if it's because libertarians pose some kind of threat to the Harper Conservatives.
That seems unlikely.
The more likely answer is much more simple: Harper doesn't like libertarians because we represent his guilty conscience.
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He's like most people who have religion - he doesn't understand people who, like a lot of libertarians, don't steer their lives by that star.
Also I wonder if he doesn't like some of the Mike Harris Conservatives, even though he has some in his cabinet.
My fear is that Harper's ideals are tested by fire. No more we can claim higher morals. Harper is now musing a collation of convenience and tolerance with the Bloc and the NDP. I feel betrayed by Harper. In a sense, I wish we lost the last election. At least we would claim a principal. Now, we can claim nothing but shame.
It's sad, but true, that even libertarians, once they reach Ottawa, become co-opted by the insidious, suffocating machinations of the bureaucratic establishment and the expedient route to winning elections.
Mike Brock had a good post about that speech...
http://westernstandard.blogs.com/shotgun/2009/03/stephen-harper-to-libertarians-youre-naive-and-you-dont-believe-in-personal-responsibility.html
but then, you know a little something about weeding dissent out of the Conservative Party, don't you Gerry?
I sense Harper is further isolating himself from his natural allies.
He will never gain political points teaming with the Ontario Liberal Premier further bailing our a bankrupt Chrysler. Harper is pulling off a George W Bush. It was telling today that Harper answered a question on the Chrysler bailout that a Conservative like Bush started the process. "He started it, and he is a Conservative too"
Americans turned to Obama and now are getting screwed twice what Bush did.
Gerry, we Conservatives may get Ignatieff and get screwed double over like Obama.
What do we do?
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