NationStates Jolt Archive

and I found something weird. The hall was divvied up between Canadians and Americans, with a series of guests appearing via satellite linkup, and a pretty equal chance for Canadians and Americans to have their say.

The Americans were decidely of two minds, one conservative, the other liberal, but what junped out at me was that those who identified themselves as 'conservative' or Republican used patterns of speech that were recognizable from encountering right-wingers here on NS and other places online. It's strange that so many people choose to use the same phraseologies, to use nearly the same language to describe their outlook. It was as though they'd consulted some sort of manual for political discourse.

On the other hand, the American liberals were clearly speaking off the cuff, from their hearts, so to speak.

I don't think this comes down to a political difference, I think there's something more fundamental at work here. I'm glad I'm not a liberal in America, I really am. I'd feel even more anxiety than I do as a 'liberal' in Canada.

Anybody else catch this broadcast? Do you think I'm off the mark, or was there an eerie tendency for the American conservatives to all sound alike?

and I found something weird. The hall was divvied up between Canadians and Americans, with a series of guests appearing via satellite linkup, and a pretty equal chance for Canadians and Americans to have their say.

The Americans were decidely of two minds, one conservative, the other liberal, but what junped out at me was that those who identified themselves as 'conservative' or Republican used patterns of speech that were recognizable from encountering right-wingers here on NS and other places online. It's strange that so many people choose to use the same phraseologies, to use nearly the same language to describe their outlook. It was as though they'd consulted some sort of manual for political discourse.

On the other hand, the American liberals were clearly speaking off the cuff, from their hearts, so to speak.

I don't think this comes down to a political difference, I think there's something more fundamental at work here. I'm glad I'm not a liberal in America, I really am. I'd feel even more anxiety than I do as a 'liberal' in Canada.

Anybody else catch this broadcast? Do you think I'm off the mark, or was there an eerie tendency for the American conservatives to all sound alike?Yep. They get it from talk radio, mostly.

My hypothesis is that since conservatives buy into this idea that the media in the US are overwhelmingly liberal, they seek out info from a handfull of conservative sources. Fox, Conservative talk radio programs, American Spectator magazine, etc. Since they get much of their info from a limited ammount of sources, they tend to repeat the same limited number of viewpoints.

I missed that show.

As a "righty" wing canadian I am surprised how RIGHT wing some americans really are for example:

- private schools for everybody! ummmmmmm ok? how are private schools going to lower costs + increase profits in a school? Make robot teachers?

- How religion plays so much a part of the right wing in america, I can think of nothing worse than playing religion in politics, it sickens me...

- the fact that the american health care system costs so much per capita and has worse overall care than most other developed countries and how they refuse to discuss any public inroads into the delivery of care...

I can't remember which American talking head it was that was on the National last night, but he said that in America, Stephen Harper would be widely considered a Democrat.

It's just a different world down there, isn't it?

I used to get righteously ticked off with Tories, especially the neoconservatives of the last few years, but they pale in comparison to their Republican counterparts. I can respect the goals of the traditional Canadian conservative - taking care to entrench and protect Canadian values, while approaching new issues with judicious caution, and mindful of fiscal realities - but things started getting awfully weird after Brian Mulroney checked in as Tory leader, later Tory PM. Conservatives were suddenly acting out of whack. They became, very quickly, the epitome of what they'd claimed to have despised, all those years in opposition.

When the Reform Party came on the scene, it seemed like a repository for all the nutjobs in the country. Why? Because they weren't acting like Tories at all...they wanted to kick everything over and replace it with something new. But it was, and continues to be, a hard sell. Whilke there may be a sense that change is needed, it's far from obvious that some of the things the Reformers, now the new Tories, have in mind will be helpful to Canadians in any way. Case in point? Revisiting social issues via nationwide referenda. They need to re-think their approach, because it should be painfully obvous that peole just plain don't want to re-open all those nasty divisive issues like capital punishment, abortion, etc., painful a realization as it must be for Mr.Harper and his caucus.

I've got an aunt in Montreal, a lifelong Tory, who voted Liberal this last election because Paul Martin was 'her kind of Tory'. She didn't even bother to check if the Tories were fielding a local candidate or not. So, yeah, Stephen Harper could either try to reach out to people like my aunt, reassure them that they're really not a bunch of shady characters, boneheads, or Bushites, or - he could just stay the course and have at the end of it a moderately powerful, if hopelessly regional party.

To be honest I could care less about quebec, that province will never vote conservative. The Cs need to break into toronto and more of ontario, that is the ticket. I dont think its that far fetched to think that will happen.

I think if the Cs ever get elected and people see that they are not dismantling the health care system + a bunch of crazy religious nuts but change some of our welfare policies. Such as EI and crap programs like the CBS or the gun registry and a stop the new national day care system and drug care program, they would see that we can have the basics and have the lower taxes, free health care, cheap post secondary education, a rebuilt military etc etc.

To be honest I could care less about quebec, that province will never vote conservative. The Cs need to break into toronto and more of ontario, that is the ticket. I dont think its that far fetched to think that will happen.

I think if the Cs ever get elected and people see that they are not dismantling the health care system + a bunch of crazy religious nuts but change some of our welfare policies. Such as EI and crap programs like the CBS or the gun registry and a stop the new national day care system and drug care program, they would see that we can have the basics and have the lower taxes, free health care, cheap post secondary education, a rebuilt military etc etc.

Dude, the Conservatives used to freakin' OWN Quebec - before the failure of Meech Lake and the rise of the Bloc, that is. The Bloc is happy to be a regional rump-end, with no real power on a federal level. The new Tories are also a regional rump-end, but with a desire to be truly national. To do that, they've got to capture the hearts of traditional Tory voters. So long as they continue to operate without clearly eliminating the social conservative agenda they inherited from the old Reform Party, they will continue to alienate conservative voters in the east. Were they to embrace the socially progressive, fiscally conservative outlook of the Tories under Clark, Stanfield, or Hell, Diefenbaker, even - they'd clean up at the polls.