Conservative voices in the Banana Republic

Dear heavens, I may have to revise my refusal to read local newspapers for fear of being contaminated by Canadianism. I just read a Financial Post editorial that restored a smidgeon of faith in this small, small-minded country.

Listen to these stirring words, penned by a man obviously frustrated at the state in which this country finds itself:

This election, we are told, is all about what kind of Canada we want.

The Liberals' platform makes the choice clear.

Do we want the same old self-serving, cradle-to-grave nanny state hiding behind supposedly new visions of early-childhood-development creche to earlier-because-of-Medicare coffin? Do we want to be defined by a system of socialized medicine based on the belief that our bodies are not our own, that we must be deprived of choice because choice is selfish, and that profits are evil? Do we want to be accomplices in a doomed plan of Soviet-style symptom-fixing in order to make this system last "for a generation?"

Do we feel proud to be governed by a party that believes people are too stupid to look out for themselves and/or too selfish to look out for each other? Do we feel good about the intolerably smug notion that "The world needs more Canada?" Do we believe we should go around lecturing countries on how to behave, with the sole Orwellian justification that -- since we never had a colonial empire and mean well -- then somehow "weakness is strength?" Do we care to be oppressed by a huge, predatory government apparatus that claims it must take and spend ever more on behalf of the little guy, the young guy, the old guy, the sick guy, the African guy, or the gigantic corporate welfare case?

Do we desire to be part of a country that claims to prize independence and sovereignty while it stands as the witless follower of every lousy, hypocritical and unworkable idea that emerges from the UN and/or Bono? Are we proud to be dupes that were roped into Kyoto by those who apparently didn't give a damn about how much damage such a policy would do to ordinary working people? Do we believe that if we deviate from the Liberal Party line, we cannot be "Canadian?"

If so, then Paul Martin's Liberals are for us.

Such passion ! Such eloquence ! Somebody toss dude a laurel wreath, he's my New Hero.