So here’s a thing. A conference is being held in Ottawa at the Manning Centre for Building Democracy, entitled:
Manning Networking Conference 2010
Thursday, March 11, 2010 7:00 PM -
Saturday, March 13, 2010 5:30 PM (Eastern Time)
The thing is that democracy has already been built, it took about a thousand years, going back to the Magna Carta, and is continuing to evolve. What’s more, the Canadian form of parliamentary democracy has a Charter of Rights and Freedoms. You know, I think we’ve got democracy. What we need to do is protect it from the forces that want to create a police state.
That’s where the Manning Centre strikes me as ominous, if not stupid. Its aim is:
“A free and democratic Canada where conservative principles are well articulated, understood, and implemented.”
Implemented?
Does that imply all Canadians would be forced to live according to "conservative principles"? Over my dead body!
You know, the Manning Centre and its attendant verbiage, public relations, and obfuscation, is a crock. Canadian democracy is not about any religion or belief – it is in fact distinctly willing to grant any citizen complete religious freedom or belief, even if that means worshipping the Intergalactic Jelly Bean of Infinite Wisdom – and in fact people are free to say and believe what they wish, as long as they don’t contravene the Criminal Code of Canada.
The reality, therefore, is that, just to pick one example at random, adult Canadians can legally have any sexual relations they wish, provided that such relations are consensual, and not abusive to minors, animals, or other groups of diminished power, although I don’t think that includes grizzlies, who can look after themselves unless threatened by firepower dreamed up by Opposing Thumbs.
So in fact, the Manning Centre is a great waste of time, and is trying to fight battles that were fought years ago, such as in the “Persons” proceeding before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in 1929, which acknowledged the existence of women as a political power. The Manning Centre is trying to recreate something that never existed, and attempting desperately to push onto a pedestal arguments that were demolished, reluctantly, by Charles Darwin.
I'm not saying Darwin's right, just that nobody's shown any evidence - at all - that's he's wrong. This is the sort of "innovative" thinking the government is trying to encourage while having no idea what innovation really means.
Whatever it means, you can't bring back the Dark Ages, even if Dick and Liz Cheney desperately miss them.
