Results so far re the Libertarian Test

Approximate %:

40% Libertarian

40% Centrist

10% Liberal

10% Conservative

0% Statist (NDP)

If these per centages change signifcantly in the days ahead - I will let you know.

In the meantime, there are 2 questions under the Economic Section of the Test that I would like to comment on.

The First is the question that asks if government's role in welfare should be replaced by the private sector?

It is easy to see here that the Libertarians would hope for a 'yes' answer to this question - but they would be wrong. As I said in the very beginning of my Blog - what I am putting forward is the concept of 'Humane Libertarianism'. In other words, making help available for those truly in need. This is a responsibility of government and not the private sector. Indeed, all citizens are entitled to some very basics, things such as food, clothing, proper shelter and health care and this is the sole responsibility of a nation's government.

So my answer to that question was 'No'.

And, if Libertarianism is to take hold, here in Canada or the United States, the movement must get a firm handle on that very important issue.

The Second Question I would like to highlight is the one which asks if you support the concept of a 50% reduction in taxes and government spending. I answered in the affirmative.

From my 25 years in government I have come to the conclusion that upwards of 20 - 25% of the bureaucracy could disappear tomorrow and no one would notice. But that is not the main reason I believe a massive reduction in the size of government / amount of taxes is doable.

The main reason is twofold: first, government is trying to do way too much. For example - bailouts to business. Here I agree with former NDP Leaders David Lewis and Ed Broadbent when they stood against corporate welfare. It not only offends the principle of capitalism (i.e. propping up failures), it is unfair to those taxpaying competitor companies which do not share in the largesse.

Another example is government financial assistance for the Arts. If the private sector should not be involved in welfare - they should be involved in the arts. Government should not be.

Second, at least 50% of what Government does, can and should be done by the Private Sector. And, rather than look at what those areas are, let's consider the smaller list - the one that includes those areas government should concern itself with, including:

• defence
• external affairs
• immigration
• police / fire
• welfare
• regulatory oversight of the private sector

I think if Libertarians can articulate these two positions to the public there may be hope for us yet. The alternative is one of bigger and bigger government and that is in no one's interest other than the bureaucracy it serves.

As I see it.

"Galagher"

A Very Short 'Libertarian' Test

I would encourage each of you to take the f0llowing test to determine whether or not you fit within the Libertarian spectrum.

My own score was 90% libertarian personally and 70% libertarian economically.

If you are agreeable, I would be interested in receiving your respective scores. Just use the e-mail reply function at the top of the Blog page.

"Galagher"

The test site - http://www.theadvocates.org/quizp/

Guest Author - Value of Real Money and Kids Today

Following is an e-mail I received earlier today from a life-long friend which I thought you would find interesting.

"Galagher"

"Galagher,

You and I are a couple of good old boys from Brighton. I feel that we both grew up in families that really understood not only the concept of money, but also the true value of money. What I mean by 'true value' is how it is earned and the means by which it is earned. This being Men and Women such as our parents and Ourselves going out working hard during tough times.

This made me think of the days our our youth when we would scour the ditches for empty pop bottles and take them to Bonisteel's little grocery to get our two cents or treats in return. The many of cold night we worked together after school or on Saturdays deliverying the Stedmans' flyers all over town for half a cent a flyer. We both knew and understood the idea and value of money. We had coins in our pockets and sometimes even bills in our wallets.

Sadly, this is not always true of kids today. Too often kids think that money is magical and comes from plastic cards, be it Visa or MC or even a Bank Debit Card. They see their parents pulling out these plastic cards and getting merchandise without any actual currency changing hands. They are not being taught the importance of having actual funds in their own pockets or wallets, nor do kids today really grasp the value of the services or the merchandise their parents are buying. Kids simply do not get it. It is magic for them; they never see the items actually being paid for by real money.

I have often wondered why when I purchase something, the young student at the cash does not count my change when handing it to me. This simply does not happen in today's society with kids working in the various retail outlets. It is due to the fact that they are ignorant (not their fault) as to how to count change. Schools and retailers do not teach them that, plus they do not completely understand what cash in hand is. The older cashiers still count the money back for the most part since they have been trained and they understand it.

Linda and I got into a discussion today on this very subject and we both agree with an article that was in the paper early this week. This article basically said what I have just said, Kids today do not know, grasp or understand how money is earned. The cashless society and all those credit / debit cards are taking away a vital knowledge from our children.

Thank god, we grew up in the age when we did."

Thank you John.

P.S. John mentioned Bonisteel's grocery. It brought back a memory to me. Right beside their grocery store was a pop bottling works. They would throw out, back of their building, damaged pop bottles - i.e. ones they believed could no longer be refilled. As kids we would scour through those 'damaged' bottles and pick out the ones that were least 'damaged'. And then it was off to Bonisteel's to cash them in for 'real' money. I have wondered how many times some of those damaged bottles got recycled due to our efforts. G

Ignatieff Will Say Anything

Just after completing the Blog about Quebec's Representation in Parliament, I read where our esteemed Leader of the Opposition also believes that Quebec is being grossly short changed when it comes to the receipt of infrastructure monies.

If true, it would be a first, since Quebec has proven itself to be rather adept at acquiring its share and more whenever federal money was to be handed out.

In fact, it is not true and Ignatieff is well aware of that.

He sees his dream of becoming Prime Minister quickly fading away and he has now shown that he will do anything - including lying - to try to keep his dream alive.

But it is worse than lying. It is once again an attempt by one of our politicians to seek to divide Quebec from the Rest of Canada for his own petty political purposes. In a real sense, such politicians are prepared to gamble the future of our country, for their short term gain.

Too many Quebecers have grown up hearing from their leaders how the Rest of Canada has short changed them in Confederation. They are too ready to believe the Leader of Her Majesty's Government when he says that once again they are not receiving their fair share. I saw Bloc Leader Duceppe on television last eve and he was smiling.

As an aside, several years ago I flew into Jonquiere and during the taxi ride in the driver, noticed that I was English, and apologized to me that they would soon be leaving Confederation. The reason. He told me that Canada was holding them back financially and that they were better off going it alone. I didn't argue with him since I could see he had his mind up - that he fully believed the tripe he'd been fed.

If you have any doubt about the incorrectness of Ignatieff's statement, please go to the Government of Canada Web Site to see all of the infrasture projects approved for Quebec. One in particular stood out for me and that was the allocation of some $40 billion to Quebec City's Davie Ship Yards for the construction of Government ships over the coming years.

So no, Quebec is not being short changed.

But yes, Ignatieff is in deep political trouble and like most politicians in that situation, he is prepared to say anything at the expense of the truth.

As I see it.


"Galagher"

Ignatieff Seeks to Lead Two Nations

The Leader of the Opposition, Michael Ignatieff, made a statement last week that garnered little attention in the media. But it should have.

In complaining about the extra seats Ontario and the West will eventually realize as a result of the last census, he called for the current seat distribution between Quebec and the Rest of Canada to be maintained.

In doing so, Michael Ignatieff opposes one of the prime aspects of a free and democratic society, namely, representation by population.

In fact, I suspect if anyone took the time to do the math, Quebec's representation should decline from its current 75 seats to something in the neighbourhood of 60 seats.

The danger inherent in Ignatieff's position is that it leads to a demand on the part of Quebec that it have equal representation based upon is nation-state status, a status that even our Prime Minister has seen fit to acknowledge.

We are now well down the road in many respects to two separate and distinct nations within Canada and Ignatieff's recently stated position only furthers the divide.

As I see it.

"Galagher"

Negative Ads...Affect Me Negatively

I guess for me it started with Kim Campbell's Campaign portraying Chretien's facial deformity prominently in one of her ads. I, like many Canadians, was shocked. Campbell went on to lose all but 2 seats, including her own, so clearly that was one Ad that did not work out.

Pollsters though will tell you that negative ads do work and they probably do, but not for me. I find them offensive and see them as a ruse to avoid dealing with real issues.

A recent example is Harper's ad that purports to prove that Michael Ignatief cannot be trusted simply because he has lived outside of Canada for a good portion of his life. What precisely does not having lived in Canada to do with whether or not a person can be trusted?

In fact, I do not really care if our politicians comes from Mars - as long as they demonstrate good common sense, values - like honesty and integrity, and promote the private sector over governement - while reducing taxes. You get the idea - a Humane Libertarian.

If I was Ignatief, I would run the Harper ad, in its entirety, changing the ending tag line to say:

'Can you the voter really trust Mr. Harper - as Prime Minister - the author of such a vacuous, negative ad?'

As I see it.

"Galagher"

Afghanistan....Is It Worth The Cost?

Until very recently, I would not have even entertained this question but some sobbering developements have become front page news of late including: that 85% of Afghanistan is now controlled by the Taliban and America's Chief of Operations indicates that an infusion of troops is needed to avoid defeat within the year.

Moreover, the US is going bankrupt and can no longer afford to carry the weight of victory on its shoulders. This while Nato has shown itself to be composed of weekend soldiers with few of its members, other than ourselves and the Brits, having stepped into the breach. Our troops are exhausted and can no longer be expected continuously return to this theatre of war without a decent break.

It makes me reflect upon Vietnam where I too was a hawk and believed that the South deserved freedom in much the same way that South Korea did. But look today and see how Vietnam has prospered under unification. Economically this country is one the success stories of the world. What was gained by those countless deaths over nearly 10 years of war? Nothing.

So we leave.

Or do we?

In fact, Vietnam was different. There the enemy was other Vietnamese who wanted to have one nation and were prepared to pay any price to obtain it. In Afghanistan too, the enemy is other Afghans but these are evil men who want to subjugate their fellow citizens in the name of a religion which has been distorted for their own cruel purposes.

The Taliban wants to keep Afghanistan ignorant, keep it back in the middle ages. Keep its children out of schools and its women subservient to the point of being chattels. The men too live in fear of their vengeance.

But in a very real sense, the struggle in Afghanistan is not about that country. It is just a staging ground. Nor is the enemy the Taliban - it is Al Qaeda or more specifically, it is extreme Islamists wherever they are. They want to destroy our way of life and us in it. And like the North Vietnamese some 45 years earlier, they are prepared to go to any lengths to see it happen.

Accordingly, we are at War; this time a war we cannot afford to lose.

But will likely lose due to America's exhaustion and more importantly, due to the lack of will on the part most of its allies.

Afghanistan will sink from sight: its schools will close, its females will return to slavery and all will live in fear of the Taliban.

For us, we too will live in fear. Fear of being blown up, fear of our food /water being poisoned or our air contaminated or hand-held nuclear devices being used to destroy our cities. We will not escape Afghanistan's fate. Indeed, it will likely be much worse.

I think of Winston Churchill's speech at the time Poland was invaded by the Hun:

"if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory; because it is better to perish than to live as slaves."

Churchill's words ring just as true today even though we are not fighting the type of war he envisaged in 1939 - that would be easy for us to win since we (i.e. the Americans have all the latest equipment) and could easily destroy countless hostile armies. Rather we are fighting a war where as few as one or two can inflict mighty destruction upon the many. It is a much harder war to win and one that takes a resolution that I do not see at present.

Even so, count me still at hawk.

"Galgher"