So, would a real conservative act to tackle pollution? (say, acid rain, ozone depletion, or global warming)
…act to change which form of energy drives the nation’s transportation systems?
…fight a war on drugs?
…implement systems to ensure universal access to education, health, retirement benefits?
So, would a real conservative act to tackle pollution? (say, acid rain, ozone depletion, or global warming)
…act to change which form of energy drives the nation’s transportation systems?
…fight a war on drugs?
…implement systems to ensure universal access to education, health, retirement benefits?[/quote]
First off, I think I may have made a mistake by getting into the whole “this is what a true conservative is” arena. I have my own view of what a true conservative is, but I know others have their own definitions, and I don’t know that it makes much sense to try to convince anyone else to use the term the way I do.
So I think I’ll just give you my own opinion on those questions, Jaboney:
----- Act to tackle pollution? Absolutely. They’re poisoning the commons, and should be forced to internalize the cost of the pollution they put out.
----- Act to change which form of energy drives the nation’s transportation systems? To some extent. I’d stop subsidizing corn ethanol immediately (along with basically all other farm subsidies … and basically all subsidies to other industries as well for that matter), allow free import of the much more sensible sugar ethanol, and basically try to keep the government from adding to the problem. I’d probably allow for a larger role in letting the powerful market force of the current high gas prices play a larger role (in comparison to affirmative government programs) than you would, though.
----- Fight a war on drugs? No. (It’s not quite that clear-cut for me, actually, but my answer is basically no.)
----- Implement systems to ensure universal access to education, health, retirement benefits? Heck, I’ll do you one better! I’d go beyond ensuring access, and go ahead and have the government pay for everyone’s education and health care 
, and I would use the full heavy-handed power of the state to force people to save a certain amount of their income every year for retirement.
I actually want the government to do a lot more than many true conservatives (some would no doubt read my answer to you on education, health and retirement and say that I don’t qualify at all).
I do think I’m probably toward the extreme in terms of what I want the president to do though. (If I want a government that plays a fairly limited role, I want a president who plays a very limited role.) I don’t want to see the president on TV trying to “inspire” me. I have no need to see the president sticking/her his face into a camera trying to “console” me when there is some terrible tragedy. I have no interest in hearing from the president’s spouse on any topic on which he/she would not be listened to if he/she didn’t live in the White House. I don’t need the president to be a “role model” (if I want a role model I have plenty of people choose from who have not spent their entire adult life in the relentless pursuit of power). I don’t want to have the White House press office spending money telling me about the president’s new pet dog, or putting out press releases about the presidential turkey pardon on Thanksgiving. I don’t want the president to “lead” me anywhere, or try to impress me with some grand “vision” of what the future should be.
I pretty much just want the president to be a competent government employee, who doesn’t screw things up too badly, who picks good people to run the various agencies*, and enforces the laws the Congress (admittedly with him playing a minor role) enacts.
H
*The part about picking good people to staff the agencies is, in my opinion, probably the most important job a president has – and it is one that I think Bush has been worst at.
You must LOVE Bush.
[quote=“Hobbes”]I have my own view of what a true conservative is, but I know others have their own definitions, and I don’t know that it makes much sense to try to convince anyone else to use the term the way I do. [/quote]Fair enough, but offering your own definition for clarity might be useful.
Btw, I agree with you on all points. We may disagree on the role of the market in determining what powers transportation. I’d be perfectly happy shaping the market by taxing the hell out of oil on the basis of 1) pollution, and 2) exposure to unstable, unfriendly states.
Taking the head of state as a role model has never been an issue for me. I’m sure it’s very much a marginal issue in Canada. We simply don’t imbue the office with the same authority/ aura. Maybe because your central founding father was a war hero while ours was a shrewd drunk.
[quote]
*The part about picking good people to staff the agencies is, in my opinion, probably the most important job a president has – and it is one that I think Bush has been worst at.
[/quote]Agreed. And that’s one of the virtues of the otherwise embarrassing tradition of parliamentary question period: the incompetent are regularly, publicly held up to ridicule, and sent packing as a result.
For easy reference.
[quote=“Slate’s guide to possible Bush administration prosecutions.”]The recent release of Jane Mayer’s book The Dark Side revealed that a secret report by the International Committee of the Red Cross determined “categorically” that the CIA used torture, as defined by American and international law, in questioning al-Qaida suspect Abu Zubaydah. The question of criminal liability for Bush-administration officials has since been in the news. It’s also getting play because retired Gen. Antonio Taguba, lead Army investigator of the prison abuses at Abu Ghraib, wrote in a recent report, “There is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes.” (Update: And today, the ACLU released three new memos from the Department of Justice and the CIA, which for the first time show DoJ explicitly authorizing “enhanced” interrogation tactics for use on specific detainees. One of the memos states, in this context, that “interrogation techniques, including the waterboard, do not violate the Torture Statute.”)
[…]
We looked specifically at the White House, the office of the vice presidency, the Department of Defense, the Justice Department, and the State Department. We started with a question about whether anyone could be prosecuted for war crimes relating to the torture identified by the International Committee of the Red Cross. We soon spiraled out to trace related loops: warrantless wiretapping and the destruction of CIA tapes of the interrogations of two high-level suspects. And then we added in scandals that involve many of the same players and that have spawned investigations: the firing of the U.S. attorneys in 2006 in the Justice Department as well as politicized hirings there. In the main, the laws and treaties we concentrated on were the Geneva Conventions, the War Crimes Act, the Convention Against Torture, obstruction of justice and destruction of evidence, perjury, lying to Congress, the Civil Service Reform Act, and the Hatch Act.
[/quote]
Poor Fredo. He’s in the middle. And doesn’t remember anything.
[quote=“Jaboney”]
So, would a real conservative act to tackle pollution? [/quote]
Well, the two most ambitious agendas against climate change in North America have been launched by centre-right governments in Callifornia [Republican Arnie] and BC [Liberals are a lot more conservative than the NDP].
[quote=“Chewycorns”][quote=“Jaboney”]
So, would a real conservative act to tackle pollution? [/quote]
Well, the two most ambitious agendas against climate change in North America have been launched by centre-right governments in Callifornia [Republican Arnie] and BC [Liberals are a lot more conservative than the NDP].[/quote]And Mulroney and Reagan put the boots to acid rain. So, what’s wrong with Harper and Bush?
[quote=“Jaboney”][quote=“Chewycorns”][quote=“Jaboney”]
So, would a real conservative act to tackle pollution? [/quote]
Well, the two most ambitious agendas against climate change in North America have been launched by centre-right governments in Callifornia [Republican Arnie] and BC [Liberals are a lot more conservative than the NDP].[/quote]And Mulroney and Reagan put the boots to acid rain. So, what’s wrong with Harper and Bush?[/quote]
Didn’t Harper launch a moderate “green plan” in 2007? Why do we need to regulate this at the federal level? Let’s leave it to the provinces. With so much difference of opinion between the provinces and even leaders from within the same parties (e.g. Dion and McGuinty), I would prefer to see weaker legislation in this area at the Federal level.
[quote=“Chewycorns”]Didn’t Harper launch a moderate “green plan” in 2007? Why do we need to regulate this at the federal level? Let’s leave it to the provinces. With so much difference of opinion between the provinces and even leaders from within the same parties (e.g. Dion and McGuinty), I would prefer to see weaker legislation in this area at the Federal level.[/quote]No, Mulroney advised him to “own the issue” and he punted.
We need it because while virtually everyone recognizes the need to pollute less and be more energy efficient, Canadian society and industry is grossly wasteful. But Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland aren’t going to say “Boo” to their golden goose, so if the federal gov’t doesn’t act they’ll do nothing and fall behind.
Aside from the health and environmental issues, what’s the worry? The energy sector’s clearly going to change, and we’ll get caught with our pants down. Canadian industry’s got a bad habit of laying back and milking the good times without preparing for the lean, and doesn’t have a great record of (maximizing on) innovation to get ahead of herd when there’s a major shift.
In addition to everything else, Bush blew the energy file. (Bet the Big 3 now wish they hadn’t fought fuel standards tooth and nail, don’t you?) Harper’s done the same. If he’d quit acting surly and petty, and get out in front of the other parties on energy and the environment, he’d eliminate the two largest gripes against his gov’t and coast to a majority.
youtube.com/watch?v=J4K73J7exXI
This is an hour-long interview with Jane Mayer about her book The Dark Side. It’s not about Bush. More about the administration and Cheney in particular. This will be one legacy, torture and the abuse and consolidation of power in the Whitehouse.
Tom Friedman’s take on part of the ridiculous legacy of this administration:
[quote=“Tom Friedman”][Shai Agassi’s] company, Better Place, and its impressive team would run the smart grid that charges the cars and is also contracting for enough new solar energy from Israeli companies — 2 gigawatts over 10 years — to power the whole fleet. “Israel will have the world’s first virtual oilfield in the Negev Desert,” said Agassi. His first 500 electric cars, built by Renault, will hit Israel’s roads next year.
Agassi is a passionate salesman for his vision. He could sell camels to Saudi Arabia. “Today in Europe, you pay $600 a month for gasoline,” he explained to me. “We have an electric car that will cost you $600 a month” — with all the electric fuel you need and when you don’t want the car any longer, just give it back. No extra charges and no CO2 emissions.
His goal, said Agassi, is to make his electric car “so cheap, so trivial, that you won’t even think of buying a gasoline car.” Once that happens, he added, your oil addiction will be over forever. You’ll be “off heroin,” he says, and “addicted to milk.”
T. Boone Pickens is 80. He’s already made billions in oil. He was involved in some ugly mischief in funding the “Swift-boating” of John Kerry. But now he’s opting for a different legacy: breaking America’s oil habit by pushing for a massive buildup of wind power in the U.S. and converting our abundant natural gas supplies — now being used to make electricity — into transportation fuel to replace foreign oil in our cars, buses and trucks.
Pickens is motivated by American nationalism. Because of all the money we are shipping abroad to pay for our oil addiction, he says, “we are on the verge of losing our superpower status.” His vision is summed up on his Web site: “We import 70 percent of our oil at a cost of $700 billion a year … I have been an oil man all my life, but this is one emergency we can’t drill our way out of. If we create a renewable energy network, we can break our addiction to foreign oil.”
[…]
If only we had a Congress and president who, instead of chasing crazy schemes like offshore drilling and releasing oil from our strategic reserve, just sat down with Boone and Shai and asked one question: “What laws do we need to enact to foster 1,000 more like you?” Then just do it, and get out of the way.[/quote]
Those are two instances. There are hundreds of others, either working elsewhere or waiting for conditions in the US to change.
Making that happen instead of encouraging people to go shopping, buy homes they can’t afford, drive vehicles the environment can’t manage… that would have been great.
India and China are about to go gangbusters, but they’ll do it on the cheapest version of today’s technology. Had the US, under Clinton following Gulf War I, and under Bush rather than uselessly embarking on Gulf War II, driven next-gen technologies such as these Agassi and Boone are now pushing, maybe India and China would launch themselves in something other Tata Motors’ version of the Model T and power themselves with something other than coal.
I’m all for clean energy innovation (why put all your eggs in one basket?) and believe that Canada definitely has to improve its innovation capacities in many industries (a recently-released Federal report gave the country a “D” in innovation), but why not leave the choice on whether to pursue a green path or not to the provinces? I don’t think some provinces would appreciate what is basically another type of National Energy Program mandated from Ottawa, particularly in these uncertain economic times. Such a program could hurt the economies of Alberta and Newfoundland (oil), and Saskatchewan (coal etc.). I don’t think that levying $15.4 billion in new taxes on Canadian industries that produce high carbon emissions (as Dion’s program would do) would create a legacy of innovation. It would create another economic disaster for Western Canada and the maritimes. Let the provinces decide the economic path they want to take. If some provinces want to pursue a green agenda, that’s great. Every province has different economic interests and having national legislation would hurt some provinces a hell of a lot more than others.
I know a little bit about wind energy (I have a friend who works for a foreign company involved with wind turbines that is considering setting up shop in Canada) and agree with Mr. Pickens on its merits. However, and most important for capitalists such as Pickens me thinky thinks, it is also a great money maker if you can set up shop close to a grid. It can cost millions of dollars to pay for one turbine, but it is usually paid for in about 10 years. Since these turbines can last for over 20 years or more, that’s 10 plus years of “gravy” with very little upkeep costs.
Why not leave the choice on whether to pursue a green path or not to the provinces?
Well, Johnny, the teacher’s given you a “D” in innovation, but whether or not you put in the extra effort is entirely up to you. Right.
You don’t think some provinces would appreciate what is basically another type of National Energy Program mandated from Ottawa, particularly in these uncertain economic times?
Uncertain economic times? The uncertainty is whether or not the oil companies will set new records in profit taking. What would be a better time to innovate… when you’re back’s to the wall and there’s nothing left in the basket to pay for it??? :loco: “National Energy Program” can be rolled out as a political catch phrase, or be a genuine gasp energy program for the nation. Whether or not provinces currently reaping the benefits of rape-and-pillage-dump-the-externalities would eagerly line-up behind such an initiative matters to me not one iota. Let the provinces take the paths they want in developing forms of energy that won’t drive global warming or cloak the cities in smog.
I believe that’s called leadership.
[quote=“Jaboney”] Whether or not provinces currently reaping the benefits of rape-and-pillage-dump-the-externalities would eagerly line-up behind such an initiative matters to me not one iota.
I believe that’s called leadership.[/quote]
If Harper and the Conservatives passed such wide-ranging and punitive legislation at the national level, it would be political suicide. One can balance these things at a provincial level more easily, but pushing it at a Federal level could risk a lot of internal splits within the party. He knows that and that is why he hasn’t heeded Mulroney’s advice (and risked going into GST Mulroney era levels of unpopularity). He would lose his political base/support in many parts of the West, and people in Calgary Southwest (his riding and my birth riding 
), many of whom remember losing their houses during Trudeau’s National Energy Program, wouldn’t forgive him that easily. What political benefits would he get out of it? The urban vote in big cities (often the people pushing this the most) would still vote Liberal or NDP. He’d be pulling a Disraeli in 1867. How did the working class Brits thank him for passing the 1867 Reform Act? They voted in Gladstone. Harper’s moderate green initiatives in 2007 were good enough. Let Dion push this and see how he fares in the next election. 
Amazing. Absolutely amazing. Bush knows. He gets it. He understands.
W
youtube.com/watch?v=aEyJ2kdaaTQ
Oliver Stone is pushing to get this movie out before November. I don’t think I have liked any of his movies, but this one has potential.
Also coming out before election day is the sequel to Fahrenheit 911.
Report Faults Aides in Hiring at Justice Dept.
It was wrong but nothing will come of it. No indictments, no prosecutions, no justice.
Another legacy, totally screwing up the fight against terrorism.
[quote]“Terrorists should be perceived and described as criminals, not holy warriors, and our analysis suggests there is no battlefield solution to terrorism,” said Seth Jones, the lead author of the study and a Rand political scientist.
“The United States has the necessary instruments to defeat al-Qaida, it just needs to shift its strategy,” Jones said.[/quote]
Study questions US strategy against al-Qaida
Jane Mayer, author of “The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals”, the book that revealed secret Red Cross findings that the US was categorically engaged in torture has an article summarizing her findings in the NY Review of Books.
She emphasizes:
Goes into the danger of creeping normalization:
[quote]Such extreme measures were perhaps understandable in the panic-filled days and weeks immediately after September 11, falling into place among other historic infringements of civil liberties during times of dire national security crisis. Yet seven years later, the Bush administration’s counterterrorism policies remained largely unchanged… In fact torture, which was reviled as a depraved vestige of primitive cultures before September 11, seemed in danger of becoming normalized…
Senator John McCain’s opposition to torture surely runs as deep as that of any politician in America. He captured the essence of the issue eloquently in a simple declaration in 2005 that “it’s not about them; it’s about us.”[/quote]
Questionable effectiveness:
[quote][Senator Jay Rockefeller, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee] asserted that the Bush administration’s approach was not only unnecessary, it was also undermining the security that it claimed to safeguard. “The CIA’s program damages our national security by weakening our legal and moral authority, and by providing al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups a recruiting and motivational tool,” he said. “By continuing this interrogation program, the President is sacrificing our strategic advantage for questionable tactical gain.”
Doubt has begun to emerge from within the administration itself, too. In 2006, a scientific advisory group to the US intelligence agencies produced an exhaustive report on interrogation called “Educing Information,” which concluded that there was no scientific proof whatsoever that harsh techniques worked. In fact, several of the experts involved in the study described the infliction of physical and psychological cruelty as outmoded, amateurish, and unreliable.
In confidential interviews, several of those with inside information about the NSA’s controversial Terrorist Surveillance Program have expressed similar disenchantment. As one of these former officials says of the ultrasecret program so furiously defended by David Addington, chief of staff and former counsel to Vice President Cheney, “It’s produced nothing.”[/quote]
Political consequences:
Political corruption:
The moral strength of a number of individuals:
[quote]In one particularly poignant case in 2004, suspicions of torture caused a Marine Corps prosecutor to reluctantly drop charges against Mohamedou Ould Slahi, an alleged al-Qaeda leader in Guantánamo who was accused of helping the Hamburg cell that planned the September 11 attacks.
[color=green]The prosecutor, Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Couch, had been enlisted specifically because he had wanted to help bring justice for a friend who had been the co-pilot of United Flight 175, the second plane that al-Qaeda crashed into the World Trade Center. After he pieced together the record of torture techniques to which Slahi had been subjected, however, Couch, who is a devout Christian, could no longer continue the case in good conscience.[/color] “Here was somebody I thought was connected to 9/11,” Couch told The Wall Street Journal, “but in our zeal to get information, we had compromised our ability to prosecute him.”[/quote]
And the conclusions of those best placed to know and speak the plain truth:
Can’t wait to buy the book. Sounds like it should be required reading.