Why I Am A Ronin Lefty, Reason 623

Gutless responses to challenges from the Conservatives, on the most basic tenets of what the party used to stand for. For example, in today's Globe, Douglas Bell relates a story about the Conservatives' tough-on-crime mania and how no one is calling bullshit on them:

Even the Dippers (who used to count the Quakers as allies when it came to prison reform) want in on the act. At lunch with a senior Commie some weeks ago I raised an article in The Economist which read in part:

“Fighting crime has been a priority for Mr. Harper's minority government ever since the Conservatives defeated the Liberals in 2006. A third of the 63 bills introduced in the House of Commons in the past year have dealt with some aspect of criminal justice, and more are on their way. Despite complaints that a similar, purely punitive approach has not worked in the United States, and that piecemeal change will clog up the justice system and leave taxpayers with a larger bill, the government has not deviated.”

My man mumbled something about Jane Creba and that if I were to raise that sort of mumbo jumbo in a forum concerned with soliciting votes from real people I’d get laughed out of the room.

Well, sure, I responded, but, ah, crime stats are down across the board and doesn’t supporting tough-on-crime legislation make you guys what the late Paul Tsongas used to call “pander bears?”

At which point my socialist interlocutor changed the channel on the conversation like I was a rerun of The New Beachcombers.

The folks who are running the NDP at the moment, would rather support something popular but stupid, than advocate for doing what is productive, but might cause them to be ridiculed by the braying donkeys on the government benches. Such non-stands are why the NDP used to make fun of the Liberals. The question is, who is laughing now?

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