Howard MacKinnon

Election 2008: Just Say “NO!”

There”s not much room inside that little white circle next to the names of all the candidates that appear on the ballot you will be handed on election day. Just barely enough room for an “X”. But I plan to squeeze in an extra letter and to put it inside every one of those little circles. I plan to give each candidate, each party, and each leader just exactly what they deserve – my personal vote of non-confidence – I plan to vote “NO”.

My ballot will be classed as a “spoiled ballot” but I don”t think it will be spoiled at all. I think a spoiled ballot would be one cast for a candidate/party/leader who doesn”t deserve it and in this election, that includes them all.

Elizabeth May and the Greens

The fundamental evil of this group is that they place a higher priority on preserving every one of earth”s creatures before one – human beings. Every organism survive, not by getting along with its environment, not by adapting to it, but by changing it, using it, shaping it in such a way as to facilitate its survival. Deny it all you want – you”ll be denying reality. In the case of every other organism this is called “natural” but in the case of humanity it is called “artificial”. Why? Clearly the premise is that a colony of slime has more right to be here than we do. The fundamental premise behind the environmental movement is anti-human – a rejection of our right to life on earth. Thus the Green”s will not get my vote, money, support, etc. under any circumstances.

Of course the Greens (other than the more extreme elements who are at least honest about their premise) use rhetoric of harmony and sustainable development to confuse the simple-minded among us. But why “Green Party” if not because they are willing to sacrifice any and all to this one cause (including first scientific objectivity).They are truely a single issue party and the issue is not what is best for individual Canadians.
So voting Green would be spoiling my ballot.

Jack Layton and the NDP (Non Democratic Party)

Why the slur (“non”)? Because they would increase the size of government and the scope of the state”s interference with our lives. As long as everyone does and says what is politically correct everybody is happy but step out of line and look out – industries get nationalized and individuals get hauled before so-called “human rights” commissions.

Their fundamental error is hubris, the idea that “they” (those elected or appointed to positions of political power) know better than “we” (individuals left alone to decide for ourselves) what is in our best interests and how to achieve it. The error is exposed in this simple exercise. Think of all the information (knowledge, wisdom, whatever) stored in the minds of 30,000,000 Canadians. Think of how little of that we effectively communicate to others via language. Think of how much more of it we are each able to use if left to our own to make decisions for ourselves. Centrally planned economies that non-Democrats like Layton drool over run on decisions based on communicated knowledge while decisions made in free economies utilize all that incommunicable knowledge we all posses.

So voting NDP would be spoiling my ballot.

Stephane Dion and the Liberals

The problem with the fundamental principle behind the Liberal Party is that there is none. That is unless do-and-say-whatever-it-takes-to-get-elected-this-time constitutes a fundamental principle. This is the party of political opportunism, of moral bankruptcy packaged as pragmatism. It is only when your principles are so misguided, so out of touch with reality that they pose an obstacle to your progress, that an appeal to pragmatism over principle becomes attractive. Then one should re-evaluate one”s principles and consider alternatives.
There”s a saying that if you don”t stand for something, you”ll fall for anything. The Liberal Party stands for nothing other than itself and it cynically uses others for its own ends. A principled politician will use politicalpower to enact good policy. A Liberal politician will advocate popular policy to achieve political power. Doubtful? As yourself what fundamental principles or policies have have been consistently associated with the Liberals over time. Name an issue – a little research will show you that the Liberal Party has taken a stand on opposing sides of that issue within the past few of decades.

This election the Liberals are running on the Green Shift – a new tax on carbon. Its supposed to be a tax on consumption which is better than taxing incomes (productivity) but then low income earners will get rebates to offset the tax. Voila, it has been instantly converted to a tax on incomes.

The only tax we should have is a tax on stupidity – 50% of the assets of anyone so utterly insane as to consider supporting this idea. Fortunately and unfortunately that would probably raise enough money to retire the national debt (another Liberal invention).
So voting Liberal would be spoiling my ballot.

Stephan Harper and the Conservative Party
Much of what has been said of the Liberal Party can now be said of the Party which was once the legitimate repository of the Reform Party”s honourable legacy. If there is a fundamental principle behind the tenure of Harper”s government it certainly escapes my notice. The media bash the Party as the most conservative in Canada”s history. Think a minute – what is that saying? We have never had a Conservative government that was fundamentally different than the Liberals they replaced – never. Mulroney? He out spent and out taxed the avowedly socialist Pierre Trudeau and in so doing piled up a massive national debt. Has the Harper government been more conservative than that? Absolutely, but so were the Liberals under both Chretein and Turner. So, so what? As the NDPers used to say, and can say again: “Liberal, Tory, same old story.”

Since they have no principles to run on the Conservatives are running a campaign based on Harper”s “strong leadership”. This is a none-too-subtle way of making his Liberal opponent”s practically non-existent leadership skills the focus of the campaign.

But there are principles of leadership to keep in mind too. Strong leadership does not equal tyranny and it doesn”t equal lying. Being a strong leader does not bean bullying. It means having the confidence to hear and even encourage dissenting opinions. It does not imply a concentration of power but the wisdom to delegate. Harper agreed with the Gomery reports criticism of the Prime Minister”s Office under Chretein as having too much power but his own PMO has concentrated power even more.

Dion has accused Harper of lying and some of the media are aghast. Well we all know what lying means. Now consider that Harper promised to end the GST on gas prices over 86 cents per litre, never to tax income trusts, to hold a free vote on the definition of spouse, and to honour the letter and the spirit of the law fixing the next election date in October 2009. Well the emperor”s got no clothes and saying one thing and doing the opposite makes Harper a liar or I”ve been using a faulty dictionary.

So on both those measures Harper comes up short. He is not a strong leader but a petty tyrannt who needs and deserves to be thrown down.

So voting Tory would be spoiling my ballot.

Staying home on election day is not an option. I want my vote to count. If I stay home I am lumped in with those who simply don”t care. If I go to the poll and vote “NO” my vote will be counted. Will it influence the outcome? Not this time. But to the extent that one vote matters at all, mine will send a signal to anyone who wants my vote that they first must deserve it.
If there is a Libertarian on the ballot s/he will get my vote. Otherwise I”ll be voting “NO” across the board.

The party’s over

June 19, 2008

To whom it may concern:

Re: My Membership – No. C6303796

The party that I worked hard to build would not have:

1. appointed a non-elected Senator,
2. appointed a floor-crosser to the Cabinet,
3. broken its promise not to raise taxes (1% added to lowest rate)
4. broken its promise to eliminate the tax on capital gains
5. broken its promise to eliminate the GST on gas once the price hit 85 cents per litre,
6. broken its promise not to tax income trusts
7. taken full advantage of undemocratic Liberal election financing laws rather than repeal them,
8. increased the power of the PMO contrary to Justice Gomery’s strong recommendation,
9. broken its promise to allow free votes on all but the main financial measures,
10. broken its promise to hold a free vote on the definition of marriage,
11. broken its promise to repeal the long-arm gun registry and use the savings to finance additional police services,
12. failed to respect, adhere to, and implement the policies endorsed by its membership,
13. generally failed to distinguish itself in any significant manner from its Liberal and Red-Tory predecessors.

The party I supported would have kept its promises and remained true to its principles. It would also have stood up to a leader who acted like a dictator and reaffirmed its commitment to grassroots democracy in its own administration. By selling out its principles for the sake of political expediency my party has ceased to exist, making my resignation moot. Nevertheless, to make it official – I resign.

Sincerely,
Howard MacKinnon

————————————-
So that”s that. Next? My application for membership in the Libertarian Party of Canada is in the envelope ready to mail tomorrow.

Harper Conservatives = less choice, more government

The latest atrocity committed by this increasingly authoritarian government is Bill C-51. It amends the Canada Health Act to bring natural “medicines” under the same regulatory regime as drugs. In other words, herbs which people have used for centuries, and are available for next to no cost compared to drugs, now will be subjprect to clinical trials and government approval before they can be promoted for therapeutic purposes.

Before you think for a minute that this may be a good thing, consider that there can be no patents on such items and therefore no incentive for any company to pay for such trials. Therefore, this measure effectively denies Canadians the freedom to choose natural therapies by denying them information about such possible uses.

I am not into natural remedies. Occasionally using echenasia to ward of a cold is probably the extent of it for me. But I am into choice, freedom and reducing government intrusion. The Conservative government is into force, regulations and increasing government intrusiveness. This is all consistent with the CRTC”s recent signal of its intention to wage war against the relatively unregulated Internet.

So, this may be the final straw for me. I have said I would support the Conservatives for so long as they were moving Canada toward greater freedom and less government. I don”t believe that is true. I am fully aware that defeating the Conservatives means electing a party which is even worse (Liberal or NDP). However, it would be worse to perpetuate the hoax that the Conservatives are the defenders of freedom, liberty and individual rights while they are nothing more than political opportunists. If they believe the quest for Liberal voters is more important than holding onto the support of those who value freedom and democracy than that”s their choice. My choice, one I am still allowed to make, is to withdraw my support.

Another gutless Conservative government

In the 1980s Brian Mulroney presided over enormous increases in government spending and taxation. The national debt ballooned as each year”s deficit was piled onto the one before it. Only when the Liberals came to power did this change.

But the Liberals deserved absolutely no credit. It simply wasn’t possible to spend any more or raise taxes any higher – the Mulroney Tories had maxed out both these options. The Liberals did what they do best. They jettisoned their usual tax and spend predisposition to steal the thunder from their only effective political opponents – the Reform Party.

The fiscal mismanagement of the Mulroney Conservatives created the need for the Reform Party whose credible threat to the Liberals then forced them to make what progress they did in cleaning up the mess.

Now, after years of balanced budgets and even some very modest tax cuts, Canadians still find themselves the most overtaxed people in the developed world. Why? Because we have another gutless Conservative government.

Now this pejorative is intended as a double-entendre denoting cowardice while also alluding to the practice that could create the fiscal freedom to indulge in tax reductions – broadly and deeply. That is, by “gutting” the many and varied wasteful government programs that simply rob the tax payer to pander to special interest groups.

The recent auditor general”s report details overspending on the fisheries, the gun registry, computer equipment and infrastructure grants and many other items. Here”s one particularly egregious example. Almost half a billion dollars was spend last year on foster homes for 8,000 Native children on reserves. That”s $56,000 per child with no accounting for how the money was used or whether the children were any better of as a result. Sounds to me like an excuse to funnel more money and/or power to Native elites. Who else determines where this money goes?

How about the 41,000 illegal immigrants who have been already ordered deported from the country but whose whereabouts are unknown? Why are we spending money on a system to screen immigrants when those who fail to meet the test stay here anyway? Why not save ourselves the money and scrap the whole thing?

Because gutting wasteful programs creates political enemies and doing that takes guts. From its actions to date it looks like we have just one more gutless Conservative government.

A real conservative government?

Real conservatism has arrived.That was the point of the decade-long Reform/PC schism culminating in the Alliance and the alliance between the Alliance and the PCs – the Conservative Party of Canada. All of it was to take the “progressive” (read: leftist) tendencies out of Canada”s conservative party. So the ballots have been counted and the results are in and now finally Canada has a truly conservative government.

Ok, prove it.

Canadians are still among the highest taxed people in all the industrial nations. Despite the government”s minority status its opposition is so timid it”s disgusting. The CPC has and can continue to govern like it has a majority. If it falls it will be re-elected, possibly even with a majority, but if with a minority, so what?

What should the government do with this power? A real conservative government of an overtaxed people would think of doing nothing before dramatically reducing taxes. The means of doing so is suggested in this article.

Taxation is robbery

“All taxation is a loss per se. It is the sacred duty of the government to take only from the people what is necessary to the proper discharge of the public service; and that taxation in any other mode, is simply in one shape or another, legalized robbery.”

Who was the raving lunatic libertarian to speak such nonsense? How about Robert Cartwright, Canada”s first Liberal minister of finance. (Back then Liberals were true liberals.)

If it is wrong for me to take money from my neighbour without his consent no matter how good my intentions are for using that money, how can I authorize politicians to do so simply by making an “X” in a box on election day? I can”t delegate an authority I don”t have. And no matter how many people join my gang, and no matter what my gang calls itself, if it takes my neighbour”s money without his consent, it”s theft pure and simple. Calling the gang “the government” doesn’t change a thing – taxation is theft – legalized robbery.

Libertarian Party of Canada

I attended a LPC convention in Toronto in the mid 80s and I was thoroughly impressed by the caliber of the delegates from across the country. I was impressed that these were intelligent and principled individuals pursuing the highest political ideal in the way they believed best.
I worked for the LPC (I even ran in the 1988 election as a Libertarian) until 1990 when I met Preston Manning. After hearing him speak I asked Mr. Manning if there was room in his party for a libertarian. He answered that he believed the economic principles upon which the Reform Party was based were essentially libertarian. He said he thought of the Reform Party as a broad political coalition of libertarians, conservatives and political reformers with sufficient common ground to allow us to work together effectively.

I was, and remain, persuaded by the argument that it is better to accomplish some of our objectives in alliance with others than to remain isolated and accomplish little or nothing. I joined the Reform Party and continue to actively support its successor, the Conservative Party. I will do so as long as it appears that implementing its platform will make Canada more libertarian than it is.

So, I believe the LPC is a great bunch of people doing what they believe is best. But I wish they would add their considerable talents and intellects to the CPC.

I do not believe there is any utility in the term “libertarian conservative”. If you mean “libertarian Conservative”, to refer to a libertarian who is a member of the CPC then I can see it, but not without the upper case “C”. If it means a social conservative who supports libertarian economics I think the label “conservative” is adequate. I believe the unmodified label “libertarian” implies support for the general application of the libertarian principle which would exclude the coercive social policies usually supported by social conservatives.