Month: January 2020

Categories
Canadian Election Canadian Politics Conservatarians Social Issues Uncategorized

LESLYN LEWIS. Remember that name.

dwr.jpgFor those of you that follow me on Facebook and Twitter and in my IWUZ.ME blogs, I don’t think it’s a surprise for me to tell you that I’m a social conservative. But I’m a moderate social conservative. I do believe in traditional marriage and I believe that it was breathtakingly presumptuous for Progressivists to insist that we throw out thousands of years of tradition which recognized marriage as a union between a man and a woman, in favor of same-sex marriage. And many in the LGBT community agreed. Same-sex relationships being recognized in law as civil unions, as they are in many “progressive” European countries, would have been fine. But that ship has sailed, and it’s up to us that believe in traditional marriage to make it stronger.

Regarding women’s rights, I am pro-choice, just not unlimited choice. I’m pro-life, but I recognize the fact that we will never completely end abortions, and therefore believe we should compromise and set limits around abortion. I agree with the author of the guest blog I published last week, that social conservatives need to take a well thought out position, and then to articulate that position over and over again until people understand it. And we should be pragmatic; Gain what is possible.

indexWe need to do that as individual conservatives, but in the public sphere it would be wonderful if we had exceptionally well-qualified people to articulate the socially conservative position. A few days ago I ran across the name Leslyn Lewis, and I am convinced that Ms. Lewis is one of those persons.

She’s hardly known as yet, but she’s running for leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada. Ms. Lewis would bring a new gravitas to the entire spectrum of debate; from fiscal conservatism, to social conservatism, to legal conservatism.

Here’s a rundown of her qualifications. Single mom, Entrepreneur, a Bachelors Degree from the University of Toronto Trinity College, graduating Magna Cum Laude; a Masters in Environmental Studies from York University; an MBA Concentration in Business and Environment from the Schulich School of Business; a Juris Doctorate from Osgoode Hall Law School, and a PhD in International Law from Osgoode Hall Law School. I’m not aware of any leader of any political party in Canada, or the United States, in my lifetime, with equal, non-political qualifications.

I think that even if Ms. Lewis doesn’t win the leadership of the Conservative party, and she probably can’t, she would elevate the level of the discussion around Conservative leadership enormously. Because of that, Meritha and I are supporting her for leadership of the Conservative party. If you’d like to see a higher level of debate, here’s what to do.

  1. Have a valid membership in the Conservative party. If you’re not sure, or can’t find your number, phone the party at 1-866-808-8407 and get your membership number.
  2. Go to her website, http://www.leslynlewis.ca and click on Nomination Form, and fill it out carefully.

Let’s make sure that as the Conservative Party elects a new leader, they have the highest quality debate possible!

I’m Dave Reesor

If you agree that it would be advantageous for the Conservatives to have the highest possible level of debate, on real issues, please, right away, Like, and Share with your family, friends and colleagues so that Ms. Lewis can be part of the discussion. As lawyers say: TIME is of the essence!

Categories
Abortion Judaeo Christian Public Education Social Issues Uncategorized

Pragmatism or Idealism. The smart conservative approach to abortion.

dwr.jpgConservative parties, and even Progressivist parties, always include people that are uncomfortable with the issue of abortion. In most developed countries – other than Canada – there are limits to abortion depending on the stage of the pregnancy. In Canada there are no laws, and no legal limits, and, we’re not even supposed to talk about the issue. We should, because with DNA we now know that a new, completely individual human life begins at conception, and Canada should join other modern nations in recognizing that fact.

A few weeks ago I received an article suggesting that social conservatives should approach the abortion issue pragmatically, rather than idealistically. The author asked me if I would be interested in publishing it on my blog, anonymously. The author’s data is correct, and since I’m in philosophical agreement on the issue, I’ve agreed.

Please read it carefully, and then let us know what you think.

I’m Dave Reesor

 

A smart Conservative approach to abortion in Canada

I estimate that only 10% of Canadians support the status quo: abortion is legal during all nine months of pregnancy, for any reason, every reason, or no reason.  Sex-selection abortions (parent or parents unhappy with the gender of their/his/her unborn child) are perfectly legal in Canada, and this victimizes unborn girls far more frequently than unborn boys.

Most Canadians, upon hearing that abortion in Canada is legal during all nine months of pregnancy, respond by getting upset and denouncing this fact as a lie.  But facts are facts.  There is no Criminal Code prohibition on ending a human life until the baby is fully outside of his or her mother.  Prior to that, the unborn person has no legal personhood.  Nor are there other laws or policies, federal or provincial, that place any restrictions on abortion, or impose requirements of any kind.  The number of late-term abortions is not large, but this does not mean that late-term abortions are illegal.

The remaining 90% of Canadians fall into various shades of belief on the spectrum, from hard-core pro-life (make all abortions illegal) to mostly pro-life (allow abortions in cases of rape, incest or serious fetal deformities/handicaps) to middle-of-the-road (undecided or no strong view) to mostly pro-choice (late-term abortions and gender selection abortions are not OK).

Why, in a democracy, do we have five political parties (Libs, NDP, Conservatives, Greens, Bloc Quebecois) chasing after 10% of the vote, and expressly rejecting and repudiating the 90% of voters who want at least some restrictions on abortion?  My best guess is that a small, extremist pro-choice minority has successfully mobilized vocal support for the status quo, but without speaking honestly about what the status quo actually is: abortion legal during all nine months of pregnancy.  It’s much easier to attack the hard-core pro-life position (that probably 90% of Canadians disagree with) than it is to justify late-term abortions and gender-selection abortions.

Another reason why the five parties now represented in the House of Commons are chasing after the 10% minority is that the pro-life movement, in the past 50 years, has been dominated by “absolutists” who refuse to discuss any public policy option other than a total and immediate ban on all abortions.  Serious pro-lifers who would like to reach their ultimate goal step-by-step have been frozen out by groups which have not achieved any legislative or policy victory in the past 50 years.  Pro-life advocacy for popular measures like banning late-term abortions and gender-selection abortions has begun to emerge in Canada only recently.

The Conservative Party of Canada has as many options on dealing with abortion as there are positions on abortion.  Looking at this purely from the angle of winning votes (and putting aside moral questions about ending the lives of people before they are born), I suggest that one approach is particularly foolish, and another approach particularly smart.

The foolish approach is to join the Libs, New Democrats, Greens and Bloc Quebecois in chasing after the 10% of Canadian voters who actually support the status quo.  Why wade into this crowded field?  Why ignore the 90% of voters who are unhappy with the status quo?

Apart from ignoring the 90% of voters who want at least some restrictions on abortion, the Conservative Party is seen (correctly) as profoundly insincere when it pretends to be chasing after the 10% of extremist pro-choice voters.  Everybody knows that many CPC candidates are pro-life, including its most recent leader, Andrew Scheer.  Everybody knows that the CPC, unlike the other four parties represented in the House of Commons, is not really and truly enthusiastic about the status quo.  Lack of sincerity breeds mistrust.

The 10% of voters who support gender-selection abortions and late-term abortions are never going to vote for the Conservatives.  And, without advocating directly for late-term abortions and gender-selection abortions, the 10% extreme pro-choice group will successfully capitalize on the CPC’s lack of sincerity in order to generate doubt and mistrust that hurts the CPC amongst many (perhaps most) Canadian voters.

The smart approach would be for the Conservative Party to appeal to 90% of Canadians by advocating for a ban on late-trimester abortions and gender-selective abortions.

This position would generate howls of outrage from at least three sources.

First, the Liberals, NDs, Bloc and Greens would denounce this CPC position as utterly wicked, bad and wrong; a regressive assault on the fundamental rights of women; a backwards and misogynist approach; a threat to reproductive choice, etc..  And, for a few weeks or possibly a few months, these denunciations would work political wonders temporarily.

But the political positions of candidates and parties need to be repeated frequently before they sink it.  It will take a lot more than one news conference for the CPC to communicate to voters its proposed ban on late-term abortions and gender-selection abortions.  However, after repeating this position for 6, 12, 18 or more months, 90% of voters would realize that they agree with CPC policy on abortion.  It would only be a matter of time before the other four federal parties were on the defensive, having to explain to 90% of Canadians why they support late-term abortion and gender-selection abortion.

The second source of outrage would come from the biased, left-wing media.  In harmony with the four parties whose ideology they share, the so-called “mainstream” media would declare that the Conservative Party had committed political suicide simply by failing to pander to the abortion orthodoxy accepted by only 10% of Canadians.  Like the other left-wing parties, the media party would try very hard not to inform Canadians of the fact that abortion is legal during all nine months of pregnancy, or of the fact that gender-selection abortion is legal in Canada.

The third source of outrage would come from a small number of established but ineffective pro-life activists who would denounce the Conservative Party as a pro-choice enemy.  Of note: a small number of pro-lifers were already doing this when Andrew Scheer was leading the CPC.  After the October 2019 election, some pro-lifers very publicly called on Andrew Scheer to resign as CPC leader for not being pro-life.  But most pro-lifers in Canada realize that the goal of full protection for all unborn children will never – never – be fully realized in one move.  Rather, when it comes to any political issue (taxes; immigration; deficits-and-debt; health care; education; aboriginal rights; LGBTQ issues; etc.) change is almost always incremental.  In short, the pro-life “absolutists” have little influence over other pro-lifers, or over the Canadian public at large.

In summary, if the CPC adopts a policy of banning late-term abortions and gender-selection abortions, it will align itself with 90% of Canadians, and will not lose votes from amongst the 10% pro-choice extremists who would never vote for the CPC in any case.

The CPC position against late-term abortions and against gender-selection abortions will engender loud but useless outrage from other federal parties, from the media party, and from a very small number of pro-life activists who lack political influence and clout.

If the CPC is committed to withstanding the initial waves of vocal-but-shallow opposition to its new policies, it will put the other four parties on the defensive; they will be obligated to defend an extreme position that only 10% of Canadian voters agree with.

A smart approach or a foolish approach … it’s up to the Conservative Party to decide.

Categories
Alberta Politics Alberta Separtism Canadian Election Canadian Politics Freedom Politics Saskatchewan Politics Uncategorized

INDEPENDENCE. What we must and mustn’t do.

dwr.jpgThe Canadian federal election turned out to pretty much as expected, with a Liberal minority government that will be propped up by the NDP and Green Party. I think it’s important to note that if the Liberals are telling the truth about their intent to push forward with TMX or Trans Mountain pipeline, they can count on the Conservatives to support them on that issue.

But Canadians have spoken, and two thirds of them obviously continue to view Alberta and Saskatchewan as whiny rednecks and knuckle-draggers, complaining about nothing more than the fact that they send billions to the rest of the country and are blocked by the rest of the country from getting the resources that produced the billions, to market. Why would anyone complain about that?

So, Alberta and Saskatchewan need to construct a thoughtful, moderate, but absolutely serious separatist movement. Can we do it? It’s been a personal mantra of mine that if something needs to be done, and there’s no intrinsic reason that it can’t be done, then it should be done. Dozens of countries have won independence in the last hundred years, many of them peacefully. That must be our objective.

The various separatist groups need to come together and compare principles, and then after carefully, courageously, and completely, thinking through and negotiating the kind of country we want for our children and grandchildren, form one unified movement from which will flow:

  • A declaration of our reasons to seek independence;
  • A constitution based on MAGNA CARTA and British Common Law, and borrowing from the best of the US, and Australian, and Swiss forms of government.
  • A Political Party with both provincial and federal branches.

And here’s where it gets tricky and of equal importance. It’s what we must not do.

Westerners are already regarded as gun toting, woman suppressing, racist, homophobic, etc. etc., ad nauseum. It’s categorically not true. Most Albertans don’t own guns and most of those who do use them responsibly. Alberta’s women were the first, in the British Empire, to win the vote. Alberta’s most famous and revered cattleman was John Ware, an emancipated slave from South Carolina. Alberta had Canada’s first mosque in the 1930s, its first Muslim cabinet minister in the 1970s, and Calgary has Canada’s first Muslim mayor. He’s turned out to be a dud, but that’s a different discussion.

SilverbergCalgary also had Canada’s first woman Chief of Police, and she happened to be Jewish. I know of no one that objected. People of all ethnic backgrounds, colors and sexual orientations are integrated into and involved in every area of Western life.

But we’ve allowed Central Canada to brand us, and those of us who are seeking independence must be extremely careful about what we say and what we say it about. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t tell the truth, but we must be certain that it is the truth, based on facts, and useful.

We must sideline xenophobes. I for one have no interest in a country that accepts or rejects immigrants based on their ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, etc.. That does not mean for one minute that I don’t believe that immigrants must be vetted, extremely carefully, accepting only those who can convince well-trained immigration agents that they are coming to our country to get away from toxic cultures and religious practices that are antithetical to our Judeo Christian-based Western civilization.

And we should write it into our Constitution that individuals that go back on that agreement can be sent back to their country of origin, expeditiously.

Final thought. While some countries have gained independence through violence, there are many who have done it peaceably. That’s all we should be interested in. People who talk about how many guns they have or how they would like to eliminate politicians that they disagree with, should be summarily expelled from any serious separatist movement. If you want to confirm your knuckle-dragger bona fides, do it on your own.

I’m Dave Reesor

If you agree with this, please Share it with your children and grandchildren, and Like and Share with your friends and colleagues so they can share it with their offspring! Minds are changed one at a time.

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Uncategorized

Teach the Children Well!

Let’s make 2020 the year we teach our children and grandchildren about the realities of the 20th century. They will thank us someday!

Categories
Big Government Freedom Politics Socialism Uncategorized

Teach the Children Well!

dwr.jpg

“Teach your children well,
Their father’s hell did slowly go by,” …

From: Teach the children well; written by Graham Nash.

“…Their father’s hell” That’s a pretty apt description of the lives of many during the last century, beginning in 1917 when the Marxist Communists took over Russia, and until now when we see the tragic destruction of Venezuela. In just 20 years under a Socialist government, Venezuela, once the most prosperous country in South America, is now the poorest, and millions of its citizens are trying to escape.

And yet addled, or perhaps venal, professors and politicians, media and entertainers still peddle the monstrous lie to our young people that socialism will give them a better future. It’s absolutely, and empirically, untrue as the following graph proves.

ourworldindata_world-poverty-since-1820-in-absolute-numbers

Notice that since the collapse of communism in the late 1980s, and the widespread embrace, however imperfectly, of capitalism, the level of poverty has gone sharply downward, and the level of prosperity has gone sharply upward. But sadly, over the last several years, young people who don’t know better – and some older adults who should – have become positive towards Marxist/socialism as a legitimate political and economic philosophy. It is not.

In 1945, at the end of World War II, Russia created the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics or USSR, a Marxist/Socialist empire which enslaved Eastern Europe and much of northern Asia. As Churchill said, an Iron Curtain had descended across Europe, dividing West from East. Over the next 45 years, thousands of people died trying to escape that Marxist/Socialist prison. The whole rotten structure collapsed in 1989, under the weight of its corruption and unworkable ideology.

Mao Tse Tung’s Communists took over China in 1945 and killed tens of millions of their citizens trying to impose socialism. (**It should be noted that over the last 30 years, by allowing capitalism China has lifted hundreds of millions of its citizens out of poverty and starvation) In Cambodia, one quarter of the population was killed by Communists attempting to create their Socialist Utopia.

But what about Marxism’s less violent iterations, Socialism and Social Democracies? Communism imposes socialist policies by force, while Socialism, as in Venezuela, simply uses the power of government to take over industries and bring them under the ownership of the state. Social Democracies, with similarities to fascist economic policy in Germany, bring business and industry under state control through taxation and regulation. All eventually must fail because they ignore human nature, which is fundamentally conservative.

Scandinavian countries that went strongly socialist after World War II soon realized that they were going broke and wisely modified their policies. They now call themselves capitalists with social safety nets, i.e., Social Democrats, but like Canada, they’re now finding that they can’t even afford that. Here’s a graph showing the gradual decline of prosperity in the Scandinavian countries and the massive rise in prosperity in Ireland after it went strongly capitalist.

Prosperity in Ireland.gif

Canada went Social Democrat under Pierre Trudeau, Justin’s father, and within 25 years was so indebted that 40 cents of every dollar collected in taxes went to pay interest on the debt. With a gun to their head, the Liberal government of Jean Chretien finally tackled deficits and the debt – partly by downloading program costs to the provinces.

For nearly 20 years, government deficits and debt were bad words in Canada, but then governments backslid, and debt began to increase. Sadly, under Justin Trudeau’s Liberals that trend has been massively accelerated. If it’s not stopped, within 10 years Canada will begin to resemble Venezuela.

So how to stop it? Simple. Become educated, and then, “Teach your children (and your grandchildren) well.” That’s the best legacy you can leave them.

I’m Dave Reesor

This is my first blog since the end of November. I apologize, but I simply needed time to think carefully about 2019, and what would be most important in 2020. I believe that both last year and this year, the most important thing as citizens is for us to continue defending our freedoms; freedom to think and speak, to practice our faith, to follow our conscience, to raise our children as we believe best, and freedom from bureaucracies and activists imposing ideologies that destroy opportunity. It’s a never-ending battle, but one we must never tire of fighting. Surely the 20th century taught us that!

If you agree with this, please Share it with your children and grandchildren, and Like and Share with your friends and colleagues so they can share it with their offspring! Minds are changed one at a time.