I wonder what the Harper team will do this time to help their conservative allies South of the border? They tried to railroad Obama in 2008, and I'm sure they've still got a few tricks up their sleeve.
Personally, I think Gingrich would be a gift to the Democrats, but who knows?
The hottest new reality show, Who gets Kicked Out of the Trailor Park?, also known as the Republican debates, is taking the U.S. by storm.
Across the country sounds of "Don't tell me what stupid thing Rick Perry said this week, I'm taping it!" and "Michelle Bachmann did go to high school, right?" or "You mean, Mitt Romney changed his mind again?!" fill the air.
Herman Cain, once in the lead, has found himself in a bit of trouble though, and Perry is catching up in the polls. It started with a bizarre ad campaign, depicting his chief-of-staff Mark Block standing, talking, and smoking a cigarette. Some called it a brilliant "in your face" response to the "liberal elite". Others, "an irresponsible disregard for the health of the people Cain aims to represent." I just call it creepy. You be the judge.
The ad is having an impact, both negative and positive, but another story may change the opinion of some of his supporters.
Seems our man Cain was charged with sexual harassment. Conservative parrots are chirping the usual "media bias" and "witch hunt", but if he was hoping to capture any of Bachmann's religious support, he may be out of luck.
I can't wait for the next episode. I hear that all of the wives that Newt Gingrich cheated on, will be acting as mediators. At least those still living.
The "real" reality is, that one of these clowns could be the next president of the United States. I may have to take up smoking.
I originally thought that Stephen Harper had more in common with Rick Perry. Both are strong advocates of the death penalty, guns and the flat tax.
However, Rachel Maddox revealed something on her program this week, that connects him closer to Herman Cain. Both Cain and Harper are beholden to the Koch Brothers.
On her show Monday night, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow noted that Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain is an avid numerologist who is obsessed with the number 45. She also pointed out numerous links between Cain and the conservative billionaire Koch brothers. For instance, before running for president, he worked for the Koch-funded conservative group Americans for Prosperity.
I mentioned Americans for Prosperity before, not only because they are behind the Tea Party, but because they worked with the Harper government on an ad for U.S. TV, that challenged President Obama's healthcare plan. You can read about it here.
Sun TV's Ezra Levant spent a summer as a fellow at the Koch Foundation, arranged by Charles Koch himself, and has since written a book Ethical Oil, which should be subtitled The Tarsands Smokescreen.
Stephen Harper is using our tax dollars to build the Koch Brothers a pipeline, which will send all the good jobs in the industry South.
Americans don't want the pipeline, but Obama is under a lot of pressure to accept it, on the basis of job creation. Having Cain in office would be like having the Koch Brothers in office, and would provide a new BFF for Stephen Harper still moping after losing his Georgie.
I came across a piece from 1967, written three years after extremists began taking over the Republican Party, with the nomination of Barry Goldwater to run for president. He took a trouncing but the movement was given a huge boost.
They had established the parameters of the New American Right. Anti-gay, anti-feminist, anti-liberal, anti-welfare state, anti-communist, pro-military, pro-guns, pro-"God".
The piece was in the forward of a book by John H. Redekop: The American Far Right (1968), and was written by Mark O. Hatfield, a long serving Republican senator. He died recently, one of the last of the moderate in his party.
Hatfield was a delegate at the 1964 Republican National Convention, and in his keynote speech, denounced the extremism he saw infiltrating the GOP. His speech was met with an anticipated strong reaction, but he was more surprised by the amount of hate mail he received from people who called themselves Christians.
His story was not surprising. In Canada, Brian Mulroney took a page from Ronald Reagan's hymnal, and courted Canada's Religious Right to help him get elected. He then established a "God Squad" to deal with their pressing issues. One member, Jake Epp, helped to draft a bill as Minister of Health, that would have given two year prison terms to any doctor performing an abortion, unless the mother's health was at risk.
His squadron became so inflamed at the concession, that Mulroney was forced to move Epp to another ministry.
Frank Schaeffer, son of Francis Schaeffer, whose book A Christian Manifesto is said to be the blueprint for the Religious Right/Moral Majority, left the movement himself and wrote a book Crazy for God, in which he exposed the racism and hypocrisy of these so-called "values voters".
He faced a similar firing squad, with letters and emails laced with so much profanity, that it frightened him.
More than four decades ago, Hatfield warned:
This type of political extremism feeds on fear and frustration ... The political extremists have reacted to this frustration with determination to purify the American dream, to remold our institutions and way of life according to their prescription for a perfect society.
The Far Right has been successfully united by a well-designed, well-financed, and persistent campaign of fear. ... And the continual fanning of this fear has created such a distortion in the perceptions of some adherents of the Far Right that they can no longer distinguish between fantasy and reality, or between cause and effect.
Well designed and well financed are definitely key, especially the well-financed part. And even then, the suggestion was that most of the money came from "oil tycoons". Hatfield continues:
If the Far Righters were to present a picture of the world, their medium would be block-printing. They could thus represent the world in sharp blacks and whites ... The validity of their judgments rests on the logic of "either/or" and they have little tolerance or even comprehension of a middle ground between these two extremes. They would deny that gray is often the color of the complex truth. "The logical fallacy of the excluded middle..." Far Right crusaders would deny that a man is Christian if he does not share their political beliefs. Their "either/or" philosophy extends into the realm of religion, and they counsel that you can accept either the welfare state or Christ — but not both.
David Kuo, a former member of George Bush's "Faith-based Group", spoke of the same kind of 'take no prisoners', 'no middle ground', philosophy. He said that the group he eventually moved away from, believed that there should be no such thing as moderate Republicans or right-leaning Democrats.
Right vs left. Conservatives vs liberals. You are with them or against them. In his book Harperland, Lawrence Martin spoke of a visiting foreign leader who was quite taken aback by Stephen Harper's view of Liberals. While the foreign leader often locked horns with his political opponents, he stated that Harper actually "hated" his. He found that kind of open hatred unnerving.
Hatfield, however, spoke of something else, when it comes to movement conservatism and their religiosity. They are not really Christian at all. Instead of believing that God created man in his own image, they have created God in their image. That of a "White, Protestant, anti-Communist American". Now it's a White, Protestant or Orthodox Catholic or Jew, anti-Muslim American or Canadian.
This unholy marriage of religion and politics has produced a perverted Christianity based not on love but hate, not on charity but persecution. The Far Righters are definitely not practicing religious fundamentalism, as they claim, but are actually practicing a form of paganism. They worship at the idol of "country" and have substituted the gospel of anti-Communism for the gospel of Christ. In almost all aspects, political extremism is a negative force on our society; it is a force that should be understood and its power properly respected.
I think he really hit the nail on the head. The religion that this group practices, is one of false gods. Guns, flags, right-wing politicians, money, Wall Street, bankers ....
Above is Rick Perry, a Republican presidential hopeful, raising his arm and arms for the Lord. He epitomizes the new political evangelist, invoking cheers when he brags about how many people he had put to death when Governor of Texas, even beating out George Bush's record.
We have been giving them too much credit when we call them the Christian Right. They are the Pagan Wrong. Heathens who kiss their guns goodnight (honest. Visit some of the websites) and carry signs that read "God hates fags".
We're not persecuting Christians when we expose the Religious Right, but instead are saving their integrity.
What I find amazing is that despite all the money that has been poured into movement conservatism, we are still a pretty progressive people. Most Canadians and even most Americans, have accepted homosexuality, equal marriage and a woman's reproductive rights. They oppose war, and do not believe that Islam is our biggest threat, despite what Stephen Harper and George Bush say.
And they don't believe that a woman's place is in the home, unless that's where she would like to be, or that a family is only defined by mother, father and children.
If there is a God, maybe she's on our side after all.
The movement has had a lot of political success, but only because many people vote Conservative or Republican, because of tradition; and the chronically wealthy support them because they like not having to pay their fair share of taxes.
Canada's Reformers only gained power when they bought out the rights to the PC Party. Before that, Reform-Alliance was dying a slow death. Their message was just not palpable to the majority of Canadians.
We need to see what Hatfield saw, that the movement is a threat to our peace and prosperity.
Watching the Republican presidential hopefuls duke it out to determine who is the most absurd, I'm reminded of how far this party has fallen since the days of Eisenhower. I doubt they'd get anyone "normal" to run now.
In the latest round of insanity, Rick Perry's team is attacking Mitt Romney because he is a Mormon, which apparently is the next thing to being in a "cult".
The Mormon faith of Mitt Romney, a leading contender to be the Republican presidential candidate, has been thrust to the forefront of the electoral contest. Robert Jeffress, an evangelical pastor and supporter of a Republican rival, Rick Perry, said the religion was an anti-Christian "cult."
... Jeffress, who leads a 10,000-member Baptist mega church in Dallas, said evangelical Republicans had only one option in the party's primary elections because Mormonism was "a cult." He added: "Every true, born-again follower of Christ ought to embrace a Christian over a non-Christian." Asked if he believed Romney, 64, was a Christian, Jeffress said: "No."
This nonsense reminds me of Canada in 2000, when Preston Manning and Stockwell Day were competing for the leadership of the Alliance Party.
When Jason Kenney and Day brought in the more radical fundamentalists to campaign for them, Manning's camp suggested that there was a "Jim Jones Kool-Aid quality to what was going on." (1) AKA: a cult, though in this case they weren't far off the mark.
Jason Kenney attended St. Ignatius Jesuit school in San Francisco, when it was said that one of the instructors, Fr. Cornelius M. Buckley's "liturgies based on Catholic orthodoxy, inspired a "cult like" following. One of Kenney's teachers confirmed in an interview, that our Jas wanted to take religion back to the 50s. "Not the 1950s, but the 1550s".
I called the university myself and spoke with a Jesuit priest, an extremely nice man. He claimed to remember the case well and said that the pro-choice advocates used law students from the school to represent them. It was a very polarizing time.
Stockwell Day also has a history of religious extremism. The minister who took over for Day when he was running the Bentley Bible schools told journalist Gordon Laird:
Throughout this period, Stockwell Day was assistant pastor and school administrator. "They changed their by-laws so that the people would have no say - leaders to be appointed by other leaders, as determined by scripture," explains Rathjen. "It was a haughty, arrogant, pride-filled success story that led to disaster." Fuelled by American-style revivalism, the church emphasized radical gospel practices - such as speaking-in-tongues - that whipped worshippers into a frenzy. "They have emotional experiences and then try to build a doctrine around it," explains Rathjen. The intensity of the church and constant stream of visiting American pastors gave Bentley an international profile within fundamentalist circles. But the church eventually succumbed to its own extremes.
"I would say that it was as close to a cult as you can get," says pastor Rathjen. "They were still holding on to the Christian teaching - but with manipulation and control. (2)
In 2002, when Stephen Harper and Day were competing for the leadership, similar arguments ensued. From Report Magazine:
One thing is for certain. This is going to be a dirty campaign--perhaps even nastier than in 2000, when the Tom Long campaign was accused of being a homosexual coven and Mr. Day was compared to mass murderer Jim Jones. And despite Mr. Harper's promise to avoid personal attacks--a promise made also by Mr. Day--it was his campaign that drew first blood.(3)
After Maurice Vellacott held a rally for Day at his Bible college, Harper accused them of exploiting religion:
Last week, organizers for Mr. Harper went public with concerns that Mr. Day is appealing to a narrow base of religious groups -- including orthodox Jews, Pentecostals and anti-abortion Catholics -- in a bid to regain the leadership post he was forced to relinquish late last year.(4)
Yet, not long after winning the leadership, Harper told a group of supporters that he would also be tapping into Day's fundamentalists to create "his base".
... he outlined plans for a broad new party coalition that would ensure a lasting hold on power. The only route, he argued, was to focus not on the tired wish list of economic conservatives ... but on what he called “theo-cons”—those social conservatives who care passionately about hot-button issues that turn on family, crime, and defence ... Arguing that the party had to come up with tough, principled stands on everything from parents’ right to spank their children to putting “hard power” behind the country’s foreign-policy commitments ..." (5)
Later Stephen Harper would brag that he had more pro-life supporters than Day. Good for him.
Anyone who doubts that Canada now has its first Republican government, only needs to watch the current Republican debates.
This is why you can't mix religion and politics. C.S. Lewis's hallway with the little rooms representing the different faiths, got boarded up and the house has been set on fire.
I think this "new conservatism" will collapse under the weight of their own nonsense.
Sources:
1. Requiem for a Lightweight: Stockwell Day and Image Politics, By Trevor Harrison, Black Rose Books, 2002, ISBN: 1-55164-206-9, p. 62
2. Bentley, Alberta: Hellfire, Neo-Nazis and Stockwell Day: A two-part look inside the little town that nurtured a would-be prime minister - and so"me of the most notorious hate-mongers in Canada, By Gordon Laird, NOW Magazine, 2000
3. Strange Alliances, By Kevin Michael Grace, Report Newsmagazine, February 04, 2002
4. Day slips into Bible college for Rally, By S. Alberts, National Post, February 13, 2002
5. Stephen Harper and the Theo-cons: The rising clout of Canada’s religious right, By Marci McDonald, Walrus Magazine, October 2006
I guess having a ranch named "Niggerhead" didn't win him any points. The Tea Partiers would have loved it, but the Republican leader has to be able to win over more than the crazies to get elected.
It really says a lot for the state of the party though, when Mitt Romney is now considered to be a moderate.
I just finished another section of my Canadian Manifesto. It's flowing better now and should progress faster. With two elections down, I'll have a bit more time to work on it.
"I think every good Christian ought to kick [Jerry] Falwell right in the ass." Barry Goldwater
Many American Neoconservatives claim to have become politically active, after the trouncing of Barry Goldwater in the 1964 election. Deemed to be too far right, he lost to Lyndon Johnson, by one of the largest landslides in history.
Ironically, by today's standards, Goldwater would have been a moderate. He supported Gay Rights, and hated the Moral Majority. His call out for a butt kicking, was in response to Jerry Falwell suggesting that Sandra Day O'Connor was not committed enough to ending abortion.
He also once said that "I wouldn't trust Nixon from here to that phone. " and denounced Reagan's "parade of millionaires". As to the lavish balls that the Reagans held in the White House, he thought them too ostentatious when so many Americans were suffering.
Goldwater was a Libertarian who wanted to dismantle the Welfare State, but he was not completely heartless. Mind you, he also claimed that in war there no such thing as a civilian, so his humanity was not without its limits.
Recently, we have learned that 15.1 percent of Americans now live in poverty; the highest number in the 52 years that the Census Bureau has been tracking it.
Yet the Republicans are up in arms because President Obama wants to eliminate $467 billion in tax breaks for wealthier Americans and corporations, and they won't hear of it.
Wall Street is again nervous, but as we know, when Wall Street gambles and loses, taxpayers are expected to bail them out. But when the American people, those same taxpayers, are suffering, that's just too bad. They're on their own.
The corporate funded Tea Party waves their flag, and accusations of being "un-American", are never directed at those hording all the wealth, only at those waiting for the promised "trickle down".
Though a devout Mormon, Romney is a moderate. He's for civil rights, Gay Rights, and even supports abortion for victims of rape and incest.
He should be pleasing to both the caring Evangelicals and right leaning Democrats. And he would probably make a pretty good president, though I would prefer that Americans turn down the volume on their right-wing noise machine, and give Obama more of a chance.
But Americans are suffering, and they will always blame that suffering on those in power, forgetting the horrible mess that the man inherited from George Bush.
However, it would appear that the Republicans believe that Rick Perry has a better chance at winning the White House, based partly on the fact that he can fill auditoriums in public prayer. He's the man to bring God back to government, come hell or high water.
Another contender, Michelle Bachmann, claims that the recent hurricanes are God's wrath for the First Amendment, that separated Church and State. Perry takes that even further, holding rallies against the Amendment and his state had Thomas Jefferson (the author of it) removed from their school books.
I'm reading a book Just leave God Out of it, by Tim Riter and David Timms of the private Christian University, Hope International in Fullerton, California.
They open by telling the story of a men's religious retreat in Australia. After a morning of prayer, they took a break to play a little rugby. During the game, one of the men suffered an injury, resulting in his ankle being bent an odd angle.
Everyone scrambled, looking for ice and determining the quickest route to the hospital. But then one of the camp workers came over and asked the group, "Has anyone prayed for him yet?"
"Ouch! Great and intense teachings on prayer were ignored." So the men prayed first and then took the suffering individual to the hospital. According to the authors, this was a wake up call as to how much "cultural creep" was affecting society. Secularism was clashing with "godly values".
"This challenge is serious. The value of our culture subtly squeezes us into their mold, at the expense of biblical values."
I would have put more value on easing the man's pain and making sure that he got immediate medical attention, but biblical values say that he must suffer while first they pray. No mention of God-given medical know how.
I'm reminded of a joke I heard several years ago.
Warnings of a flood had prompted an evacuation, but one man was without transportation to leave, so his neighbours offered him a ride. He refused saying that he was going to put his faith in the Lord, who he felt certain would save him. So instead he prayed.
The inevitable flood took place, and rescuers in a boat found the man in his water logged home praying. They offered him a ride, but again he refused, saying that he was going to put his faith in the Lord, who he felt certain would save him.
Finally, as the waters engulfed his home, and the man was standing on his roof, a helicopter hovered overhead offering a life line. But again he refused saying that he was going to put his faith in the Lord, who he felt certain would save him.
The man drowned and when he got to Heaven he asked God why he had forsaken him. The reply: "But I sent you a car, a boat and a helicopter. What more did you want from me?"
Rick Perry would not only be that man on his roof, but the tyrant who would lock the entire community in their homes, so that they could go down with him.
I wonder what Barry Goldwater would want to kick on this guy. It's obvious that he's already taken a swift kick to the head.
I remember my mom being afraid of Barry Goldwater. She was an English war bride who had lived through the bombings, and felt that he would lead us into another world war.
I can't believe I'm now looking back to the glory days of the Republicans, when Barry Goldwater was the voice of conservatism, and perhaps their last voice of reason.
A Harper majority and Rick Perry in the White House? Heaven help us.
Rick Perry, the frontrunner in the Republican presidential candidate race, created a bit of a stir during a recent debate, by boasting that as governor of Texas, he had sent 234 inmates to their death.
But while the mediator seemed to be a little shocked by this claim, the Republican audience cheered. He had set a new record in the United States, the previous one held by George W. Bush, who had enacted what Perry called "ultimate justice", on a mere 152.
While clearly this gave Bush and Perry a feeling of power, it was actually something more. European monarchs believed that their powers came directly from God, meaning that they governed by "divine right".
The new Religious Right/Neoconservative/Republicans, feel the same way. God has entrusted them to rule over the people, and they would do that using "God's Law", as appearing in the Old Testament.
However, this is more than just "an eye for an eye", but punishment for creating "mortal sins" that are a "grave violation of God's law" that "turns man away from God", causing his "exclusion from Christ's Kingdom".
They had to be dealt with severely and since God had bestowed the "divine right of kings" on Perry and Bush et al, it was up to them to enact His law in their earthly kingdoms.
George Bush defended his position, by saying “I take every death penalty case seriously and review each case carefully…. Each case is major because each case is life or death.”
Yet when journalist Alan Berlow, used the Public Information Act to gain access to confidential death penalty memos from Bush’s legal counsel, Alberto R. Gonzales, he discovered that there were no such reviews conducted.
The name was presented with a briefing on the crimes they were convicted of, and then rubber stamped "die sinner". Those weren't the words used of course, but it was with that sentiment.
Had they actually reviewed the case of Terry Washington, a mentally challenged man of thirty-three, with the communication skills of a seven-year-old, Bush might have shown mercy. (1)
But there is no mercy for those banished from Christ's Kingdom.
Rick Perry not only refused to weigh evidence before putting people to death, but tried to stop an investigation into the wrongful execution of Cameron Todd Willingham, a father convicted of murdering his children when he "set fire" to his home. Scientific evidence suggested that this was not an arson case and therefore, not a murder case.
The Texas Tribune reports that the Willingham case was not the only one that warranted scrutiny. Perry allows his religion to guide him, ignoring rational thought and common decency.
When questioned he just uses his fall back position. It was what God wanted and his divine duty to carry it through.
In 1998, a survey was conducted in the United States concerning the death penalty. It revealed a high level of support for it, from Evangelical Christians. When broken down further, those Evangelicals who believed in a vengeful God were more apt to agree with putting people to death, than those who believed in a loving God.
Not surprisingly, the lowest level of support came from black respondents.
This speaks to the fact that blacks are more likely to be convicted of crime, and less likely to receive justice. The same can be said for poor people.
In his book, Crazy for God, son of Francis Schaeffer, the architect of the Religious Right, tells us that the movement was as much about race as religion.
In their book, Divided by Faith, Michael Emerson and Christian Smith, argue that "Evangelicals desire to end racial division and inequality, and attempt to think and act accordingly. But, in the process, they likely do more to perpetuate the racial divide than they do to tear it down." This is because of a "theological world view that makes it difficult for them to perceive systematic injustices in society."
Therefore, when it comes to their penchant for the death penalty, it would stand to reason that they would feel that they would be more likely to receive justice, and less likely to be wrongly accused.
Criminal Justice and Purgatory
American conservative, William F. Buckley Jr., once wrote of punishment for crime, or more specifically community service as a punishment for some crime, as being a kind of purgatory, a place where it is believed that some sinners go to be cleansed before entering heaven.
And since punishment for crime, is a kind of penance, why not treat it as such? Invoking the views of Irving Kristol, Buckley ponders spiritual punishment. As an example, he says that if a young man is caught defacing a synagogue, he should be assigned a "half-dozen books of Jewish literature to study". (2)
I was raised Catholic and remember my weekly "confessions" before I could receive Holy Communion. I'd memorize my little speech before entering the confessional. "Bless me father for I have sinned. It has been one week since my last confession, and since then I have lied three times, hit my brother twice and stole a cookie". Most of this I made up, not because I was without sin, but because I honestly couldn't account for them all. I would be excited if there was one particular one that stood out.
As contrition, I would then be told to say a number of Hail Marys and Our Fathers, which I dutifully carried out, and the cycle would begin again.
However, it meant nothing. Just rote and ritual.
If a "sinner" is assigned biblical passages or divine literature as penance, there is less of a chance for true remorse. Yes, a few might be converted, but on the whole, I think it is a weak strategy for crime prevention.
Besides, clearly Buckley misunderstands the purpose of Purgatory. It is not merely a resting place. Those sent there were required to feel the pain of the fires of Hell. Though temporary, pain is a requirement. Does he really want pain associated with scripture or divine literature?
Perhaps.
No doubt those believing in a vengeful God would.
Necon Tim Hudak wants to bring back chain gangs in Ontario. Repent! Repent! Repent!
In the documentary Memorandum, filmed twenty years after the liberation of prisoners from the death camps in Germany, they speak of a Nazi tormentor, who would break from torturing Jews to recite scripture aloud. Purgatorial Justice reminds me of that Nazi officer, who obviously believed that he was "cleansing" their immortal souls.
Stephen Harper's Divine Right
In January of this year, Harper made headlines when he told Peter Mansbridge that he believed in the death penalty. This wasn't news to those who had followed his career. He drafted policy for the Reform Party, and reinstating the death penalty was high on the list of priorities.
In fact, they also believed that children as young as ten should be sent to prison. Fortunately, when they presented a motion to that affect, it was turned down with a resounding "NO".
Another Reform MP, Art Hanger, planned a visit to Singapore to study the art of "caning", to deal with young offenders. When it was made public, he cancelled his trip. (3)
Harper's Reformers believe in swift and absolute "justice" to enact God's law.
The media is missing his agenda. While he claims that he won't reopen debate on abortion, roll back women's rights or reinstate the death penalty, he is in fact doing all of those things under their radar.
Facing criticism for his silencing of the press, he held a media event, allowing young people to ask him questions. Of course, all had to be presented in advance, so his answers could be scripted.
But not only were the answers penned by the boys in the backroom, but the questions were also being tweaked.
Youths who participated in a question-and-answer session with Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Monday say their questions were edited by the Prime Minister’s Office. Other youths had earlier explained that the questions were selected by Vision Internationale, a non-profit Christian group, and then edited by Harper’s office. (4)
And when Anna Fricker, a young ambassador for the group, discovered that her question on maternal health had been edited, to remove the mention of abortion, she spoke out:
Fricker was then interrupted by an organizer who would not identify herself except to say, "I’m supposed to be handling the media." "I would appreciate if you could just work with us so that we can keep this consistent message," she said. "I’m just supposed to keep this under control." (4)
A Christian organization hired to stifle dissent and suppress free speech.
A Manitoba judge appointed by Harper, allowed a rapist to go free because he claimed that the victim had dressed "too sexy". Another in Ontario contemplated that drunkenness could be used as a defense against some crimes, presumably domestic violence and "date rape".
Stephen Harper doesn't have to get his hands dirty. All of this is being done behind the scenes, incrementally.
"All lasting change is incremental" - Richard Nixon (from his memoirs Seize the Moment)
Mark Warner, a former Conservative candidate who was replaced because he refused to remove the fact that he had attended an International Aids Conference from his campaign literature, believes that Harper is using backroom machinations to bring back the death penalty to Canada, by setting precedent.
What would have happened if Harper had been prime minister when David Milgaard or Donald Marshall were falsely convicted of murder? Would he simply do what Bush and Perry did, suggest that he had carefully reviewed their cases before implementing his "divine right"?
When the Harperites speak of Christian government and God's law, it's important that we understand what that means, before we all end up in Purgatory.
Sources:
1. Death in Texas, By Sister Helen Prejean, The New York Review, January 13, 2005 .
2. Happy Days Were Here Again: Reflections of a Libertarian Journalist, By William F. Buckley, Jr., Adams Publishing, 1993, 1-55850-471-0, p. 262
3. Caning trip cancelled. (Reform Party justice critic Art Hanger cancels trip to Singapore to evaluate the caning of criminals), Maclean's Magazine, April 1, 1996
