Election 2011

[Dissident]

No government = anarchy, no?  Isn't that 'similar' to Libertarianism (to the extreme, mind you)

I guess to the extreme. I always saw Libertarianism as "with as little government as possible", not "No government whatsoever".

 

[Dennis Ruhl]

When you start labeling you end up with a lot of nonsense.  A classical liberal is todays conservative.  Todays liberals believe in more government, not less.  People try to peg the Nazi's as right wing conservatives - wrong.  They were left wing liberals(todays liberal). 

 

 

[OldSolduer]

I am going to start my own party - The Cat in the Hat Party.

Sam I Am is going to run for PM.
Yertle the Turtle will be Minister of the Environment.

We can go places in the Thingamajigger.

 

[vonGarvin]

People try to peg the Nazi's as right wing conservatives - wrong.  They were left wing liberals(todays liberal). 

Not quite

As you can see, in terms of the social scale, they are shown as Authoritarian.  Having said that, they were pretty well centrist in the economics scale. 

For today's leaders, they have this:

As you can see, Mr. Harper is about the same as Frau Merkel of Germany when it comes to economics, but between Mr. Rudd and and Mr. Brown when it comes to the social scale. 

 

[vonGarvin]

Also see this rather dated scale from the US primaries of 2008.  Note from this and the previous post that Mr. Harper is close to where Mr. Obama is.  Much closer, in fact, than where he is vis-a-vis Mr. Bush

 

[Acer Syrup]

Am I the only that didn't notice this till now, but have you seen the ND Party, that is Jack Layton, lately? He looks like he just walked out of Liberal internment camp.  I didn't know that he fighting prostate cancer and just had hip surgury. Intense. Has this been swept quickly under carpet or am I really out of touch since I got rid of cable TV a couple year ago?

 

[vonGarvin]

Am I the only that didn't notice this till now, but have you seen the ND Party, that is Jack Layton, lately? He looks like he just walked out of Liberal internment camp.  I didn't know that he fighting prostate cancer and just had hip surgury. Intense. Has this been swept quickly under carpet or am I really out of touch since I got rid of cable TV a couple year ago?

You may have missed it.  Mr. Layton made a statement when the news broke that he would retain his full duties of leader of the party during his treatment.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Am I the only that didn't notice this till now, but have you seen the ND Party, that is Jack Layton, lately? He looks like he just walked out of Liberal internment camp.  I didn't know that he fighting prostate cancer and just had hip surgury. Intense. Has this been swept quickly under carpet or am I really out of touch since I got rid of cable TV a couple year ago?

Sorry. Didn't mean to wake you up! ;D

 

[Dennis Ruhl]

Why is Harper wearing the emergency room Tim Horton's in the TV ad?  In fact it is a BC Liberal response to a temporary space emergency.

 

[PuckChaser]

Surprise surprise, the creator of the Vote Compass was a policy advisor for the Liberals:

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/CanadaVotes/News/2011/03/31/17829881.html

 

[Journeyman]

But I do like the graphic for the story  :nod:

 

[HavokFour]

Surprise surprise, the creator of the Vote Compass was a policy advisor for the Liberals:

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/CanadaVotes/News/2011/03/31/17829881.html

Ohhhhhh boy, this will go down well.

 

[Brad Sallows]

A two-axis plot that has variations of "libertarian" on both axes does not really have orthogonal axes and is not much help to voters trying to place themselves.  Nor is a two-axis plot helpful to replace the left-right spectrum if it labels one of its axes left-right.  At least one of the axes should be some variation on total collectivism-pure individualism.  Anarchism is the extreme of individualism.  Communism (in its purest incarnation) is the extreme of collectivism.  For the other axis, pick something which is not just a rewording of collective vs individual.

 

[Kirkhill]

I ended up Northeast of Dead Centre and Southwest of Obama.....still can't stand the man.  There again I would never vote for me either.

There was a question in there about discipline.  I wonder if that word holds the key to the  universe. 

Four Types of People:

Authoritarian - those that like to discipline others (sadists)
Socialists - those that are willing to be disciplined or like to be disciplined by others (masochists)
Libertarians - those that will only accept self-discipline and expect others to be self-disciplined
Anarchists - those that reject discipline.

Any takers?

 

[Journeyman]

For the other axis, pick something which is not just a rewording of collective vs individual.

Perhaps the four axes should be "on top," "on bottom," "in between others," and "standing on side, holding camera" -- corresponding to Conservative, Liberal, NDP, and BlocFLQ/Green? 

 

[Edward Campbell]

And yet another defection, according to this article reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ndp-candidate-in-mississauga-bows-out-to-support-tories/article1966445/

NDP candidate in Mississauga bows out to support Tories

ADRIAN MORROW
Globe and Mail Update

Published Thursday, Mar. 31, 2011

A former New Democratic Party candidate in Mississauga has vaulted across the political spectrum and decided to back the Conservative Party.

Mustafa Rizvi, who was set to carry the NDP banner in Mississauga-Erindale for the second time, decided to resign the nomination weeks ago, a party official said in a statement. His defection, however, did not come to light until Thursday, when he declared his support for the Tories.

Mr. Rizvi, a 31-year-old insurance adjuster, said he decided to defect because he wasn't getting enough support from his party, he thought there were no problems with the Tories' budget and he feared the NDP and Liberals would form a coalition. He said a coalition would be a bad idea, citing the example of Great Britain, where a joint government of Tories and Liberal Democrats has seen some friction.

"I was feeling there was a lack of leadership with this whole coalition factor they were trying to come through with," he told The Globe and Mail.

The Tories have repeatedly charged that the opposition parties would form a coalition if no one wins a majority government, but Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff has said he will not.

Mr. Rizvi acknowledged that jumping from the left-wing NDP to its ideological opposite was a "drastic shift of allegiance," but repeated another Tory campaign slogan in saying he couldn't back the Liberals because he thought Mr. Ignatieff might return to a teaching post at Harvard University if he lost the election.

The president of the NDP's local riding association, Abbas Khawaja, said Mr. Rizvi told him of his decision to step down a day or two after the election was called, citing the need to focus on his job and his family. He said Mr. Rizvi was nominated months ago.

He is the second NDP candidate to jump ship in this election campaign, following Ryan Dolby, who was running in Elgin-Middlesex-London. Earlier this week, he declared his support for the Liberals.

Mr. Rizvi ran for the NDP in the riding during the 2008 election, finishing a distant third with 8.6 per cent of the vote.

"He's quite an ambitious young guy," Mr. Khawaja said. "He just wanted a stepping-stone."

The party will hold a nomination Saturday at a local library to pick a new candidate. Michelle Bilek, an environmental activist and high school teacher, has been approved by the party to contest the nomination; one other candidate has expressed interest in running, but has not gained the party's approval.

The following day, Mr. Rizvi will be meeting with Tory officials.

I think that’s three already: one Liberal (who dropped out to support Conservative Julian Fantino) and two Dippers (one to the Liberals and this one to the Tories).

 

[Infanteer]

The defections seem to indicate that people may be thinking that want to be on the right side of a narrow majority?

That being said, I can't help but think Stephen Harper's first week was pretty lame.  First, he harps about a coalition while Duceppe calls him on it.  Now he pipes out about a tete-a-tete debate (whichs seemed up Ignatief's alley) and when Iggy calls his bluff, he backs down to his shoddy coalition schtick.

He's gotta do better than that....

 

[Journeyman]

Well, I got home to a telemarketer spam-style voicemail from the local Liberal candidate.  :

 

[vonGarvin]

I agree with Infanteer that the first week has been a bit...blasé.  But those defections....is it April Fools' day or something?

 

[GAP]

In some cases, I think the rank and file nominees just can't force themselves to drink the "going down with the ship"  KoolAid.