Authoritarians Know Best

What is it about conservatives that makes them so unapologetic, and so easy to pick out of a countrys government? Liberals would colapse into the fetal position at the first signs of resistance. The party of small government somehow finds ways to justify expanded bureacracy by simply protecting us from evil. One such evil; artistic freedom that wastes tax payer money. This packaged threat has to be met with a defensive act against a the liberal party hell bent the obliteration of the moral and ethical foundations of the country.

Nothing demonstrates these contrasting political values more than C-10, a despotic attempt in Canada to control the film industry for the good of the nation.

Liberals see this as a blatant case of censorship. So let’s take a look at C-10, and how it changes Canada’s Income Tax Act. Keep in mind, the now surprised House of Commons MP’s passed the change because they never read the completed bill.

One provision, as described in a Canadian Broadcast Centre story, “would give the heritage minister the discretion to deny tax credits to any production that is deemed contrary to public policy.” The fear is that “it will be used to cut off tax benefits for productions that contain graphic sex and violence or other content the government finds offensive.”

As one liberal put it, "We are concerned that if Bill C-10 is allowed to pass in its current form, the way will be paved for the use of Canada's tax system as a de facto censor of film and video production in Canada."

The conservative response was one of shock and surprise. With child like innocense, “the Heritage Minister argued that the bill is not about censorship. ‘Nothing could be further from the truth, our government continues to passionately defend freedom of expression.”

Would it surprise anyone that the idea of C-10 was hatched by evangelist Charles McVety, who wants to cut tax subsities for “offensive films.”

It also didn’t help that the change was tucked into a “560-page bill of highly complex technical amendments, without mentioning it to anyone.”

To anyone outside government, the outrageous nature of the bill portends the direction of authoritarian conservative rule. Rick Jemmett wrote this post "It is in keeping with a tendency in North America toward diminished freedoms, an approach to governing, associated with right-wing governments, (see Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine) in which personal freedoms are either abolished in the blink of an eye or slowly chipped away at, under cover of issues which seem of greater import at the moment.”

The unrelenting subversive nature of the authoritarian conservative is almost impossible to protect against. What slips through will weaken democracy and pervert representative government. That is why a dramatic change in party rule is needed periodically to check and counter-balance the extremist nature introduced from either side.

Just to be clear, extremist tendencies from conservatives would destroy this country. Liberals tendencies would force everyone to carry a cloth grocery tote bag.