Should pro-life social conservatives vote for Stephen Harper?

Unborn baby scheming about tax cuts for married couples
Unborn baby scheming about tax cuts for married couples

Don’t listen to me, listen to Dave Warren.

Excerpt:

Our tax code has everything to do with our societal propensity to demographic extinction.

It helps destroy families in two major ways (and many minor ones for which we won’t have space). It forces the mother of small children to work for a second (heavily taxed) family income. Then, offers her the alternative of becoming a “welfare mom” -effectively a ward of the state, but with the bill sent these days to anything that looks like an ex-husband.

Fatherless households, with or without angry mothers, are in turn the source of so many of the children we do have: the ones who have survived the abortion mills. Those, of a certain age, acquainted with the modern schoolyard, will have noticed the general tendency toward juvenile delinquency. Though, overall crime rates balance out, thanks to the diminishing number of juveniles, as a proportion of our aging population.

The tax code isn’t, of course, the only cause contributing to this demographic, social, and moral disaster. The “culture of death” is also communicated through mass media and entertainment industries, and catered to by every sort of commercial advertising.

Yet the tax code is the principal originating cause. Over many decades, it has facilitated the Nanny State, by treating citizens as income-earning atoms. The capitalists feed upon conditions in the resulting market, wherein everyone is an atomized consumer, living narcissistically for the day.

It is against this very real background that the Harper government has proposed the one thing that looks like a serious policy proposal in the current general election campaign. It is to change the tax code to reduce the penalty on one-income families. I’ll leave the technical description of this “income splitting” to the tax experts and policy wonks.

Naturally, the feminists, and all other “progressive” people, are outraged by a scheme that would reduce this penalty. A woman’s place is in the workforce, according to the received progressive view; which holds that men and women must be treated as interchangeable; which makes children, by extension, discardable lifestyle options. (See rude reference to abortion mills, above.) That is why the last Pope called it the “culture of death.”

By contrast, the “culture of life,” to which humans are called by nature -often in the face of social engineering -envisions a world in which mothers and children play an important, and often the commanding part.

Just look at this chart from the Heritage Foundation:

Marriage and Poverty
Marriage and Poverty

Job creation reduces abortion. Intact families reduce abortion. A father in the home reduces abortion. Tax credits for children reduces abortion.

There is more than one way to be pro-life, especially in Canada where the majority of the people are not pro-life. Abortion is the consequence of the gender-feminist revolution that destroyed marriage and the family and replaced parents with public schools that push sex education, even onto very young children. The way to turn the tide back to the pro-life position is to first build consensus for pro-life laws by creating the conditions where every unborn child can be welcomed into the world by a loving married couple. There are financial incentives in Stephen Harper’s Family Tax Cut plan that will encourage people to get married and stay married. Harper is a social conservative and social conservatives should vote for Harper. He does the best he can by putting pro-life financial incentives in place.

You can read more about Stephen Harper’s 5-point Here for Canada policy plan and the Conservative plan to promote religious liberty abroad.

Conservative Party unveils plan to promote religious liberty abroad

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper

From the Montreal Gazette.

Excerpt:

A Conservative government would create a new, special “Office of Religious Freedom,” the party announced in its electoral platform on Friday.

The office would be housed at the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade and its role would be:

  • To monitor religious freedom around the world;
  • To promote religious freedom as a key objective of Canadian foreign policy;
  • And to advance policies and programs that support religious freedom.

Under the heading, “Defending Religious Freedom,” the Conservatives said they recognize that “respect for religious pluralism is inextricably linked to democratic development.” And that the federal government could and should do more to respond to the plight of those “who suffer merely because of their faith.”

[…]The Conservative platform also includes a pledge to create a national Holocaust memorial in the Ottawa area and to support the establishment of a memorial to the victims of communism.

This is not a surprise, as the Canadian conservatives are famous for taking bold stands to defend the rights of persecuted Christians in places like Egypt.

Excerpt:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper participated in a round table discussion on security with Coptic Christian leaders.

A deadly suicide bombing in Egypt on New Year’s Day claimed the lives of some 21 worshippers.

And nearly 100 people were wounded in the attack as they left a midnight mass at an Alexandria church.

Harper condemned the attacks, saying the international community must stay vigilant against such violence against Coptic Christians.

Harper met with several priests at the Church Of the Virgin Mary and St. Athanasius in Mississauga Thursday.

He says he wants Coptic Christians in Canada to know the country stands behind their right to safely practice their faith.

So, not only is Harper introducing policies that will strengthen families and marriages so that there will be fewer abortions and healthier children, but he is also dedicated to defending the religious liberty of minorities abroad.

 

Carrie Lukas does the math on the male-female pay gap

Carrie Lukas
Carrie Lukas

A popular article by Carrie Lukas, writing in the Wall Street Journal. (H/T Mary)

Excerpt:

The unemployment rate is consistently higher among men than among women. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that 9.3% of men over the age of 16 are currently out of work. The figure for women is 8.3%. Unemployment fell for both sexes over the past year, but labor force participation (the percentage of working age people employed) also dropped. The participation rate fell more among men (to 70.4% today from 71.4% in March 2010) than women (to 58.3% from 58.8%). That means much of the improvement in unemployment numbers comes from discouraged workers—particularly male ones—giving up their job searches entirely.

Men have been hit harder by this recession because they tend to work in fields like construction, manufacturing and trucking, which are disproportionately affected by bad economic conditions. Women cluster in more insulated occupations, such as teaching, health care and service industries.

[…]The Department of Labor’s Time Use survey shows that full-time working women spend an average of 8.01 hours per day on the job, compared to 8.75 hours for full-time working men. One would expect that someone who works 9% more would also earn more. This one fact alone accounts for more than a third of the wage gap.

Choice of occupation also plays an important role in earnings. While feminists suggest that women are coerced into lower-paying job sectors, most women know that something else is often at work. Women gravitate toward jobs with fewer risks, more comfortable conditions, regular hours, more personal fulfillment and greater flexibility. Simply put, many women—not all, but enough to have a big impact on the statistics—are willing to trade higher pay for other desirable job characteristics.

Men, by contrast, often take on jobs that involve physical labor, outdoor work, overnight shifts and dangerous conditions (which is also why men suffer the overwhelming majority of injuries and deaths at the workplace). They put up with these unpleasant factors so that they can earn more.

Recent studies have shown that the wage gap shrinks—or even reverses—when relevant factors are taken into account and comparisons are made between men and women in similar circumstances. In a 2010 study of single, childless urban workers between the ages of 22 and 30, the research firm Reach Advisors found that women earned an average of 8% more than their male counterparts. Given that women are outpacing men in educational attainment, and that our economy is increasingly geared toward knowledge-based jobs, it makes sense that women’s earnings are going up compared to men’s.

My favorite book on feminism, economics and marriage is Carrie Lukas’ “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Women, Sex and Feminism“. If you don’t have the book, then please go out and buy one for you, and one for a young, unmarried woman in your life. Books like this one are for women who are serious about making their marriages last. And men can read them, too – so that we’ll know what to look for in women. There is nothing more attractive to a marriage-minded man than a fiscally conservative woman.

Here’s an interview of Carrie Lukas conducted by famous men’s rights activist Bernard Chapin. The next time you see men reading the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, take a closer look. On the inside of that magazine we are often concealing a copy of Carrie Lukas’ book. When Carrie Lukas talks about economics and policy, men think about marriage.