The Stupid People's party Strikes Again

The Conservatives blamed Ignatieff for Canada not getting a seat on the security council. Far from turning attention away from the Conservatives this only focused attention on them. Talking points that are this asinine tend to grab headlines -- not just in Canada but abroad as well. The Guardian, for example, would never have bothered reporting the failure of Canada to secure a security council seat. It is just not the kind of thing that Brits care about. However, the utter stupidity of the such a talking point made it newsworthy. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/oct/13/canada-michael-ignatieff

The Conservative's most recent talking point is hardly better. Decrying secret votes and saying that they do care not about popularity contests are about as superficially appealing as Tim Hortons trumpeting of"steeped tea". Leaving aside the issue that secret votes make it less not more likely that such a votes become a popularity contests, a secret vote are the only kind of votes Canadians have. I doubt all those Conservatives worried about the supposed intrusiveness of the long form census would want someone looking over my shoulder to see who they voted for. Conservative Macho talk about laying it out on the table for everyone to see is just a canard. As for the Conservatives not caring about popularity contests, I think they protest too much. One does not make a meal out of something one does not care about. The Conservatives are caught in a performative contradiction.

Now, I do not want to disecte why Canada lost. What I would like to add is this. Harper's world view -- particularly when it comes to foreign affairs-- is not terribly sophisticated. It is high time we stop trying to breath intelligence into such policies by attributing machivillian motives to its authors. What we have is stupid talking points in defense of stupid policies. Full stop.