Harper Not Supported by Mulroney and Hard-core Conservatives.. and the polls go up!

"I'm just not comfortable with this

new Conservative Party.."

Well.

The small minded and the disgraced don't support Stephen Harper.  Oddly enough, Liberal media stalwart, The Star, makes like this is a bad thing today.

Color me pleased.

Being a conservative has always been a bit of a dicey proposition.

Because the tent is pretty big.

Fiscal conservatives, libertarians and social conservatives all in the same house, and not necessarily seeing eye to eye.

And sometimes, when one or the other is unhappy, that spells difficulty - and sometimes it doesn't.

This week we see that Brian Mulroney is still trying to keep himself relevant by taking little shots at Stephen Harper, apparently still smarting that the party didn't get behind him when he was caught taking money from a greasy German businessman in a paper bag.

See Brian.. here's the thing.  Chretien got caught and his party got behind him - and that's one big reason that party is the mess it is today.  You just can't look the other way when a current or former leader is found to be engaging in what appears to be grossly unethical practice.  And if you get your feelings hurt because YOU got caught - well, tough luck. 

Beyond Mulroney, we've go the social conservatives all pissed off. Link Byfield is moaning because Harper won't help him end abortion and gay marriage.

Well, Link - go vote Liberal.

Here's my thought.

The natural tendency of healthy, independent adults is to be conservative.  In the sense of wanting to make their own way if possible, and to support others to do the same.

Things like delayed gratification and acknowledgement of personal responsibility are the core of what I see to be basic conservatism - and they are at the core of the formation of a healthy adult.

Hence - the natural tendency for healthy adults to be conservative.

But here's the thing.

There is a portion of the movement who is NOT healthy.  Who want to use conservatism as a euphemism for "stacking the deck".  For not being responsible for their own well-being, but for actually tilting the table in their own favor to effectively subvert the concept of personal responsibility.  People like Lehman Brothers in the U.S., and, in Canada.. well, people like Brian Mulroney.

In my mind, they are welcome to go elsewhere if they don't like it in the current incarnation of the Conservative party.

Then there is another group.  The flat-earthers.  The people who, if they had their way, would in fact make Canada the Christian answer to Saudi Arabia or Iran.  A Christian theocracy who has no room for people who don't share THEIR version of ethics and spirituality.

People who would have us exclude discussions of evolution in favor of teaching the Old Testament in our science classrooms. 

People who want to legislate Christian morality.  People like Link Byfield - also quoted in the star as being unhappy with Stephen Harper. As referenced in the Star article, "Harper has made it abundantly and compellingly clear that the social conservative agenda is not to be contemplated in his government and not to be advocated or advanced. And he will have come to this conclusion because he has seen it necessary to get centre voters. As long as he’s leader that will remain the case,” Byfield told journalist Charles Lewis.

So.

Then.

The so-called "neoconservative bogeyman" who was going to do away with abortion and equal rights for homosexuals, is, well, pissing of Link Byfield for doing just the opposite.

Again, I think the new conservatism, the natural conservatism which is evolving (*gasp*.. did I say "evolving"?) in the 21st century is not the conservatism of those who want to stack the deck in their own favor to gain unfair advantage over others, and is not the unthinking conservatism which seeks to ignore science and blur the lines between church and state. 

And while the cheaters and the small-minded may not like it - the rest of us are pretty comfortable in the evolving conservative house.

At least according to the bump in the Nanos polls today:

Mulroney and Byfield complain - and the Conservatives bump 1.7 points in the latest Nanos polls to 41.2%today, the Liberals dropping 1.2 points to 30.4%.

Thanks Brian.