Problem with conservative society is that membership becomes a prerequisite for everything – employment, networking – fair treatment, rights. They monopolize the job market, find slippery ways to void your basic rights, and networking requires sucking up all the obnoxious assumptions and ideological rigidity . So merit takes a back seat to membership and sameness (cronies), and that impacts everything one would take for granted in a free society – so much so that you are no longer free. The thing about self-reliance becomes a bit of an oxymoron when you consider how much pressure there is to either be silent in protest, or agree – it’s never about self reliance, it’s always about membership with these guys.
I’ve worked in places that pin up a list of values, but when you experience the encroaching membership attitudes, the favors, the cronyism, the comments, the clubbish attitude that permeates so many facets of the society – well it’s a world that holds back so much it’s hard to consider how it could ever move forward – but i suppose conservatism works against that, and values stagnant society more than shared prosperity – self-reliance is really the last quality that stands out – it’s more of a membership dependence – a clan mentality.
Great article, and like the first commenter below the article, I think #2 is the most likely outcome.
Take a cue from what happened here in Manitoba. The NDP laid waste to the province’s finances, yet still had a loyal following of entrenched civil servants who bleated “no cuts” during the election. Pallister and the PCs won, but every move they now make towards fiscal responsibility is met with a “sky is falling” ad campaign by one public union or another.
As Mr. Hodgson notes in his article, people may be fiscally conservative in principle, but it often fades away when they are forced to make tough choices. They like the theoretical idea of low debt and responsible spending, but they don’t want to make any sacrifices to achieve it. They are easy prey for the “fear and smear” tactics of the NDP (great phrase from the article, by the way), and are gullible enough to believe you can have something for nothing (or you can make someone else pay for it).
In Alberta the conservatives laid waste the the province’s finances and then blamed the low price of a barrel on the NDP, and they do this when it collapsed under Tory stewardship. I’m not partisan in daily life, but you have to be hyper-partisan to take seriously the kind of revisionist history they peddle. Lougheed set Alberta on the right path, and after that the path grew murky, and the narrative fantastical.
.. fascinating & revealing look under the skirts or kilts of a vapid posturing pile of political party trough seekers & wallowers
Its not pretty ..
If the mealy & greasy thugs adhered to even one of the 10 commandments listed.. they would still be the very same mealy & greasy trough seekers.. political parasites..
Sorry, no link this time. Just a response to this, from the linked article in Warren’s post:
“[…] Even the notion of an official opposition was looked upon with disdain. Ernest Manning said, ‘You don’t hire a man to do a job and then hire another man to try to stop him from doing the job!’ […]”
?? Yes, Ernest, actually you do: Crown Counsel has an equal and opposite Defence Counsel; every journalist has an editor, who sends the first draft back saying with a big red note saying, “could you please do something about that third paragraph?”; the guy packing stuff into boxes on the assembly line has a quality control inspector check in every now and then; etc., etc.
The Official Opposition in our system, whichever party they may be at any given time, are the quality control inspectors for government policy and for the government’s administration of the full bureaucracy.
Manning, Sr.’s comment, if it were true to the traditions of Parliamentary government, and not authoritarian rubbish, would say something like: “‘You [deletion] hire a [person] to do a job and then hire another [person] to try to stop him from doing the job [badly]!” — if you insist on no quality control, expect no control over quality.
Very true. I think Kenney will likely win the next election, but if he is as right wing as many suspect, will probably damage the party brand and hurt it’s ability to win in elections from 2023 onwards. Alberta is becoming less conservative and most millennials there are progressive but the boomers are still around and still overwhelmingly vote Conservative. Harper won 60 percent in Alberta in 2015 and while I doubt Kenney will do quite that well you would need a large swath of federal Conservatives to vote NDP which I don’t see happening. Still I don’t think it will be as big a blowout as some think and certainly an NDP comeback is possible. In the long run Alberta will probably be like other Western provinces alternating between the NDP and a right wing party but how successful the UCP will be is tough to say. Best case scenario is they become like the pro free enterprise coalition in BC who win most of the time and only go into opposition for short stints once every 10 to 15 years. Worst case scenario is the NDP becomes like in the other two Prairie provinces and wins most of the time. With Kenney at the helm it could be the latter as in BC usually the BC Liberals and Social Credit before them were able to build a much bigger political tent than Kenney is able to.
Good article and valid points that Jason Kenney should consider. May I say, however, even MORE pretty smart editor/headline writer: “…COULD [upper-case mine] Lose”. Jason Kenney is smarter than many give him credit for.
Alberta has no choice. Even with $65 WTI oil, an 11% HST, 10% public sector compensation roll back and 10% head count reduction, the province would still be borrowing around $3B per year. How to implement austerity is the only policy up for discussion. Social policy is irrelevant. The PCs laid waste to the province’s finances post 2006 through reckless program spending increases far in excess of inflation plus pop growth. The NDP has only amplified the worst of PC excess. It could have at least frozen headcount but that would limit growth in its base. The recent outperformance of the economy has done nothing to reduce the deficit, further confirming the NDP’s inept management. Kenney’s only job is to make unpopular choices and do so quickly and with no hesitation.
Problem with conservative society is that membership becomes a prerequisite for everything – employment, networking – fair treatment, rights. They monopolize the job market, find slippery ways to void your basic rights, and networking requires sucking up all the obnoxious assumptions and ideological rigidity . So merit takes a back seat to membership and sameness (cronies), and that impacts everything one would take for granted in a free society – so much so that you are no longer free. The thing about self-reliance becomes a bit of an oxymoron when you consider how much pressure there is to either be silent in protest, or agree – it’s never about self reliance, it’s always about membership with these guys.
I’ve worked in places that pin up a list of values, but when you experience the encroaching membership attitudes, the favors, the cronyism, the comments, the clubbish attitude that permeates so many facets of the society – well it’s a world that holds back so much it’s hard to consider how it could ever move forward – but i suppose conservatism works against that, and values stagnant society more than shared prosperity – self-reliance is really the last quality that stands out – it’s more of a membership dependence – a clan mentality.
Great article, and like the first commenter below the article, I think #2 is the most likely outcome.
Take a cue from what happened here in Manitoba. The NDP laid waste to the province’s finances, yet still had a loyal following of entrenched civil servants who bleated “no cuts” during the election. Pallister and the PCs won, but every move they now make towards fiscal responsibility is met with a “sky is falling” ad campaign by one public union or another.
As Mr. Hodgson notes in his article, people may be fiscally conservative in principle, but it often fades away when they are forced to make tough choices. They like the theoretical idea of low debt and responsible spending, but they don’t want to make any sacrifices to achieve it. They are easy prey for the “fear and smear” tactics of the NDP (great phrase from the article, by the way), and are gullible enough to believe you can have something for nothing (or you can make someone else pay for it).
In Alberta the conservatives laid waste the the province’s finances and then blamed the low price of a barrel on the NDP, and they do this when it collapsed under Tory stewardship. I’m not partisan in daily life, but you have to be hyper-partisan to take seriously the kind of revisionist history they peddle. Lougheed set Alberta on the right path, and after that the path grew murky, and the narrative fantastical.
.. fascinating & revealing look under the skirts or kilts of a vapid posturing pile of political party trough seekers & wallowers
Its not pretty ..
If the mealy & greasy thugs adhered to even one of the 10 commandments listed.. they would still be the very same mealy & greasy trough seekers.. political parasites..
Sorry, no link this time. Just a response to this, from the linked article in Warren’s post:
“[…] Even the notion of an official opposition was looked upon with disdain. Ernest Manning said, ‘You don’t hire a man to do a job and then hire another man to try to stop him from doing the job!’ […]”
?? Yes, Ernest, actually you do: Crown Counsel has an equal and opposite Defence Counsel; every journalist has an editor, who sends the first draft back saying with a big red note saying, “could you please do something about that third paragraph?”; the guy packing stuff into boxes on the assembly line has a quality control inspector check in every now and then; etc., etc.
The Official Opposition in our system, whichever party they may be at any given time, are the quality control inspectors for government policy and for the government’s administration of the full bureaucracy.
Manning, Sr.’s comment, if it were true to the traditions of Parliamentary government, and not authoritarian rubbish, would say something like: “‘You [deletion] hire a [person] to do a job and then hire another [person] to try to stop him from doing the job [badly]!” — if you insist on no quality control, expect no control over quality.
Warren,
If it’s all about turnout, Kenney will win.
Very true. I think Kenney will likely win the next election, but if he is as right wing as many suspect, will probably damage the party brand and hurt it’s ability to win in elections from 2023 onwards. Alberta is becoming less conservative and most millennials there are progressive but the boomers are still around and still overwhelmingly vote Conservative. Harper won 60 percent in Alberta in 2015 and while I doubt Kenney will do quite that well you would need a large swath of federal Conservatives to vote NDP which I don’t see happening. Still I don’t think it will be as big a blowout as some think and certainly an NDP comeback is possible. In the long run Alberta will probably be like other Western provinces alternating between the NDP and a right wing party but how successful the UCP will be is tough to say. Best case scenario is they become like the pro free enterprise coalition in BC who win most of the time and only go into opposition for short stints once every 10 to 15 years. Worst case scenario is the NDP becomes like in the other two Prairie provinces and wins most of the time. With Kenney at the helm it could be the latter as in BC usually the BC Liberals and Social Credit before them were able to build a much bigger political tent than Kenney is able to.
Good article and valid points that Jason Kenney should consider. May I say, however, even MORE pretty smart editor/headline writer: “…COULD [upper-case mine] Lose”. Jason Kenney is smarter than many give him credit for.
Alberta has no choice. Even with $65 WTI oil, an 11% HST, 10% public sector compensation roll back and 10% head count reduction, the province would still be borrowing around $3B per year. How to implement austerity is the only policy up for discussion. Social policy is irrelevant. The PCs laid waste to the province’s finances post 2006 through reckless program spending increases far in excess of inflation plus pop growth. The NDP has only amplified the worst of PC excess. It could have at least frozen headcount but that would limit growth in its base. The recent outperformance of the economy has done nothing to reduce the deficit, further confirming the NDP’s inept management. Kenney’s only job is to make unpopular choices and do so quickly and with no hesitation.