Is Stephen Taylor Trying To Put Pandorra Back In Her Box? Perhaps It’s Time For Him To Put His Money Where His Mouth Is

Another great find from Montreal Simon today.  Paul Wells writes an article about the census, in part, referring to Stephen Taylor’s  blog post from July 22; it mirrors his article in the Natty Po dated July 26.  Yes, that very article, where Mr Taylor confirms what we already knew about Master Steve; his intent to dismantle our social programs being the main reason to gut the census. 

Paul Wells asks the question whether or not the whole census debacle matters:

I’ve been mystified by Stephen Harper’s willingness to squander so much political capital on an issue as trivial as the long-form census. Only slightly less so by the media’s piling on, treating this as a matter of great national importance, and by the level of emotional investment so many apparently attach to census-gathering.

The opposition? They’re just reveling in the unexpected bounty of low-hanging political fruit, and Tory self-inflicted injury.

I don’t get it. It’s just not that big a deal – either way.

— Charles W. Moore, New Brunswick Telegraph Journal, today

And he uses a quote from Taylor’s July article:

Stephen Harper seeks to diminish or destroy the Liberal Party to replace them with the Conservatives as Canada’s default choice for government. His greatest challenge is to dismantle the modern welfare state. If it can’t be measured, future governments can’t pander.

— Blogger Stephen Taylor, July 22.

Wells further goes on to suggest that according to Taylor’s tweets and his blog posts of late that Taylor seems to have somewhat detracted from those earlier statements and joined the ” I don’t care club” like Charles Moore, indicated above.  From Twitter, I had observed the same thing from him; that whole ‘…Media blowing the census thing out of proportion again schpiel’.  

Is Taylor trying to put Pandorra back in her box?

According to his rebuttle to Wells’ article today, if he is, he isn’t being successful, is he? Though he claims even today that he stands by what he wrote about  Stevie Spiteful  dismantling of the welfare state, he certainly is pushing the whole “It’s much ado about nothing” agenda much further. In so doing,  he also seems to compare the census debacle to that of the anti-prorogation movement last winter. By the by, Steve, the Christopher White’s Facebook Anti-prorogation group had over 200, 000 members at the time, not a mere 20,000 as you suggest. Just sayin’. 

Anyhow, he seems to think that  anti-prorogation was a passing fad. Yes and no: yes, Steve bounced back because of Canadians’ shallowness and their love of shiny things like olympic hockey gold medals, but at the same time, no one has forgotten; folks are still talking about prorogation; it’s still mentioned in corporate media from time to time.

The census ain’t goin’ away any time soon. I agree with Wells; the census changes certainly do matter; they matter, most of all to Master Steve. As Wells points out, he was willing to he has burned two useful ministers  idiots, Tony Clement and Stock Day, rather badly in advancing this little project. The master tactician, of course, as we would see, was also willing to alienate much of his own base; many of whom probably even funded the Harpercon war chest in the past in pursuit of this project. Master Steve is certainly reminding of a mad man about to lose it.  Oh, this isn’t going away anytime soon. And it seems the more Clement and Stock open their mouths or try to tweak something, the more disastrous the effects. I mean, moving questions from the new voluntary long form to the compulsory short form??

While I agree with Wells and Taylor that the main objective for the scrapping of the manditory long form census is indeed to scrap our social programs, a few commenters over at Taylor’s blog and at Wells’ article seem to disagree, pointing out that our welfare state was built without census data and that future governments could rebuild the welfare state without the census data again. Perhaps. But as the top commenter at Wells’ page, Stephen Gordon points out, the programs were built rather inefficiently and more costly without reliable data to rely upon.

Another thought, Mr. Taylor, I had no idea that something as big as the dismantling of our universal social programs; something that took years to build; something that all Canadians, including yourself and your loved ones, I’m sure, have come to rely upon at some point in our lives or  another was something to be so easily dismissed.  Didn’t realize it wasn’t supposed to be a big deal.

No sirree, Steve, you can’t put Pandorra back in her box; Steve let her out a long time ago; just many either ignored or forgot about her.  Whether or not you had a good talking to or  some kind of verbal thrashing from somewhere for bringing her back to the forefront  ain’t gonna change that.  As I said, most of us already knew a long time ago that this was Master Stevie’s intent. All one had to to was read his quotes from back in his glory days at NCC and Reform to find out the true blue colours of  Master Stevie Spiteful.

Oh yeah! I asked some rhetorical questions of Mr Taylor in my previous post, responding to his article in the Natty Po on July 26:

I would like to know if Stephen Taylor still uses his OHIP card to see the doctor? There are private clinics he can use and pay with his credit card in his area if he bothered to look.  If he has kids, did his wife benefit from maternity leave? If she doesn’t work; did he benefit from any kind of parental leave?  Do his parents (or grandparents if they’re still alive) receive CPP or the old age pension? If they were war vets; do they receive veterans services? Has he ever filed a claim with workman’s compensation for getting hurt or sick on the job? If he or any of his family members were unfortunate enough to lose their jobs, have they ever applied for Employment Insurance? Do his kids go to public school?

Again, I can’t oblige Taylor or his cheerleaders to answer these questions. I have tried to ask them, particulary those regarding health care; never get a straight answer from them. Just that tired old “it’s illegal for me to go to private clinics”; Bull-shit, those clinics exist legally under the nose of the federal government. Then I hear the whole tax Bull-shit; again, once that is gone, we’re still going to pay higher taxes (someone has to foot the bill to line the pockets of Steve’s fat cat Christian and oil and banker friends; bible translators and Christian Colleges, F-35 bombers, G20 boondoggle, all those disastrous changes to the census, etc).  But anyhooo, since Taylor is the one who wrote that article in the NattyPo, telling all those readers just how gung-ho tally-ho he is about the dismantling of the welfare state, pushing to those same readers just how fabulous it would be for all Canadians, perhaps he owes his readers the answers to my questions above. Does he lead the pure  conservative/libertarian lifestyle? He really should put his money where his mouth is before he preaches to others. I have a feeling that if Stevie Spiteful succeeds with this hideous project, Taylor and his compatriots will be the first to bitch & whine when they realize that a credit card will be asked for at the hospital or clinic rather than his OHIP card; that when retirement age comes, there will be no CPP or old age pension; that if he hurts himself on the job, tough luck, Charlie! And so on…