Tribalist/Conservative Watch #2
April 7, 2008 by Paul McKeever
Today, the Barrie Examiner reported that Ontario’s Progressive Conservative Party leader, John Tory, was in Barrie on Saturday. He made the following comment, among others, which I submit for your interpretation:
The McGuinty government isn’t making it very attractive to do business in Barrie…
This implies that, according to conservative ideology, government should pass laws or spend money in an attempt to encourage persons to open/keep businesses in a given community. In other words: according to conservative ideology, the government should centrally plan the economy. This, incidentally, is one of the reasons why you will hear John Tory use the weasel term “free enterprise” (which simply refers to private businesses operating within a centrally planned economy) but not the term “free market” (which refers to a market that is not centrally planned, but shaped by the production and consumption choices of individuals).
The advocate of a free market complains not that the government has not made things “more attractive” to business, but that the government has not “eliminated legal disincentives” to business.
ADDENDUM:
One might ask: “Well, surely the same can be said about the Liberals, so why aren’t you picking on them?”
My answer is: Ontario liberals are openly socialist/corporativist/collectivist. They’re not trying to fool anyone about their ideology. In contrast, the conservatives – who likewise are socialists/corporativists/collectivists – try to win the support of capitalists and individualists by using weasel words and by condemning the liberals for being opposed to tax or spending cuts. Yet, all the while, its a matter of documented fact that the conservatives have raised, not lowered taxes, and have increased government involvement in non-governmental things (like health care), not decreased it. As a result of this dishonesty and political cross-dressing, the conservatives have achieved three main things:
1. people have been deceived into believing that they are at the “right” end of the political spectrum, even though that is false;
2. the size and existence of the conservatives’ parties have ensured that voters have two choices: socialism/corporatism/collectivism dressed up in red, or socialism/corporatism/collectivism dressed up in blue.
and
3. people have come to associate the word “conservative” with: dishonest, bait-and-switch, say-one-thing-and-do-the-oppositism; with “secret agendas”.
If Ontario voters are going to have the ability to vote for a sizable party that is not socialist/corporativist/collectivist, the the socialist/corporatist/collectivist party that pretends to be a capitalist/individualist party must be exposed as what it really is: pro-socialism, pro-corporatism, pro-collectivism, and willing to falsely claim to be capitalist/individualist in order to ensure that no actual party of capitalism/individualism is believed to be necessary.
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