Sister Sage's Musings

After reading comments from fools too idiotic blog like Mary T and Wilson as of late, as well as many columnists, pundits and of course, Blogging Tories, one has to wonder if they really know what they’re lobbying for: What they are attempting to force-feed Canadians these days?  To me and I’m sure others, they seem to be  lobbying to not only be rid of  Responsible Government in  favor  a totalitarian regime.  We are already well on our way to this kind of thing, and that’s with a Harpercon minority! Before we go any further,  here is the definition of a totalitarian regime:

Totalitarianism is a political system where the state, usually under the control of a single political organization, faction, or class domination, recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible.^[2] Totalitarianism is generally characterised by the coincidence of authoritarianism (i.e., where ordinary citizens have no significant share in state decision-making) and ideology (i.e., a pervasive scheme of values promulgated by institutional means to direct the most significant aspects of public and private life)^[3]. Totalitarian regimes or movements maintain themselves in political power by means of an official all-embracing ideology and propaganda disseminated through the state-controlled mass media, a single party that controls the state, personality cults, control over the economy, regulation and restriction of free discussion and criticism, the use of mass surveillance, and widespread use of state terrorism.

That not only fits Brother Steve to a Tee, but also his cheerleaders it would seem.  That’s just one irony of this band. In their paranoid pleas and cries for their distorted views of freedom and smaller government, they are inadvertently, in effect wishing for more government control, with the exception of perhaps, libertarians, and even then sometimes.

The reason I bring up totalitarianism and how this fits with Brother Steve’s modus operendi is that the speaker of the House of Commons, Peter Milliken, is about to hand down a potentially historic decision and it can be handed down in one fell swoop as early as today.

We all remember when the opposition parties each asked a Question of Privilege? They had each appealed to the speaker to order Brother Steve to hand over unredacted documents regarding the Afghan detainee issue.   Whatever decision Milliken makes will  have consequences to varying degrees:

If Mr. Milliken finds in favour of the opposition parties that made the claim, then thousands of pages of heavily censored documents could be made public, showing whether the government and armed forces knew they were sending detainees to be tortured in Afghan jails.

If he rules in favour of the government, an already powerful executive will grow yet more powerful.

“It’s huge,” said Errol Mendes, a professor of law at University of Ottawa and constitutional expert. Centuries of precedent dictate that Parliament is supreme in holding the government to account, he observed.

“If the Speaker rules against the opposition motions, it would not be too hyperbolic to say we have changed our system of governance,” he maintained. “The executive would no longer be accountable to the House of Commons.”

But a ruling for the opposition could force an election.

I don’t need to tell you how frightening a scenario the former would be.

I did examine various biographies (here and here) of Peter Milliken in an attempt to predict which way he would rule.   Read them, perhaps you may get a better idea of a prediction than I did.

Yes, no doubt Brother Steve put on a good show about national security if unredacted documents are divulged.  There are the right winged pundits and yes, some blogging tories like Jojo Blue Like You  who have completely missed the mark and are all afraid that our national security will be threatened if Milliken rules in favour of the opposition parties. Here is somebody that is only too happy to swallow the Harpercon kool-aid without stopping to think about this. If there is nothing damning in those documents, then where is the threat to national security?   Or is it many, like Craig Smith and Blathering Blatchford who say you can’t have a proper war without torturing enemies, or something along those lines on the radio to an adoring Ricky P?

No folks, forget about torturegate.  If Milliken rules in favor of the government, torturegate is playing out at a somewhat faster pace through the British courts and I’m sure many, including the Harpercons are following it.  If Britain is found guilty, no doubt, this will come back to this side of the pond to bite Brother Steve. As well, there could be other Afghan Detainee transfer investigations throug other NATO countries and/or some international body that will somehow trigger an investigation that even Brother Steve’ s totalitarian dream team won’t be able to stop.

This impending decision is much bigger than torturegate. It’s about our democracy, our way of governance.  The question in the grand scheme of things is who should reign supreme? Parliament, which is elected by the people to represent the people, or government which has a cabinet appointed by the Prime minister? This is something everyone from both the right and the left should be thinking about.  Just remember a very recent Harpercon by election slogan, “de l’action: pas d’election” .

If Milliken does indeed vote with the opposition, there could well be a confidence motion and we go back to the polls very soon. And if the Liberals and the NDP were smart, they would not make this campaign about Afghan detainees, but rather, make it about the erosion of our democracy;   Canada’s New Government™: the Brother Steve Regime; is that something even Conservatives really  want? If it is, then they are advocating for a totalitarian regime.

Then, there is Milliken himself.  Seems to me that he could very well be damned no matter which side he rules in favor of.  Either the opposition or (especially) Brother Steve will surely make him pay for ruling against either.

Sidenote: Jojo, like so many of her paranoid friends who fear the big bad Bloc Quebecois ask this question, yet again:

The other difficulty for the Coalition would be trying to explain why members of a party dedicated to breaking up our country should have access to such highly sensitive information.

It’s really simple, dear Jojo,  this may come to you as a complete shock, but we Quebecers pay Federal taxes too. As such, crazy as that may seem to you, we too don’t want a Brother Steve Regime or any totalitarian regime of any kind led by anyone. 

The Bloc exist democratically with a mandate to represent Quebec’s interests in Ottawa. They may work toward sovereignty, but until then, we are still contributing to the federal coffers and thus, we likes a democracy too.

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