Um, who are they competing with? They give their product away.

They compete against left wing advocacy groups in a battle to influence public policy.

By not taking subsidies they lost the ability to stay on an equal footing.

If the government wants to give you money to help destroy the government then its laughably obvious that they'd take the deal !

Sorta like the BQ being funded by a government subsidy largely paid for by Albertan taxpayers.

CATZSZZ!

Who says they are not taking subsidies?

Having census data collected by a central government agency does not serve Canada’s interests, and it does not serve your interests.

Doesn't that read like they are campaigning for the contract?

It's not that the FI doesn't want access to real good stats compiled by a mandated nation-wide aggregate form, it's that they don't want their competitors — those other advocacy groups who are not looking out for rich, white older guys — from getting in their way.
That's Harper in a nutshell, too.

You think the institution of parliament is nonsense? Yes, Conservative MPs were elected, but their formation of the government is contingent on their maintaining the confidence of the House. The party doesn't even 'own' MP's affiliation, or their seats, as evidenced by the ability of members to cross the floor or sit as independents.

As for the matter of the census, if it's nothing why are your shorts in such a knot? I should think you'd like to see the educated elite folk wasting their time on something the electorate won't care about.

And what do have to say about the Fraser Inst. using census data one day, and then decrying it the next? (Which was the topic of Wells' post, if i recall.)

Boy, even by your typical standards of anger and derision toward any statements and individuals you find disagreeable, you're positively frothing at the mouth today.

Over the census that doesn't matter?

(p.s.; I'm nowhere near as left as you think I am. It's quite possible to oppose the Harper neocons from a variety of – if not most – political leanings).

"…rule of those who think they're smarter than everyone else, when they obviously aren't."

Sounds like Harper.

Non sequiter.

There's nothing more satisfying than mocking typos on the internet.

It's not a typo. I'll mock arrogant, know-it-all, conceited twits who claim broad and deep intelligence yet cannot spell properly. A pompous individual should at least have the brains to feign credible intelligence.

um we elect MPs. The leader of the party with the most ridings won becomes the PM. We do not elect our PM. Come on Dennis_F

I said a lot more than that. Funny how the best some can do on here are these one-line agitation posts. So much for the best and the brightest.

In other words, you absolutely don't care to refer to anything that's actually been written, but to simply agitate against those who dare disagree with you, right? He made numerous stabs at me, I addressed each and every one, then you go on to do the same as he did. Seriously. For people who supposedly value education and expertise, none of you are willing to display it on here. Holy smokes.

I find it a common phenomenon among many who try to challenge me when I'm on here. I'm not sure what it is. Faux-intellectual superiority, I guess. Someone comes on here to make their case, then others come on with these one-liners that do nothing but expose their ignorance and vindictiveness. Like I keep saying, it's like they keep proving my points for me. Modern leftism is nothing but group-think bullying. And they get outraged when anyone dares challenge or expose their views.

Just like scf jumping on your bandwagon, eh.

What coherent argument has Dennis produced? Which one do you admire and endorse, scf?

You prefer stupid, dishonest politicians like Harper to intelligent honest bureaucrats like Munir Sheikh.

And now you are lying about Sheikh. Shame on you.

What I have finally realized Dennis, is that the old hands here who think themselves the educated elites are really a little clique of left-wing bureaucrats, pols and ex pols, and reporters or former reporters who are mad that they are not the fly on the wall with this government as they were with the Liberals. I invite you to go back in the archives and see column styles. Problem is the Conservatives don't leak stuff to their opposition the way the Liberals do to their friends.

This clique's tactic is two fold. First their snide little cracks and then circular arguments and then piling on. The next move is likely just to ignore you and make you go elsewhere. The game is not worth the candle, as they say.

Myself, I am not any wing but just an old f**t and call the shots as I see them from my experience. The worst behaviour is the politicized blogs which they respond to in droves. By and large these are well educated, but even fools can be educated. Take it with a grain of salt and don't waste your efforts on them. I'm here only because Maclean's has fouled up my subscription and haven't had a copy for a few weeks. They didn't even post my on-line visa to their accounts until; I phoned. Actuially I'd rather rtead the mag than some of the little know-it-alls on these pages. Cheers

You don't need me to point it out. One comment of yours was already deleted by one of the blog administrators.

I'm saying that if it's been nearly as bad as some of you Harper haters suggest, the opposition would have gotten rid of him a long time ago. In fact, they once tried. It was called the coalition. And Canadians citizens laughed them off the stage.

It's funny the standards that the left places on politicians. All of them break promises. All of them push the envelope on accountability. Obama. McGuinty. Chretien — big time. Yet Harper somehow has to be perfect. He has to eat a communion wafer without incident.

I'm not saying he's perfect. He's a politician. Not Atitila the Hun.

I never said Harper was doing great because of a bad opposition. In part, the opposition is so bad because he's doing better than all their hollering and screaming suggests.

learn to spell

You mean it's a study conducted by, wait for it, experts trying to prove that others are stupider than they are?

Are you honestly trying to suggest that it's impossible for the educated class to have too high an opinion of itself? Heck, it's a defining trait of the modern left.

How often do you see this? Neanderthals come in with arrogance and bravado, hurling insults referring to low intelligence in others while failing to spell words correctly.

You're just another arrogant, know-it-all, conceited twit who claims broad and deep intelligence yet cannot spell properly nor use proper grammar. A pompous individual should at least have the brains to feign credible intelligence.

Can you say "backwards" without adding extra letters? There is no logical reason to turn the word into a slur, unless you're a beer-swilling neanderthal.

Here's a wiki link right back at ya, smart people thinking they're smarter than they really are: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority…

Your link does not apply to my thesis, because the effect you reference measures actual intelligence relative to perceived intelligence. Your link even says so much, if you care to read.

"Indeed, Dunning et al. cite a study saying that 94% of college professors rank their work as "above average" (relative to their peers), to underscore that the highly intelligent and informed are hardly exempt.[4] Rather, the effect is about paradoxical defects in perception of skill, in oneself and others, regardless of the particular skill and its intellectual demands, whether it is chess, playing golf[8] or driving a car.[4]"

I'd say this is evidence that puts you in this category: "the unskilled therefore suffer from illusory superiority".

All my examples still stand, of intelligent people thinking they have the ability to remake society and then causing ultimate disaster because they weren't smart enough (nobody is in fact) to understand the unintended consequences of their actions. Smarter people are more likely to make such a harmful decision.

From your link:

"One of the main effects of illusory superiority in intelligence is the Downing effect. This describes the tendency of people with a below average intelligence quotient (IQ) to overestimate their intelligence, and of people with an above average IQ to underestimate their intelligence. "

It may be that people have a tendency to rank themselves higher within their field, but it's also the case that non-experts overestimate their abilities relative to non-experts, contrary to your original ass-backward assertion.

"All my examples still stand"

What examples? You haven't provided a single example of specifically who failed, how, and what their expertise was, coupled with the non-expert who displayed superior ability.
When you've done that, you're welcome to provide evidence that your examples weren't simply outliers, and that non-experts are more likely to succeed where experts fail.

Stephen Harper is not remaking society – that's one of the prime elements of a conservative. A conservative does not see the need to conduct grand changes to society like a "green shift" or gay marriage or universal child care or any number of other big and new ideas with unintended and unknown consequences. If he's done anything, he's prevented others from remaking society. If anything, Harper would like Canada to return to what it was like for most of the 20th century, rather than continue the trend of the grand social experiments concocted by the Liberals in the late 60s and 70s, some of which were complete disasters and others of which we are still trying to fix today.

it must be understood that Canada was not alone in implementing these changes

That's irrelevant. The blend of changes in Canada are unique.

Also, there are lots of countries in the world that did not embark upon the same road. How many countries implemented price controls? How many had a national energy program? How many ban the purchase or most medical services? How many restrict foreign ownership of companies in key industries?

then Mr Harper should be selling that course of action, not leaving it to Maxime Bernier to launch trial balloons. Spell it out and let the people decide.

No doubt that is not his strong suit. On the other hand, he seems to have taken a strategy of strict control over communications, and limited communications, for political reasons, and I can't say I blame him. He has good reasons for it and it seems to work.

Well, when you say remake society, to me that means trying out new and previously untried directions. To shrink the societal safety net (or in other words, reduce the transfer of wealth from the productive to the unproductive) is not something new. But it's not so much the safety net he wishes to shrink, it's big goverrnment, which goes far beyond programs like welfare and into programs intended to direct and control Canadian society.

There was a lot of tongue biting involved.