Politblogo

Co-bloggers wanted

This past week and the next two or three weeks are going to contain much hecticity for me; so you may have noticed that my blog has been on hiatus for this little while.  And so now I am forced to face the possibility that I cannot always maintain the pace that I would actually like.

I am, therefore, looking for a co-blogger or two to help keep up the activity levels.  Volunteers for this noble task should have many of the following characteristics:

1. Shares something like my political outlook (something called "progressive" in some way)
2. Writes with decorum and attention to detail, but entertainingly.
3. Writes often, but not always, about politics, particularly foreign policy, political procedures and party machinations, electoral politics/reform/mechanisms, matters of economics and class, and so on.
4. Does not necessarily have to write about Canada, but it might be nice.  (Québec writers, including sovereigntists, are weclome, but as long as we don't get too fixated by a certain argument, if you know what I mean.)
5. Willing to write two or three times a week, at least, but can take a break.

Naturally, I expect people to be beating down this door, given the many multitudes of adoring fans I clearly have.  So don't feel offended if I don't pick you.  BUT these criteria are not fixed in stone.  I want someone who shares my overall outlook because I don't want to be outnumbered on this blog like I was at Points of Information.  But if you feel like you'd rather join me than start your own blog, leave your name in the comments and ideally a link to some sample of what you already write, and I'll contact you if I think you should be a co-blogger here.

If you already have an internet presence, and it's not your real name, we can just use that one.  (I prefer you remain pseudonymous on this blog).  Otherwise (or if you want to start over), you can either be a Vala like me or a functionary in some totalitarian regime, preferably someone (tragi)comical.

UPDATE: I should add that if you already have a blog but occasionally wouldn't mind writing on mine, feel free to mention that.

Movie review: Madagascar

Having been (self) deprived of a television for the past, oh, year or so, I've explored various means of replacing this form of entertainment.  Lately, I've been watching more movies.  That's partly because I'm a fan of both the Hitchhiker's Guide and Star Wars, well, a reluctant fan these days of the latter.

Anyway, I've been lately rather stressed, so I decided to go for some more irrelevant humour fare, and that led me to watch the children's movie, Madagascar by DreamWorks.  And I have to say that I enjoyed this 3D animation.

DreamWorks is the studio that made Shrek, and that was funny, except that the moral was a little too cliché: that beauty is the eye of the beholder and a reversal of the Ugly Duckling moral.   Madagascar manages to find a less overused moral, and actually a quite comparatively complex one: the possible consequences of harmless self-indulgence on those who love the indulger and the need to exercise self-restraint and transcend our baser natures.  Aside from this, however, the premise is original and entertaining for a children's movie.

The movie begins with four neighbours and close friends, with very New York accents and attitudes: Alex, Gloria, Melman, and Marty.  They are neighbours...in that their pens are in the same area of the New York Central Park Zoo.  Yes, it is that old cartoon stand-by, anthropomorphisation of animals.  Alex is a very energetic lion, and he is the mascot of the zoo.  He lives a pampered life and is the star of the show.  He is completely tame, and loves to play with the children who visit.  He lives for the delicious juicy raw steak they feed him repeatedly every day. 

Gloria is a no-nonsense hippo who also loves the pampered, sheltered life.  Melman is a hypochondriac giraffe whose attention-seeking behaviour gets him a daily, anticipated CAT scan and huge quantities of pills.  Marty is a zebra, and he is Alex's best friend. 

It's Marty's 10th birthday, and he is having a mid-life crisis (I presume zebras only live 20 years).  He wants to experience the wild.  And a group of escaping psychotic military penguins inspires him to attempt to leave the zoo temporarily---to experience the wild in Connecticut.  How does try to escape?  Via New York's train system.  His friends panic when they find out about it and try to chase him through the system scaring the People (with whom they cannot communicate) in the process.

Eventually they are all subdued by the People using tranquilizer darts, only to find themselves being shipped to Kenya, since the People have decided that they want to be free.  This is exactly the opposite of what Alex wanted---he is now totally deprived of his life as the King of New York.  The military penguins instigate a series of events that lead them to being stranded on the coast of Madagascar. 

Marty is happy: he is in the wild, and he is learning to enjoy it.  Gloria and Melman eventually adapt too.  Alex sulks, but then he cheers up and tries to enjoy it as well.  But...there's a problem.  No steak.  And as his primal feeding instincts try to take over, Alex realizes what steak really is (he never knew, it appeared magically in the zoo), and that his closest friends are also his natural source of sustenance.

I find this actually pretty brave for a children's movie: viewing the world sympathetically from the point of view of a hungry lion, especially once you've anthropomorphized his prey as well.  But, like I said, a lot of the gags in the movie are pretty funny.  Even though eating your friends is not what you probably want kids to think about, this deals with Alex's dilemma in a funny and sensitive way, and eventually provides a solution to the problem before it gets too serious.  But I like stories where the main character eventually has to realize that he is a monster and come to terms with the dilemma of his existence.

Presupposing independence

Pierre Graveline, the editor of Le Devoir, a staunch sovereigntist, published yesterday and today a two-part open letter to Duceppe and Landry regarding his 30-step, 10-priority programme for capitalising on Adscam and leading, ultimately, to a separate Québec.  Some of the proposals are very interesting.  Here's some exceprts from the first part of the article that I think are quite instructive.

Le Devoir: Lettre ouverte à Gilles Duceppe et Bernard Landry - Dix priorités et 30 actions souveraines - 1:Troisième action souveraine, deux mandats seront confiés aux ministres :
- créer au sein de chaque ministère, organisme public ou société d'État un secrétariat à la souveraineté et libérer à cette fin des ressources substantielles;
- élaborer en priorité des plans d'action prévoyant, sans égard à la répartition des pouvoirs constitutionnels, les interventions à faire pour répondre aux besoins du Québec, établissant les budgets nécessaires et ciblant les lois et les mesures à mettre en application dès la proclamation de l'indépendance.

This appears under the first priority, and is the third "sovereign action" of a putative next PQ government (quite likely due to the depths of Charest's unpopularity): fully using the resources of the Québec state apparatus in order to fulfill the objective.  In this case, he plans to establish, as soon as possible, offices within every ministry to use public funds to promote sovereignty and set up the ministries to accomodate and assume a sovereign Québec.  Later,

En conséquence, le gouvernement réalisera une neuvième action souveraine. Il annoncera que le Québec se retire de toutes les instances politiques fédérales-provinciales existantes (sauf le Parlement fédéral, où les députés du Bloc resteront en fonction) et qu'il entend désormais ne discuter que de nation à nation avec le Canada, dans le cadre de rencontres entre les deux premiers ministres. Cette décision fera l'objet d'une résolution de l'Assemblée nationale afin de lui donner la portée politique qu'elle mérite.

So long as Québec is a part of Canada, dealing with the federal government will be unavoidable, he recognizes.  But this must be done on a nation-to-nation basis.  In other words, in the interim before sovereignty, he would impose on the other provinces what wasn't accepted at Meech: their effective relative demotion in federal-provincial affairs.  Obviously, any potential backlash from this is a feature, not a bug.  Québec should immediately cease to participate in any federal-provincial initiatives.   This is because of the "oppression" of federal interference in what he believes should be the powers of Québec, which he mentions slightly earlier---any possibility of the practical efficacy of such arrangements is simply not considered.  Of course, he must consider this encroachment to be absolute, since he does not even recognize the Constitution of 1982---obviously.   Later, he moves on to such things as already setting up diplomatic recognition of Québec presumably long before Québec is sovereign.

And in the second part of the article:

Le Devoir: Lettre ouverte à Gilles Duceppe et Bernard Landry - Dix priorités et 30 actions souveraines - 2:  Le gouvernement réalisera aussi une vingt-deuxième action souveraine en créant un bureau d'information publique sur la souveraineté et en le dotant du budget nécessaire pour communiquer directement aux citoyens l'information pertinente sur les actions gouvernementales préparant la souveraineté. Le bureau subventionnera également les activités de la coalition citoyenne pour la souveraineté. Vingt-troisième action souveraine, le gouvernement confiera au même bureau le mandat de mener à bien une campagne d'information internationale sur la souveraineté du Québec.

Enfin, vingt-quatrième action souveraine, la coalition citoyenne lancera un hebdomadaire souverainiste à grand tirage. Subventionné par l'État québécois, par ses organismes et ses sociétés, mettant à contribution les figures de proue du mouvement souverainiste, cet outil d'information contribuera puissamment à contrebalancer l'influence des médias fédéralistes.

This part of the plan is very interesting.  It proposes...a sponsorship programme.  Of course, the entire article is cast in the context of Adscam: the federal government is willing to go to any lengths to subvert democracy in Québec, so a PQ "provincial" government must be willing to respond in kind. The irony of this is that the justification of the sponsorship programme (leaving out Adscam) is precisely that under any Québec government, nationalists use the apparatus of the state to negate the possibility of a Canadian identity for Québécois. 

But this proposal is much more far-reaching than the federal sponsorship programme: it actually involves setting up potemkin sovereigntist media.  This is proposed under the assumption that the media in Québec is overwhelmingly federalist.  This proposition is regularly disputed by federalists in Québec, possibly correctly.  In fact, this was yet again another justification for the federal sponsorship programme.  And, of course, he is the editor of Le Devoir.

Though he complains about "oppression," (in the administrative encroachments of the federal government, he says,

De plus, en vue de prémunir la démocratie québécoise contre toute tentative de déstabilisation, le gouvernement réalisera une vingt-sixième action souveraine en déclarant, à la veille de la campagne référendaire, que, tout en respectant strictement la liberté d'expression des citoyens, il ne tolérera aucune action mettant en danger la paix sociale, mettant en péril l'économie québécoise ou mettant en cause l'intégrité territoriale du Québec. Il donnera mandat à la Sûreté du Québec d'agir en conséquence.

Fine, he is against putting social peace in danger.  But even as he says that he is in favour of free expression during a referendum campaign, he would make it illegal to threaten the territorial integrity of Québec during the campaign.  This is obviously intended to threaten communities in Québec that see Canada as their nation and would choose the option to stay with it if Québec goes.  This is one of the characteristics of the sovereigntist movement that I am least impressed by: they complain of the encroachment of the federal state, but as soon as they have control over the provincial state, well, that is inviolable by any lower unit.  Of course, the excuse is that the provincial state has a reality prior to the federal state, but morally speaking beyond this technicality, it's simply a way to shove a Québec identity down the throats of territorially contiguous elements in Québec who do not want it.  Of course, this accusation should sound awfully familiar.

Interestingly, he says,

Les conditions étant réunies pour que le référendum se tienne avec toute la sérénité souhaitable, le gouvernement déclenchera une campagne référendaire de courte durée en réalisant une vingt-septième action souveraine. Il fera adopter par l'Assemblée nationale une question référendaire courte, simple et claire : voulez-vous que le Québec devienne un pays souverain ?

In this case, he implicitly accepts the argument that the referendum question hasn't been clear in the past, and thus should be made clear and simple for the next referendum: should Québec become a sovereign country?  (Of course, there are semantic games to be played with the word "sovereign" that I have discussed earlier.)  This is laudable, and it would be more so if he hadn't decided in an earlier part of the article that the Québec government should propose a post-sovereignty partnership arrangement well in advance (and presumably act on it).  However, he is willing to accept the increased risk that citizens will reject his project if it isn't explicitly made clear in the question that sovereignty-association is the preferred form of the relationship.

And upon a win for the yes, he outlines a list of priorities that should be very rapidly settled, one of which is:

- négocier rapidement avec le gouvernement canadien, en échange de la prise en charge d'une partie du service de sa dette, une reconnaissance de l'indépendance, un partage équitable du patrimoine commun, la libre circulation des biens et des personnes entre les deux pays et un appui à l'adhésion du Québec à la zone de libre-échange nord-américaine.

Essentially, he implies that assuming a share of the Canadian debt is optional, and thus can be used as a bargaining chip at the table to...coerce?...a favorable settlement out of the ROC.  Charitably, he believes that there should be an "equitable" sharing of the common heritage of both parties.  He glosses over the likelihood, however, that he won't be negotiating with a Canadian state, but with provincial governments as well, who will all naturally seek a seat at the table...sound familiar?  Naturally, he cannot but gloss over this fact, as Québec is already not a province, but a nation, and so discussion of provinces is necessarily irrelevant to him.

Finally he finishes up with a ritual declaration about how convinced he is that this plan is the plan to succeed in obtaining an independent Québec, and that his leaders should implement it forthwith.

Now, of course, my readers should have by now seen a general theme in all of this: that Québec independence is best achieved by presupposing it; in other words, presenting to voters a fait accompli.  On the surface, the strategy makes sense. Since wavering or federalist voters are, he probably believes, only wavering because of uncertainty in the form of the independence project, naturally they would choose it if it were made clear what it is by example.  (This also has the salutary side-benefit of making it difficult to back out of the situation on a "no".)  To use a famous phrase, put the lobsters already in the trap.  Given that referenda are now considered to be the only way for Québec to achieve independence, he feels no need to consider the actual legitimacy of building a country on a strategy based, essentially, on turning the referendum into a rubber stamp.   But since 1982 was a form of oppression, an independent state was legitimate prior to this anyway: it is only a matter of realizing it.

There is an obvious problem I see in this strategy taken in its complete form.  It is the conventional wisdom, generally confirmed by observation, that Québec voters become less sovereigntist the more the provincial government acts like a nation.  It's quite possible (even likely) that this strategy could backfire and increase voters' confidence in keeping their identity intact within Canada.  Secondly, it uses sovereignty and independence interchangeably, and presupposes that ordinary society in Québec have no "brand loyalty" whatsoever to Canada; but this is belied by surveys showing that even among sovereigntists, the preference is to remain, in some form, attached to a Canadian entity.  This strategy only works if one conceives of the break as a rupture, which the author clearly does, making him an independantist, not exactly a sovereigntist.   Lastly, it presupposes that Adscam will continue to be relevant for the next several years, and it assumes that at the voting booth, Québécois will be willing to make an embezzlement scandal the basis of their motives for independence.

It will be interesting to see if anyone responds to the article in the francophone media.  But there is no one, alas, to respond, as they are all tainted by association with the federal or the unpopular provincial Liberals.

Oh no! A book meme!

In revenge for the thorough trashing I have been giving them, The Monarchist has decided to burden me with one of the book memes that have been floating around the Internet here and there.

Number of books I own: Well, this is a tricky question.  I am of limited means, and I just moved and left most of my books in the care of others.  My current ownership is probably not much more than 30.  Previously, I lived with probably several hundred books, most of them technical, and some of them rather dated.  I now live in the vicinity of libraries of various sizes (some of them very large and comprehensive), so I haven't felt too much pressure to actually buy books.

Last book I bought: Keyboard Musicianship: piano for adults, book one.  By James Lyke et al. I am taking a few weeks worth of piano classes to give myself a hobby and brush up on my musical skills (used to be a bassoonist), alas now rusty.  This book is fairly comprehensive and includes an instructional CD, which should hopefully last me beyond this 3-4 weeks.

Last book I read: I'm a sci-fi addict (for more recent work, never got too attracted to Heinlein and company): Changing Vision by Julie E. Czernda.  It wasn't very good, I'm afraid to say; I've seen similar themes done better.  It's in my favorite category of SF---interspecies/intercultural contact fiction---which is why I got it.  But it left something to be desired.  If you must, the last serious (as though fiction were unimportant) book was Statistical Natural Language Processing by Chris Manning and Hinrich Schütze.  I didn't read all of it, though.

Five books that mean a lot to me:

This is an interesting question.  I've read a lot of books, but I'm supposed to pick the ones that "mean a lot to me."  What does that mean?  I guess it should be books that had some influence on my development as a person in some way.  Whatever that means.  Now, there are actually many of these, but I'm going to try and pick a representative sample.

Foreigner by C. J. Cherryh.  Really, almost all of the contact fiction written by her, she's really the queen of this subgenre.

Rhyme and Reason: an Introduction to the Minimalist Syntax by Juan Uriagereka.  A Socratic-style explanation and defence of the 90s version of Chomsky's Minimalist Programme in syntax.  It starts from very elementary principles, and is intended for a general audience, except for segments of the book that are marked off as too technical.   The first chapter is especially fun for non-linguists, as it relates this form of syntactic analysis to observations from a number of other scientists.

Shooting the Hippo: Death by Deficit and Other Canadian Myths.  Linda McQuaig.  A very enjoyable send-up of some of the hysterias that surrounded the early 90s.  The Cult of Impotence forms an excellent sequel.  I haven't had time to read the two or three books she's written that followed it.

The Silmarillion.  J. R. R. Tolkien's breathtaking epic history of a universe.  After all, I am Mandos, how could I not cite this?

The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper.  I read this when I was much younger, and I believe it is a necessity for everyone to read in the 8-16 group.  It's superficially in the Harry Potter vein, but I think it far outstrips the Rowlings franchise in terms of subtlety.  Rather than separate the world into a mundane world and a fun (if dangerous) world of magical wishes, Cooper totally intertwines the magical world and the real, modern world using often-grim British rural folklore.  The whole series is good; for instance, one sequel, The Grey King, embeds a cosmic battle within an emotional family feud among Welsh farmers.

New victims:

I understand one is supposed to pass this on as though it were the flu or something.  So here are my victims:

Tilting at Windmills
Derivative
Miss Vicky's Offhand Remarks
Polunatic
Rempelia Prime (my concession to extremely morbid curiosity)

Enjoy!

Monarchist clean-up

I actually dealt with most of Walsingham's post in my previous post, it seems, but I'll do a little bit of cleanup now.  I'll post again regarding a comment he made that I think is also quite instructive.

The Monarchist: An olive branch - and rebuttal part N: And do not say it is because not every Western Canadian is a Reformer/contemporary CPCer, and you just want to keep their poor little souls in good old Canada. No tyranny of the majority can be without casualties – but it should respect the actual wishes of the actual majority.

Despite the fact that any separatist push is, um, rather hypothetical, I do not have a necessary attachment to Canada in its present form.  In fact, if I felt that there were grounds for separatism, then I would be a separatist.  I think there have been, from time to time, grounds for serious resentment of aspects of the central Canadian establishment by parts of the Western provinces. And there will be again.

But if there is to be a separatism, it should be on correct grounds.  Obviously, I disapprove of separatisms on grounds I disagree with, more than I would otherwise.  And, reading carefully, that is really all that you are accusing me of doing.  And, if so, then I am guilty, but it is not such a great charge.

And a separatism based on a particular choice has consequences for all involved, including the victims of that policy in the putative entity.  So yes, I am also concerned for those left behind.  But there are so far sufficiently many of them that, like I said, the discussion of separatism itself is hypothetical. 

No, I think it is because the splintering of Canada would represent a failure of your ideology – clearly more closely approximated by Liberal power than by CPC power - to convince everyone in this land of its merits; and the end of your ability to see your ideology manifested - or imposed, as the case may be - in a grand, contiguous and continental-scale implementation.

In fact there is a large conversation on the "left" end of the political spectrum, particularly among people who claim to be more radical than I, as to whether or not a large central state is actually beneficial in the larger picture, or harmful.  There's an argument to be made that the distance an alienation of the central state makes it easier to...surreptitiously implement neoliberal policy (if you are familiar with that use of "liberal"), as well as impeding local movements by developing an unhealthy and distracting dynamic exploited by the likes of Ralph K. 

For various reasons, I'm not totally sure I agree with them.  And that is a whole other discussion, which elsewhere I am presently having!  (It is part and parcel of the internal conflict of the NDP over asymmetrical federalism and the like which manifested itself publicly in the last election).  But perhaps you can see that the blanket categorization of "[my] ideology" may not be quite appropriate.  It is a matter of methodology, not an ideological commitment.  So at the very root this is not even a very relevant accusation, but instead once again instructive as to the misconceptions that have prompted your epiphany.

In a sense, it would represent the end, or at least the truncation, of a system that you hold very dear. I am not mocking (at least the philosophically worthy aspects of) that system, or your allegiance to it. But I am saying that I will not countenance the sacrificing of the rights of others to hold their own beliefs, to live their lives they way they choose, to structure their “systems” the way they see fit; in order to maintain the illusion of a harmonious Canada under the soft-singing Trudeaupian banner – especially when I detest that banner myself.

This is rather hyperbolic.  I am not going to force anything on anyone.  Nothing of the sort has occurred except through the normal processes of elections.  It is, in fact, changing the subject.  My original criticism of you focused on  your characterization of the motives of those who would not choose the CPC.  And the CPC and its supporters are no strangers to telling people how to live their lives, and what to think. So this is simply a bit of rhetorical fluff to cast me as aggressor rather than defender. Medice, cura te ipsum.

I certainly will not do it just to keep my map of Canada nice and pretty, or because I’m afraid of the future of a re-constituted Canada. And I will not feel the least bit embarrassed that it is the horrors of the conduct of the now purely disgraceful Liberal government of Canada that have pushed me to fully examine the real situation, and the full range of available alternatives.

It is not a matter of a "reconstituted Canada."  It is a matter of which reconstituted Canada.  This is once again nothing more than accusing me of having a particular opinion as to national outcomes.  Guilty!

What is to me least responsible, though, is to make use of Adscam as a vehicle to make a sudden! realization! that conveniently gets the policies that you want implemented into the doorway.  That isn't politically very...up front.  And, to bring this back to where it all began, Canadians (meaning people across this country, not just Ontario), suspect this.  And to paraphrase Yoda, that is why you fail.

Walsingham responds

The series of discussions continues with Walsingham's latest response.  He's changed his mind and wants to talk, so I am going to try to oblige him.   Actually, a great deal of discussion has already happened on The Monarchist, but I am going to deal with some of the salient points here once again. (Note to Progressive Bloggers: alas, the aggregator doesn't manage to mark of the blockquotes, so you'll have to read my site to figure out for sure what is mine and what is his.)

You should ask yourself whether you are in this discussion to influence an opponent, or just to pander to your own crowd, by repeating to yourself and to them what you already think – and in the process heaping a pleasurable dose of ridicule and S&S on the other camp. If the latter, excuse me for not wanting to hear it – and you can call me petulant all day long. But if it is the former, let me suggest that you are going about it the wrong way. Tensions are running hot and feelings are running high these days, Mandos, and S&S is not the way to walk into a meaningful debate with people who do not share your views. If my reaction to you was hostile out of the gate, I will be man enough to apologize for any portion of that hostility that was objectively uncalled for.

As I said in your comments section, I did not actually expect you to respond, since my audience so far has been almost exclusively people who basically agree with me.  However, it seems to have become my stock in trade to try  to make others on my side of the aisle aware of the underlying logic and thinking of our political opponents, as well as other partially orthogonal political streams.  Naturally, the portrayal is going to look, sometimes, unflattering to you.  However, if you want to see real ridicule in action, check out SZ and her fellow-travellers, but they are writing in an American context (though the owner of Sadly, No! is a Canadian).  I also had early training from the writings of Linda McQuaig.

However, for what it's worth, I did not intend to offend you in that manner and I apologize if I did.

However, I was hostile because I've encountered your flavour of S&S as the starting point of rebuttal, by people of your political stripe, too often to greet it with equanimity. S&S is too clearly and unfortunately the preferred style for too many left-wing politicos, bloggers and debaters; and yes, it pushes buttons with my crowd. I have no doubt this is why it has become the preferred style for much of your camp. But it remains uncivil, impolite and not conducive to any dialogue other than preaching to the converted.

Let me put it this way: we can go back and forth on who is meaner, but the vitriol and abuse I've observed from members of your camp are often far more threatening and disturbing than the cutting remarks that we use.  Not only that, but there are plenty of conservative web sites that employ a massive amount of snark.  So this categorization does not ring true to me.

It may be true that we use "S&S" more.  This is usually to point out abundant absurdities and logical contradictions...

You’ve said that I was civil with Sinister Thoughts because he copped to my arguments. Actually I was civil with him because he and I have agreed to be civil with each other. Following an initial exchange of hostility for S&S, we both realized that we were attempting to do more here than pander to our own egos and preach to our own converted, and that civility would serve our purpose better. In that earlier discussion, he moved not one iota toward my position. So the accusation you level at him is quite unjustified.

What raised my hackles about his post were the words "no permanent disenfranchisement."  However, I am perhaps reading too much into his intentions.

5. More Ontarians plan to vote for the Liberals than for the CPC.
6. Therefore most Ontarians consider – for whatever reason – the CPC to be a less palatable – a less “credible” - alternative than the Liberals, despite the Liberals’ corruption.
7. There is therefore a strong disconnect between Western Canada and Ontario – and that disconnect is now, suddenly, more obvious than ever.

I think this is an excessively flattering characterization of your own arguments.  Here you present this as a simple conflict of worldviews.  Previously, you presented it in terms of moral deficiency of one side and its tantamount-to-abusive behaviour regarding the other.  Much of my arguments and objections to your view at the beginning of the debate stem from your mischaracterization of motives.  If it is a real disconnect, and it is a fact that there is a complete worldview generally shared in the West that you also share, then there may be a case for Western sovereigntism.  But that isn't the context of this discussion.

1. The CPC should evolve to become more palatable to Ontarians. Since most Western Canadians find it acceptable - indeed, perfect - the way it is, such an evolution runs the risk – and let's face it, this is exactly what will happen – of making the CPC less palatable to Western Canadians.

2. Ontarians should change their views and come to like the CPC the way it is.

3. Someone should develop an alternative to the CPC and the Liberals that everybody could love.

To me this is a false...trichotomy?  Again, for reasons I've delineated in the comments of your blog.  But furthermore, let us look at history: the Reform Party germinated and took root in parts of Alberta, but it gained in popularity in other parts of the West that had no strong tradition of support for its initial (and continuing) programme, or at the very least had somewhat different political cultures; I think, for instance, most British Columbians would object to any claim that their political culture can easily be compared to that of Alberta. 

There are lots of reasons why people support political parties, and often it cannot directly be discerned from such parties' programmes.  I think that one aspect of the Reform presentation (Manning's populism) did strike a chord throughout the West.  In the person of Stephen Harper, though, this populist presentation is distinctly more muted.  But the momentum of the party as a protest vote is not, and in some ways quite understandably so.

By the same token, votes for the Liberal Party do not mean that the voters like the Liberals.  It is just that they do not see the CPC or the NDP as alternatives.   Sovereigntism and Bloc-voting are likewise also not fully correlated in Québec.   I suspect that the only party where a truly thorough correlation between subscription to the programme and voting for the party exists is the NDP, which is probably also why they have so few seats...

To suggest that (1) should either be preferred to (2), or that (1) is more natural and/or less problematic than (2) – which is clearly the underlying theme of your rebuttals – implies either that the views of Western Canadians are somehow less valid than those of Ontarians, and/or that there is no alternative to (1)-(3) – i.e., that there cannot exist an alternative (4), to be discovered, that would allow the machinery of life to move forward, despite a permanent divergence of Ontarian and Western Canadian views.

First of all, I do indeed consider some viewpoints to be less valid because views have consequences if applied in practice, and some of these consequences have the potential to be adverse.

In a country as large as Canada, motives shift and interests shift and views shift over time.  You presuppose the divergence is permanent.  If we are to be a country then we will have to live with the fact that there will be times when there are parts of the country that are dissatisfied with the direction of the union.  Some of these parts may drift back; while I do not expect them largely to endorse the Liberals (nor, really, want them to), there are signs that BC is drifting back towards the mean in Canadian politics, for example.

You obviously harbour a very deep antipathy toward what you call the “Reformatory” mindset – there is much in your commentary along the lines of: “ah-hah: note this window into the psychology of the Reformatory mind – those devious/opportunistic/dishonest devils”. (Sorry, I did say I was going to drop the sarcasm and be civil). So why wouldn’t you be content to just let them go?

So I believe that there are genuine grievances that parts of the West have had, are having, and will have.  The birth of my preferred choice in parties, the NDP, happened for that very reason.  But I believe the birth and growth of the Reform movement was deeply misguided for a number of reasons, and it responded to the wrong needs with the wrong solutions.  I consider its organ, the National Post, to have attempted to encourage the growth of its worldview using the worst forms of misrepresentation and slander.  I consider its sense, for many years, of entitlement to votes, and its scolding tone when it didn't get them, to be appalling.  These are some of the sources of my antipathy to them.

In the unlikely event that you could get even 50% of even Alberta voters lined up for sovereignty, I cannot but say, "Go, then."  However, I don't believe that more than 50% of Albertans are incorrigible supporters of CPC policy.

I will leave you with this tonight and post the remainder of my response tomorrow for the benefit of you and my other readers.