Angry in the Great White North
Liberal arrogance pervades their vocabulary
Monday, January 23, 2006 at 01:00 PM

Read other posts by Steve Janke published by the National Post
Leader

Consider this from Liberal blogger GritPatriot:

There will be another election in 18 months. No matter what happens tonight it is win-win for the Liberals.

We know that a significant percentage of CPC votes are from traditional Liberal voters who are upset over sponsorship. It will be difficult for HArper to hold on to this support after the election. He will very quickly lose these votes. Meanwhile the Liberal Party will be reborn and back stronger than before. HArper will not be able to please his Alberta base. They will expect a socially conservative republican agenda and HArper will not deliver that.

The next election will see strong Liberal support in the east and BC. Alberta and Saskatchewan will be frustrated and disillussioned by HArper. The next election will be a Liberal majority. A Joe Clark interregnum is very good for the Liberals.

I'm not certain about the consistent spelling of "HArper". If it means something, it is lost on me.

Considering his arguments, I think they are flawed. He doesn't consider the state of the Liberal Party finances, depleted by a poor showing in 2004 and the wholesale abandonment by traditional Liberal financiers. He does not consider the fact that the Bloc is likely to support the Conservatives for quite some time, for both political and financial reasons. He does not consider the potential backlash of an electorate against the party who forces yet another election, especially if the election is forced as a power grab instead of over some serious national issue.

But consider his final sentences: "The next election will be a Liberal majority. A Joe Clark interregnum is very good for the Liberals."

An "interregnum" is a period between kings. Kings? Divine right and all that? The people of Canada are going to be voting for a government today. The ballot question is not whether you believe that the ruling Liberal Party needs a short break before returning to their pre-ordained role as government.

Here's hoping that whatever happens today and then over the next few months and years, this attitude of the divine right of the Liberal Party to rule over Canada is shattered. It is the people decide who will govern them, and to those that are awarded that power for a short time, they have the mandate to govern. It is not the role of the Conservatives or the NDP to act as seat warmers while the Liberals go outside for a brief stretch.

That attitude insults every person who casts a vote, for the Liberals or not. It suggests that the vote is just a charade, that the result is illegitimate unless it is in favour of the Liberals. Article 6 of the old Communist constituion from the Soviet Union reads:

Article 6 (1) The leading and guiding force of the Soviet society and the nucleus of its political system, of all state organizations and public organizations, is the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The CPSU exists for the people and serves the people. (2) The Communist Party, armed with Marxism-Leninism, determines the general perspectives of the development of society and the course of the home and foreign policy of the USSR, directs the great constructive work of the Soviet people, and imparts a planned, systematic and theoretically substantiated character to their struggle for the victory of communism.

It's difficult to imagine that there are people who think this approach to government, that a single particular party is somehow allocated a unique and primary role, is a good thing.

Makes me think this election is even more important than cleaning up corruption.

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