Barrel Strength

Can it be that the absence from Canada of Stephen Harper has led the government into a public opinion debacle akin to the collapse of a Third World regime when the caudillo lingers too long at some international summit?

We have the response to Elections Canada’s singularly peculiar and aggressive tactics on the “in-and-out” tempest handled by walking forty-watt bulbs in the personae of Ryan Sparrow and Pierre Poilievre, one orchestrating a media clusterfuck unparalleled in memory and the other having his arse handed to him by a normally sympathetic radio host.

I know Stephen Harper to be both shrewd and profound. But we are at a point where the conventions of tribal loyalty and gut instinct must be balanced against the looming reality of a fruitless battlefield. Harper must get full rein on the situation: a clear defensible line of argument must be set down and heads must roll — period. Nothing less will regain the confidence of the Canadian electorate.

Get it done, Prime Minister!

In her recent interview, Lessing admits that Communism, to which she was once attracted, is rubbish.

“Communists, she now believes, are ‘murderers with a clear conscience’. But it took her a long time to get there. ‘Yes I called Marxism “the sweetest dream” in one of my books. Then I discovered it was all a load of old socks. It seems incredible now that quite intelligent people believed in it all. What doubts there were were expressed in sly jokes. The jokes contradicted everything we believed in. We used to joke about how we were wrong about everything.”

They were wrong about everything, and the mystery is how they simultaneously knew it and pretended to be the vanguard of the omniscient.

Lessing wrote some interesting science fiction, a field not often taken up by lefties, possibly because its premises usually suppose technological progress, t which they seem opposed in fact if not always in principle.

The story takes place on the planet Shikasta (Earth) tens of thousands of years in the past. The all-wise Canopians have the humans in their tutelage, living is stone igloos in ordered ranks under the indirect rule of the UN-type Canopian colonial bureaucrats. The story is written from the point of view of a would-be colonial bureaucrat from the Sirian system, who envies the Canopians their superior moral and social development. Then disaster strikes. The Puttiorian Empire, under the direction of the Criminal Planet Shammat, disrupts the massive phase array (the Lock) that keeps the minds of the humans in thrall. Liberated from the all-wise mental domination of the Canopians, the humans fall into history: they achieve freedom.

It is not pictured that way by Lessing of course. The terrible Puttiorians and the ambassadors from the Criminal Planet Shammat leer at girls’ breasts, wear leather shoes, and smirk knowingly. The more I contemplated the eternal smug dullness of the Canopian rule, the more I thought it resembled a benign North Korea, and the more evident it was that the Criminal Planet Shammat was governed by me, George Jonas and Mark Steyn. Ridding Shikasta of Canopian-Sirian Con-Dominium was the obligation of every free thinking moral person. Come to think of it, it still is.

“With her latest book she has come full circle to the Rhodesia of her childhood. There is a moving chapter in which she describes returning as an elderly woman to the country she had once loved, only to find it devastated by years of Mugabe’s tyrannous rule. She encounters a drunk and obnoxious black man who won’t let her see her father’s old farm. She had been a great champion of black rule.”

Ah! To live long enough to see all the errors of our ways. You can take girl out of the Party, and eventually you can take the Party out of the girl.

The search for a Third Way to address the failures of socialism and perceived inequity of capitalism is a constant phenomenon. Despite the failure of this policy in Far East during the 1990s, where it was implemented by a honest, educated and intelligent civil service, the philosophy is once again advocated by the book Nudged.

The reviews describe this book as “gem of a book”, “utterly brilliant book”, “book is terrific” and so on and so forth. The book advocates “Libertarian Paternalism” or “Soft Paternalism”. This philosophy believes the state can “help you make the choices you would make for yourself—if only you had the strength of will and the sharpness of mind.” Ah yes, the sharpness of mind. Before one signs up an Obama-wannabe, complete with an attitude and sidekick with a chip on her shoulder, for advice let us see how the state has done historically.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then this one is better than a thousand socialist slogans. Sovereign default seems to be a constant theme through the history. It seems all those who want to watch and hover over us, themselves need watching.

Notes for a eulogy, Monday April 21st, 2008, Smiths Falls, Ontario

Doug never needed one of these [a script] because Doug was always himself. He never pretended to be anything he wasn’t, and you always knew where you stood with him. In a very real sense, what he said was what he thought. What you saw was what you got. I’ll tell you what I saw 36 years when I arrived in Germany to work with Doug at the Forces radio station in Lahr. I saw a hippie. He had a full beard, hair down to his shoulders, and a leather cowboy hat. He even had a Volkswagen van. It was a pleasant surprise to learn that Doug the hippie was also Doug, the very serious professional broadcaster. He taught all of us a lot.

Doug was the best coach the Ottawa Senators never had. He would have made a great general manager too. When the phone rang after a particularly rough period of hockey, I always knew it was Douglas, but I never knew what he was going to say. It was always interesting and insightful. He knew the game of hockey. We weren’t happy about this season at all.

Doug was always after me to take up golf, and I always resisted. He was very patient with me, and he probably thought that if he waited long enough, it would happen. Well, at least one of us waited a little too long. I think it was me. I know I would have enjoyed it. I know I would have had lots and lots of free advice.

The only time he ever got a little boring was when I wanted to talk about my children because that was when he wanted to talk about his children. Karina and Harry, I know a lot more about you two than you think I do. He thought the world of you two. He loved you for your struggles and for your successes. We can all be happy that he saw both of you doing so well.

Things were going great for Doug lately and they were only going to get better. His enthusiasm for political causes and his broadcasting skill were starting to come together on the Internet. The interviews he did on his Web site, The Right Side, were beginning to attract a lot of attention. He was making a big contribution to a growing community. When I looked at some comments about him last week, I wasn’t surprised to see how sad and unhappy people were but I was surprised to see just how many there were and how much they counted on him to point the way. Doug came right out and said what a lot people think. He was a great source of information and inspiration to a lot of people. Just the archive of interviews he left us will be important in the years ahead.

Doug was a great friend to me. You never had to be on your guard with him. You could be yourself. He made people feel comfortable because he was sensitive and gentle and kind. Janice, nobody knows that better than you. I know that he looked to you for so much and he always got more. The two of you were complete and you will never be apart.