Output Stream of Consciousness

Normally, I don't get much up in arms about politics up here, but I've been worried. The Liberal party has been embroiled in financial scandals - mild compared to US and even Alberta - yet telling of an abuse of incumbency. In olden days I would have voted Conservative in a second to help send a strong message.

The Conservative Party these days isn't that old Conservative party. I've been investigating things in advance of the Canadian 2006 Election on Monday, January 23. Taking a walk through the How'd They Vote? web site is particularly instructive. This web site will help you track down your incumbent candidates' views on issues and party views in general.

It's leading me to think that the Conservative Party really is by and large just a renamed Alliance Party, and that is the closest thing we have had to the reactionary neoconservative part of the Republican party stateside.

My beliefs in a nutshell, politically, are to be financially responsible, cultivate personal responsibility (keep class action suits in check, make people responsible for their actions), but (and why should this be a "but"?) to be realistically, socially liberal, stay the hell out of the bedroom, and don't cowtow to fundamentalists of any stripe.

So when I see the likes of the votes on the Same-Sex Marriage Bill, or how votes were split on adding sexual orientation to hate crimes, or the anti-abortion record of the Alliance party, I get a little worried. Looking back, it's not the voting record of the old Tories that I'm worried about; it's purely the Alliance party that did a reverse takeover of the Conservative party that I'm worried about.

I don't support financial tomfoolery, but I cannot abide neoconservatives.

*sigh*

Make sure you investigate your specific candidates if you can, though. Some of them are worth voting in regardless of party affiliation.

I'm thinking that a minority Liberal government might be the best outcome here, though minority governments have historically (to my recollection) gotten investors jittery. Hopefully, substantially more oversight will help keep them in line.