Comments | brotherj: Reflections on the 2003 PC Leadership Convention

brotherj

Reflections on the 2003 PC Leadership Convention

Jun 27, 2003 22:27

In Toronto, I attended the national leadership convention of the Progressive Conservative Party. The Conservatives are Canada's oldest political party, originally formed for the purpose of creating a united nation out of the loyal colonies of British North America to stand against threatened and real incursions from the United States ( Read more... )

politics

Comments 6

rupertvander June 28 2003, 01:34:04 UTC

So let me get this straight: You're for the party that fights for the rights and the sovereignty of Canada, to protect her from the continual incursions from USA?

brotherj June 28 2003, 07:56:04 UTC

Yes, but unfortunately the party betrayed itself and reversed that policy in the 1980s, so now I'm trying to help recapture it and return it to its roots.

rupertvander June 28 2003, 08:18:37 UTC

Kudos! You have my support, I understand how it feels to be in a country that has frequent incursions from it's neighbour. It's the same situation here in Singapore, where Malaysia always tries to dictate what we should or should not do.

nataliadarimini June 28 2003, 22:02:18 UTC

I want to fight for Candadian rights. Canada is so...inadvertently wonderful. Not that Canada isn't trying and that their being wonderful isn't an effort, but it's unexpected that the nation as a whole is so much more earnest and real than their southern neighbor. I feel plasticy and Starbucks.

brotherj June 29 2003, 01:08:20 UTC

You certainly know how to give a compliment! "So inadvertently wonderful"...I'll have to remember that.

On the other hand, America isn't all plastic and Starbucks; it's also confidence and aspiration. I love the U.S.A. -- not just individual Americans, they're easy to love -- but the spirit of the nation itself. So sure of itself, so convinced of the justice of its ends. If I were American, I wouldn't want to be anything else. The problem is that I am Canadian, and though I don't want to be anything else, part of America's unimpeachably just ends indirectly involves me becoming more American, and that I resent.

Father's response. anonymous June 29 2003, 09:27:58 UTC

In The Republic, Plato dreamed of rulers who did not wish to rule - who had to be compelled to rule. His idea was that Philosopher-Kings would see ruling as a lesser activity than philosophical reflection upon the forms - fundamental realities upon which reality is based ( ... )