Barrel Strength

Dan Gardner is a smartass - the kind of guy who believes statistics created by sociologists tell the truth about crime, and quotes them at dinner parties to show why contrary belief must be wrong. Mostly he evinces the strong belief that he is right about everything, and smarter than Stephen Harper. Thus the PM must be the offspring of Richard Nixon’s paranoia and George Dubya’s gut instincts – Gardner’s latest lament why nothing happening in the world is to his taste.

Harper is actually worse than Gardner’s darkest fears. Stephen Harper has all the ruthless efficiency of Joseph Stalin and none of the Generalissimo’s charm. Nothing I have heard about Harper makes me think he would be pleasant company at a dinner party, at least one where I would be able to hold forth as if I were the smartest person in the room. Yet I still support him against comers, including such the pretentious Dan Gardner. Why?

A. He keeps making mostly correct decisions.

His decisions pull Canadian society back from the abyss of valuelessness, the anti-white, anti-male, anti-Christian, anti-family, anti-hard work, anti-western culture, pro-victimhood, and pro-moral anarchy of the intellectual Left. Bit by bit the Left in Canada is seeing the legitimacy of its positions challenged, and it does not like it one bit. (see Marci McDonald’s truly witless Armageddon Factor as evidence).

B. He is not confused by the nonsense emanating from climatologists, sociologists and other academic allies of leftward drift, including smartasses like Dan Gardner.

C. When he finds himself in a losing position – a really losing position, not just an unpopular one – he gets off it.

Harper has made mistakes, some of which were in the Machiavellian sense, such as moving too fast with getting rid of taxpayer subsidies for the political parties. He may have made a mistake in a more human sense in relation to Helena Guergis or the law in relation to pardons. He evinces sound though perhaps unforgiving moral instincts. He seems highly intolerant of people around him not understanding what he wants done, but he forgets that his minions are not telepathic. I am the same, so who am I to throw stones?

I am not sure I would like the Prime Minister personally, but I am not called upon to make that judgment. Rather the question is the net direction of Canadian society under Harper. I like it very much. The rot is starting to be addressed. Increasingly the space is being created to allow for the necessary discussions – on abortion, human rights commissions, immigration, Quebec - which have been suppressed for twenty or thirty years. And Dan Gardner is being ignored, which is a small but not inconsequential benefit.

It wasn’t long ago that Mugabe’s thugs participated in numerous farm invasions.  They chased away the white farmers, which caused the economy of  Zimbabwe to go from being the breadbasket of the region, to the one that is now incapable of feeding itself.  If anybody had stated that this would be emulated in US, then that person would have been immediately excoriated with questions of sanity being raised immediately.  Alas the reality is quite different.

Dozens of noisy purple-shirted SEIU protesters stormed a Bank of America branch near the U.S. Capitol on Monday, forcing the bank to close down as confused customers looked on and tellers retreated to an interior room.

Other groups from SEIU and National People’s Action were set to stage protests at BofA’s and JPMorgan Chase’s lobby shops downtown as part of a daylong anti-K Street extravaganza.

Just like the actions in Zimbabwe, there have been visits to the home.  Can home invasions be far behind?  Let us hope not.

Huge raucous crowds converged outside bank employees’ houses on Sunday afternoon to demand banks stop lobbying against Wall Street reform.

“Bank of America: bad for America!” shouted community leaders outside the house of Bank of America deputy general counsel Gregory Baer.

This would be humorous if it wasn’t so serious.

Liam Byrne, the former Chief Secretary to the Treasury, last week wrote a letter for his successor – the Liberal Democrat David Laws – stating: “I’m afraid to tell you there’s no money left.”

Speaking at a press conference yesterday, Mr Laws said: “When I arrived at my desk on the very first day as Chief Secretary, I found a letter from the previous chief secretary to give me some advice, I assumed, on how I conduct myself over the months ahead.

“Unfortunately, when I opened it, it was a one-sentence letter which simply said ’Dear Chief Secretary, I’m afraid to tell you there’s no money left’, which was honest but slightly less helpful advice than I had been expecting.”

The letter – which Mr Byrne claims was meant to be humorous – represents a sign of the stark challenges facing the new Coalition Government to reduce Britain’s record £163 billion budget deficit.