Comment 99369

By Chris Angel (registered) | Posted March 29, 2014 at 01:50:51 in reply to Comment 99225

Social conservatism has been in intellectual decline since the Reagan era. It used to have intelligent proponents like William F. Buckley. Now it has only NRA & tea party suck-ups and the entire US is blatantly controlled by corporate "entities" and the massive military industrial complex Eisenhower warned of in his farewell address. Hope that doesn't sound like smug Canadian crap as we are only about a half a step behind our cousins to the south in many regards. Before Reagan finished his 1st term I was identifying as a "fiscal conservative" thanks to trickle down theory, Reaganomics and the rapid dumbing down of social conservative thought. Rush Limbaugh or Fox "News" are examples of this dumbing down. P. J O'Rourke is the only conservative worth reading or listening to; but in many regards he is far from being a social conservative, readily stating that government has a vital role beyond the confines of social conservative "small government" gum flapping. I think you are correct about why many south of the border identify as libertarian etc. It is an embarrassment to any thinking person to identify as a social conservative when not only has the ideology lost its intellectual force it is just no longer even rational. Justin has made a powerful case regardless of a few quibbles about some of the roadway cost subsidy stats. I would offer evidence to the contrary but he has all the bases covered. What really stands out to me is that if Canon can accommodate bike lanes there are a lot of streets especially in the lower city that could do likewise. It is very logical that maintenance costs will drop substantially. One hundred and fifty pound pedestrians just don't inflect the same stress as ton and a half vehicles doing 60km/hr (typical for Canon). Add twenty pounds of bike and the portion of the roadway devoted to bike use will be cheaper to maintain. Pot holes and other hazards are clearly not encountered with the same frequency they are on our roads. As a fiscal conservative I totally support the use of bike lanes throughout this region.

PS Liberalism in Canada is about equally or perhaps even more bankrupt than social conservatism. E-Health, Ornge, Douglas Creek Estates and the Power Plant scandal have wasted 100's of millions actually closer to a billion dollars and not one person has been held accountable. Don't forget either that mcguinty imposed the largest tax hike in Ontario history in the form of the health tax reimposed on individuals instead of employers. He did this some 3 weeks after pledging not to raise taxes. Clearly he lied and so it goes in the liberal party. We didn't delete any emails - no not us. It is hard to be smug when you look at the train wreck the libs in Ontario have left. I would encourage people not to be dogmatic or constrained by organizational policies in their beliefs political or otherwise and to value independent thought.

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