The One Party System (in Canada)

[GoodCallYouWin]

The One Party System

Growing up in rural south western Ontario I was, as every child is, subjected to the political beliefs of my family; given the extreme left stance of my family it was natural for me to begin my rudimentary exploration of political ideas from a socialist perspectives. From a very early age I was taught, by my family and the public school system to fear conservatives and conservatism; even to my admittedly far left self this seemed unfair. In grade ten, my english teacher used to open the class with 'discussions' which where little more than barely disguised attacks on the 'right'. This took to the form of long winded monologues (on the public dime!) by my teacher and through solicited 'discussion' which was conviently ended as soon as anyone defended or even chose not to attack the positions of the right. While this seemingly outrageous hijacking of 'education' for political purposes may seem an abuse of trust to you, it is in fact the rule rather than the exception. Generally this assault comes in a much more subtle manner, that is through the ciricullum.

There are countless examples of how the school system teaches dogmaticly an ideology that serves to perpetuate the current one party system in Canada; an insiduous practice that is all the more dangerous because it is for the most part undetectable. It is impossible to say authoritatively amongst any of the subjective sciences, such as English or History, 'this is true'. The first example I will bring forth, because it is the most crucial, is the assault on 'laissez-faire' economics. The current socio-economic-political structure in Canada is not capitalism as some would wish (including myself) but rather a 'mixed market' economy or more accurately 'state capitalism'. Instead of competition we have favouritism; instead of capitalism we have corporatism. Government subsidies and no bid contracts are dispensed to benefit special interests at the expense of honest businessmen (usually small businesses, who are too busy making quality products to hobknob with the brokers of power in Ottawa, and too niave to realize the need for, as Ayn Rand called them 'Washington Men') and the welfare state is attempting to monopolize the market on charity, as an attempt to breed dependancy in the population to ensure it's continued dominace of our cultural affairs.

Part of the vitirol that spawned my political awakening was the leftist demonization of the Conservatives and the Right in general. I was taught, in the school system, that without 'free' healthcare and 'free' education the poor would be forever marginalized and victimized by the evil corporations and businessmen that control and dominate society. To anyone who has ever faced true poverty, as I have, this is an absurd characterization but to the great mass of priveledged individuals in our society, who substitute obedience for dissent, this rings true. They look at their wealth and the rest of the world and assume incorrectly that it is somehow taken at the expense of other people; what they don't realize is that their bleeding heart policies have disastrous effects on both the economy as a whole and more tragically the very people they claim to help, that is the poor. As milton friedman said "I have no problem with the softness of their heart, but all too often it extends to their head as well".

For most of my life I truly believed that a conservative government would mean disaster to the country; in many ways I feel the old saw about academia that is, "the battles are so fierce because the stakes are so high" applies extremely well to Canadian politics. The standard values of conservatism are incredibly simple : a smaller state, less taxes and more personal liberty and freedom. In America, and in Canada as well, these traditional paleo-conservative values have been completely ignored by the Neo-Conservatives who dominate the political landscape. This is a term you will hear bantered around by hipsters with surprising regularily so it behooves me to define it. An excellent resource for this is an episode in a series that came out of, of all places, the center for communist thought in America, Berkley University. They produced a rather exceptional series, entitled 'Conversations With History' (streaming off my website, incidentally, http://watchthis.zakyoung.com) one of these has a great dialogue on the neo-conservative movement, which has everything to do with power and very little to do with 'conservatism'. Many of the modern neo-conservatives have their root in Trotskist thought; now far be it for me to criticize a conservative for once buying into the foolish lies of socialism but there is an understanding that if you wish to become a conservative you must first renounce the socialists policies of your past instead of giving them a facelift and calling them 'conservatism'.

Neo-Conservatives do not serve ideology; they serve power. Henry Kissinger, perhaps the very first neo-con (although a mostly unexamined but perhaps accurate school of thought claims they trace their roots back to Machievelli) and in the Trials of Henry Kissinger, a former aid explained how Kissinger had offered him a job in the white house, no matter which side wins. This epitomizes the neo-conservative movement; the service of power, the expansion of the state and the subjection of the individual and inidividual rights. This is not a new philosophy; it is collectivism merged with mercantilism; giving lip service to capitalism while all the while undermining it's ideals. It can best be described in two simple words : welfare and warfare.

The welfare state, so lauded and so harmful, is not an abberation of flawed logic or failed leadership but the natural product of mob rule. Thomas Jefferson, a man not frequently quoted in Canada, once said 'When the state takes from those who work and gives to those who don't, it will cease to exist". While our current state of affairs might at first glance give lie to this claim, it is my belief that the future will prove this visionaries claim to be true, if we allow our system to continue unabated. While people who are enamoured with Democracy will claim we can simply vote out this evil, it is clear to me that our one party system offers no such recourse for the voters wishing to register their dissent. There is no question that Canadians want lower taxes and smaller government; even with the whine mode of every special interest group in the world set on 'insane' during the Mike Harris cleansing purge that was so crucial he was elected to two terms. Canadians have long since stopped voting for anyone stupid enough to talk about raising taxes; yet our taxes still remain at a level that anyone with a sense of history longer than a few weeks (sadly, that's only a handful of people in the media, and absolutely no politician) would find ridiculous. The failures of our country are systemic rather than social; they are not the fault of the people or the voters but of the policies of the state. Our politicians no longer seek to persuade or build consensus or seek the input of the populace; rather they allow policy to be formed by special interest groups and practice the manufacturing of consent amongst the populace.

The values of our current one party system are fairly simple :

High taxes,
Government regulated morality,
Government regulated industry,
Government ownership of the means to production in various industries,
Mandatory state dominated education,
The constant sacrifice of soveignty,
The appeasement of foreign powers,
Worthless paper money

While certainly this is not a complete laundry list of the policies of our one party system this enumerates the core values of our system; of the 'gang of three' who dominate Canadian politics, there is scarcely a dissenting voice to be found amongst them.

The case against high taxes is perhaps the simplest. Canadians do not want them; for a system which is so obviously populous you would expect this issue to reach a boiling point in our debate but instead it is completely ignored aside from lip service from some of the left of center politicians who make up the Canadian 'Right'. As I am not a populist, this argument holds no sway with me but the moral argument, that is that taxation is theft, rings more true. It is wrong for me to steal from you and it is wrong for you to steal from me. If twelve of my friends and I all vote to steal from you, it's still illegal and immoral. When the government does it, it's not illegal (because the government makes the laws) but it is still immoral; you cannot simply eliminate the immorality of the deed by imposing on the minority the tyranny of the majority. More importantly, the arguments behind taxation, that is the welfare state, are flawed on basically every level.

The goal behind the welfare state is ostensibly 'wealth redistribution'. The theory goes something like this : If you have a million dollars, and I have zero dollars, I get a much greater 'utility' out of the money than you would. That money could buy me a pizza, or some new clothes for a job, whereas for you it would mean simply another jet ski. While this argument makes some sense, it loses all validity when you see how politicians have applied it. In the name of 'wealth redistribution' the government engages in make work projects and socialized health care and education. So the argument it seems transforms to : in order to transfer money from the rich to the poor, we must spend that money on communal goods anyone can use. Don't you want the poor to be 'educated' and 'healthy' like everyone else? Why should they suffer simply because they are poor? The arguments behind the welfare state are slippery and elusive; as soon as you seem to hold one in your hand, it transforms into another; this is not because the system is complex but rather illogical; you cannot understand the arguments behind it because they make no sense.

To those who favour socialized health care and education, I ask them, why stop there? Don't you care if the poor eat? Shouldn't we socialize food? Why did we start at education and health care? What good is it if a poor man cannot learn, if he cannot eat? Indeed, it would not surprise me if this is the direction where the extreme leftists who have hijacked the political discussion in this country where to move in this direction next, even though the obivous answer "there isn't a problem, please don't try to 'solve' it" leaps out against it. Unfortunately, government programs are much easier to begin than end. There is a great incentive to appear 'effective' even though the legislation invariably does more harm than good and further, as soon as any well funded government program springs up, well informed special interest groups show up to benefit from it at the expense of the tax payer. There is a service, called MERX which most Canadians have never heard of. It's online, you can google it, and if you can stomach witnessing government waste and corruption up hand I urge you to glance over some of the more ridiculous transactions the government gives to special interests, hidden in plain view. One man got $50,000 for a three hour speech; that's 5x Ann Coulter's going rate and I'm sure he's not half as entertaining. This wasn't the first year either... I guess the beaurocrats never got the idea to video tape the speech he gave year after year and simply play the tape.

The argument that attending a government controlled school is somehow necessary for a successful life is laughable on it's face. As a child, one of my teachers at a lecture claimed the government would spend a million dollars 'educating' each student, and it's up to us to make the most of that million dollars by paying attention and listening. Now, if it's true that the government spends a million dollars educating each child (and this was ten years ago, given inflation and the rising inefficiency of any force-monopolistic industry it could be two million by now) well, did anyone consider the more rational option of closing the schools and giving every child a million dollars? They could spend $5,000 of that on books and an internet connection, learn more than the school could ever possibly teach them and use the remaining $995,000 (or $1,995,000 if my second estimate is true) living their life in leisure. Now I'm not so sure the ridiculous claims of my teacher was true; but regardless the idea that sitting at a desk for 8 hours where a teacher drones on dogmatically teaching 'the truth' is going to help anyone do anything in life is ridiculous on it's face. In the past perhaps this dogmatic authoritarian style of learning was neccessary to produce a society of loyal and obedient worker / warrior bees but in our modern society it is not a benefit but a hinderance. Rather than assume the role of a central economic planner and dictate to you how our education system should work, a more rational answer would be to subject education to market forces. Despite the effective government monopoly on education, Canadians still turn to homeschooling and private schooling as an alternative because they recognize the fundamentally flawed natural of our public education system.

Leftwing zealots will usually interrupt here, and claim that a privatized education system would lead to an intensified class system; in the interest of preventing any inequality, they drag everyone down to some base level, where no one is taught anything and no one is offended. What could be a more pressing role of the education system than to teach people how to act morally? Yet the greatest instruction manuals in ethics, the great religious books, the Torah, The Bible and The Quoran are excluded for fear of offending anyone; and indeed this may be proper, given the idiotic system we have in place but a more rational idea would be not eliminate the current system. Central economic planning fails and we have seen this time and time again around the world but we somehow trick ourselves into thinking, this one time, we can make it work! Communism has only killed 140,000,000, let's give it another chance! By labelling education 'free' we somehow convince our selves this is true; worse we convince the poor and the middle class that the tax burden is born entirely by the rich, so even if we realize it's not 'free' we can then convince ourselves it is 'free for us'. Nothing could be more tragically false.

Government regulated morality is also a failed policy. While I believe strongly in the rule of law, there must be a rational basis behind those laws; instead we come up with them in an ad-hoc manner responding to whatever political pressures indicate at the time. As a result our system of law is contradictory and idiotic; alcohol is legal while marijuiana is not. It is legal to kill an unborn child but if you teach someone about the bible you will lose your job. Employers cannot determine who can or cannot work for them; a special race of people are given money simply because they are that race (native americans) and it is impossible to fire anyone who works in a union, for any reason, ever. If you were to ask someone on the street "do you think the government should tell you how to live your life" they would instantly say "Hell no!" but still these policies of prohibition and mandatory behaviour mirror the policies of totalitarian regimes. The message of liberty has never been popular in our brave new world; rather we put our face in good governance, as if men where wolves waiting to be saved by the angels of government. Politicians are not inherently worse than us but they are not inherently better; like every single one of the six billion plus individuals on this planet they are motivated entirely by self interest and their hypocritical claims to the contrary not withstanding this is how they function. It is not surprising when a politician awards those who support and lobby him with plush government contracts; it would be surprising if they did not. The answer is not to vote in a new batch of 'angels' but to eliminate the ability for government act coercively in the first place. Ultimately, all our problems can be solved by striking down most of the laws and nearly all of the taxes our government has imposed upon you. Critics may claim it is overly utopian to say we can live without an income tax but I ask you, what is the more rational position? That we allow men to keep all the money they earn doing work? Or that we allow a coercive institute, the state, to steal from the population in order to 'do charity'? The state is not charity; it is force.

It pains me to even feel the necessity to include a rebuttal to the theory that government should own the means to production; this is a marxist argument which was outlined in the Communist Manifesto and if it where not universally adopted by our single party system it would be a simple footnote, just another bad idea on the rubbish heap of history. The government onwership of the means of production (that is, socialism) in our soceity manifests itself both overtly and covertly; it is present in state corporations like the LCBO, highschools, hospitals and various other institutions (dumps, parks, municipal buildings, etc. etc. etc.) but also in taxation itself! Milton Friedman, in an extremely revealing interview, addressed this claim. "What does it mean" he asked "for someone to own the means of production? It means they are entitled to the proceeds of production!" In other words; tax! In a similiar manner, the government owns the land. Oh no! you say, I have a deed right here! See look, John Q. Public! Look! I own this land! You may have that deed, but do you not have to pay to the government a fee every year? You may call that property tax but what would be the difference if you called it rent? What happens if you refuse to pay? You are evicted. Who is the true owner?

So what's wrong with this system? The LCBO's ok isn't it? Sure it's ok. I'm not claiming our society is in bad shape because that's obvious to anyone with knowledge of the world, Canada is a wealthy and prosperous nation but simply because we are doing good does not mean we shouldn't be doing better. While it is important to safeguard what we have there a very real danger in being too reactionary or 'conservative' (in the alternate sense of the word, that is to conserve the current system) in that you may 'protect' your way of life all the way out of existence. Socialism fails because there is no incentive towards productivity; there is no competition to make sure prices stay down and quality stays high. Often the government attempts to legislate prices to stay at a certain level but this is also a flawed policy; prices go up for a reason, you cannot simply say "go down" and expect them to behave; if you want lower prices you must allow innovation and competition. Central economic planning does not work; but sadly while we accept that our politicians have apparently only a superficial understanding of competition; continually they work to undermine the free market with regulations, subsidies and other stupid policies.

Government regulation of industry is a subtle and therefor all the more dangerous example of how our government works to undermine the system of capitalism. A leftist hit piece ran by W-5 on CN rail claimed in an investigation they noticed more than thirty regulations they where ignoring; the unanswered question I had was "well how many bloody regulations do you expect them to follow? should the engineer have to read a fifty page rule book before starting the engine?" While certain industries are targetted by the unholy alliance of dogooders and special interests, other more powerful industries are ignored. The hit piece that CTV ran on CN Rail was about one man who almost died; how many people die in car accidents every year? Yes people die; government regulations are useless to prevent this. Companies already have the most powerful incentive to not kill people they could possibly have, the bottom line. If your volvo is collapsing and killing people at low impacts, you don't need regulations because the lawsuits will quickly put the company out of business or punish them for producing a bad product, as well as of course the huge loss of sales they will suffer; regulations arrive years later, when the problem they where ment to address is already solved, and serve instead to simply punish entire industries. Large multinational corporations that can operate for a time at a loss, and have economies of scale, the advantages from advertising, name brand association etc. to help them combat the harmful regulations; it is the smaller businesses that are pushed to extinction here. Across south western ontario if you want to drive a taxi you're going to have to pony up $60,000-$100,000 to get a license because they are tightly controlled by the municipalities and the dominant companies they serve. Prices are fixed at a set rate; it is a crime to sell your service at a lower rate! This is not only idiotic it completely defeats the purpose of capitalism. Why shouldn't someone be able to put a sign on their car that says "John's Taxi" and charge whatever they want? The only possible argument would be that of safety; but safety concious individuals could simply stick to the name brand cab companies they use currently. The effect of these regulations essentially prohibit the poor, who would be willing to trade safety (or more accurately, the illusion of saftey, because no rational observer seriously buys the myth that regulations can magically make the world a safe place) from using these services.

In a similiar manner, minimum wage laws, so lauded by the left (who are characterized by a fundamental disregard for economics, which has harmful and foolish consequeneces when either the individuals or the ideas of these individuals are placed in power) simply prohibt those who's skills are less than the arbitrary level of the minimum wage laws from working, while serving the special interests of the trade unions. Business are not, as the left would have you believe, the enemies of the poor. It is not cruelty to offer a man a job; it is certainly not exploitation; indeed exploitation can only exist where coercive force is used, which is to say when the government intervenes. In order to substantaite their claims, the left uses a variety of intelletually dishonest techniques, the most hilarious being comparing the conditions of today with the conditions of yesteryear. Yes, the poor are better off now than they where three hundred years ago; this has nothing to do with the idiotic legislalation that is passed in the name of the poor. Governments are incapable of creating wealthy; they simply use force to take wealth from those who create it and give it to their powerful friends and allies, special interests. It does not matter what the name of the law is, or the intent, or even in large part the way it is written; wherever the government is doling out founds, special interests appear to receive them.

It is with some disdain I listen to arguments about "Canadian Soveignty" or even "Quebec soveignty". It is not that I object to these ideas but it is ridiculous to consider them while we are ruled by a foreign monarch. Our national interests are constantly suberted to the mildest outside agenda; the issue of drug prohibition is perhaps the clearest example of this. There is no question that the people of Canada are, overall, behind the legalization of marijuana. When the court system, the most reactionary instrument of preserving state power, attempts to decriminalize and when activists take to the street every single year it's a good sign that this is a popular idea. The NDP, the traditional vehicle of 'change' (in reality, the change they laud is simply the expansion of the state, hardly a new idea) has already adopted this as their platform and a recent international study had Canada ranked third in the world for marijuana consumption but so long as our legal system is dominated by Washington's agenda we will never see legalization. Soveignty is a great idea but when people talk about 'threats to it' we should first think 'well maybe we should work on having it before we work on losing it'. The North American Union, NAFTA and the WTO are simply the latest manifestations of foreign control over national interests.

Where did the one party system come from? Why is it here? How can we change things? Should we change things? Isn't our current system great? Milton Friedman one said that history is not a steady progression from start to finish, but far too often a series of two steps forwards and one step backwards. There is the underlying assumption in Canadian politics that we are going on the right path; that are moving towards a more humane future. The sacred cows in the public mind serve to stifle dissent. You can have any colour you want so long as it is black. There is no conspiracy theory behind the one party system; it is a product of a few extremely powerful forces which shape public opinion. Certainly the media is complicit, and with the advent of the internet we will likely see a rebirth in debate and discussion amongst Canadians; just as the printing press served as the beginning of the end of our feudal system, so will the internet mark the beginning of the end of modern "democracy" and state capitalism. The future lies in Anarchy; or more specifically anarcho-capitalism. We will replace the one party system with a no party system.

Many accuse me of being utopian but in reality this is the logical extension of classic liberalism, the school of thought that ushered into a new era of propserity and wealth for mankind. Was this a simple correlation, as leftists would have you believe? Did the establishment of property rights, individual rights (sometimes called 'human rights') and capitalism simply coincide with the miraculous expansion of wealth our society has experienced? Or is it possible that when people are incentivized to help themselves, they help themselves? Take a look, if you will, at the tragedy of the commons. When everyone owns something, no one cares about it and no one wants to take care of it. It is abused by businessman and polluted. When people own things they take care of them; put work into them and improve them for someone else in the future to enjoy.

Anarcho-Capitalism is in fact an extremely simple theory : it is a theory of society that is both moral and effective. It is fundamentally rooted in the belief that the use of force is wrong. This simple truism, preached by so many good men throughout history, is thought to be ok for personal affairs but not for public affairs. The state is not benevolance; the state is force. It is impossible for the government to act without force and each encounter with this coercive instrument leaves us embittered, angry and violent. This is the nature of force; it does not tame it enrages. This emotion is channeled into the expansion of the state; through the division of the people into different camps, each with their own pyramidal structure. The state understands power; power must be given voluntarily en mass for it to work but it can be used coercively in isolated cases to ensure the obedience of the majority. Examine our legal system; tax evaders are thrown in jail, to ensure the populace does not imagine it could simply stop paying for the state. The state does not object to crime, crime is good for the state. The state does not object to war, war is the health fo the state. The state does not object the complaints, for the welfare system is the health of the state. As the state expands, it wraps more and more in it's embrace and so it is harder and harder to dismantle. Government programs, first hopsitals and schools, then child care, drivers licenses, advertising campaigns, casinos, the military industrial complex, the state is pervasive and friendly to those wrapped within it's embrace. You do not see the damage it casuses to those who work; those that struggle to acheive. All too often, our brightest and most independent flee the oppressive embrace of the state leaving us with a society further dependent and further tamed to serve the needs of government. It does not have to be this way!

Anarcho-Capitalism is the dismantling of the state. It is not, as some would have you believe, a 'world without bosses'. That is the other Anarchy, the evil Anarchy, Anarcho-Socialism. The anarcy which proclaims, in a Stalinesque voice, that property is theft and that work is oppression. I do not mind if you reject my theory after considering it; if you weigh the pros and the cons and insist that you prefer the presence of an omnipotent government to cure all your problems and spend all your money for you but do not confuse me for an Anarcho-Socialist. It is true that anarcho-socialism could exist under anarcho-capitalism; anarcho-capitalism is the absence of force, it is unable to act; this is why it is the ideal system, it is in reality the absence of any system. Complete autonomy over your life; complete freedom over your work and your industry. It is the understanding that despite what ideologues would have you believe, man is not a hateful bitter being but rather individuals working together in peace. While there will still be crime, the crimes commited by individuals are tiny compared with the crimes commited by the state and while we reject the 'initialization of force transactions' we certainly understand the right of an individual to use force to defend himself from force; this is also something the state disallows. The government decides our status of victims before we begin; we are imprisioned by the trial, believed guilty until found innocent and deprieved of the freedom to control our own labour and our own destiny. The answer is not, as marxists and others have presumed, to steal the property of some and give it to others; indeed, in a modest tame way this is exactly what our governmnent does with our taxes. The answer is to allow the free market to work. The free market is the most efficient method of dealing with the distribution of scarce resources but it is not, as politicians would have you believe a 'beast which must be tamed'. Who can tame it? Who should tell us how we should plan the economy? What great knowledge to politicians have that enables them to forecast the future?

It is true that not all forms of government are equally bad, the more local and decentralized the better. If the government must legislate on morality (which of course it shouldn't, we do not need the government telling us how to act, and if you look at the evidance it is very clear individuals have a much better understanding or morality than the state will ever hope to develop) it is best to do at a local level, so we are not forced to apply cookie cutter ideas across a broad and diverse spectrum of society; this lesson should be all the more obvious in our multicultural nation but sadly we have bought the lies of 'good governance'. It is the role of parents to teach their children right from wrong. Laws should exist to protect people from force used against them, not tell them how to act in their day to day lives, and yet we have drug prohibition, laws outlawing people from working (minimum wage, regulations on industry that serve as barriors to entry) and numerous other minor offenses against individual soveignty. In my city, if I do not mow my lawn, the city will mow it for me and give me a bill of several hundred dollars. This works out fine for me, because I do not recognize the ability of the city to arbitrarily say "we're working for you, now pay us". I do not recognize unchosen positive expectations; if you want me to do something you have to ask, and I'm probably going to say no.

The worthless paper money our government has fostered on us (by outlawing competition or taxing it so extremely it cannot possibly exist) is one of the saddest lies of the state. It's worth nothing intrinsically! It's worth what people are willing to pay for it; which is fine so long as people are willing to pay for it, but in the case of a crisis in the country this might not be so. Where our money backed not by 'the power to tax' (which is a power, by the way, that we're going to get rid of, one way or another) but rather gold we do not have to worry about it losing it's value. A dollar today is worth about 42 cents from twenty years ago; this is a tax on the poor which no one is willing to discuss. Why do we suffer inflation? It is simple; our money is worth nothing and people are starting to realize it. Our money is also the health of the state; as the state collapses, as it's coercive power is dismantled, so would the current monetary system, which is empowered strictly by that coercive ability. The answer is not however to "lets go to this planned money system that I recommend, then everything will be great"; just as central economic planning has failed in the past for everyone else, it would fail if I where to practice it as well. The answer is not another government program, a new tax, a new problem created in order for the state to 'solve' it but rather the answer is allow the market to compete. Allow private currencies to exist and compete! One extremely easy way to do this is a 'gold account' at a bank. If people could put their money into something that did not errode in value, like money but rather grew in value, like gold there would be a great incentive to save. With savings come investment, which creates wealth. Politicians and the modern shills that claim to economists claim that consumption is good for the economy; good for who? Is it good for the person who spends all their money on useless crap, and then has no money to invest in capital? Or is it good for the corporations that dominate public policy? You must understand however that so long as wealth is the main contributing factor in who wins elections the rich and the powerful will always dominate our political agendas and wealth will always be the main factor in who wins the elections. I can get up on a soap box and speak for an hour in the busiest part of london and I may reach a hundred people and maybe ten will listen beyond a moment or two. Of those ten, maybe a few will believe my ideas (irrespective of their validity). A politician with money get's on television, where millions are there already planning on listening. Of those millions maybe a million will believe this politicians ideas, regardless of their validity.

The media is a collection of large corporations. It is not my intent to destory them, as you may expect; I am anarchist because I am against the use of force and violence in ANY CAPACITY, not just when other people use it but also myself. Corporations should be free to do whatever they please, so long as they are not causing physical harm to someone or their property. While their effect on the general population and the way they shape our beliefs about the world is regrettable it is also in my opinion short lived. The reason why television and radio are so influential in controlling the actions and indeed even the thoughts of the general population (and if you disagree with me here, perhaps you could explain while companies spend millions of dollars advertising their products) is because they are a new technology. Initially, we granted the people on television the same trust we granted the people who talk to us in our day to day lives; we had the belief that they were, like us, mostly honest people. Unfortunately, as politicians and the media have come to realize the power of their technology it is increasingly being used to manufacture consent among the populace. It serves not as a honest view of society, but the narrow scope of a few powerful interests view of society. Ultimately, the internet, the ultimate weapon of freedom will replace the main stream media. People seek truth and when they realize the 'traditional' (there is not much traditional about television or radio, as it is incredibly new and powerful technology, when contrasted with the scope of human existance on this planet) means of information do not provide these truths they go elsewhere but it is not our place to decide. Indeed, the state regulation of radio and television serves to protect the established business interests from competition; from alternate viewpoints reaching the public mind. By simply removing government funding and regulation from these industries, we can save the tax payer a fair amount of money (by canning all the nanny beaucrats that 'protect' the population from hearing something they want to hear but is 'bad' for them). State controlled television is never a good idea, it is the antithesis of a free society; while it may be benevolant now (and it is clearly not, in my opinion) how would we know? If our opinions are shaped by it, how can we think critically about it? Further, when billions of dollars of tax payer money is funneled into a government owned media company, like the CBC, it makes it extremely difficult for a company like the CTV to stay competitive. If you were selling bread, and the government set up a bread shop next doors that sold bread at 10% of the price because it received fat governmen subsidies, you would go out of business. I'm almost afraid to include this example in my book, for fear some lefitst reading it says "hey, that's a good idea! Let's set up bread shops for the poor, which sell bread at 20 cents a loaf!" The problem is of course, the bread still costs the same amount (in fact it's now MORE expensive, because the government gives lavish salaries, benefits and pensions to it's employees, and they don't understand competition because they CANNOT FAIL, they simply steal more of your money to compensate for increased inefficiency) it's just paid for by hard working people and you have further incentive to not work. Taxes are not, as we imagine, paid by the rich who sit in their magical castles of wealth, of which they have an inexhaustible supply to fund the 'public good' they are STOLEN, BY FORCE from those who seek to translate their labour into profit. You cannot tax corporations because they do not pay tax, they simply raise the price of their products; you cannot tax the rich because they have politicians in their pocket to create loop holes for them and expensive accounts who hide their money for them and so the goverment taxes those who work. While our progressive tax system is an attempt to handle this balance ultimately the problem is not that people are wealthy because they work hard and accumulate money but rather because people get rich off the government. It's not that hard to get rich off the government, if you have a friend who is in charge or you are familiar with the rules, structure and organization of the state. Lavish contracts are awarded for anything those in power demand; your tax dollars are constantly translated into goods through procurement. Unfortunately, this is not 'their money' they waste so frivulously; it is our money. Sadly, no one spends someone else's money as quickly and as carelessly as they would spend their own, so much is wasted and given directly to the powerful special interests that dominate policy.

The manufacturing of public opion by the dominate special interests of our time (take for example south of the border, Walmart and other corporate interests have sided with the left in the battle for socialized health care; naturally they would love to transfer the costs of providing health care to the public sector so that the other companies, which offer quality health care to their employees have even less of an edge against them) is a key part of the political process. When you realize it is not the politicians who proscribe public policy but rather the organizations, corporations and individuals who benefit from the new legislation (always at the expense of others, but we never hear that side of the story) you understand the role of politicians more accurately; they are not there to lead but to divide. They cannot help us but they can make us fear the other's more. Ultimately it is not even the politicians (useless figureheads that they are, individually) that matter but rather the party's. It is the parties that receive massive donations from the special interests and the parties that are endebted to these special interests must serve their interests or the support will evaporate. Ironically there is a simple game theory solution to this problem; stop voting for the powerful political parties that dominate the spectrum. There is no question that any random Joe off the street would do a much better job than any political party that is elected because he is not endebted to certain prominent aspects of society. The people realize this! While the intellectuals and the politicians tell us the people are 'masses of unwashed men' who need to be instructed and taken care of, the vast majority of Canadians have realized that the current system is not only corrupt it is broke beyond fixing; they do not want your new tax, or your useless new program they want freedom. Freedom is the natural inclination of any man; he craves the creativity that comes from spendid isolation when one is free from the coercive instruments of force that are weilded in his name.

Something as simple as an elementary analysis of the websites of the political parties involved in the process can show the truth of the situation to anyone with an ounce of curiousity about the political process. Ironically if I want to hear anything positive about the conservative party, that is positive to someone like me who wants only lower taxes and less government the traditional ideals of the conservative movement, the only place I can hear them is from the campaign adds of the opposition! Cutbacks (that is, returning to the tax payer's money to the tax payer) are viewed by our media and our politicians as evil; occasionally the rampant expansion of government services may force a brief period of cutbacks, which are loudly decried by the press and the left in equal measures. The conservatives, rather than taking the principled stand of saying "This is what we believe, less government, less taxes" hides and indeed elimiantes these beliefs. Politics is now a game of putting your pulse on the opinion of the public. What are the most popular programs? What are the least popular? Adopt the first and denounce the second; and this strategy has worked, if you measure of success is, as in the case of our politicians, simply getting elected. Let's examine the Conservative Party website, as of 8:33 pm 7/12/2007. While of course what our politcians say is seldom what they do, so it is somewhat inaccurate to simply take their word on their policies, it does accurately reflect the methodology they use to obtain your vote. Their new slogan 'Getting Things Done For All Of Us' reflects their inherent belief that government is not the problem, as Ronald Regan famously announced, but rather the government is the solution to everyone's problems. What they fail to understand is that they are playing a game of whack-a-mole with your money and your life. They steal from people in order to put out a fire over here, caused by their ridiculous policies, and then claim they have saved the day, all the while setting the stage for further fires to put out. Our media and our intellectuals, the ones who are supposed to take the critical view have failed us completely; it is far easier to simply report what the government or the opposition claims. But what about when they agree? Who is to provide the counter balance when all of our politicians and political parties share the same viewpoint of the role of the state in government? When the issues are those of the exact number of dollars spent on this or that or the exact degree of how far the government should regulate our lives and our businesses, a great deal of perspective is lost. Why is no one asking, not 'what should we do' but 'what are we doing that we shouldn't be doing'? They completely ignore the precautionary principle : first, do no harm.

Look at the conservative party budget of 2007 :

Rather than cut taxes, they issue a tax credit, to a certain aspect of society and in the same breath, the brag about an additional 39 billion dollars in new funding. Rather then attempting to reduce the size of government, they are proud they have increased it. They are proud of expanding the war on drugs; a tyranical approach of a monolothic government to regulate and control your lives, and an assault on the individual and individual rights that has caused far more damage and harm both in tax payer dollars wasted and lives destroyed in an attempt to solve what is a social and medical program. There is no question drugs are not a positive force in anyones life; but if someone makes a bad decision, we shouldn't assault him and lock him up in jail, we should educate him. When someone eats fast food, it is a stupid decision but the essence of a free society is that people are free to MAKE bad decisions; if you are only free to choose between the 'good' options the government presents to you, that is not freedom that is fascism. Rather than attacking the source of the problem with wait times (gee, not enough doctors? maybe that's why people can't get seen by doctors?) they simply throw more money in the system. Luckily, they only added another 600 million dollars and I suppose it is fortunate that they do not attempt to 'solve' the shortage of doctors. The only way to solve the shortage of doctors is to remove the regulations that limit the number of doctors to the number of people willing to go through the eight year plus university programs that teach 'being a doctor'. There are plenty of foreign doctors who would love to work, and even more people overseas that would love to come here and be doctors. The solutoin is simple : let them. Get rid of the laws that say "you and you and you and you cannot be a doctor, only you and you and you can". Let people decide to be treated by anyone they want to be treated for; it is not the role of the government to control trade, these are voluntary actions by people, there is no need to dominate and control them with force.

There's a follow up list of a few other areas where they have given handouts to this group and that group. Not ONCE to do they mention funding they have cut. I'm sure there have been cuts here and there (although I am equally sure the budget remains larger than last years, and will continue to increase in this manner, inexorably so long as our current one party system remains in power) but the key point is they do not mention them. They are ashamed of any cuts they have made; indicating one of two things. Either they think the Canadian people are idiots who must be fooled into thinking they are socailists while they are in fact working to cut taxes and reduce the size of government (unlikely) or more likely, the things they say they believe in are the things they believe in. They think, like that famous idiotic mayor (not Guiliani the other one) who said "There are no problems New York could not solve if it's budget where not double what it is today". That was back in the 1970's; in the 1980's the budget, Milton Friedman remarks, had doubled and the and problems had trippled as well. It is foolish to imagine an increase in taxes will solve the problems of society, many of which are caused by taxes in the first place. The Canadian Public has recognized this truism; it is our policians and intellectuals who are behind the curve; the most obvious example of this is the almost spontaneous rise of the ADQ in Quebec, a right leaning political party. In the absence of a major political party representing the views of the public, there is a power vacuum that is always filled; this is Democracy's saving grace.

Sadly, political debate has been replaced by ad hominem attacks; an image plastered all over the conservative party website reads simply "Stephane Dion is not a leader". I'm sure what they want to say is "[censored] this guy" because that's the level of debate in this country. There is analysis of flawed policies, simply absurd assertions as to the qualifications of the other politicians. While I agree that Stephane Dion is not a leader, that's a non statement. None of the crooks in charge are leaders; they are simply people, like anyone else, in power. True leaders cannot possibly get elected; it takes compromise and the ability to adopt the popular politics of the moment to get elected; that is not leadership it is self preservation. Now far be it from me to denounce self interest; it is self interest that get's things accomplished but it is dishonest to claim you are working "for the greater good" when you are in fact working "for your greater good".

Let us examine now their 2006 platform. Their slogan, Integrity, family, respect for work, achievement – Canada strong and free, useless buzz words. Everyone (aside from perhaps, the socialist left) respects these values. It is easy to say you are for "respect for work" but it is harder to show that respect, by cutting taxes people have to pay when they do work. It is easy to say you are 'for the family' (a euphemism to say hey guys, we still hate the gays, if you hate the gays vote for us) but it is much harder to work in the interests of families. You want to help families stay together? Get rid of their property taxes and allow families to exist independent of government coercion. Most compelling to the wrong headedness of the conservative party is this quote by Stephen Harper, that is "Instead of making phoney promises of huge benefits that never happen, we will deliver genuine, practical benefits that people experience,". Rather then telling you giant lies, they tell you slightly less giant lies. What about making huge promises that you can uphold : promises to reduce the size of government, cut taxes and step back from the government dominating every arena of your life. Why do you need to get a marriage license? Why must you register with the government in order to do business? Why do we tell businessmen "this is how you must do business, like this and this and this and not like this and this and this". Why do we presume the government has some omniscience; that central planners in Ottawa can tell us how things should work. Why are we not allowed to be free to decide as we like? Critics may say "oh but we have this freedom and this". That is not enough; I will not be satisfied with SOME freedom or a little freedom I demand total freedom. As Malcom X famously stated "when a man is on a hot stove, he does not ask permission to get off, but if a man is on a warm stove he can wait". The current state of affairs, the oppressive growth of government and the relentless increase in taxes is not a warm stolve, folks it is a hot stove.

It takes a while of browsing through the website to finally find the section on tax cuts. Now, I'm not sure how the conservative government can claim that with the size of government increasing, they are also cutting taxes. If they are spending more money and taxing less, where does the balance come from? Are they simply printing or borrowing the money? Or are they lieing to us, increasing taxes over here, decreasing them over there and claiming they have made a difference? By targetting tax cuts to various areas of the population, rather than attempting an overhaul of the actual tax code, they can claim they are making progress while in fact all they do is fudge the data. One of their 'tax cuts' is investing 140 million in a Registered Disability Savings Plan; I fail to see how this is a tax CUT. There is no mention of what taxes are raised to pay for it.
"A new $2,000 child tax credit will provide up to $310 of tax relief for each child under 18 to more than 3 million Canadian families." Now I'm confused; is it $2,000 tax credit or a $310 tax credit? Likely it's a $310 tax credit with a cap of $2,000 but the information is clearly not presented in that manner, perhaps because a $310 tax credit looks like the obvious bandaid solution that it is. They reduced the corporate income tax from 21% to 19%, which is a good start. Corporations and rich people do not pay taxes, they simply charge more for their services or products, so when you say you are taxing companies, you are actually taxing the people that use these companies. The corporate income tax should be levied only on companies that produce luxury goods; it is ridiculous to tax a grocery store on income because that simply means groceries are more expensive for everyone. This targets the poor the most because rich people often go to specialty stores and the like while the poor shop at stores like food basics. While leftists argue that if the taxes are reduced, it will just mean bigger profits, and they are right in one sense, which is that certainly some companies will just remain the same and reap bigger profits; but they fundamentally misunderstand economics and the free market when they make this point. While some companies may do that, other companies will not and they will have lower prices. Why do Food Basics and No Frills do so well? Because people are willing to go out of their way to pay less for the same product. Ultimately, the corporations that simply take the profits and do not reduce the price of their product will fail or reconsider their policy in that matter. This is the nature of capitalism; it tames corporate power because it relies on voluntary transactions. When the government is doing something in a stupid or inefficient manner, they simply take more of your money to pay for their idiocy.
The only place they claim to have made significant gains in tax reduction is, not surprisingly, the area that helps Canadians the least (and undoubtably one of the areas that was already taxed the lowest) and that is establishing 'the lowest tax rate on new business investment in the group of seven'. First of all, it's the G-8 not the G-7 but of all the areas to reduce taxes, this is the stupidest. I agree with reducing taxes here simply because I agree with reducing taxes EVERYWHERE but you have to start with the income and sales taxes that effect all individuals, not with giving tax credits to various special interests or enabling foreign companies to come in. Foreign investment is good, yes but let's stop targetting Canadians with ridiculous taxes before we start worrying if the guy from France that wants to start a factory in Windsor can do so. What about the guy who's trying to save up some money to start his own business? Let's start helping Canadians before we help the rest of the world; and the way to help Canadians is not with more useless government programs and regulations and laws but rather by getting the government off their back. Perhaps most telling about the failure of the conservative party to understand the nature of wealth and the role government should play in the country can be expressed in the following enumerated list that describes how the Ministry of Finance sees how Canada is such a wealthy nation :

Canada historically has benefited from vibrant, competitive capital markets. This has been founded on a number of key strengths:
An open economy that has embraced global trade and investment to drive economic growth and leverage the benefits of our proximity to the United States.
A sound and competitive financial system that has facilitated the allocation of savings and investment in the economy.
A solid market infrastructure, including the application of leading-edge technology in our exchanges and clearing and settlement systems.
A strong base of managerial and professional talent and skills in such disciplines as finance, accounting and law.
A mix of public and private institutional investors that have helped broaden the base of investment opportunities for Canadians.
An entrepreneurial tradition, with a steady stream of professionals gaining experience in the larger broker-dealer or investment firms and then starting smaller, innovative specialized firms.
Collaboration among regulators and the private sector in developing Canadian solutions to capital market issues in a manner that is also responsive to global developments.

The first point would be accurate, if we actually had an open economy. What we have is a highly regulated economy, where the government restricts competition to the benefit of various established special interests and at the detiment of those who wish to compete. The second half of this first point is actually more accurate than all the other bullet points added together; there is no question that our trade with our southern neighbours is the reason we have so much wealth; but what do we trade? It is not our 'mangerial' or 'professional talents' they trade for; it is our natural resources en mass. Now there is no problem if someone or a coporation owns a mine and he wants to sell the product that mine produces to an American; it is the fundamental right of he who holds the property rights to do whatever he wants with his stuff but when the government gives contracts to foreign countries to exploit our natural resources, that is a different subject alltogether. It is always better, all other things being equal, to work for yourself as opposed to another person. When you work for yourself, you get full value for your labour : when you work for someone else, they get value from your labour and you get value from your labour. Likewise, it is always better for Canada to have that natural resource manufactured as a good in Canada and then sold, either in Canada or overseas than it is to have these natural resources simply sold wholesale south of the border. This doesn't mean we should prevent people from selling resources they own to Americans if they want to; the essence of a free market is you don't have the government do things like that, but we should stop awarding 'mining rights' to companies. The government should not be saying 'you can work this land' and 'you can work that land'; government owned land that contains natural resources should be auctioned off to Canadian citizens, who can do with it as they please, rather than simply having the government awarding contracts left and right.
When they claim a 'sound and financial system' I agree, but I doubt we are agreeing over the same things. The essence of a 'sound' financial system is a monetary system.

[Nielsio]

Holy long. Cliff?

Would you consider making a youtube vid of this?

[GoodCallYouWin]

Cliff Notes :

Canada ruled by socialists; all three leading political parties are identical.

[ianlippert]

[ QUOTE ]
Now, if it's true that the government spends a million dollars educating each child (and this was ten years ago, given inflation and the rising inefficiency of any force-monopolistic industry it could be two million by now) well, did anyone consider the more rational option of closing the schools and giving every child a million dollars? They could spend $5,000 of that on books and an internet connection, learn more than the school could ever possibly teach them and use the remaining $995,000 (or $1,995,000 if my second estimate is true) living their life in leisure.

[/ QUOTE ]

I liked this part.

Interesting read, I often only read stats about america and often neglect my home country of Canada. About the only good thing going in regards to our government is that we dont have a deficit anymore. How long this can be sustained is pretty questionable. I think overall Canada is still a great place to live.

[NickMPK]

[ QUOTE ]
Now, if it's true that the government spends a million dollars educating each child (and this was ten years ago, given inflation and the rising inefficiency of any force-monopolistic industry it could be two million by now) well, did anyone consider the more rational option of closing the schools and giving every child a million dollars? They could spend $5,000 of that on books and an internet connection, learn more than the school could ever possibly teach them and use the remaining $995,000 (or $1,995,000 if my second estimate is true) living their life in leisure.

[/ QUOTE ]

TL;DR the OP, just the response.

But this number is ludicrous. Do you have any sort of cite?

I'm not sure about Canada, but the average cost per pupil of K-12 public school in the US is about $8,000 per year. Or a little over $100,000 total to graduate a kid from high school. I can't imagine it is ten or twenty times as great in Canada.

[GoodCallYouWin]

Yeah Canada is definitely an awesome place to live, but I can't help but think that's only because we sell all our natural resources to the states.

[GoodCallYouWin]

Education costs around $5000 a year, according to a Frasier institute study.

[Sean'MadMan']

nice essay
spot on for the most part
I'm for any future system of governance that can be described as 'anarcho-anything'
will do better then what we have now, quibbling over semantics and non sequiturs

[Nielsio]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm for any future system of governance that can be described as 'anarcho-anything'

[/ QUOTE ]

Nice [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[mosdef]

Sorry, I didn't make it through the whole thing. A 10,000 word post is a little much. I will focus in on this, though, because I think you're wrong:

[ QUOTE ]
our one party system offers no such recourse for the voters wishing to register their dissent. There is no question that Canadians want lower taxes and smaller government

[/ QUOTE ]

IMO this is just fundamentally wrong. There is no barrier to the entry of a party preaching no taxes, or lower taxes. If there was a real demand for a zero tax government, such a party would emerge and be elected. When you say "Canadians oppose taxes", what you really mean is "Canadians want lower taxes and improved government services, too". Very, very few Canadians actually want small government. Of course when you poll them them say they want cheap and big government. Who wouldn't?

Claims that "the people really want such and such a government but the system doesn't offer it" sound the same to me as claims that "people don't want to be consuming product X but the big bad corporations make it the only option". I think both are fallacies assuming that people would act like you (i.e. "the right way") if they could just "see the light". The reality is that the "menu" of choices (either political choices in a democracy or consumer choices in a market) adapt to fill demand.