The recent writers who extolled conservatism and the HST are either disgracefully uninformed if not immoral.
Conservative ideology is the uncivilized remnant beliefs of aristocrats when capitalism first started. They tried to “conserve” all their advantages of the past – believing that only “men of means” should rule.
Since they had all of the wealth, they advocated policies of greed and selfishness with no redistribution of the wealth except upwards and a survival-of-the-fittest belief for the rest.
They advocated the two-class capitalist system of owners and workers as the only system – with the owners having all the power and the workers having none. This is seen today by conservatives being against real democracy, social programs, unions, minimum wages, worker rights and benefits and even government pensions.
They do not want to pay taxes, particularly the fairer progressive income tax but want to shift taxation to consumers via the costly value-added taxes such as the GST, PST and the HST so they can pay the lower rate. This encourages the “underground market” where many small entrepreneurs do not charge, nor pay, sales taxes which further deprives the government of funds.
Conservative politicians do not serve the public interest. They serve corporations and the private sector instead of the general public which they were elected to do. This is seen by constantly privatizing all profitable government assets and services instead of keeping the profits for government use which could reduce taxation. They are against social programs constantly under-funding them making them outrageously inefficient – and then fraudulently arguing for them to be privatized or abolished.
Conservatives are the “war party,” constantly wastefully spending money on the military rather than on social programs (re the recent $30 billion for war planes while hospital waiting times increase).
Conservatives advocate “small government” and “small taxation” which means preferring no social programs but uncivilized “survival-of-the-fittest” concepts – except to aid businesses with taxpayers’ money.
Secondly, they advocate neo-liberal free trade and foreign investment policies which prevent government from operating in the public interest. “Free trade” forces businesses and workers to compete with slave-wage conditions abroad (even hi-tech is being off-shored) – meaning eventual destruction of local businesses, jobs and communities. But when their firms fail they hypocritically run to government for help.
In conclusion, conservatism is the worst choice for citizens, the country and the environment (as they even reject the idea of global warming).
Their ideology is based on profit, greed and self-interest which supersedes humanity and civilized concepts.
Accordingly, new movements such as Occupy Wall Street have emerged to counter the conservative ideology of unbridled greed, inequality and undemocratic behavior of governments. And if they don’t succeed this time, it’s a return to another Great Depression and conservative barbarism as in the Dirty Thirties.
J.J. Rousso
