Ethics Schmethics

When Jean Chretien's Liberal Party of Canada decimated the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, and became one of the strongest majorities ever enjoyed by a party in Canada, no one suspected the tame, sedate, apologetic, and appeasing gentlemen of the Canadian government to bring down the worst reign of terror about to befall all freedom loving Canucks. Nonetheless, what dwelled deep in the hearts of the Liberal hacks left impotent by the majority of Mulroney's, was a gluttonous pillage of all public purses. Nothing could hold their numbers from wreaking havoc on the unsuspecting Canadian population.

Not only did Chretien's platform promises prove out to be bogus (kill NAFTA, GST, anything the previous Mulroney government had created, etc.), his "little guy from Shawinigan" persona mounted to criminal assault charges. Now, if that's anyone's idea of how to run a government in Canada, it sure wasn't mine. Unfortunately, there was no countervailing party to rein in the out of control power mongers. Suharto of the North certainly exercised a fair amount of propaganda (politically designed lies) to divert the attention of all right thinking Canadians still left standing. The public was fooled; the press did their best to sway, debase, defuse, and destract any and all horrifying elements of his rule which snuck out from the cover of darkness. If anyone in the media didn't play along, they were toast. Any and all institutionalized forms of justice (courts, RCMP) were subverted to toe the line of the Liberal Party oligarchy. To a man, everyone joined the fat cats doling out the graft to feed a pluralist social order. It was an orgy of greed. Every desire sated with public funds.

Preston Manning, our Saviour riding in from the west, caught the demise of the Mulroney government at the point when it went to two seats in Parliament. The assessment of the Progressive Conservatives as corrupt and power mad was accurate and informed with a growing consensus. Reform went from 0 seats in 1988 to 52 in 1993. The Bloc Quebecois, consisting of more disaffected Progressive Conservatives, created by the failure of Meech Lake, took so many seats they became the official opposition. No one from the two new opposition parties had ever sat in Parliament before. We sat in inert silence as the country teetered on the edge of dissolution. Our blind luck would save us from experiencing two distinct and separate solitudes, one French and one English. Our nation's government, bent on building selfish aggrandizement and a legacy of lifelong pensions in obscure foreign climates away from Canada, couldn't have given a damn.

As time played out we learned our roles, earning a position of respect against a perspective of historical background. Our radical and revolutionary concepts honouring family, respecting common sense and Christian values became increasingly more mainstream. Our obvious and embarrassingly naive hick status gradually gave way to the sophistication offered up by common adherents with hope, energy, and support to regain control over the country's freedom and direction.

Within a very short period, our founder handed the reins to Stockwell Day who brought the party to the Ontario border, and then to Stephen Harper who brought us to Ottawa and then through to Quebec. Not a moment too late. We're here now as the governing party for all of Canada. The country has endured the pain of our birth to national status. We have not fallen off the face of the planet, we have not imploded into civil strife, our institutions and people have not quite resorted to gnawing off their own limbs. Yet.

There is an extreme pressure upon us. The assault against what remains for us to bolster up, the tattered remains of our freedoms, is unrelenting. The same sad Liberal whores who would sell themselves and this country's wealth of humanity in a wink to feed their addiction to power remains a nuisance and may prove to be more distractive than the good that we will do. While on the face of it, their despicable behaviour should be held up as being the most abhorrent of acts against our values, our society has changed. The mirror does not reflect.

Subtly, our collective mores and individual choices have skewed towards selfishness. The time spent under the oppressive rule of a despotic, dictatorial government, while some would discount the weight of its playing a part; has, in actual fact, changed the fabric of our lives, our relationships, and our perspectives.

And, as if our Liberal dominated world vision's poisoned well of reason wasn't still fueling our nightmares sufficiently well enough, the Liberal minded press, or outright Liberally-owned media continues the serpentine struggle against all that is Good. So much of our lives, under the corrupt and dishonoured Liberals, have been changed. If not by overt means then by covert disorienting and disconcerting psych-ops. How's a fellow to decide if, in the back of his mind, the devil must be given his due? Ain't it natural? Ain't it de rigeur?

So, the times have changed, society has too. Thirteen years of watching and reacting to the devil's brand of dishonourable conduct in public education, health care, and legal matters has taken its toll. The character of our political leaders, from the perspective drawn by our press, has been undermined so much so that our honest politician's, still bent on the campaign to save our asses from ruin, is looked upon no differently than the former wolves in the henhouse. How wrong can they be?

From the outside looking in, one might give up for any salvation. Throwing in the towel could be an option, if we're part of this sick and sorry tableau being painted by our national press, there's really nothing left to do but resort to the further whims of a ruling class bent on finally tipping the cart. Unless your faith endures throughout the entire onslaught of unreason. Unless your innate core values, the ones that remain unassailable, provide you sustenance. As I know they do.

It's for this reason, this hope that all things will come out all right, that my faith in Canada's collective consciousness will prevail. It's the same as the current ethics matter of the moment. If the core human beliefs have not been usurped by the system's perversion at the hands of idiots, we're gonna do just fine. The process of adjudicating just what is right and wrong for the people who house our highest realm of order is anathema to this innate talent resident in God fearing humanity. Convoluting the process of establishing right from wrong in any realm presupposes a detachment with that supreme connection, a connection I'm surmising, we could all use a fair deal more of.

Bringing one's country to the edge of ruin might be looked upon as a tad unethical. The time of history will tell that story. Having some discredited bureaucrat decry an opinion based on their interpretation, from a committee's unfinished rules and regulations, on whether behaviour of a public official is ethical or not is, in itself, unethical. Of course, we'll have to devolve into defining the term ethics. We'll try to keep it simple.

Ethics: what's right and what's wrong. If I have to tell you what is right and what is wrong, you shouldn't be in a position of public scrutiny. If you don't have the foggiest impression of how to conduct your affairs above board with due respect for the people you are representing then you have failed the first test of an ethical lifestyle. If you have to have a judge or jury state your case in defence of your actions, you're not doing well in the scale of right and wrong.

Of course, were the criteria for ethical behaviour established during a childhood of reflection against a backdrop of choices with unwavering consequences, you might have a better point of view when it comes to making "grown up" decisions. When it comes to making decisions for an entire country, let's hope you've got it right by then. Let's have faith in the country to recognize the decision's appropriateness. It's called an election issue. The country never forgets.

Thank God Stephen Harper knows what's right. Have faith. Steady as she goes. Next.