www.ChrisLaBossiere.com

I had a particularly frustrating debate via email tonight with a friend who asked a very good question, knowing full well however that I could not answer it. The question:

"what on earth IS a progressive? I'm just not sure, at all.  I know exactly where my ideology is, but I have no idea if it is progressive or not. And all the Rethinks, Renews, Reboots haven't really articulated it in a succinct way at all."

We debated and debated, and I realized that we were talking on different topics. I THINK my friend wanted to nail-down what a government would look like to a Progressive, and that is a VERY good question. I am very much looking forward to how an existing party, or a new party, can some how embrace many of the philosophies of the very motivated and active members of the latest Progressive movement in Alberta, Reboot Alberta. But there is no party that seems to be providing that solution to at least these Albertans today, which is why they have created a movement in the first place.

So I need to turn this around and ask my friend, what of the current parties would really capture the imagination and interest of these dissatisfied Albertan's in the existing parties? It's ridiculous to suggest that they are all Liberals, or they would simply join the Liberal party. But again, why are they also not supporting the Progressive Conservatives or Wildrose Alliance?

And that brings me back to the title of this post. I think these engaged citizens are looking for Progress and not necesarrily a Progressive party. Sure, many have expressed an interest in a new party, that embraces progress, but not all of them. Many are simply casting off partisanship altogether as the reason we continue to get worse and worse governance.

So in my continuous soul-searching, I was reading this very interesting Washington Post article on Conservatism, and why it seems to have lost it's intellectual founding. I tend to agree with much of it in our current context (I don't agree that applies with a broad brush, so there, you smarty-pants). However to me it seems the Alberta Conservative movement seems to be harkening for something that USED to exist, instead of accepting that "times they are a changing". My best example is the way that the right-wing social conservative movement and the libertarian movement, very different animals, have come together to fight "Liberalism". That's not presenting solutions, that's trying to win a political fight, even if it means aligning with your ideological opposites. I don't belong to the Liberal Party just because I consider myself a Progressive, anymore than I belong to the Conservative Party because I am a Capitalist.

Until I see REAL and substantive policies from the Wildrose Alliance or the Progressive Conservative party on things that are important to other Progressives like me, I will ignore both of them as parties only interested in holding onto, or fighting for power (or I will go away and find a new interest). I was close to buying some of the Wildrose argument until they lost me on the political opportunism they deployed on accepting floor-crossers, instead of using the chance to change the way politics could be done in representing the constituent. That was exacebated when they suggest that supporting recall legislation is important to them, just not in this case (in the form of a by-election) because of course it would not serve their need for party status and a voice in the Legislature. A decision that I actually UNDERSTAND, but I have to file under POLITICAL REALITY and not idealism and desire to invoke real change in the way they would govern.

Frankly, it is intellectual dissonance to try and label the Reboot Alberta movement as anything partisan. When a new party emerges from it, then all bets are off, and that party will be under the same scrutiny as any other. Not just by me, but by Liberals, Progressives, Conservatives, Communists and the like.

I look forward to more policies developing from all of the parties, and I really look forward to the outcome of the Manning Center for Democracy event being held her in Edmonton in a few weeks. THAT is something that I can get excited about. Smart people talking about what a Conservative government looks like in the modern era. That said, I also look forward to the next Reboot Alberta event, and for some of the same reasons.

Until then though. I actually believe that this quote from that Post article is really indicative of the lack of solutions coming from the conservative parties of Alberta.

The single largest defect of modern conservatism, in my mind, is its insufficient ability to challenge liberalism at the intellectual level, in particular over the meaning and nature of progress. In response to the left's belief in political solutions for everything, the right must do better than merely invoking "markets" and "liberty.

~ Steven F. Hayward - Washington Post

I for one would welcome a true intellectual debate, and maybe we will see it from the Manning event, but I haven't seen it yet from the other "Conservatives" involved in existing political parties. My good friend's included.