A Gathering of Tories

Gerry Nicholls demurs:

Rather, I would bemoan, in my nagging but adorable sort of way, the growing tendency of Canadian conservatives to miss the big picture, to focus so much on political partisanship, that they are losing sight of the need to promote principles and values.

Certain conservative groups, in other words, seem to care more about helping the Conservative Party than they do about winning the war of ideas.

Take, for instance, a group I used to work for, the National Citizens Coalition. In theory, the NCC is supposed to promote "more freedom through less government."

Yet, in the past five years or so, it has basically transformed itself into something akin to a Conservative Party vassal.

As Gerry goes onto note:

After all, candidates, campaign managers, volunteers and other operatives working on a political campaign actually expend little thought on how to promote the ideas of Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman or Friedrich Hayek.

Over the years I've run into quite a few Tory operators who certainly knew when to reference Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman or Friedrich Hayek in conversation. Had they actually read any of their works? Given their incoherent rationalizations for the Harper government's policies, I would suspect the answer is no. To the political operator ideas are symbols to be deployed when necessary to achieve a goal - primarily winning power - in a manner not so different from a magic sword.

So what type of being enters into politics? My initial guess would be a sadomasochist, though I'm not sure if that's really accurate. A principled individual entering politics would certainly feel pain at seeing their ideas compromised or discarded. But if you have no principles, if your goal is power for power's sake, then why would you feel pain? Tax cuts today, binge spending tomorrow, their just words spoken at the right moment to the right audience. 

Even for the unprincipled pol there might still be pain in politics. All those people screaming at you, the constant rejection, the long nights away from home, not a pretty picture. Then again that also describes the life of a travelling salesman. Being a successful political operator can be quite profitable, at least after you leave politics and enter the nebulous world of political consulting. You'd be amazed at the number of large organizations that have Government Relations Officers.

Next time you're thinking that Canada has a free market, check to see if the company you work for has a Government Relations Officer. If so take a moment to ponder what such a being could possible do for eight hours a day that could be justified in a free market. Then contemplate how much that GRO is or is not adding to your firm's bottom line. Wait a moment for the shivers to run down your spine.

What allows for GROs and political opportunists, and indeed whole "networking conferences" for such people is Big Government. Here is the grave irony of the Manning meet-up. You have a bunch of conservatives who are sworn, kind of, to reduce the size of government, in some areas, and spending lots of money and energy attempting to achieve that goal. Yet government rarely ever shrinks. It becomes a profitable career to call for smaller government, yet if government ever does get small you're out of a job. Your personal beliefs and your paycheck are at loggerheads.

There is a certain class of conservative who reminds me of the Pequistes. Dans la belle province for the last fifty years thousands of people have earned their living agitating for Quebec independence. All but the most numerically illiterate understand that an independent Quebec would not survive a week without financial assistance from Canada, the IMF or both. Our second largest province's threats to leave are about as serious as a suburban teenager from a good home threatening to run away. At first it's shocking, then it becomes trite and at last it's just annoying.

The perpetual professional partisan conservative is in much the same position. He is calling for something which is not immediately practical. If the conservative in question works for the Tories that means he is part and parcel of a government that has expanded the size of government at a faster clip than the Chretien-Martin Liberals. So in what sense is he actually a conservative? The professional Tory is not trying to move the culture in a better direction, as say a policy analyst at a Think-Tank, he is just profiting off the hopes of millions of Canadians who do want a smaller government.

While I believe there are still quite a few Tory MPs of goodwill, they have to ask themselves how much good they are really doing in politics. Are they making things better? Or are they complicit in the Big Lie that is much of modern government. I don't know. In politics there isn't a clear line between being practical and being Faust. 

For most people this may not seem all that important. They are not interested in politics or politicians, so why should they care? My response is always the same: You might not be interested in politics but politics is always interested in you. Remember that this April.

 

 

Comments

[Neil]

Agreed. Well said.