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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   26881 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 4, 2023

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I think you're missing the point. Why should anyone believe that at the end of the day this will pan out any better than what the UK conservatives did (or didn't), or the Itallian "fascist" lady that ramped up immigration?

I don't understand what your issue is with this. The goal of the party is to pass a few laws, enact what their voters want, create some jobs, etc. This is what happened under Harper. If "The party will do things their voters want" isn't enough for you then perhaps electoral politics isn't for you. Do you want me to point to some zeitgeist I think will occur that lines up with someone's wonkish substack because a different party won a majority for 4 or 6 years? That is unlikely.

My problem is that progressives pass sweeping societal reforms, and conservatives, when they finally get into power, just might rollback one or two of the most egregious excesses. They never seem to think of sweeping societal reforms of their own, or of setting up defensive measures their constituents might use when they're out of power, but worst of all they seem to be absolutely happy to enforce progressive policies that would have been called "uncharitable strawmen" a mere few years ago. I don't see a way any of this could be explained by anything other than establishment conservatives playing for the progressive team, and acting as the heel in the political theater.

Which sweeping societal reforms do you believe the LPC passed? Mostly they are just corrupt with ineffective or misguided tax policy and virtue-signalling feminism.

Major societal reforms or positions the LPC has passed/taken:

  • Doubled official immigration, quadrupled if you count net additions of refugees, intl. students, and temporary foreign workers. Trudeau declared Canada a country without a national culture or identity.
  • Reversing the planned increase in retirement age from 65 to 67. Making the Canada Pension Plan more generous, and raising mandatory contributions to fund it.
  • Daycare subsidy to privilege two earner family models
  • Canada Child Benefit which is a large means-tested transfer to poor parents and ending the universal child benefit. Lowering child poverty, but introducing a major implicit marginal tax rate on parents.
  • Abolishing mandatory minimum sentencing and encouraging (or not opposing) race-based leniency on crime. Canada now routinely gives blacks and aboriginals slaps on the wrist for serious offenses, because having prisons full of those people is considered more offensive still.
  • Bill C21 to ban certain classes of firearms.
  • Bill C16 to make trans part of protected classes and open the door to criminal sanction for people who refuse to 'affirm' gender identity. See Jordan Peterson.
  • Bill C18 to attempt to extort social media company revenues and generally hinder non-legacy media.
  • Creating the Medical assistance in dying (MAID) program which now kills over 10,000 people a year.
  • When graves were not discovered at the site of a residential school, Canada lowered flags for over a year, pledged tens of billions in new money for reconciliation, and the government approved of mass burnings of catholic churches.
  • Not oppose the pulling down of statues or renaming of streets and erasing of Anglo culture.

Now I dont oppose all of those things, but they are major public policy changes or stances taken on the future direction of our culture. I would say that a conservatism worth its salt in Canada should, at minimum, do the following:

  • Acknowledge that Canada does have a culture, two of them to be precise. Unequivocal opposition to all statue removals, street renamings, etc.
  • Lower immigration dramatically. Cap foreign students. Make refugee status temporary in all cases.
  • Introduce full income splitting for income tax recognizing the family as the basic unit of society.
  • Rework the Canada Child Benefit to make it (1) universal with no means test and associated implicit marginal tax, (2) increase its size materially, (3) abolish daycare subsidy (use that money to make even larger cash benefits to families with kids under 5).
  • Make replacement fertility a goal of public policy and talk about it all the time. Tax breaks for families with lots of kids.
  • Repeal Bills 21, 16, 18.
  • Review MAID program and disallow for non-terminal illness.
  • No gender affirming care for children.
  • Reinstate mandatory minimum sentences for serious offenses, new sentencing guidelines which are harsher, forbid race conscious sentencing, and begin to turn over the judiciary with more conservative judges.

I would not characterize things like changing the retirement age to 67 instead of 65 as a sweeping reform, or changing the makeup of certain tax benefits or models, or giving a comment about church burning. Almost everything else listed were explicitly in the last platform. The listed bills, MAID, immigration, families. Expect them to be there going forward as well.

Almost everything else listed were explicitly in the last platform. The listed bills, MAID, immigration, families. Expect them to be there going forward as well.

My point is: wake me up when they make it out of the platform and into law. Establishment conservatives are much more likely to fortify progressive gains then to work against them.

I think it would violate the forum's rules to explain to you that a party has to win the election to enact it's platform. The next Canadian election will be next year or the year after.

That's fair enough, but my argument isn't about this particular party and election. It's a global or at least Western phenomenon, that's been going on for a while.

In another comment you said that maybe electoral politics isn't for me, and your diagnosis is accurate. If it is for you, I wish you all the best, butiff my thesis is correct, I find it rather twisted that people like you get lured into the political machine.

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