Law and order Conservatives? Don’t make us laugh.

After the fall we’ve had, the notion that Conservatives possess even passing acquaintance with “law and order” is a pathetic joke.

Conservatives, large and small “C,” always like to tell us that theirs is the ideology of law and order. You want a candidate to get tough on crime? Vote for us, they say. (Same with taxes. They claim they cut taxes. That, too, is a charade, but a column for another day.)

Conservatives have been peddling their “law and order” flim-flam for a long time.

Richard Nixon, aided and abetted by Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater, used the “law and order” nostrum to propel himself into the Oval Office.

Once there, he and his Watergate cabal broke every law in the book, and Nixon, facing impeachment, resigned. Oops.

Still, conservatives try. “Law and order” and its companion farce, “tough on crime,” are terrific on the campaign trail when you’ve got little else to say. Progressives get tongue-tied on crime, believing (correctly) that we should be building more schools, not more jails. Conservatives love to advocate their unswerving devotion to the law, however, because voters believe (incorrectly) that violent crime is getting more prevalent. (Added bonus: It’s a terrific way of demonizing non-whites, without coming right out and saying it.)

Up here in the Great White North, the two leading proponents of “law and order” are well-known.

One has been Stephen Harper, prime minister of all of Canada. The other has been Rob Ford, the mayor of the largest city in Canada. On crime, both are literally has-beens.

Harper’s story is notorious nationally. His three marquee Conservative Senators of the Apocalypse — Duffy, Wallin and Brazeau — are all under police investigation. They are alleged to have committed fraud and breaches of trust — in effect, they are being probed by the Mounties for having allegedly swindled the very taxpayers their party professes to hold in such high regard.

Their cases are important, because they were appointed to the Senate by Harper and because Harper made them stars on the Conservative fundraising circuit. Their cases are also important because the grubby Senate scandal revelations have thrown the Harper government into months and months of turmoil.

That’s nationally.

Internationally, the Conservative “law and order” mantra has been exposed as a lie by none other than Toronto Mayor Rob Ford.

We say “internationally” because Rob Ford is the most (in)famous Canadian of all time. Everywhere you go on the planet now, people know all about Toronto’s crack-smoking Conservative mayor. Forget about Anne of Green Gables and hockey, folks — our national symbol is now a porcine right-winger, allegedly huddled in a backroom at a bar, allegedly snorting something with an alleged hooker.

Every week brings delightful new developments on the Rob Ford front. Last week, my amazing colleague Michele Mandel broke the news that — according to interviews his own staff gave to police — Ford allegedly:

– Drove Toronto streets, filled as they are with taxpayers, after consuming a mickey of vodka.

– Assaulted members of his own staff while drunk in his taxpayer-funded office.

– Took drugs in said taxpayer-funded office, while taxpayer-funded staff watched.

– Snorted the aforementioned substance with the aforementioned hooker, while taxpayer-paid staff looked on, and darkly warned bar staff not tell anyone what they’d seen.

And so on. And that’s just this week, Canada!

Progressives like to say they are better at stuff like education, health care and helping those who need help. They are.

Conservatives have long liked to say that they are “tough on crime,” and that they are way better on the “law and order” stuff.

Thanks to Stephen Harper’s gang — thanks, in particular, to a drinking-and-driving Rob Ford — they can no longer do that.

Conservatives tough on crime?

Don’t make us laugh.

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Here’s why. Quoting It in full. Link here.

Online attacks against Rolf Dinsdale cross the line
NOVEMBER 16, 2013

BY DEVERYN ROSS

A few months ago, I wrote about the use of social media by some Brandonites to bully, harrass and intimidate others. I pointed out that the cyber bullying was not limited to teenagers, but that adults were active as well.

With the Brandon-Souris by-election campaign now in full gear, social media is being used by each of the candidates to spread the word about their campaign activities. Sadly, it is also being used by others (many of whom hide behind fake identities) to throw insults at the candidates and their political parties.

The vast bulk of the online attacks have been made against Liberal candidate Rolf Dinsdale and Liberal leader Justin Trudeau, in most cases by persons who either appear or are known to be committed Conservative supporters.

Here is a sample of some of the online screed that has been hurled at Dinsdale by one anonymous local Twitter user over just the past week:

“Your buddy/shiller Warren Kinsella has a pretty gross track record thus far in politics.”

“Your handler/bandmember Warren kinsella seems to be an authority on Nazi-ism. Wolves on the hunt”

“Punk Skunk Skinhead Neo-Nazi begs to be MP for #bdnmb-Souris in Canada. Is this what our veterans fought for?”

“Seeing R. Ford’s speech today, all I could see was @Rolfdinsdale apologizing to his kid about revelations from classmates re his past.”

“#CPC just spent 7 years to work fixing #LPC messes & growing Canada. Lefty Libs think they can do better?!”

“@Rolfdinsdale Devil’s in the detail, or should I say Sh*t From Hell. The deeper I dig…the more Sh*t I find! You are a naughty boy!”

“@Rolfdinsdale ‘s bud W. Kinsella is known as Prince of Darkness, Human Shrapnel Machine or Sh*t From Hell as his coach or poli handle.”

“@Rolfdinsdale Yer bud Warren Kinsella will turn on U like a cornered rat by history. He burnt more bridges than your fellow Nazi’s.”

“@Rolfdinsdale With your checkered past with friend/bandmate Warren Kinsella, aren’t you embarrassed to show your face in public?”

“@Rolfdinsdale See your fellow band member Warren Kinsella (Google) has a similar sordid history just as you. Mongrels are iffy pets.”

As I write this, local Conservative supporter D’Arcy Barker has just posted this on Twitter:

“If #cndpoli Toronto didn’t elect a crackhead for Mayor, did the Federal Liberals not elect a pot head for Leader?”

If you wonder why it is so hard to attract quality candidates to run for election at any level, you have your answer. Politics is a nasty business and is not for the thin-skinned, but how many among us have skin thick enough to endure the vicious insults that are being thrown at Dinsdale several times each day?

The attacks on Dinsdale and his friend Warren Kinsella are not merely disgusting; they are factually wrong. Kinsella has spent years exposing and fighting white supremacists, neo-Nazis and skinheads in Canada and has written books on the issue. To brand Dinsdale and Kinsella as supporters of that repulsive form of thinking is nothing short of slander.

It is not merely slander, however. It is also an attempt to use false, inflammatory information to convince voters to vote for a candidate other than Dinsdale, and that makes it a threat to our democracy.

The attacks against Dinsdale may be a sign that the Conservatives are worried that their candidate, Larry Maguire, could lose this election, but this is the wrong way to win an election.

There is no evidence that Maguire condones these attacks. As an active Twitter user, however, he must be aware of them. The fact he has not denounced them is troubling.

Care to comment? deverynrossletters@gmail.com

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My Mom lives alone in Kingston.  She is an artist, and she is very proper.  I’ve never seen her in sweatpants, or go out in public looking even remotely informal. She goes to church on Sundays, she does charity work, and she dislikes boorish people. With the exception of Kinsella family full-contact Scrabble games – and after a glass of wine – my Mom doesn’t tolerate bad language, ever.

I call her every single day, sometimes twice a day.  Yesterday afternoon, after the crackhead mayor of Canada’s largest city used some of the most disgusting language anyone has ever heard an elected official use, I called my Mom.  Without pause, she commenced condemning the piece of human garbage who occupies the mayor’s chair.  She said, inter alia, that he has embarrassed Canada around the world, that he should have been arrested by the police long ago, and that she fears for his children.

And then she said: “He’s just, just, a [expletive deleted] asshole.”

I was in shock.  I could not believe my mother had said that.  She was mad.

I told her I was astounded she had said such a thing.

“Well,” she said, “I mean it.  Now, dear, you go and get him out of there, do you hear me? Do it what it takes.”

Told her I was on it. I’m a son who does what his mother tells him to do.

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“I am offering to act for all of the proposed defendants in Mayor Ford’s anticipated lawsuit on a pro bono basis. It is important that a signal is sent that the citizens of Toronto will not be intimidated by the Mayor of Toronto from cooperating with the police in an investigation into potential wrongdoing by the leader of this great city.”

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The Ford Brothers show on Sun News!

Is it because I would ask them about:

• Rob’s crack and Oxy use?
• Doug’s drug dealing?
• Drinking and driving?
• Assaults?
• How even the CFL and Santa Claus hate them?

What questions do you want me to ask them, dear readers?

And, yes, I intend to goad them into assaulting Yours Truly. I see it as my civic duty.

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…you first need to have a reputation.

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I can’t give the column away just yet, but here’s the kicker.  It gives you the gist:

“Conservatives tough on crime? Don’t make us laugh.

This Fall, it is Conservatives who DO crime.”

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Jesus. This scumbag makes me want to take a shower, he’s so dirty.

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I loved this sign – it’s so polite and technical, and therefore uniquely Canadian. The rally was like that, too: lots of average folks – including admitted former Ford Nation residents – simply saying they want this SOB out. Hundreds of people, from all walks of life.  Right, Left, you name it.  Despite the freezing wind, it felt great to be there.

Meanwhile, inside council chambers, a dramatic scene was unfolding: Denzil Minan-Wong asked Rob Ford, to his face, if he has purchased illegal drugs in the past two years.

Huge pause.

Then Rob Ford, the conservative law-and-order guy, says “yes.”

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