IT'S THE CULTURE, STUPID!
Obviously I have noticed the response from both the left and the right about the new budget. For the left, it is not nearly socialist enough, for the right, it is far to socialist.One of the reasons I started blogging was to try to emphasize to conservatives the importance of culture in fighting political battles. Culture influences politics, politics does not influence culture.
It is the movies you watch, the books you read, the music you listen to, the news you consume. I think far too many conservatives expected a cultual revolution overnight when Stephen Harper won. Now they are in despair.
The cry and moan...
HARPER HAS GONE GREEN!
HARPER GAVE UP THE FIGHT ON SSM!
HARPER IS SPENDING LIKE A LIBERAL!
Stephen Harper can only do what the culture will allow him to do in a minority situation. Canadian culture is overwhelmingly liberal. If you want to change that...
Make a movie...
Write a book...
Don't patronize culture that mocks you...
Tell your children to become laywers...
Educate your children to become that which you hate most...journalists and artists with a more enlightened conservative outlook to life.
Until you do that, the cultural center will keep shifting more left.
Today, I just read that a bunch of Toronto Law students and their professor are banding together to set up a Charter challenge to legalize prostitution.
I would say that they will win, but the truth is...they have already won. These cultural battles are fought in academe and legal circles far before they make it to public consumption and until conservatives get that, you will get in name only Conservative governments that govern as though they are left of center.
And no amount of bitching and moaning in the blogosphere will change that.
10, 000 anti-Al Gore blogs cannot even begin to have the impact of a hit movie like An Inconvenient Truth. I know you do not want to hear it...but that one movie made all the difference.
Cyberspace may make you feel stronger...but it doesn't amount to all that much.
posted by Nicol DuMoulin @ 8:38 AM
3 Comments:
Good premise.
Yet, even if it doesn't amount to all that much it's better than nothing. A stronger conclusion for this post would have been to implore conservatives to pursue bigger things in the style of Gore. Blogs are a start, but we must not rest with them alone.
I agree, but I am starting to get the impression that many bloggers see it as a b-all and end-all. They like the celebrity of the blogosphere, they like being mentioned in the media and think that is good enough...when it is not. They become their own little clique with their own little battles and little wars to wage.
Blogging is a good start, but it is just a start. And as I have said before, the best blogs must be much more then just "Hey look at this, these liberals/conservatives/libertarianssuck".
Sadly, with all the ideologies, those seem to be the ones that are the most popular.
There are exceptions of course...but by and large they are the exceptions.
Thank you for the comment.
I am interested in the split on opinion over this budget. Most of the blogs I have read, and linked to that don't like the budget, suggest that they understand the minority situation.
I don't like the budget, because it fails in many key categories. As a political document I am satisfied, but I would be neglecting my duties as a citizen if I didn't speak my mind, even when It's my own party's legislation. I'm really not content with conservatives in name-only.
Many of us in the BT community recognize that the conservative movement is more important than the party itself.
I refuse to lose credibility because I advocate one thing, but accept another as long as it is my party doing it.
I'll speak up against big government spending any day, and the current leading party has nothing to do with my decision to do so.
I think you'll find that most of us(certainly me) are not tearing up our memberships, I'll be attending the AGM for my EDA this weekend, but we would fail ourselves, and our readers if we didn't speak our minds honestly.
Your post hammers home a very important point, and one that I would join you in advocating. Keep an eye out in the next several months, I will be announcing the formation of a non-profit conservative values organization. As well, I've established advertising on my blog in order to further the conservative(not party) cause.
We need to get the voices out there, in whatever capacity possible. Lets shift the poles.
Enjoyed the post!
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