NDP Surge: So What?

Jack Layton is our Prime Minister?

I love ideologues.

They just can't fathom that their point of view isn't accepted by others.

It leads people to do the stupidest of things - like learning to fly and hijacking airplanes into office buildings killing thousands of people.

Less drastically, we have seen a growing irrational fear of left-leaning ideologues about how the world will come to an end if Stephen Harper should attain a majority - and we, as conservatives, find it all very amusing, because we know very well that they're hyperbole and exaggeration is simply without any basis in reality.  Stephen Harper, oddly enough, holds no resemblance to Hitler or Stalin or whatever over-the-edge metaphor is brought to bear by NDP or Liberal supporters who wish to stoke fear in the hearts of the public to "save themselves" and vote for anyone but Harper.

Now, however, that the NDP party has shown a rise in the polls, we are starting to see the same sort of fear and hyperbole coming from the right. 

Problem is, as the Liberals have discovered, fear and anger sends a message of insecurity. 

The people want someone to lead them who is strong and unafraid.

Jack Layton, to this point, has most appeared strong and unafraid because the idea that he could ever be Prime Minister was beyond belief.  Easy to be bold when you have nothing to lose.  Now - however, as his polls rise, we see him backtracking on his estimates of revenue growth to cover spending promises..  he's now showing the fear of being "found out" for the charlatan that he really is.

Because there is no free lunch.

And no one knows that better than a small "c" conservative.

And no one is more able to respond to challenge and adversity than a small "c" conservative. 

So - it's more than a little embarrassing to see fellow conservatives starting to look like the fear-stricken Liberals and NDP when they were watching the country slowly creep forward to greater acceptance of the understanding that business works and socialism doesn't.

If the country as a whole seems to be leaning to believe in the Wizard of Oz delivering them courage, and intelligence and taking them home - so be it.  It won't last.  NDP governments come and, soon, go.  In many respects, the best thing that could happen to the Conservative movement is for Layton to actually win.  Or for some stupid coalition of the left to get created.. because then the proof will certainly be in the pudding.

Jet's will need to be replaced.  And it will cost a lot of money.

G8 conferences and such will recur - and dignitaries will have to be coddled and impressed and anarchists will have to be put down.

The bills will have to get paid..  and as the left-leaning policy hurts business - the reality that you can't tax yourself to prosperity will soon become apparent.

And meanwhile - conservatives will respond and get by - like we always do.

Because, in the long run, there is a certain reality to obsession with self-interest.



In 1943, in a speech before the National Conference Board in New York, U.S. businessman Henning Webb Prentis, Jr., had this to say:

Paradoxically enough, the release of initiative and enterprise made possible by popular self-government ultimately generates disintegrating forces from within. Again and again after freedom has brought opportunity and some degree of plenty, the competent become selfish, luxury-loving and complacent, the incompetent and the unfortunate grow envious and covetous, and all three groups turn aside from the hard road of freedom to worship the Golden Calf of economic security. The historical cycle seems to be: From bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to apathy; from apathy to dependency; and from dependency back to bondage once more.


At the stage between apathy and dependency, men always turn in fear to economic and political panaceas. New conditions, it is claimed, require new remedies. Under such circumstances, the competent citizen is certainly not a fool if he insists upon using the compass of history when forced to sail uncharted seas. Usually so-called new remedies are not new at all. Compulsory planned economy, for example, was tried by the Chinese some three milleniums ago, and by the Romans in the early centuries of the Christian era. It was applied in Germany, Italy and Russia long before the present war broke out. Yet it is being seriously advocated today as a solution of our economic problems in the United States. Its proponents confidently assert that government can successfully plan and control all major business activity in the nation, and still not interfere with our political freedom and our hard-won civil and religious liberties. The lessons of history all point in exactly the reverse direction.

Think about that.

The essential message is that there is no panacea to security beyond, at the end of the day, hard work and prudence.

New immigrants understand that.  Our grandparents understood that.  It's time for us to understand that.

Politicians come and go - so work hard, have faith in your ability and have no fear.  That's for the NDP and the Liberals.