I dare ya (?)

These type of method, on the other hand, is a terrible ways to justify public policy.

Harper's muzzling of his own members is troubling enough, though in today's media context I can feign at least to understand his purpose. For those frustrated by the (frankly) anti-democratic animus of the Chretien/Martin concentrated PMO, and looked to Harper for some relief on this front, his first few months have been an ominous disappointment. I am too tired to dispense with the links - but the appointing the committee heads, Emerson and Fortier, the Cabinet quieting, the vote-for-daycare-or-else... I thought the point of a new administration under him was that we would get to argue the merits of new policy on their actual merits. Maybe this is no longer possible in a Parliamentary democracy? To claim it has been somehow sanctioned by the 6% of voters who flopped from 2004 to 2006 is insulting to a thinking person's intelligence.

The point that somehow "the tide of the electorate favours us this month so I dare you to cause an election" mentality is anything other than politically expedient. Maybe it is savvy politics. It is terribly distressing that it has so quickly become the paramount modus operandi in Ottawa. Maybe I was too naive to being with. This is, at root after all, the party that vowed to talk MP pension reform up until the day they qualified for it. Human nature is a bitch to fight. And who is to say I and we would be any better?

Oh, hypocricy, thou tyrant beast. You are just waiting with a Capirinha on Waikiki next week, aren't you? I can almost feel your Pacific...