Choosing a candidate to lead a political party is ostensibly a task with the lofty goals of deciding the scope and direction a party is heading, the relative importance of the party’s various values, and the policies that go with them. Unfortunately, such lofty aspirations are quickly brought down to
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Progressive Proselytizing: A 30,000 foot view of the Canadian political landscape
In this post I investigate the 30,000 foot view of the Canadian political landscape, and consider various factors for what I consider to be a defining political trend of the last several decades: the declining political space between parties. Room for three parties:Wind back the clock to the 70s and
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: A not so progressive inauguration speech
There is a lot of buzz going on, from all sides, that Obama has used his presidential address as some big pivot towards progressivism. The main debate seems to be on whether Obama is just saying some lofty rhetoric, perhaps to try and cement the kind of legacy he hopes for,
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: Vancouver Liberal Leadership Debate: First Impressions
As following the recent NDP and GOP leadership races so poignantly demonstrated, leadership debates are best at demonstrating the electibility of candidates. Basic values come through as well, but these are largely shared in a party, and specific policies are usually just tossed in more as rhetorical tools to act
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: Debt ceiling negotiations: folding the bad bluffs
The White House has now declared that it is ruling out the two possible executive branch work arounds that would have potentially allowed them to bypass the congressional GOP’s attempt to extract massive concessions on the typically minor and procedural debt ceiling issue. Namely, Obama will not use the tricks
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: Let’s do nothing in the US Senate just a little bit longer
Lindsay Graham For years I have decried the broken US Senate and its rules – exacerbated by the filibuster – that make it a hopelessly ineffective body that, through its inability to competently pass legislation, is inherently conservative. The misuse of the arcane filibuster rule, by which a supermajority of 60 of
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: Transphobia is alive and well in Ontario
As a follower of both US and Canadian politics, but a Canadian resident, it is a source of national pride that much of the most abhorrent aspects of the culture wars in the US are, thankfully, absent in Canada. For all our faults, our elections don’t seem to have an
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: Microsoft’s vacuous new news portal
Microsoft is undoubtedly hoping that its new news portal, to launch concurrently with Windows 8 and be heavily Metro UI based, will revolutionize our consumption of news. Or at least, that it will manage to carve out a nice chunk of the Internet news market for itself, especially given the break up
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: From Chick-fil-A to Muslim World protests
By the time Chick-fil-A quietly announced that it was no longer donating to political groups with anti-gay agendas, the cacophony of attention given to the back and forth over the Chick-fil-A controversy has been dwarfed by protests in the Muslim world sparked by a previously unknown Islamophobic amateur film produced
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: Quebec election 2012: Hoping for a minority
In a parliamentary system, we usually hope for a majority for our preferred party because this gives them the power to implement their policies. However, there are several situations where a minority government is actually preferred such as I argued ought to be the case for the 2011 Ontario election
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: Is there a preferred jurisdiction?
Consider some political problem we wish to solve. Is there an a priori preferred jurisdiction to solve it in? As in, should we care whether it is solved at an international, federal, state/provincial, or municipal level? The realpolitik of our political society is that many problems lie, for a range
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: Interview at Progress Planet: Why I blog, and more
I was interviewed by the folks at Progress Planet which you can read here. Topics include why I blog, what my goals are, and how to achieve world peace! The interview compliments an overview I wrote at the start of the year about this blog and its goals: My blog: Reviewing 2011, Previewing
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: Why Boy Scouts of America is allowed to discriminate: Comparing US and Canadian human rights laws
I recently expressed outrage over the Boy Scouts of America’s decision to continue banning members who were LGBT or atheists/agnostics. Ideally, groups like BSoA would be able to figure out for themselves that this homophobic and discriminatory policy is not acceptable. But there is also a legal question as to
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: Boy Scouts of America’s despicable anti-gay policy and the suffering of LGBT youth
The ever convoluted path towards full LGBT equality took another turn for the worst: “The Boy Scouts of America on Tuesday said the organization would continue to deny gay people membership, saying that the policy “is in the best interest of Scouting.” Not to mention its long standing ban on
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: Why Omar Khadr’s psychology does not matter
This post is a quick update to my previous post ‘Why Omar Khadr still matters‘ in response to a CBC article that contrasts the views of two psychologists who studied Khadr. As interesting as the article may be, everything I wrote previously about whether Canada should repatriate Khadr, whether his
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: Why Omar Khadr still matters
A decade after a wounded Omar Khadr, a then fifteen year old Canadian citizen, decided to lob a fatal grenade in the middle of a firefight in Afghanistan, Ottawa is still dragging its feet on finally repatriating Khadr back to Canada from Guantanamo Bay where he is currently detained. Khadr’s
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: Obama should act more religious
If I could write Obama’s speeches so as to best influence the national conversation in a positive way, they would have simply no mention of religion. Our society is best served by candidates being chosen not by a religious litmus test but by a robust debate on the relevant political
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: A more realistic approach to limiting the influence of money in politics
Cenk Ugyur, host of the popular The Young Turks (a progressive, internet-based US politics show), frequently like to deride the pervasive and damaging influence of Big Money in US politics, especially in the post-Citizens United era. He is right to do so for this is, indeed, among the most corrupting
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: The perfect time for Canada to invest in itself is now
Despite stubbornly high unemployment, tepid economic growth, and a large current account deficit, Canada enjoys one macroeconomic indicator that many crisis hit European governments would dearly love: insanely low borrowing costs on its debt. Investors inside and outside Canada recognize that Canada is a monetary safe haven and, desperate to
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: NDP leadership election campaign debt
The NDP leadership campaign sparked considerable interest among Canadians and saw NDP membership soar, rising over 50% in six months to 128,351 on election day. Many of these first time members, such as myself, may well be interested in the NDP but may not be long term loyalists. After the campaign,
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