Brad Sallows
Army.ca Legend
- Reaction score
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>My problem with social conservatists in the Conservative Party is that they are trying to hijack the party so that they can push their restrictive agenda.
The problem is simply that parties have sub-factions, and the more a party tries to extend its reach, the more sub-factions it has. As long as conservatives have a single party, the tensions are internal. Without a single party, it doesn't matter whether one is pure Type I or Type II, because neither party will ever gain political power.
We don't see similar tensions in our other parties because the schism on the left resulted in two permanent political parties long ago. Democrats in the US are having severe problems right now because their adherents are scattered over an ever-extending range of political ideas; Republicans have no corresponding problem (yet) because their collective adoption of change is much slower (they occupy a narrower slice of "spectrum") and they start with a greater proportion of people who share Type I and Type II beliefs.
The problem is simply that parties have sub-factions, and the more a party tries to extend its reach, the more sub-factions it has. As long as conservatives have a single party, the tensions are internal. Without a single party, it doesn't matter whether one is pure Type I or Type II, because neither party will ever gain political power.
We don't see similar tensions in our other parties because the schism on the left resulted in two permanent political parties long ago. Democrats in the US are having severe problems right now because their adherents are scattered over an ever-extending range of political ideas; Republicans have no corresponding problem (yet) because their collective adoption of change is much slower (they occupy a narrower slice of "spectrum") and they start with a greater proportion of people who share Type I and Type II beliefs.