Yes, I’m scared of Stephen Harper!

Harper has shown in many, many past public statements, letters, papers and speeches that he holds Canada, the social system in this country, and the general population in contempt. He has repeatedly praised United States neo conservative values and ideas, and consistently made statements that he has conveniently recanted during the current election. Do you honestly think this bland, creepy leopard can change his spots??

How are all three of you in the donut shop in bumf*ck alberta going to plan all that. Someone's got to drive the pickup truck while the others write up Alberta seperatist literature with the crayons in the glove compartment. I'm truly frightened.

FurGaia, you should accept that opposition to abortion, gay marriage and other liberal cultural policies like feminism IS reflected in a large percentage of the Canadian population.

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"A Liberal is someone who refuses to take his own side in a fight".

-Robert Frost

Ecnomically he is quite right-wing, but how can the motherjones link paint Pat Buchanan as an extremist or a reactionary? He is writing some of his most thoughtful pieces on the plight of the west lately.

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"A Liberal is someone who refuses to take his own side in a fight".

-Robert Frost

Turdy, you actually "like" pat buchanan? Oh man now I know you are the grand wizard. Thoughtful pieces ??? ROFMAO, oh man what a chuckle i had.

don't count your chickens ( or choke them to a stephen harper 5X7 glossy) just yet there, bud. When the reality of a conservative wingnut government sets in there will be some radical shifts in votes. I think the good time bandwagon for the conservatives has run out, they've already played their cards with debates and weeks to go... time for them to roll down the other side of that peak and believe me - thats plenty of time for nutjobs to open their mouths. Its already started with Elsie Wayne and the nut from 100 hump-me street.

He was a Trudeau Liberal at one point...so you tell me...

bumf*cking is the last thing Albertans would do.....

No need to get nasty... Last poll I saw concerning western support for independence in the West was around ~ 30% almost the same as the hardcore baseline support for sovereignty in Quebec. Just because there is no Western Seperatist Party doesn't mean the sentiment is not there. All you need is anger and a trigger to start the ball rolling..The problem is most seperatist parties out west are more socially conservative..If a progressive seperatist alternative emerged with a charismatic leader who clearly articulated the inequities of a n Ontario centric led federal government..he/she may bolster support for the independence option.

The Liberals are going to announce an RRSP like plan to help parents of disabled children. This is the stupidest idea I have ever heard coming from the Liberals. People with disabilities need direct help NOW! Parents are already spending loads of money on their disabled children. They have nothing to spare to put in a plan..idiots..

1) the statements I was referring to occurred outside this campaign. Harper is not a corporatist, or at least doesn't fancy himself one. I'm not defending Harper's record, merely contesting the implication that he is a corporatist.

2) it seems neo-cons tend to take a negative view of government until they get a chance to use it. Harper's moral appeal to the socons is the worrisome part. I have yet to see how he can continually cast the state's ideal role as small, and the small-state being value-less (i.e. values are something personal, not imposed), and then turn around (in the same speech!) and suggest foreign policy should be implemented on a moral basis--even if he didn't mean to imply the alternative was a legal basis, it is inconsistent. Especially given how closely his party tied the Iraq issue to loss-of-trade.

3) Plenty of neocons are expat liberals. "Liberals in a hurry" as he puts it.

I consider myself a "progressive" conservative.

Neo-cons distrust government on multiple grounds:

1) That the private sector is always more efficient than any government (which is NOT true in all cases. There are many large companies that are just as bureaucratic as any government)

2) The perception that public institutions are subliminally indoctrinating "liberal" values on people (ex. Teachers in public schools are teaching tolerance towards homosexuals at a very young age. Some parents would call this brainwashing children into thinking that homosexuality is a social norm and should be accepted.)

Another example would be public medicare where they believe long waiting lists are the result of "rationing" limited public services whereas the private sector would have no such limitation (again incorrect - long waiting lists are a result of an underfunded and understaffed public system)

Rightly or wrongly..the distrust is there..and hence their extreme resentment of the state in all forms.

Having said that..Mike Harris was a neocon..Harper is more of a libertarian..

Economically the media is right right (anti-government; pro-corporate/private) and promotes a right wing economic agenda. There are a few columnists that are still moderate to left in their leanings but there was a major purge of left wing columnists by the Aspers from their media a few years ago. On social issues most of the media tends to be less right wing and more progressive.

This factor has allowed the right successfully characterize the media as left wing even when it promotes a right wing economic agenda. Since the Liberal Party tends to be economically right and socially left it makes it easy for the right to say that the media supports the Liberals.

And yet, Harper regularly refers to libertarians as the "fringe". 
 
"Rightly or wrongly..the distrust is there..and hence their extreme resentment of the state in all forms." 
 
And yet, look to our south--the big-S State and its ambitions have grown immensely under neocon influence! They don't resent the state at all, they resent government: there is a subtle yet critical difference at work here. One resents government (defined as law, and the means to enforce it) intruding unnecessarily upon the lives of private citizens, the other resents private citizens intruding uneccessarily upon the agenda of government. 
 
Let's review by looking at what neocon choirboy Max Boot and the Weekly Standard have to say: 
 
<a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/Utilities/printer_preview.asp?idArticle=318&R=76C47AD0">http://www.weeklystandard.com/Utilities/printer_preview.asp?idArticle=318&R=76C47AD0</a> 
 
Here, his noble ideal (peace and good government for the world--as if neocons are unique in wanting that) leads easily to a willingness to trust not just the state, but the *imperial* state. 
 
The Harris government, as its first order of business, passed legislation limiting lawsuits and damages arising from its policy agenda. Again, they dislike government, not the state. 
 
Where is Harper on this continuum? A certain amount of what he says (and once said) is horse-trading for money and votes (no more or less guilty than Martin, mind). Was the leopard changing his spots then, now, or both times? Forget his opponents: which of his supporters is he going to betray, and conversely, on behalf of whose support is he willing to betray himself?