Prime Minister Stephen Harper vowed yesterday the Conservative party “will not rest” until the day it abolishes the long-gun registry.
[…]Mr. Harper predicted the “registry will someday be abolished” because it will continually be opposed by the people who understand it–whom he identified as “rural Canadians, hunters, outdoors men and women (and) police officers.”These people will never accept this registry because they know it is ineffective and wasteful. And the party I lead will not rest until the day it is abolished.”
See, the interesting thing is that this is exactly the kind of issue that Harper can use to drive rural voters, some of who vote Liberal or Socialist (NDP), towards the federal Conservative Party in the next federal election. Canadian rural voters tend to be further to the left than American rural voters.
Look at how the left-wing parties are squirming:
The Harper government has gone on the offensive this week in trying to draw attention to Liberal and NDP MPs who were once opponents of the long-gun registry but are now poised to vote in favour of it. Government House leader John Baird has said those MPs have been pressured by “Toronto elites” to switch their votes and will be held accountable by voters in the next election.
In Thunder Bay, NDP MPs John Rafferty and Bruce Hyer, on record as registry opponents, have yet to declare their intentions for next Wednesday’s vote on Conservative MP Candice Hoeppner’s bill to kill the registry.
The bill handily passed a preliminary vote last November, with the help of 12 New Democrats and eight Liberals. The margin this time is expected to be razor thin. The Liberals have been ordered to vote along party lines, while the New Democrats have said they have the six vote-changers they believe they need to save the registry.
And fiscal conservatives also hate the long-gun registry. It was supposed to cost 2 million dollars to implement, but it actually has cost over 2 billion dollars. What a waste! And with no demonstrable effect on crime rates, since law-abiding hunters don’t commit crimes.
First, watch this video with the governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie. (H/T National Review)
Oh, he’s not amused! Grah!
The National Review notes that this is not an isolated incident:
I’m not usually the conspiratorial type, but watch Gov. Chris Christie explain how the Obama administration disqualified the state of New Jersey from hundreds of millions in education funds because some clerk in Trenton turned in the wrong excel spreadsheet:
Democrats in Washington have already shown a willingness to withhold federal education dollars from states that don’t follow their preferred tactic for navigating the recession: giving teachers raises like it’s the Gay ’90s. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is more punishment for a state that committed the crime of balancing its budget.
If New Jersey balances its budget, then the federal government has less leverage to intrude into New Jersey’s affairs. And Democrats oppose state autonomy and federalism – so they are not pleased with Christie.
Politics may have played a role in the awarding of some Obama administration education reform grants, say pro school-choice groups that believe the reforms did not go far enough.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan announced Tuesday that nine states and Washington, D.C. qualified for “Race to the Top” grants in the second phase of a program that rewards states for promoting charter schools — public schools run by non-governmental entities, which tie teacher evaluation to student performance.
With 18 states vying for a $3.4 billion pie, the department awarded grants to the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Maryland, North Carolina, New York, Ohio, and Rhode Island. Only Delaware and Tennessee received grants in the first phase of the program.
[…]However, while accountability standards were raised, teacher unions have played an inordinate role in determining a state’s reform plan, said Robert Enlow, president of the Foundation for Educational Choice.
[…]He cited Indiana, which had a strong reform plan, but failed to get the full support of the Indiana State Teachers Association (ISTA), despite a plea from Tony Bennett, the state superintendent for public instruction.
“It is clear – from the reviewers’ comments of the two RttT [Race to the Top] winners – that one factor is crucial to a successful application: Strong statewide support from the teachers’ union,” Bennett wrote in the April 8 letter.
In a letter of response, ISTA President Nate Schnellenberger told Bennett the union would not support the state’s reform plans.
The inclusion of states such as Hawaii and Maryland, and the exclusion of states with marked improvement such as Louisiana and Colorado makes the grants suspect, said Jeanne Allen, the president of the Center for Education Reform, who said the competition ends “not with a bang but with a whimper with a majority of competitors winning –10 of the 18 — and many, it appears, for political reasons, as these states offer little or nothing to fundamentally improve schools and learning for all children.”
“This program is supposed to stimulate and is getting credit for stimulating charter schools, accountability and performance of teachers,” Allen told CNSNews.com. “It is not backing up those statements. The money didn’t necessarily go to states that do all those things.”
Second, the district’s party affiliation matters in where the money is spent. (We still don’t know how much it matters compared to other factors.) The average Democratic district receives 81 percent more than the average Republican district. Even after taking out the money spent through state capitals, the average Democratic district receives at least 30 percent more than the average Republican district.
One thing I don’t like about Obama is all of this bullying and cronyism. Why can’t he just do the right thing, like not killing the Washington, D.C. voucher program which helps poor children to go to better schools? They’re just kids, and they’re poor – let ’em have a chance at a good education like Obama’s children have. Why does he always have to give billions of dollars to his special interest groups, instead of letting them compete so that the customer can choose the best offer? If unions have the best offer, let them get the sale. If not, then let someone else get the sale.
While elite feminists did assume previously male occupations, many more women have entered the workforce in professionalized versions of traditional homemaker roles. This has transformed childrearing and other domestic tasks from private family matters into public, communal, and taxable activities, necessarily expanding the size and power of the state and leading to the creation of vast bureaucracies to oversee public education and social services.
These are precisely the professions now being expanded by the Obama administration’s massive stimulus expenditures. The effect is to amplify the intrusion of the state into the home—indeed, the displacement of the home by the state. For as feminists point out, the feminine functions were traditionally private. Professionalizing feminine roles has therefore meant institutionalizing in government bureaucracies responsibilities that were once characteristic of private life. The politicization of children and the usurpation of parental rights under the guise of child protection are the clearest manifestations of this.
Fathers have been marginalized, and their lives are ever more directly administered by the state. They are not simply “absent,” as Rosin writes—they are increasingly likely to be under the control of the judicial and penal systems. Rosin’s article provides a telling example of a particularly state-feminist form of punishment now meted out to men: therapy.
None of the 30 or so men sitting in a classroom at a downtown Kansas City school have come for voluntary adult enrichment. Having failed to pay their child support, they were given the choice by a judge to go to jail or attend a weekly class on fathering…. This week’s lesson…involve[d] writing a letter to a hypothetical estranged 14-year-old daughter named Crystal, whose father left her…
What is clear from Rosin’s account is that the therapy, like the penal system, has been designed less to punish the alleged crime than to psychologically recondition men.
The class leader
grew up watching Bill Cosby living behind his metaphorical “white picket fence.” “Well, that check bounced a long time ago,” he says. … He continues, reading from a worksheet. What are the four kinds of paternal authority? Moral, emotional, social, and physical. “But you ain’t none of those in that house. All you are is a paycheck, and now you ain’t even that. And if you try to exercise your authority, she’ll call 911. … You’re supposed to be the authority, and she says, ‘Get out of the house, b*tch.’ She’s calling you ‘b*tch’!” … “What is our role? Everyone’s telling us we’re supposed to be the head of a nuclear family, so you feel like you got robbed.” … He writes on the board: $85,000. “This is her salary.” Then: $12,000. “This is your salary. … Who’s the man now?” A murmur rises. “That’s right. She’s the man.”
This is not law enforcement. It is government indoctrination.
So you’re basically looking at the marginalization and criminalization of men in their traditional role through things like no-fault divorce, divorce courts, welfare for single mothers, and biased domestic violence laws. Honestly, do women understand what incentives this creates for men who are contemplating a traditional marriage and traditional roles of husbands and fathers? I guess not.
You really need to read the whole article. I normally would never link to the paleo-con American Conservative (which I mostly disagree with) but Stephen Baskerville rocks. I make his book “Taken Into Custody” required reading for anyone who wants to marry me, because that book destroys the notion of divorce better than any other book. It makes divorce unthinkable just like Francis J. Beckwith’s “Defending Life” makes abortion unthinkable. I get excited when I learn something that makes it more rational for me to do the right thing – and Baskerville will do that for you.
WINTERY KNIGHT 