{"id":8747,"date":"2011-04-10T00:08:54","date_gmt":"2011-04-10T04:08:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=8747"},"modified":"2011-04-09T12:14:28","modified_gmt":"2011-04-09T16:14:28","slug":"qotd-the-real-meaning-of-the-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2011\/04\/10\/qotd-the-real-meaning-of-the-election\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: The real issue of the election"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote>\n<p>What is the issue in this election? Why, the same as in all elections, my libertarian self exclaims. In the last 45 years, the only question has been whether the government implementing the NDP\u2019s policies will be Liberal or Conservative.<\/p>\n<p>OK, my libertarian self exaggerates. Does it exaggerate by much? I don\u2019t think so.<\/p>\n<p>The NDP may do abysmally in federal elections, but the NDP\u2019s ideas flourish. Canada is governed from the middle, yes, but the middle is on the left. The politicians who form our next government will be statist &mdash; socialists in all but name &mdash; because there are no other kinds running. Our statists may vary in degree, but not in kind. Since the 1960s, classical liberals or conservatives either haven\u2019t entered the arena or changed their policies afterwards. They wouldn\u2019t have had a chance otherwise.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s the irony, though: If socialists called themselves socialists, they wouldn\u2019t stand a chance either. Canadians are funny that way. They\u2019ll buy nothing but socialist policies and practices, but never from socialists. Calling things what they are isn\u2019t politically polite in Canada.<\/p>\n<p>George Jonas, <a href=\"http:\/\/fullcomment.nationalpost.com\/2011\/04\/09\/george-jonas-in-canada-socialists-dont-win-elections-but-their-policies-do\/\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;In Canada, socialists don\u2019t win elections. But their policies do&#8221;, <em>National Post<\/em><\/a>, 2011-04-09<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What is the issue in this election? Why, the same as in all elections, my libertarian self exclaims. In the last 45 years, the only question has been whether the government implementing the NDP\u2019s policies will be Liberal or Conservative. OK, my libertarian self exaggerates. Does it exaggerate by much? I don\u2019t think so. The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,84,53,41],"tags":[188,76],"class_list":["post-8747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cancon","category-government","category-politics","category-quotations","tag-electionwatch","tag-socialism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-2h5","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8747"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8747\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8749,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8747\/revisions\/8749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}