Now that you mention it.
Well, only if “conservatism” is defined as defending (and expanding) the legacy of the New Deal.
New Deal: Extend capitalism into technology and kick back free of oil or drown in it’s lack.
If the moderate left controls Hollywood and is pushing a leftist agenda (let’s say for the sake of argument), they should produce more TV shows and movies in which Canadians are portrayed positively, thus pushing the image of someone who is culturally quite similar to Americans, but accepts as normal single-payer health insurance and tighter gun controls and whatnot. Heck, I figure moderate Americans will be more comfortable with images of moderate Canadians than with images of Marxist-leaning Americans.
Canada has always been our next frontier. Perhaps we can can fucking learn something from the folks (politically speaking) with whom we share a continent.
They share a border with us as well…that mean they should ‘fucking learn’ something from us as well? Perhaps they need to learn to abandon their socialist ways and come back to the dark side, ehe?
-XT
Do you know how absolutely stupid that sounds? Tell you what… I’m going to give you a chance to re-read that little bit of wisdom and “rephrase” it, then we’ll pretend you never posted it. [Hint: think about the definition of the words “fringe” and “mainstream”]
You mean, lowering your business taxes, and cutting your capital gains and dividend taxes in half? Or did you mean eliminating the inheritance tax?
Oh, I know… You probably mean making the tax code less progressive and substituting more sales taxes and sin taxes instead.
Or perhaps you mean less federal control and more autonomy for your states?
Or maybe you mean cutting the size of government, since the U.S. government is in the process of passing Canada’s government in size as a percentage of GDP?
Perhaps it means balancing your budgets by shrinking the size of your government by 20% measured against GDP, as Canada has done over the past 15 years?
Or perhaps you mean abandoning proposals for cap and trade and other national energy taxes, as Canada has done?
Or maybe you mean taking the revenue from Social Security away from the general fund and making this programs fiscally sound, as Canada has done with its equivalent?
You’re right - you could stand to learn a little bit from your neighbor to the north. After all, you learned from us when we instituted welfare reform in the early 1990’s and dramatically reduced the number of people on welfare.
Canada isn’t the socialist paradise you think it is. We’ve done a lot better than that.
[emphasis mine]
My words and I’m fucking eating them. What I meant by all that is Canada represents to US a land of opportunity with room for rational development to the benefit of all.
eta Sam], do we disagree?
Because it is true. The Right is dominated by racists, bigots of various other stripes, fanatics, neofascists, and plutocrats. They are a parody of themselves. The left on the other hand barely exists, and has little power of any kind. The vast majority of what gets called “left” are simply moderate right wingers. You can pretend there is some equivalence between the tow, but that won’t make it true.
Another conservative comes out. Hold the center, brother.
Let’s just say that all of us extremist whack jobs on the right would love for Nancy Pelosi to be the face of the Democrat party for at least the next 10 months.
If you can find a viable group to hold up on her left as competition that would be ok with me too.
And who, in her place, might scare you?
Nowadays Canadian government spending as a percentage of GDP is lower than American government spending. And they don’t have the ruinous budget deficits that we have.
Maybe Canada used to be the country of big government and high taxes, but after 8 years of Republican leadership we’ve surged past them.
I was just kidding Lemur…
-XT
Dems in the heartland and the south aren’t nearly as far left as those in the west and northeast. Same way that Reps in CA (eg Schwarzenegger) are practically considered pinko commies by heartland Reps. There is an awful lot of regional diversity in the parties. I’m a centrist Dem in the south, who is routinely vilified in the forums, and accused of being a Rep, because I don’t agree with some of the party’s hot button (and in the great scheme of things, inconsequential) issues. I get much more heat in these forums from my fellow party members than a I do from the opposition. Many of the loudest voices, on both sides, see everything in black and white, when in reality both parties are many shades of grey.
I don’t think we need a “more” radical left as a matter of grand strategy, I think we will have it whether we like it or not, and the vast majority of the right and the left occupies a broad middle ground, ignoring the kooks on each end. Just human nature. The pendulum swings to the extreme edges of each side, but it spends most of it’s time in the middle.
I’m sure.
Looking for someone to sit on my face for ten months. Light on your feet, a plus.
Wait, UHC is the “extreme left” now?
Oh, well, I’ll be your X-Treem Leftee then.
Room for another?
I disagree, sort of. Huge swathes have disenfranchised themselves via their own apathy. Our culture of runaway conspicuous consumption has produced an enormous class of people who, as long as they can make it to the mall and buy more shit, simply don’t give a fuck who’s running the show.