Idiocracy Watch

If you want to know how Stephen Harper could win a majority in the next election the answer lies somewhere in between the lines of this video:

As far as I can tell the Harper government speaks the same language as the folks in this video. That probably explains why Harper finds himself at home on the Fox Network whenever he travels south of the border. Those are his people.

Now I’m in no way saying that Canadian Conservative supporters are like the people in this video. Not at all. I’m sure Canadian Conservative supporters have Canadian accents, and are much less likely (by at least 50%) to accuse Obama of being a Marxist or a baby-killer.

By highlighting this video I’m simply suggesting that there exists a very real potential for the Harper government to create new Canadians that more closely resemble these folks, whether it’s through new creative education policies (severe cuts to the education transfers would be a good start), new foreign policy objectives (downplaying the existence of legitimate foreign states, for a start), or creative changes to our current immigration regime (say, instant citizenship for any Palin supporter).

It’s like this: more of Sarah Palin’s supporters seems to be a clear way for Harper to get the votes he so desperately wants. With that in mind the Harper government ought to be distributing this video widely among its supporters in an attempt to glean the relevant policy-setting information from it.

In the meantime the Harper government should unapologetically continue with all of their current political tactics that seem to mesh so nicely with Sarah Palin’s (and George Bush’s before her) style of politics:

• They should be working towards less transparency, because the liberal media will undeniably spin their messages in ways that they are not happy with.
• They ought to defame and personally attack anyone in power who disagrees with, or criticizes, their policies, in order to prevent subversion and the illusion of alternate possibilities.
• They ought to be exposing all naysayers in the light of unCanadian-ness that they shine unto themselves.
• They ought to denigrate the very notion of diversity of opinion.
• They ought to say whatever will pacify concern, or quell debate on important topics for the sake of an appearance of ideological unity.
• They ought to be practicing politics in sports arenas as much as possible while wearing coloured sweaters with their names on the backs, in order to reinforce the primacy of party loyalty over all other things.

They should be doing all of these things until such time that a new generation of Canadian citizens has been raised in a climate that is hostile to debate, fearful of new ideas and unable to comprehend the notion of switching teams.

Most importantly they ought to be doing all of it proudly, patriotically, rhetorically. They should embrace their politics in a way that demonstrates authority and steadfastness, with ample unwavering assuredness thrown in.

Like the guy in the video said, “When you’re right you don’t have to compromise. Compromise is for people that are wrong.”

(+3 rating, 3 votes)

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By now most of you have heard of Richard Colvin, Canada’s former number two guy at the Canadian embassy in Afghanistan. If you haven’t, let’s just say he’s a guy with a big conscience that you would (and probably should) trust with your children.

He’s also the guy who decided to out the Conservative government’s policies regarding the transfer of Afghan detainees to Afghan security forces. In his own words:

“As I learned more about our detainee practices, I came to a conclusion they were contrary to Canada’s values, contrary to Canada’s interests, contrary to Canada’s official policies and also contrary to international law. That is, they were un-Canadian, counterproductive and probably illegal.

“According to our information, the likelihood is that all the Afghans we handed over were tortured. For interrogators in Kandahar, it was a standard operating procedure” (From a CBC report)

Ooops! Did you notice how Colvin used a tried and true Conservative rhetorical tactic to out the very same Conservatives for their own allegedly corrupt and deeply unethical behaviour? He called them un-Canadian!! How dare he.

If you’re a blue-blooded Conservative, you know damn well the only Canadians who are legitimate targets of that kind of rhetoric are non-Conservatives: “Dirty Liberals”, “Red Socialists”, and “Canada-hating Separatists”.

For Colvin to have the audacity to execute the kind of rhetorical rip-off is a no-no in Con-land. Truth and conscience be damned!

The Conservatives, noticing one of their their signature moves was in danger of being illegitimately co-opted, reportedly consulted government lawyers to see if they could sue him for some sort of copyright infringement. After allegedly being told by their lawyers that the current copyright regime provides no such protections, (and that they were probably unfit to govern the country for even asking), the Conservatives re-doubled their efforts to engage in secret copyright reform talks to remedy future occurrences of this type.

Our government allegedly saw no other credible way of squashing this story (it should be noted that the option of launching an investigation to uncover the truth never really occurred to Harper). So the Harper government decided to fall back on a second tried and true fantastic Con-tactic – it was time to assassinate the character of a well-decorated, top civil servant who has for years, and by all accounts, served his country loyally and honestly. All accounts but for the one the Conservatives were about to manufacture, that is…

Harper’s troops worked hard to come up with this: According to the Conservtives, Richard Colvin is deeply anti-military.

Sure. We’ve all heard this before. Criticize the government on anything to do with Afghanistan and you’re any number of things: a terrorist sympathizer; a Taliban apologist; a member of the Taliban; a Taliban supporter; a soldier/troop/military/serviceperson hater; un-Canadian; anti-military; anti-freedom; anti-happiness; or possibly the devil among us (NOTE: all of the previous © Conservative Party of Canada, just to cover my ass).

What strikes me as odd about the anti-military attack is that I picture how I would see this debate playing out if I were in the military. If I were in the military following orders given to me by my superiors to hand over Afghan detainees, and if I was suspicious that those detainees might be tortured, I’d have a problem with it. Not because I suffered from some deep-rooted self-hatred, which might be the Conservative explanation of my unease in such a situation. But rather because, as a Canadian, I have a sense of right and wrong. And torture falls under the category of wrong. I’d be watching Richard Colvin and applauding him for trying to get to the bottom of some very problematic policies that had forced me to hand over Afghan detainees to a security force that was accused of torture.

I’d be applauding quietly, of course, for fear of being noticed by a government who would likely cast me as an anti-troop troop.

Listening to the Conservatives attack Colvin, a Canadian troop might be led to believe that in order to be pro-military you have to be pro-torture. Put another way, you have to be pro- whatever the Conservative government says. And everyone (save the current Conservative government) knows that is idiotic. But then, so is an approach to running a country that resorts to name-calling whenever anyone questions Conservative party policies on human rights grounds, or on any grounds for that matter.

Does the Conservative approach not strike you as a problem? Consider their approach applied to more familiar (hypothetical) circumstances:

• Imagine you were a parent criticizing the school board for taking all the books out of libraries – then according to Conservative logic you would be anti-education and a student-hater.
• Imagine you were a hockey-parent criticizing the local league for allowing fighting at the Timbits level – then you would be anti-hockey and definitely un-Canadian.

Ridiculous? Of course it is. And our government acts this way all the time.

What’s most striking about Colvin’s decision to call the detainee transfers un-Canadian is that he has provided an example of how one might correctly apply the epithet. Sadly, Conservatives are weary of getting things right, lest they be seen as trying to come off as “elitist”.

(+8 rating, 8 votes)

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