Monday, November 9, 2009

Gingrich is Not Alone in His Errors

While I rail against Newt Gingrich as the symbolically anointed leading intellectual of conservatives’ failure to present an actual alternative public policy, such a fault in conservatives is not limited to the U.S.

Paul McKeever, leader of the Freedom Party of Ontario, makes the following observation local to his politics:
The essential problem is: conservativism. [The conservative] Hudak is a good exemplar of it, but replacing Hudak with another conservative would not change the fact that conservativism is not the answer…that the conservatives offer little of substance to take the place of what [the Liberal] McGuinty [government] is offering – is founded on the fact that both the liberals and the conservatives are essentially poll-driven pragmatists who, when nobody is complaining, find new things to control; more ways to reduce your discretion.
As I did yesterday, McKeever identifies that Pragmatism is the common ground and the common error shared by conservatives and liberals. Further, McKeever identifies that the proper role of government is being evaded by conservatives in their opposition to the liberals:
Notice – as an almost perfect example – that, in the little and vague bit that Hudak does offer as a “good start”, we see the words: “We need a new direction — one that reduces the cost of the public sector and fosters growth in the private sector”. I respond:

(a) no, the “cost” of the public sector is not the essential issue. The essential issue is: of *what* ought the public sector to be comprised. The answer should *not* include: “tax funded health care” or “tax funded education”, the two elements that account for about 75% of all tax revenues in the province. The “new direction” is not to reduce the cost of those services, but to stop funding them with taxes altogether…

(b) no, the problem is not that McGuinty’s governance fails to “foster the private sector”. If anything, failing to foster the private sector is a *virtue*. The simple fact is that the government ought not to be *fostering* anything except respect for the life, liberty, and property of others. It ought *not* to be a player in the economy; a lender of last resort; a business “partner”; or any of the other things that today’s corporativists (whether liberal or conservative) want it to be.
Both conservatives (like Gingrich and Hudak) and the liberals (like Pelosi and McGuinty) identify problems, but their proposed solutions fail because they do not integrate objective principles and facts from reality in the context of the limited proper role for government.



Paul McKeever
Leader of the Freedom Party of Ontario

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