May 08
Politics/Elections
Cut the Political Mullet: Fiscally Conservative up Front, but Totally Progressive in Back…
In the ongoing dissection of recent (and future) elections, something has been bothering me about the language around ‘choice’, and I thought I’d put a few preliminary ideas up to help organize my thoughts…
In Alberta, as with all of Canada after the last federal election, some voters seem to be framing their decision to support (or actively thwart) one particular party as if all politics boils down to the intersection of two binaries: you’re a conservative or a liberal/progressive, and these labels apply to ‘Social Issues’ and ‘Economic Issues’. That’s all there is in the world, and all there is in determining how you vote. The most common expression of this idea is this: “I’m SOCIALLY liberal, but I’m a FISCAL conservative”.
Now I’ll admit – that kind of attitude is often used to distance oneself from more ‘severe’ strains of conservatism, and as such I’m quite certain I’ve used those exact words in that exact order at some point in my past. What I find interesting about this kind of ‘defense’, though, is that it leaves a rather major part of the binary unexamined. Read More