How tiresome. Followers of this blog know that I’m somewhat conservative in many social viewpoints, but also a believer in Canada’s social pact, health care system and much of our public policy. It’s also no secret that I support the Green Party openly, and am an energy efficiency enthusiast, but by no means an activist or radical. “Green Conservativism” might be applicable, but that label is kind of slippery, as I believe it is with any thinking voter in Canada.

Jack Layton has been in the press running down Harper on a number of notes while he rallies his radical-left caucus and faithful. He runs down taking action in Afghanistan. Why would he do that? Does he feel the Taliban should have been left openly repressing people and funding international terrorist organizations? It’s not like there’s a debate that there are other places also deserving of intervention, he’s not arguing that point. Claiming to stand for the poor, and for women’s rights, and for the rights of equality in so many dimensions, but only in Canada will he defend our belief in the charter or even the UN conventions? For that matter, he apparently believes that the Taliban is some legitimate, caring, rational government as he feels we should negotiate a peace with these radicals.

Let me be clear. I fear for our soldiers, and for the aid workers over there, and for the civilians caught in the middle. I wish they didn’t have to be there, but the UN was in favour of this action, and I believe this war has unfortunately some basis for legitimacy. I support our action, and I support our troops most of all, as they have a tough job in trying to stabilize and help that country that the US used as a stepping-off point to an invasion that has proven to have no legal basis whatsoever. [Update] I’d also like to state that those of us that believe in our Armed Forces as I do, be proud of our men and women serving our country, as they are doing so in the best military tradition. I also admire the fact that CBC gives a balanced viewpoint on this. It’s not all roses, but I would note that the “encirclement” tactic has a gap in it until it’s closed. (If the Taliban forces don’t get out, or if they aren’t trying to, which seems the case, they are making a grave tactical error in all likelihood.)

Layton and the NDP continues to be a party of idealists with no plan, no set attainable agenda, and no concept of the real world whatsoever. We’d all like better care for the elderly, lower cost for schooling, better medical care for everyone, but there is this small matter of money, and the NDP has shown eternally that they don’t care about balancing a budget. They would catapult us back to the deficits of Mulroney, Trudeau and countless other short-sighted fools we’ve had at the helm. Martin had a corrupt party, but either by luck, planning or some combination, we at least started to run a surplus, and pay down the debt we stand ready to hand to our children. Layton wants to live as best as he can today, and foist the load of that cost onto our kids. I’m willing to endure some hardship and pain to reduce that debt so our kids have more choices tomorrow.

The labour union in BC has also showed an appalling lack of intelligence recently as the view of Canadian Citenzenship applied to the migrant seasonal workers in the British Columbia agriculture industry. I’m sorry, but as I support our troops, I also believe that being Canadian means a great deal more than holding a job and living the good life. It has a commitment to ideas of fairness, of hard work, of continual improvement, and of not shirking the responsibility for things. If you want to fix the situation of those workers, and I believe that it sounds as though it does need fixing, fix the working regulations and labour laws to give those workers some rights and protection while working in Canada. They don’t need to be Canadian Citizens to do that. If they want to become Canadians, they can pursue that separately. Canadian Citizenship is not a Work Permit Mr. Sinclair, while you would reduce what it means to be Canadian to a question of where you work.

This has me too irritated to even listen to tunes at present. I’m so sick of this complete drivel and nonsense getting press time when the Green Party and other more legitimate viewpoints can be included in national debates or panels.

Apologies for so few links to background, but I’ve been working and thinking this through for a long while. It’s all a miasma of facts condensing to opinion.