The Moderation of Stephen Harper Meets the Ideological Unsoundness of Jonathan Kay

Response to a Jonathan Kay Article in the National Post: Embittering paranoia is stubborn vice Harper can’t seem to shake: I think that 'embittered and paranoid’ as the ideologically unsound JK terms it, is the condition of being a conservative not only in Canada but the U.S. as well. To say that conservatives and conservative values are under attack north of the Rio Grande is to be the master of the understatement. Whether it is the fiscal conservative posturing of a candidate Romney during the 2012 campaign to his unapologetic capitalism with which he governed his laudable career, both fiscal and entrepreneurial conservatism were derided to the point of the absurd by Obama and his Marxist goons. Equally rational social conservatism as expressed as a resistance to unfettered late term abortion and a condemnation of the genocidal Planned Parenthood organization, or government funded contraception, or the resistance of Roman Catholic organizations to the forced funding of contraception in their health care plans in contradiction of their beliefs, was termed by the Democrats as a 'War against Women'. Indeed President Obama, by the most balanced accounts a far Left radical, has engaged in a non-ending war against capitalism and conservatism since assuming power in 2008, the list of details being far too long to go into here. Equally, Prime Minister Harper since forming his first of two minority governments and now his majority government has long been accused of having 'a radical conservative ( read fascist) agenda' which to date has never materialized and could not be further from the truth based on the actions of this fundamentally moderate and cautious man. Like most successful Canadian politicians Stephen Harper expressed strong ideological criticism against the government when he was out of power but has successfully and dutifully governed from the centre after assuming power. In short, conservatives have a right to be embittered even paranoid. Embittered because they know they are right and that they embody the economic and social vision which made the U.S. and Canada two of the richest and freest of nations and yet they are constantly confronted with the opaque, godless, unwashed extremist hordes of the Left who yearn to live in a totalitarian anti-capitalist world based on the collectivist values of the ultimate nanny state. Paranoid because the conspiracies against sound conservative principles are multiplying like fungi in the shade growing on an ever-growing mound of bull dung. http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2013/07/19/embittering-paranoia-is-stubborn-vice-harper-cant-seem-to-shake/