What’s wrong with the modern right is not that they tenaciously fight for their beliefs and refuse to compromise on them. What’s wrong is, first, that their beliefs are false (and indeed largely a body of propaganda not really believed by those in control of the movement), and, second, that they so routinely stoop to such despicable methods in their pursuit of power–falsifying fact, indulging in dirty tricks, and routinely violating democratic norms and principles. It’s been my experience that those for whom the ends justify vile means typically turn out to have vile ends, as well.

And what’s wrong with the modern left is not refusal to compromise. Far from it–overwillingness to compromise is a major source of damage to the left. One sees that weakness in debate time and again–a right winger will make an outrageous attack, and the left will waste their time defending themselves from whatever charge rather than attacking back harder. All it does is concentrate people on the ridiculous charge, giving the impression that there might be something to it.

If Greens, Dippers and Liberals each had an amount of seats approximate to their support by Canadians we could each vote according to our partisan ideals in an atmosphere that would require cooperation.

Or maybe you would prefer we all voted strategically to pursue these ends? Just kidding!

I look forward to your defense of partisanship. Without political parties, how would we govern in a parliamentary democracy? It would be back to the days of assembling sufficient votes to pass a budget through bribes, threats, and riding-specific expenditures. Not the kind of “confidence” in the government that would inspire confidence in the public, I dare say.

First off, even though we clearly disagree, thanks for taking the time to respond in detail to my post. New Democrats have a variety of opinions of how to get there, but I think we have the same hopes and aspirations for the political direction of the country.

With regards to the iPolitics pieces, you can sign up for free for 2 weeks, which is how I accessed them. I found the entire series by Graves fascinating. Of course as a pollster he was WAY off in the last Federal election, and realized after that this was caused by a lot of younger people telling him that they were going to vote, but actually did not. So he is searching for a new way to investigate the mood and opinions of the electorate. The research is quite interesting.

With regards to voting FOR something through cooperation – here’s the response to a similar comment I left on praxistheatre.com:

“I was thinking about how the “FOR and not AGAINST something” close to this piece would necessarily have me talking to someone in the comments, because I understand how electoral cooperation meaning voting FOR something could seem counter-intuitive.

The something that the post-partisan activists I talk to are hoping to vote FOR, is a new spirit of cooperation and compromise that will allow the opposition parties to share power and promote the policies that are supported by the majority of Canadians.

It is different than how politics have operated in the past where you vote on adherence to a singular ideology, that devalues all others and is based on ‘war room’ ‘us vs them’ mentality.

Because I’m a NDPer, personally I’m pretty pissed off with the Liberal trend of campaigning from the left and governing from the right over the past decade. Nevertheless, Im not going to let my bitterness over this get in the way of us moving forwards.

What we could vote FOR is to rise above all this partisanship and do something truly historic.”

I am reticent to get to drawn into implementation speculation at this point. I bet there will be several proposals and counter proposals as this idea develops.

Regardless, there is a startling amount of evidence to suggest that a Big Tent progressive alternative to Harper that will give people something to believe in would be extraordinarily popular with Canadians if not with party officials.

Looking forward to your next post on partisanship.

Michael

Mohamhead was a 7th century murdering warlord who rose to power on a river of blood surrounded by thugs and gangsters using intimidation, violence, deception and trickery to expand their criminal empire while mercilessly suppressing and killing their opponents and enriching themselves on stolen booty.

The evil koran is a collection of sayings and speeches by this diabolical madman claiming divine guidance from some mythical sky-god which has inspired generations of crazed fanatics to abhorrent behavior resulting in historys worst ever crimes against humanity starting 1400 years ago and still continuing even today.

Islam is just another fascist totalitarian ideology used by power hungry fanatics on yet another quest for worldwide domination and includes all the usual human rights abuses & suppression of freedoms.

and a snappy graphics version, great for emailing…

http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/1479/dangermoko.jpg

Cheers