Mr Martin, you don’t get to call anyone else “verbose”. What is your idea of a “good thing”? This would make your assertions easier to grasp, agree with and/or answer.

That said would not adhering to one dominant idea “eliminate” others, as Mr Tulloch already mentioned? Is that better than “mitigation”?

Mr Tulloch, I think (as long as you lay out your reasoning, which I trust you will continue to do) that a blog dedicated to political positives is an excellent idea. The discussion it generates will clearly be a step off of the beaten path.

Second that to every radicalism there will be an equal and opposite anti-radicalism. This is again a system of interpretation imposed upon history and this narrow type of scholarship is quite dangerous indeed. The status quo shines through here though and since buzz words like seeking balance are considered liberal and trendy on campuses then this is considered a good thesis to adopt. The problem with describing the polices of others as needing mitigating is that you end up with a strange result where there is so much compromise water-down that a truly good idea is squelched – radical as it is. Mitigation is not usually a good thing. The term itself was originally negative. I will concede that our politics have been dominated by this trend and believe in it (without evidence that this is a good thing). we certainly have a country to show for it, near American levels of low government service at high, near European levels of taxation. Sad, sick, and highly inefficient. no wonder Voter turn out is so low and Canadians are increasingly skeptical. Mitigation, you see, has eroded our political will to the point that it is hard to find Canadians who believe in their political parties, knowing full well that what they promise will be mitigated and watered down as part of a bid to stay in power and to gain it again later.

Cheers

Travis Martin’s interpretation of the theory of counterweights was also a touch erroneous. Strictly speaking, it is not about balancing scales which by the way is not just performed by judges and lawyers. Balancing scales is performed by people from all walks of life. Canada has a long tradition of brokerage politics, which is a form of balancing scales, and has been embraced by all political parties due to the wide diversity in the country. And like others I believe brokerage politics has served the country reasonably well. Moreover, the theory of counterweights is more about mitigating, but not eliminating trends in society and government. If a trend grows too strong it threatens freedom and the public’s welfare. Sometimes government action curtails the trend; sometimes the public or individuals do this. For example, high taxes and high deficits allowed Mike Harris to become Premier. Many felt that the trend of excessive government spending had to be curtailed. However, his cutting of taxes and of spending became too brutal according to the interpretation of some, and his policies had to be mitigatd and as a result the tories were thrown out of office.

Your other example, Duff’s ditch, was the recommendation of, and later the personal project of Dr. Templeton the Engineer who brought that project into being. Duff’s ditch, was given that moniker for no other reason that to the public it looked as though Duff had initiated it. Dr. Templeton’s work, however, had started under the previous premier – Campbell. Duff did, I suppose, authorize the funds (in a populist way – exploiting a natural disaster and making it sound like he was the only one who would have or could have built it – even though earlier projects had been launched by a different provincial government on the Fraser River in BC). Really do you credit your mortgage broker every time you buy a house? I see nothing wrong in reporting the good politicians do, and I agree it is harder than you think to find the good they do, just that when you are reporting be sure that you indeed are reporting the good THAT THEY THEMSELVES DO and not the good that others do and that they then supplant and attach their own names to.