We should all be sick and tired of the so-called liberals who claim they are financially conservative. That is not liberal. With liberals like that, conservative leader Pierre Poilievre might as well say he is liberal.
The conservative ideology is built on a “screw the lower classes” framework. It came from the aristocracies of Europe. We heard how “Unionism must be stamped on!” Or, “We need the poor for the menial, ill-paid work.” Or “They belong below the stairs.” Or “If we cannot have slavery, we can make the underclass beholden to us for our benevolence and charity. Or the resolution of “We can never pay them much but a mean existence is better than wandering the streets of our towns and cities stealing or begging for the occasional gratuitous coin.”
It was the skilled workman who created the middle class. It was the added cache of sending their progeny to university that extended the process. How many times have we heard the proud statement in middle class homes about my son the lawyer, my daughter the doctor.
Our society extends itself in greed. Yet it puts no markers on the lower or upper limits of this middle class. We make little accommodation for the homeless. We waste little thought or concern for them. In a country of raw winters, we leave them to sleep on grates with escaping steam that heat the offices of the rich. We leave the mentally challenged to wander hopelessly and alone. Our hospitals treat the obvious concerns and dismiss. Our food banks close for the holidays. Our hypocrisy knows few bounds.
Sometimes you wonder if liberals are just dishonest conservatives.
But there are also the new democrats in this political mix. It is amusing to note that the died-in-the-wool conservative will go to the NDP before voting liberal. And it is the vice-versa for the NDPer. These are people who see the liberal as the enemy. And besides, unions can often be described as greedy. The needy need not apply.
When one of my brothers made his first few million dollars, he confessed to me that he was embarrassed by how little the government required from him by way of taxes. He might have been embarrassed, but he still voted conservative.
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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry
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