that every true conservative thinker possesses and will need to buy sufficient books for all members of your family to ensure you all progress up the ladder of enlightenment at the same rate.
3.Somewhat disagree—You fall under the “faint hope clause,” and thus if you buy and read this book carefully, all may not be lost. You could very well be a late bloomer, so at least give yourself a chance at total enlightenment.
4.Strongly disagree—God help you because no one else can. Do not buy this book! It will give you nightmares!
5.No opinion—You are definitely an NDP supporter. Thinking requires energy that we all know creates greenhouse gasses and a terrible carbon footprint. By not buying this book you can save the lives of 2,312,000 trees! Or, if you want a peek at how we conservatives think, buy the eBook to keep your poor brainwashed conscience clear.
Chapter 1
Is Liberalism a Disease?
I only know him as Tom. Irish Tom, a delightfully opinionated regular caller to my Ottawa radio talk show who will launch himself into prolonged and furious broad brogue bombast at the mere drop of the words “British royalty” or “Liberal politician.” Slipping those magic words into our conversation is a ploy I often use to liven things up on slow days. Tom never lets me down. He is an accomplished performer. Academy Award material indeed.
“Why are those bums coming to Canada?” He shouts into the phone. “Why are we even letting those parasites into the country?” (Referring, at the time, to the impending visit of Prince William and his wife, Kate, to Canada.) He winds himself into a full-blown Irish rage. His voice shoots up several octaves: “The Royal family—they’re all bums—the most dysfunctional family in the western world—they should all be thrown out onto the street!”
At about this point I go for the coup de grâce. He pauses briefly for a breath and I manage to cut in. “And not only that, Tom, they’re all liberals.”
As always, he takes the bait, hook, line and sinker. “Liberals!” he screams. “Liberals! We should run the whole damn lot of those no-good bums out of the country on a rail.” At this point my entire audience knows what’s coming next. A punch line he’s used dozens of times. He spits it out with glorious disdain: “Liberalism is a mental disease!”
I’ve done my job. “Thanks Tom,” I say, “and next time…”
“Ya, ya.” he says. “I know, I know, next time I call have an opinion; ya, ya.” He chuckles and is gone.
Since most of my audience is Conservative or at least conservative-minded and thus has an advanced sense of humour I know all are by now bent over double with laughter.
Liberals not so much. The NDP and Liz May crowd not at all.
My experience is, the further left you are the less sense of humour you enjoy.
Socialists for the most part are a pretty grim lot and of course, these days you would be hard-pressed to find a Liberal doing a whole lot of smiling. Mind you, there aren’t a whole lot of Liberals left to do anything! (I wonder if “Buffalo Bob” still thinks converting from NDP to Liberal was such a hot idea?)
Now I grant you, some of the “Dippers” seem like happy-go-lucky folks. Smiling all the time. I don’t know about you, but the more they smile, the more they scare the bejabbers out of me.
With socialists, the broader the smile, the more dangerous the idea. Believe me, the lefties aren’t smiling because they’ve got a great sense of humour. They’re smiling because they’ve figured out how to save the world from big corporations/rich guys/global warming/little corporations/God/entrepreneurs/non-union businesses/oil companies/ banks/George W. Bush/Stephen Harper/war/profits/famine/poverty/ homelessness/disease/bad breath/warts/zits/ingrown toenails/pesticides/crime/guns/conservative broadcasters/private medical clinics/Alberta oil sands/massage parlours and—best of all—they’ve figured out how to GET YOU TO PAY FOR IT!
The NDP, very clearly, is Quebec’s kind of party. Quebec, after all, originated the concept of having everyone else pay for what they want.
It’s too bad most lefties have never given themselves the chance of hearing one of Irish Tom’s famous rants because no one foolish enough to support the Liberals, the NDP or the Green Party would ever be caught dead listening to “The Lowell Green Show.” At least they would never admit it. After all, most of what you hear on “The Lowell Green Show” is just common sense and what lefty has any interest in that for heaven’s sake?
Here’s another Lowell Green rule for you—the further left you are the more you claim you listen to and watch the CBC, when in fact you take great secret pleasure in either watching Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan destroy themselves or catching Jersey Shore for pointers on how to improve the morals and language skills of your children!
Please note I’ve inserted a qualifier here in admitting that only most, not all, of what you hear on “The Lowell Green Show” is common sense. I confess that occasionally someone of a leftist persuasion bucks up their courage (or is heavily into the suds) and in hopes of embarrassing me, phones to challenge something I or a caller is saying. Common sense inevitably flees the airwaves at that point. Let’s face it; common sense and liberalism/socialism are polar opposites.
Now I want to make this very clear, I am not suggesting that Irish Tom has it right and liberalism is a mental disease, but when you examine some of the things they advocate, some of the things the left has done, you really begin to wonder if maybe, just maybe, it’s only conservative-minded people who have their heads screwed on straight!
I am a prime example!
When I fell under the spell of Trudeaumania in 1968 and tried to wrest the nomination away from a sitting Liberal MP did I have my head screwed on straight? Absolutely not. In fact as I look back on it now with a much wiser conservative mind, I have no choice but to conclude that I was a crazy man back then. Not only did I actually think I could defeat a well-established sitting member of Parliament, but this member—Tommy Lefebvre—was a perfectly bilingual francophone while I was (and am) an Anglophone with only a smattering of French. And this, for heaven’s sake, is the Quebec riding of Pontiac just northwest of Hull. To make matters worse, I surround myself with other Liberals who are as deluded as I.
Obviously none of us had our heads screwed on straight!
Is it possible this Liberal nutbarism is bred in the bone? My father once ran as a Liberal in a southwestern Ontario riding that has been Conservative since Sir John A., for crying out loud. And, not satisfied with getting his foolish rear end firmly booted, he then, in the next election, turns around and runs in the same riding for the NDP! Who would even suggest he had his head screwed on straight?
In later life my father, like his eldest son (me), began to smarten up, became much more practical and realistic, which is to say a lot wiser, and declined to run for any office for any party.
Before I smartened up, I succumbed to Liberal Party entreaties in 1983 and agreed to run as a Liberal in one of the most socialist ridings in all of Canada. Now I’ve got to ask the question again.
Did I have my head screwed on straight? And once again the answer is the same—no!
Fifteen years have passed since my great Quebec election disaster. I’m still a Liberal and still not thinking anywhere near straight. So I get the nomination this time and even though Jean Chrétien campaigns with me for a couple hours one day, I get wonderfully whomped in Ottawa Centre by the NDP candidate. Actually, come to think of it, my ignominious defeat may have been Chrétien’s fault since we were storming a seniors’ residence that day occupied almost entirely by French Canadian women who went gaga over the little guy from Shawinigan but had no interest in the big guy from Brantford.
It was at about that time that my allegiance to leftist thinking began to waver.