Category Archives: Liberal

These things get sorted out over time, Mr. Summers said in an interview, after praising Mr. Zucman and Mr. Saez for pushing the debate on inequality. Most serious professionals in the tax policy area think that the polemical urge at some points has gotten the better of Gabriel and Emmanuel, especially when Gabriel starts to tweet.

Other economists have challenged the details of Mr. Zucman and Mr. Saezs wealth inequality calculations. They have engaged in a debate with the economists Matthew Smith, Eric Zwick and Owen Zidar, whose work shows a much smaller concentration of wealth among top earners. The competing study implies there is less for the government to gain by taxing the very wealthy.

And while candidates like Mr. Sanders support raising taxes on the wealthy by citing Mr. Zucman and Mr. Saezs claim that the rich pay lower effective tax rates than poor and middle-class Americans, many liberal economists say the claim is wrong since the calculations do not include some tax benefits for the poor, like the earned-income tax credit.

Leaving them out seems both analytically and politically mistaken, said Jared Bernstein, a former top economist for Mr. Obama who counts himself a fan of Mr. Zucman and Mr. Saez.

Some economists have long been critical of Mr. Saez and Mr. Zucmans work, including Wojciech Kopczuk, a Columbia University economist who published a rebuttal to the pairs wealth data in 2015. But their rising public profile has brought more scrutiny. Mr. Kopczuk argues that, compared with their earlier work, the Berkeley economists recent book made more aggressive and he believes incorrect assumptions.

Thats when you can say without any doubt they crossed from academic research to advocacy, Mr. Kopczuk said. Its liberating when you dont have to deal with reviewers.

Mr. Saez and Mr. Zucman defend their methods as conservative estimates and note that the imposition of an American wealth tax would provide much more transparent evidence on wealth concentration.

If we have the wealth tax data, we will see who is right, Mr. Saez said. If were wrong, fine. If it turns out there is no wealth concentration in the United States, we dont need a wealth tax.

Jim Tankersley reported from Berkeley, and Ben Casselman from New York.

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The Liberal Economists Behind the Wealth Tax Debate - The New York Times

LINCOLN Reid Preston gave out red Republican goods this month in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln student union pens, sunglasses, bottle openers.

As treasurer of UNLs College Republicans, the freshman from Lyons, Nebraska, cares about todays political scene. Asked if Democratic professors have badgered him with liberal messages, Preston said they havent.

Even a professor of political science, who might reasonably be expected to share his own views, was pretty much in the middle, Preston said. For the most part, he was really good at not having any biases at all.

Many Republicans nationwide say they have lost faith in colleges and universities and now view them as havens of liberal indoctrination. In a comparatively short period, national surveys show, Republicans generally have shifted from a positive opinion of higher education to one of distrust.

But a 2018 campus culture survey done by the NU system, and World-Herald conversations this month with 19 students at UNL and the University of Nebraska at Omaha, found minimal concern about professorial political proselytizing.

Conservatives nevertheless have reason to be suspicious. Not only do college faculties lean liberal, they tumble leftward. Whether that has any effect on teaching and learning isnt clear, but there isnt good evidence that anyone is being indoctrinated. Most of the 19 students said politics rarely, if ever, comes up in classes.

High-profile incidents of dismissive or contemptuous treatment of conservative students convey the notion that such episodes are commonplace on college campuses.

Outside the same student union 2 years ago, a liberal graduate student-lecturer berated a sophomore who was recruiting for the conservative Turning Point USA. The student captured still photos of the lecturer flipping her off and recorded some of the diatribe on video.

The images swept the nation and gave conservatives a gotcha moment. The incident proved, they said, that conservative students are bullied on college campuses. Some Republican state senators in Nebraska demanded changes at UNL, and the student-lecturer wasnt invited back for the next school year.

Harvey Perlman, former chancellor of UNL and now a law professor there, said that if professors strive to sway Nebraska students toward liberalism, theyre doing a bad job, considering Republican domination of state politics.

If the concern is somehow that left-leaning faculty will twist the minds of their students, it hasnt seemed to work, said Perlman, who switched from Republican to Democrat after the 2016 election of Donald Trump. Most of us are fairly careful when discussing issues that divide people.

David Randall of the conservative-libertarian National Association of Scholars doesnt see it that way. Randall, director of research of the New York-based organization, said liberals, or progressives, have bent higher education toward a social justice mission that aims to liberate groups from oppression.

This results in a teacher thinking its appropriate to rebuke a student for her political perspective, Randall said. In effect, there is a radical monoculture growing in higher education, he said.

Of the 19 students interviewed by The World-Herald, seven said they were Democrats, six said they were Republicans and the rest were independent, libertarian or apolitical.

The Pew Research Center found last year that 59% of Americans who lean Republican responded that colleges have a negative effect on the nation's direction, up from 35% in 2012. Among Democratic leaners, 67% had a positive view the same percentage as in 2012.

Molly Patrick, a UNO junior with a multidisciplinary major, said professors havent imposed their politics on her. Were just worrying about facts and stuff, said Patrick, a libertarian from Fremont. Some Republicans might think theyre liberal notions, but theyre just facts.

Noah Floersch, an independent from Omaha, said he has some conservative views and hasnt been lambasted with liberal political messages from professors. Floersch, a UNL junior, said his family leans to the right.

I dont feel like Ive been forced one way or another, but I definitely think my scope has broadened, said Floersch, a marketing major.

Sixty Andrews, a senior UNO political science major from Omaha, said he doesnt hear professors uttering contempt for Trump. Professors allow us to offer our opinions whether we agree or disagree with any political leader, he said.

Andrews, a Republican, said higher education has a beneficial impact on individuals and society.

I cant get my students to turn in their assignments on time, (so) Im certainly not going to impact their view on who to vote for, said Darren Linvill, an associate professor of communication at Clemson University in South Carolina.

Nationwide surveys indicate many college faculties are overwhelmingly liberal or Democratic. The UCLA Higher Education Research Institute found in its latest survey (2016-17) that 48.3% of faculty members identified themselves as liberal compared with 11.7% who said they were conservative.

Further, that survey of more than 20,000 full-time undergraduate teaching faculty members at 143 colleges indicated the percentage of liberals has grown from 36.8% in 1998-99.

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A report published four years ago by Econ Journal Watch found that at 40 universities, many elite schools like Harvard and Stanford, 3,623 professors had registered as Democrats and only 314 as Republicans. That ratio is about 11.5 to 1. The study looked at faculty members in economics, history, journalism, law and psychology.

Conservatives know this and dont like it. The Pew Research Center found last year that 59% of Americans who lean Republican responded that colleges have a negative effect on the nations direction, up from 35% in 2012. Among Democratic leaners, 67% had a positive view the same percentage as in 2012.

A Gallup poll in 2017 found that only 33% of Republicans have a lot of confidence in higher education. Fifty-six percent of Democrats answered that question positively. The Gallup poll found that the biggest reasons for Republican lack of confidence were the belief that they were too political and pushed their own agenda.

UNLs Richard Duncan, a registered Republican and professor of law, said that when there is little diversity in political thought at colleges, theres no reason to have a lot of confidence in them. And UNL could use more such diversity, he said.

That said, Duncan is in his 41st year at UNL and said the institution is a really good place. He said that for the most part, its a university where conservatives and progressives can mingle and find their views respected.

An NU campus climate survey published in 2018 found that 90% of students believed liberals felt free to express their views on campus and 75% believed conservatives had the same freedom.

Robert Reason, an associate dean at Iowa State University, said the presence of liberal indoctrination is just not shown in any of the research.

Reason said that during faculty recruitment, Ive never had a conversation about someones political views. He described himself as a moderate Democrat.

Many say a big reason for the disparity is that liberals select careers in higher education because there are like-minded people in it. They say conservatives are more likely to join the private sector.

Clemsons Linvill said studies have found that students become slightly more liberal while in college, but that a similar change also takes place among young adults who dont go to college. Linvill, who said he is registered as an independent, has studied political bias in higher education and said its largely fallacious.

Linvill said in one report that there has been a growth of conservative groups with a stated mission to expose political bias and abuse in higher education. This has contributed to widespread publicity of episodes where bias was evident, he said.

Julia Schleck, an associate professor of English at UNL, said through an email that the partisan divide over higher education has been deliberately engineered by conservative media.

Schleck, who leans to the left, said negative coverage in those outlets over the past five years has produced the slump in Republicans opinion of higher education.

Randall, at the National Association of Scholars, said conservative students have created groups like Turning Point USA because of the nonstop propaganda thrust at them by liberal professors.

The Harvard student newspaper two years ago said in an editorial that the school needs more diversity of political viewpoints. The editorial said 83.2% of the universitys arts and sciences faculty identified themselves as liberal in the papers survey, compared with 1.5% who said they were conservative.

These statistics do not reflect America, the piece said. And, it said, the statistics probably contribute to declining faith in American colleges.

Rain clouds and a bit of a rainbow roll over the sky in Millard on Aug. 16, 2016.

The sun sets behind a center pivot located north of Red Cloud, Nebraska, on Thursday, July 27, 2006.

Storm clouds hide the sun as it sets over Nebraska's Sand Hills on July 7, 2009, near Thedord, Nebraska.

A summer storm passes north of Rose, Nebraska, on Sunday, June 10, 2007.

A rainbow forms over U.S. Highway 12, just east of Valentine, Nebraska, as storms roll over the area on July 25, 2017.

The sun sets behind an approaching storm as a car heads west on U.S. Highway 34 near Union, Nebraska, on April 24, 2016.

Icicles form on vines in downtown Omaha on Feb. 24, 2017.

Railroad tracks are illuminated by the setting sun on May 3, 2017, east of Scottsbluff, Nebraska.

The sun sets behind Chimney Rock on May 3, 2017.

Members of the Boats, Bikes, Boots & Brews group head to shore as the sun sets after an evening out on Lake Zorinsky on April 22, 2015.

Icicles hang from the horse carriage parking sign in the Old Market on Jan. 15, 2017.

Wheat, ready for the combine, is silhouetted by the setting sun as the wheat harvest on the Lagler farm near Grant, Nebraska, was in full swing on July 7, 2005.

A layer of fog covers the Missouri River near the Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge on Feb. 5, 2015.

A setting sun creates a pink haze on a windmill and the Sand Hills southwest of Rushville, Nebraska, on Sept. 22, 2007.

Pigeons scatter at sunset as the St. John's steeple is silhouetted against the Woodmen tower in downtown Omaha on Oct. 3, 2014.

The sun bursts behind the clouds over the North Platte River east of Bridgeport, Nebraska, on July 26, 2006.

Steve Jobman, a farmer south of Minatare, Nebraska, cuts alfalfa after sunset on June 2, 2004.

Wheat waves in the wind in a field west of Dalton, Nebraska, on July 18, 2001.

The moon rises over the northern cross of the St. Cecilia Cathedral in Omaha on Feb. 10, 2017. On this night, there was a full moon, a lunar eclipse and comet 45P passed by the earth.

As the wind speed picks up, a woman holds onto her hood while crossing 16th Street along Dodge Street in Omaha on Feb. 24, 2017.

From left: Melody Borcherding, Kseniya Burgoon and Michael Beltz scoop out a vehicle on Jan. 23, 2018, in Norfolk.

Jeff Bachman harvests soybeans and prepares to transfer them as the sun sets on a field near Ayr, Nebraska, on Oct. 19, 2008.

As the sun sets, sandhill cranes arrive to roost in the Platte River at the Rowe Sanctuary & Iain Nicholson Audubon Center south of Gibbon, Nebraska, on March 12, 2008.

A pair of sandhill cranes pass in front of the moon shortly after sunrise at the Iain Nicolson Audubon Center at Rowe Sanctuary near Gibbon, Nebraska, on March 13, 2012. Sandhill cranes, which mate for life, can live between 20 and 40 years.

A windmill is dwarfed by storm clouds near Crawford, Nebraska, on May 3, 2017.

An early November storm system rolls through the Great Plains, but Omaha only receives rain, which collected on freshly-fallen leaves on Nov. 11, 2015.

Cattle head up to a well to get a drink at the end of the day near Sparks, Nebraska, on Aug. 21, 2015. Smoke from the wildfires in the western states created a haze.

The moon rises above the corn as farmers harvest the last of their fields in eastern Nebraska and western Iowa on Nov. 5, 2014.

Two riders help round up part of the 750 head of cattle branded at the Lute Family Ranch, located south of Hyannis, Nebraska, on May 12, 2005. Mick Knott, who runs the ranch, owns about half the cattle, and the Lute Foundation owns the rest. The work started about dawn and finished about noon.

The rising sun illuminates a tree and a windmill in a snow-covered field located on U.S. Highway 20 between Rushville and Chadron, Nebraska, on March 1, 2017.

The College Home Run Derby was held at TD Ameritrade Park and was highlighted by The World-Herald's annual Independence Day fireworks display on July 2, 2015.

Fog rises from the Missouri River and covers the Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge on Jan. 5, 2010.

The weekend's perfect weather colored the clouds at sunset south of Wymore, Nebraska, on Oct. 23, 2004.

Deer chill out at Chalco Hills Recreation Area on Feb. 22, 2018.

A leaf is covered in a dusting of snow near 138th and Hickory Streets on Dec. 18, 2014, in Millard.

A runner emerges from the edge of the rising sun on Sept. 11, 2015, at Zorinsky Lake Park and Recreation Area in Omaha.

Nearly 45 minutes after sunset, an orange and blue glow is seen setting behind the Omaha skyline flanked between trees in Council Bluffs on Jan. 11, 2018.

Rain drops collect on a flower following early showers on May 10, 2017, in Millard.

The promise of rain is fleeting for the seven windmills on the Watson Ranch north of Scottsbluff, Nebraska, on U.S. 71 on May 16, 2004.

A crescent moon sets behind the UNO bell tower on Nov. 6, 2013.

Ralph Remmert is depicted in the mural "Fertile Ground" near 13th and Mike Fahey Streets in north downtown Omaha on June 19, 2017.

Ralph Kohler, 94, keeps his eyes to the sky for ducks and geese as the sun rises over his hunting pond east of Tekamah, Nebraska, on Nov. 30, 2011. Kohler has been a professional guide for most of his life, and he is preparing for the spring season.

The sun rises over St. Paul Lutheran Church, located three miles north of Republican City, Nebraska, in March of 2004.

Geese are silhouetted in the color and clouds as the sun sets at Zorinsky Lake on Feb. 21, 2016.

The sun rises on Chimney Rock on Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2014, near McGrew, Nebraska.

Cranes walk through the shallow water of the Platte River shortly before sunset near The Crane Trust, which is close to Wood River, Nebraska, on March 13, 2012. The river provides cranes with a safe place from predators for rest at night.

A bespangled vest awaits a rider during Nebraska's Big Rodeo on July 25, 2013, in Burwell, Nebraska.

Horses stand in the snow on Feb. 22, 2018.

Residents of the Nebraska Panhandle enjoyed unseasonably mild temperatures and cloud cover on Aug. 12, 2004.

Members of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association hold their hats as 2013 Miss Burwell Rodeo Olivia Hunsperger passes by during the opening ceremonies on July 27, 2013, in Burwell, Nebraska. "This may be a small town, but it's got a big rodeo, and it's got a really big heart," Hunsperger said.

A break in the clouds highlights downtown Omaha as seen from Lewis Central High School in Council Bluffs, as severe storms passed through the Omaha Metro area on June 5, 2014.

John Wanief waits for the bus in a shelter at 120th Street and West Center Road as cold rain pours down in Millard on Nov. 11, 2015.

Flocks of waterfowl fill the sky as the sun rises over Ponca, Nebraska, on March 3, 2018.

A red tail hawk perches on a light stanchion backed by the moon and overlooking the property near the Indian Creek development in Omaha on Feb. 27, 2018.

A woman walks with two dogs in Memorial Park near Dodge Street as many sledders go down the hill in Omaha, Nebraska, on Feb. 2, 2016. MATT MILLER/THE WORLD-HERALD

The sun sets over Sidney, Nebraska, on June 2, 2015.

The rising sun shines on a snow-covered hill located north of Chadron, Nebraska, on March 1, 2017.

Storm clouds are illuminated by the setting sun as people exit a football camp in Lincoln on Friday, June 16, 2017.

Sharon Vencil walks her dogs, Blackie and Whitie, along the Field Club Trail on March 6, 2018, in Omaha.

The morning sun burns off a layer of fog just north of the Chimney Rock.

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Conservatives are concerned, but is liberal indoctrination really an issue at UNL and UNO? - Omaha World-Herald

Voters in OttawaVanier and Orlans will go to the polls Thursday to determine the fate of two of the sevenseats the Liberals kept when they were routed in the 2018 provincial election.

OttawaVanier NDP candidate Myriam Djilane acknowledges the ridings are Liberal strongholds, with candidates winning by thousands of votes last time even as the party's support imploded.

"Fortresses always crumble eventually," Djilane said at a news conference Tuesday.

She said the entire Ontario NDP caucus, federal leader Jagmeet Singh and several MPs have helped canvass both ridings during the byelection campaign.

"It's very clear from talking to residents of OttawaVanier and I'm sure Orlans as well that people are really tired of being taken for granted and want to make sure their votes are counted."

Liberal candidate Stephen Blais, a current city councillor who has reduced his responsibilities during the campaign, said the party's smaller seat count gives him more freedom on the campaign trail.

"The luxury of being in the position that we're in is that I don't need to listen to the party boss in Toronto," Blais said.

"My platform and my brochure is all about Orlans and it's what I want to say. It hasn't had to be approved by unelected officials in downtown Toronto."

Andrew West, candidate for the Green Party of Ontario in OttawaOrlans, said the byelection will take questions about strategic voting off the table.

"Nothing's going to change the fact that Doug Ford has majority government. Nothing's going to change that with 50 seats amongst them, the Liberals and the NDP have gotten no legislation passed in the last two years," he said.

"The Green Party has, and when people hear that they get excited."

The private member's bill, which protected electric vehicle charging spots, is proof the Greens work well with others, West said.

Ben Koczwarski, the Greencandidate in OttawaVanier, said more voters are telling him they're prioritizing climate change and environmental issues as they cast their ballot.

"More and more people are saying, 'I always voted Liberal in the past, but this time I'm going to vote Green because I really want some decisive action on climate to be taken,'" Koczwarski said.

The Liberals were reduced to seven seats in the June 2018 election that saw Doug Ford's Ontario PC Party form a majority government.

The NDP is now the official oppositionwith the Liberal rump losing official party status and still in the process of electing a new leader. For the first time, the Green Party of Ontario elected an MPP.

OttawaVanier and OttawaOrlans were two of the seats that stayed Liberal, but their MPPs resigned for other positions.

Nathalie Des Rosiers returned to academiaand Marie-France Lalonde pursued and wonthe federal seat for the riding.

The party dipped to five seats, but went up to six when PC-turned-independent Amanda Simard from the rural eastern Ontario riding of Glengarry-Prescott-Russell switched to the Liberals.

CBC Newsreached out to the Ontario PC Party and the individual campaigns of OttawaOrlans candidate Natalie Montgomery and OttawaVanier candidate Patrick Mayangi.

Neither were made available for an interview.

On Monday, Elections Ontario reported that 4,822 ballots had been cast in Orlans, representing about 4.35 per cent of registered voters. That was less than half the figure for advanced polls in the 2018 general elections.

In OttawaVanier, the preliminary results for advanced polls were similarly low 2.47 per cent of registered voters, or 2,502 people cast their ballots.

The polls will be open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Feb. 27.

More here:

Long-held Ontario Liberal ridings go to polls in Thursday byelections - CBC.ca

Since becoming Nova Scotia's premier in the fall of 2013, Stephen McNeil has been able to count on two things during House sittings:steadfast loyalty from his caucus colleagues and a manageable majority on every vote.

Hugh MacKay's decision to sit as an Independent to try and spare Liberals political embarrassment means McNeilwill have to pay closer attention to both this sitting.

RCMP have charged MacKay with impaired driving in relation to an alleged offence dating back to Nov. 22, 2018.

Late last year,MacKay pleaded guiltyto operating a motor vehicle with a blood-alcohol level over the legal limit in relation to an incident on Oct. 13, 2019. He was fined $2,000 and prohibited from driving for a year.

Nova Scotia Liberals still hold a majority of votes in Nova Scotia's 51-seat legislature, but there are now two Independents one of whom previously sat as a Toryand two vacancies,which means the party in power now only controls 25votes.

There are currently 17 PCs and four NDPMLAs in the House.

Hypothetically, if the Liberals were to lose the two byelectionsto the NDP or PCs, there would be 25 Liberal votes and 23non-Liberal votes.The two independent MLAswould hold the balance of power.

Liberal Kevin Murphy sits as Speakerand according to House rules and parliamentary convention, he can only vote to cast a deciding voteif the members of the legislature are deadlocked.

That has happened in Nova Scotia, but it's rare.

In 1991, the government of DonaldCameron faced stiff oppositionand at least four tie votes on motions designed to delay or derail the passage of bills, including the budget.

Each time, the PC-appointed Speaker, Ron Russell, voted in favour of the government.

At the federal level, Speakers have only voted 11 times since Confederationin 1867.

Depending on the results of byelections underway in Cape Breton Centre and Truro-Bible Hill-Millbrook-Salmon River, McNeilmay find himself needing the support of one of those Independent MLAsor the Speaker to win votes on the floor of the chamber.

That's a far cry from when the McNeilLiberals won power from the NDP in 2013 and had a 14-vote cushion, even with a Liberal in the Speaker's chair, or after the 2017 general election when Liberals enjoyed a two-seat majority without the Speaker's vote.

The uncertainty surrounding the March 10byelection votes may spur the party in power to quickly pass the budget Finance Minister Karen Casey will introduce Tuesday afternoon.

Here's why.

Liberal House Leader Geoff MacLellan sets the hours for debate at Province House. That means he can extend sittings beyond normal hours. For example, he could addgovernment business to Wednesday sittings, which are normally devoted entirely to "opposition business."

During budget deliberations in 2019, he did not extend House hourson those "opposition days."That meant the budget vote came a few days later than a fast-tracked budget deliberation. But in 2018,MacLellan did fast-track thebudget.

The timing of this year's budget vote is important because of the byelections and March Break. The House does not sit during March Break, which happens this year from March 16-20. The byelection votes take place on March 10, but the results don't becomeofficial for 10 days afterwards.

If the Liberals lose both votes, that means any vote taking place after March Break this year could conceivably end in a draw.

That would leave it to Speaker Kevin Murphy to decide the vote, but he is not free to simply back the party he belongs to. Generally speaking, "casting votes" as they are called either preserve the status quo or allow debate to continue.

To avoid that possibility, look for the House leader to fast-track the budget in an effort to wind up the sitting by Friday, March 13.

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Abrupt departure of MLA from caucus weakens already-thin Liberal majority - CBC.ca

Courtenay-Alberni NDP MP Gord Johns (supplied by Johns' office)

Courtenay-Alberni MP Gord Johns says the Liberal government should approve the NDPs universal pharmacare plan.

The party tabled the bill in the House of Commons yesterday. Johns says this is something the Liberals have promised for a very long time.

Were calling on the Liberal government to follow through with their promise to Canadians that theyve made over 23 years ago instead of getting and helping the pharmaceutical industries getting bigger profits.

They say all the right things but they keep putting the powerful drug companies first and so this is the first opportunity that weve had to make them make a decision on whether or not they are going to follow through with their promise, Johns added.

The pharmacare plan would give all Canadians access to free prescription medication.

Johns says No one should have to face the impossible choice between paying rent or filling a prescription and thats happening in our communities, right in our riding.

He added that if the Liberals dont approve the tabled bill, the trust in them from everyday Canadians will be broken.

Its not a confidence motion but its a motion that will hurt the credibility of this Liberal government if they choose to vote against it. Its a campaign promise theyve made, its something that were laying early out in the mandate, we dont want them to drag their feet on this, says Johns.

If the Liberals actually want to help Canadian families, they can work with us and we can all work together to deliver the universal pharmacare that people need.

Currently, Canada is the only country in the world that has a universal health care plan, but no national pharmacare plan to go along with it.

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Courtenay-Alberni MP says Liberals need to stop dragging their feet on universal pharmacare - My Comox Valley Now

It is a cruel irony that a would-be oilsands miner is forcing Canada to finally have an honest discussion on energy and environmental policies.

In a letter addressed to the federal government, CEO and president of Vancouver-based Teck Resources Don Lindsay withdrew the companys application to build the multibillion-dollar oilsands Frontier oilsands project near Fort McMurray.

The project, which went through a decade of regulatory hoops, was awaiting final approval from Ottawa this week.

The federal Liberals are surely breathing a sigh of relief, now that theyre off the hook from actually having to make a decision and behave like a government.

But the relief will be short-lived.

The political maelstrom following Tecks announcement came fierce and fast. The federal Liberal government deserves all the flak it is getting not just for its mishandling of the Teck situation directly but also for its laissez-faire attitude regarding the protest blockades over the Coastal GasLink pipeline in British Columbia.

That and the general lack of clarity on what Canada wants in terms of balancing energy development and climate change have cast a huge shadow on the now-shelved Frontier mine.

As CEO Lindsay politely put it in his letter: The growing debate around this issue has placed Frontier and our company squarely at the nexus of much broader issues that need to be resolved.

But if you read all the way to the bottom of Lindsays letter, youll find the decision is about much more than getting out of that nexus.

We support strong actions to enable the transition to a low carbon future. We are also strong supporters of Canadas action on carbon pricing and other climate policies such as legislated caps for oil sands emissions, he wrote.

The promise of Canadas potential will not be realized until governments can reach agreement around how climate policy considerations will be addressed in the context of future responsible energy sector development.

He is hardly alone among business leaders with that type of messaging.

Goldy Hyder, president and CEO of the Business Council of Canada, offered this advice on social media Sunday night to help break the seemingly endless deadlock on energy projects.

All sides accept carbon pricing as (the) best way of addressing climate change; all sides accept that oil remains in high demand (and) Canadian oil is world-class; priority given to reconciliation with Indigenous communities.

Speaking of Indigenous communities, the Frontier project much like the Coastal GasLink pipeline received the support of the 14 First Nations near the proposed mine.

Last week, Alberta Environment Minister Jason Nixon told Postmedia columnist Chris Varcoe his government was prepared to institute the regulations for an oilsands emissions cap so long as it was done in such a way that continues to allow our industry to succeed.

The only thing left would be how Alberta can manage carbon pricing in a way all relevant parties will accept. (And for those who dont know, Alberta already has a form of carbon pricing. The disagreement is about whether its good enough.)

Real, measurable progress was being made on balancing climate change with producing energy.

But despite this seemingly universal willingness to address carbon emissions, reduce the oilsands environmental impact and involve First Nations in every step along the way, there is still the problem that caused Teck to walk away from its proposed mine: it is still possible for an energy company and its partners to do everything right in support of a project but still have it rejected.

This is solely within the federal governments power to correct assuming it actually wants to.

rleong@postmedia.com

On Twitter: @RickyLeongYYC

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Leong: Federal Liberals need to get their act together on energy and climate - Calgary Sun

Calvin in Hell, Egbert van Heemskerck the Younger (c.170010). (Photo by Fine Art Images / Heritage Images / Getty Images)

To understand Liberalism, we need to understand early modern Calvinism. This is the central claim made by Harvard professor James Simpson in his idiosyncratic but challenging new book, Permanent Revolution: The Reformation and the Illiberal Roots of Liberalism. As its dust jacket proclaims, Simpson means to rewrite the history of liberalism by uncovering its unexpected debt to evangelical religion. His aim is to show how the English Reformation, so authoritarian in its beginnings, culminated in the proto-liberal Glorious Revolution settlement of 168889 and led to the English Enlightenment.Ad Policy Books in Review

The key feature of that settlement, Simpson argues, was the Toleration Act, which gave ease to scrupulous consciences in the exercise of religion by allowing Protestant Dissenters from the Church of England freedom of worship and exemption from the penalties previously attached to nonattendance at Anglican services. This exemption was not extended to Roman Catholics, Unitarians, or Jews, and public office continued to be confined to those who worshipped in the Church of England. Many of the legislators saw toleration less as a matter of principle than as an unpleasant necessity, a pragmatic way of avoiding further strife. Nevertheless, Simpson insists that this was a foundational moment for the English liberal tradition. The Toleration Act was accompanied by a Bill of Rights declaring the rights and liberties of the subject and was followed by statutory provision for the annual meeting of Parliament, the independence of the judiciary, and qualified freedom of the press.

Whether or not this was the foundational moment of English liberalism, one might also ask in what sense this was all a consequence of Calvinism. The conventional answer is that, by making the vernacular Bible accessible to all, the Protestant reformers encouraged people to think for themselves and claim the right to do so. In addition, their doctrine of the priesthood of all believers generated a belief in human equality and encouraged respect for personal religious experience, private judgment, and individual conscience. Out of this came notions of individuality and human rights.

Many historians of political thought agree that, in this way, liberalism grew out of evangelical religion. Simpson toys with this interpretation in his discussion of the poet John Miltons radical thought, which he suggests was hammered out of, and bore powerful traces ofilliberal Protestantism. But in every other respect he categorically rejects the notion that the Reformation led inexorably to liberalism, describing the idea as unacceptable Whig triumphalism. He twice quotes Herbert Butterfields observation in The Whig Interpretation of History (1931) that religious liberty was not the natural product of Protestantism but emerged painfully and grudginglyout of the tragedy of the post-Reformation world. Following Butterfields lead, Simpson argues that the liberal tradition is the younger sibling of evangelical religion but that it derives from Protestantism by repudiating it. Early Protestantism, he asserts, was so punishingly violent, fissiparous and unsustainable that it eventually led its adherents to invent a political doctrine to stabilize cultures after 150 years of psychic and social violence; the result was nascent liberalism. Unfortunately, the suggestion that it was not until 1688 that quasi-liberal sentiments were widely voiced in England flies in the face of the evidence. So does the notion that it was only in a religious context that they emerged at all.

Simpsons claim that liberal ideas were a by-product of the Reformationone unintended by its original makersis by no means new, though it has never been so relentlessly pursued. Two hundred and thirty years ago, in a little-noticed section of his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon observed that the Reformation taught each Christian to acknowledge no law but the scriptures, no interpreter but his own conscience. This freedom, however, was the consequence, rather than the design, of the Reformation. The patriot reformers were ambitious of succeeding the tyrants whom they had dethroned. They imposed with equal rigour their creeds and confessions; they asserted the right of the magistrate to punish heretics with death. The same point was made by the great liberal historian G.P. Gooch in his 1898 The History of English Democratic Ideas in the Seventeenth Century and by the quasi-Marxist philosopher and social theorist Harold Laski in his 1936 Rise of European Liberalism, both of whom argued that liberal ideas were an unintended consequence of the Reformation and thus anathema to its makers. More recently, Berkeley historian Ethan Shagan has maintained that Protestantism was an authoritarian project, not a liberal one, and that the Enlightenment was a reaction against the habits of mind the Reformation had generated. But if that is all that Simpson means by the illiberal roots of liberalism, one might equally well speak of the Catholic roots of Protestantism or the capitalist roots of Marxism.

Simpson could have made a different and much stronger case for the Protestant origins of liberalism had he not completely passed over (Miltons writings excepted) the astonishing ferment of ideas that erupted between 1642 and 1660, the years of the English Civil War and Interregnum. In a brilliant essay, British historian Blair Worden took this ferment seriously and, as a result, offers a far more sophisticated approach to the question of liberalisms Protestant roots. John Calvin, he notes, maintained that spiritual libertyby which he meant emancipation from the bondage of sin and complete submission to Gods willis perfectly compatible with the absence of civil liberty. But as Worden points out, this view was rejected in the 1640s by many radical English Protestants, who, faced with Presbyterian intolerance, realized that their spiritual goals could not be attained if they were denied the freedom to practice their religion. Congregationalists, Levellers, and army leaders therefore claimed that liberty of conscience and worship was a civil right, even though, paradoxically, they thought of it as the right to become Gods slaves. They extended the same plea of conscience to include other civil liberties, such as the right to form separatist congregations or to withhold the payment of tithes. By stressing this new kind of Protestant political thought, Worden was able to conclude that it was from within Puritanism, not in reaction to it, that the demand for civil liberty and thus liberalism emerged.

In a valuable recent study, Stanford historian David Como further illuminates the process by which, in the 1640s, liberty of consciencesometimes even for Jews, Muslims, and atheistscame to be seen by many Protestant separatists in England as a fundamental political right, indivisibly connected to other inviolable civil liberties like freedom of the press, freedom to petition the government, freedom from arbitrary imprisonment, and freedom to vote in parliamentary elections. As the century wore on, he argues, the theological trappings tended to be clipped away, and these claims were sometimes presented as the natural Right of Mankind.Current Issue

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Simpson not only misses this emergence of liberal ideas in the 1640s; his preoccupation with Protestantism also leads him to give insufficient space to the many historians of political thought who have pointed to the nontheological origins of liberalism. He recognizes the influence of the humanistic neo-Roman theory of liberty, but he says little about the medieval vogue for natural law theories, though it was from this tradition that the idea of human rights emerged in the 17th century, starting with the universal right to self-preservation postulated by Hugo Grotius and Thomas Hobbes. He also makes only the vaguest reference to the resistance theories formulated by Protestant authors in the reign of the Catholic Mary Tudor, which gave the people both the right and the duty to remove tyrannous or idolatrous rulers. Instead, having explained liberalism as a simple reaction to what preceded it, Simpson devotes most of his book not to charting its rise but to following the illiberal progress of Protestantism over the same period, painting a vivid, indeed passionate, picture of what he sees as its devastating contribution to human unhappiness.

Echoing political theorist Michael Walzers 1965 The Revolution of the Saints, which portrayed Puritanism as a revolutionary ideology and the Puritan saint as the first active, ideologically committed political radical, Simpson identifies Protestantism as a revolutionary movement. His original contribution to this insight is to extend the boundaries of the revolution. He argues that the break with Rome was only the first stage in a state of permanent revolution, as Protestants repeatedly and compulsively repudiated previous forms and generated new ones, only to abandon them in due course for yet another nostrum, eventually clearing the path for a new liberal politics.

This is in many respects a useful way to characterize the shifts from the 1530s to the 1640s, from King Henry VIIIs break with Rome to Edward VIs Protestantism, from the Lutheran belief that Jesus Christ was substantially present in the Eucharist to the view of the rite as purely symbolic, from Episcopalianism to Presbyterianism, and from Presbyterianism to sectarianism. Simpson could have found striking corroboration for this process of permanent revolution in the spiritual odysseys of figures like the ex-tailor Laurence Clarkson (16151667). Never satisfied with his religious condition, Clarkson moved from the established church to Presbyterianism, which he rejected in turn to become an Independent, then an antinomian, then a Baptist, then a Seeker, then a Ranter, then a white witch, and finally a Muggletonian. This spiritual restlessness is what Simpson calls English Protestantisms kinetic process of endless movement, yet it was most intense in the years he puzzlingly neglects. He never even mentions the appearance in the 1650s of the Quakers, whose total rejection of a separate priesthood and formal liturgy took Protestantism to its logical and most revolutionary conclusion.

As a way of characterizing English Protestantism, the concept of permanent revolution, with its suggestion that people move to ever more extreme positions, has its limitations. Indeed, some of the makers of the early Reformation were far more radical than most of those who followed them. The Lollards of the 15th century were closer in their views to the sectaries of the 1640s than they were to the leaders of the Elizabethan church. The early reformer Robert Barnes, who was burned for heresy in 1540, declared that no day was holier than the rest, not even Christmas or Easter, while William Tyndale, the biblical translator martyred in 1536, was a mortalist who believed that the soul slept until the general Resurrection. Not until the 1640s were such views publicly ventilated.

One might also question Simpsons insistence that the progress of Protestantism was as relentless as the notion of permanent revolution might suggest. As he admits, it went into reverse in the early 17th century with the rise of Arminianism, which asserted free will against Calvinisms predestination, and with the capture of the Anglican Church by the Laudians, who embraced this new doctrine and introduced elaborate church ceremonial in place of Puritan simplicity. Yet as Simpson rightly notes, it was Arminianism that pointed most powerfully to the liberal future, since its belief in free will became a necessary precondition for liberalisms attachment to individual liberty.Related Article

It is also hard to accept Simpsons claim that Protestantism was more concerned with combating earlier versions of itself than with challenging Catholicism. For all the differences between different brands of evangelicalism, the hatred of popery far exceeded the internecine quarrels among Protestants. Catholic priests were classified as traitors by the government in 1585. The Spanish Armada and the Gunpowder Plot were central to Protestant mythology. The fear of Catholic conspiracies played a crucial role in the origins of the English Civil War and was still present after the Restoration. The Great Fire of London in 1666 was blamed on Catholics, the rumored Popish Plot resulted in a major political crisis in 1679, and James IIs Catholicism played a large part in his downfall.

Simpson takes a dim view of early Protestantism. He is a specialist in late medieval English literature and, unsurprisingly, is partial to the writers of the 14th and 15th centuries. In an earlier work, he contrasted the rich varieties of genres and sensibilities found in the mystery cycles and the writings of William Langland, Geoffrey Chaucer, and Thomas Malory with the centralized uniformity and dreariness of the literature of the early Tudor period. He also remarked on the profound delusions of the evangelical theology that took root in this latter era. He regrets the Protestant destruction of medieval sculpture, wall paintings, and stained glass. But his main objection to the evangelical theologians is that they left no room for human agency. Regarding Gods arbitrary grace as the sole source of redemption, they denied any possibility of achieving it through a life of good works. The fate of all individuals was predetermined, and there was no certain way of knowing if one was saved. For Simpson, this was an absolutist, cruel, despair-producing, humanity-belittling, merit-denying, determinist account of salvation, and only through its rejection could liberalism come into its own.

To make his case, Simpson devotes the great bulk of his book to describing what he sees as the five key features of the Calvinist Protestantism that stood in the way of a liberal outcome: despair, hypocrisy, iconoclasm, distrust of performative speech, and biblical literalism. He chooses to demonstrate their regrettable human consequences by drawing most of his evidence from the imaginative literature of the day. Milton, in particular, gets a disproportionate amount of space, presumably because his writings pose the problem of how the poet, born into a culture of Calvinist predestination, came to express proto-liberal sentiments. But as examples of despair and the vicious psychic torture of not knowing whether or not one was saved, Simpson also cites Thomas Wyatts Paraphrase of the Penitential Psalms and John Bunyans The Pilgrims Progress. He comments on the Kafkaesquequality of this theological world, in which despair is simultaneously the surest sign both of election and of damnation.

To illustrate Protestant hypocrisy, Simpson turns to Zeal-of-the-Land Busy in Ben Jonsons Bartholomew Fair and the Puritan Angelo in William Shakespeares Measure for Measure, two obvious examples of the duplicity generated by the Puritan tendency to prescribe humanly impossible standards of godliness. To capture Calvinist iconoclasm, which moved from the destruction of images in churches to proposals that the churches themselves be destroyed and finally to a psychic iconoclasm against incorrect imaginings, Simpson cites Edmund Spensers The Faerie Queene, which portrays mental images as much worse than physical ones.

Next on Simpsons list of evangelical horrors is the Calvinist attack on performative language, by which he means the attempt to achieve physical effects by words, whether in the ritual of the Catholic Mass or in the curses of supposed witches. He accuses the reformers of inventing (or, alternatively, reinventing) the idea of black magica bizarre suggestion, since witch trials were well underway in 15th century Europe: As Simpson himself recognizes, Malleus Maleficarum, the notorious treatise providing the rationale for such prosecutions, appeared in 1487 and was the work of a papal inquisitor. He also examines the Calvinist attacks on the theater, culminating in the parliamentary ordinance of 1648 abolishing stage plays. In his desire to give that act an exclusively religious explanation, however, Simpson omits its stress on the disorders and disturbance of the peace with which the theaters were associated. Instead he cites Miltons virtuous terrorist Samson, who pulls down a theater and kills the audience, though he does not remind us that Samson Agonistes was itself a play or that the poets original idea was to make Paradise Lost one, too.

Simpsons final theme is the dominance of biblical literalism in evangelical culture. Every aspect of Church doctrine, governance and practice, he points out, was potentially vulnerable to being rejected as idolatrous if it did not find justification in a set of texts at least 1,400 years old. The literal reading of such biblical texts as There is none righteous, no, not one (Romans 3:10) could, he claims, make scriptural reading an experience of existential anguish. He cites the paraphrases of Psalms by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, betrayed by his friends and despairingly awaiting execution in 1547, and Bunyans spiritual autobiography Grace Abounding (1666), which suggests that the authors persecution by the authorities paled to nothing when compared with the way that the biblical text persecuted him as a reader. Returning to his favorite analogy, Simpson remarks that we must look to Kafka to find anything remotely comparable.

Throughout his account of Calvinism and its discontents, Simpsons sympathies lie with the eras anti-literalists, notably Shakespeare, whose Shylock, insisting on the letter of his bond, resembles less the Jews than the Puritan divines in their eager readiness to inflict the arbitrary, inhuman literal sense on their fellow Christians. He admires Milton as another anti-literalist who invoked intention and context in order to produce a self-interested, nonliteral reinterpretation of Christs pronouncement on divorce and whose Paradise Lost bears only the most skeletal relationship to the words of Genesis.

Simpsons study of English Calvinism leaves the reader with a deeply depressing and somewhat overheated view of evangelical religion in the period, which he calls a state-sponsored cultural extremity of a singular, soul-crushing and violence-producing kind. If he had gone beyond his chosen literary sources, he could easily have matched his examples of despairing evangelicals with an equal or perhaps even larger list of readers who claimed to have derived real comfort from the Scriptures. Personal temperament did as much as religious allegiance to determine whether an individual emerged from reading the Bible cheered or depressed. He concedes as much when he remarks that Bunyan clearly manifests the symptoms of chronic depression. Simpson would also have found that many ordinary Protestant clergy were surprisingly tolerant of their unregenerate parishioners belief that they could earn salvation by their own efforts.

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Despite what he sees as its horrors, Simpson concludes that Calvinist theology was by far the most powerful expression of early European revolutionary modernity. It paralleled the administrative centralization carried out by Tudor monarchs by portraying God as invested with massively concentrated executive powers at the center of a purified, utterly homogeneous True Church of the Elect. In due course, the unsustainable violence of the Calvinist revolution produced the great counter narrative of modernity, namely the decentralization of theological and political power and the shift to a more liberal order.

Permanent Revolution is a rich work, abounding in challenging assertions and acute aperus, but at times it is also an infuriating one to read. Simpsons sentences can be convoluted; he employs arcane neologisms like dramicide and is capable of making statements like liberal modernity retrojected its abject onto premodernity. His text is marred by repetitions, careless proofreading, and some embarrassing factual errors. Yet he is extremely well read in modern historical writing as well as early modern literature, and his argument is punctuated by many original insights.

At the end of the book, Simpson returns to his opening theme of the liberal tradition, its origins, and its future. Here he encounters an obvious problem: No one in the 17th century gave the word liberal a political meaning, and the concept of liberalism as a political ideology did not appear until the second decade of the 19th century. So the early modern liberalism of Simpsons book is liberalism avant la lettre. When the concept did appear in the early 19th century, it was rapidly appropriated by politicians of very different hues, as historian Helena Rosenblatt brilliantly demonstrated in her 2018 The Lost History of Liberalism. Yet Simpson uses the word unselfconsciously, as if this notoriously elusive term had only one meaning. Writing as a committed liberal, he defines the tenets of modern liberalism as he sees them. They include the separation of church and state, equality before the law, toleration for minorities, freedom of association, liberty and privacy of conscience, and acceptance of the democratic judgment of the majority. (He does not say whether in the American context this means a majority of voters or a majority of states.) But this is essentially a version of what political philosophers call classical liberalism, the kind inaugurated by John Locke.

Simpson does not seem to recognize that liberalism since the 1680s has taken many different forms, according to who or what is perceived as libertys enemy, and therefore cannot be so narrowly defined. There is the economic liberalism of Adam Smith, whose attack on protectionist legislation and belief in the efficacy of the free market has been resurrected in modern times in an exaggerated form by Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, and there are the new liberals of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, who drew inspiration from John Stuart Mill, T.H. Green, and L.T. Hobhouse and whose central aim was to diminish the social and economic constraints on the personal freedom of the population at large by having the state intervene in the market. In the United States today, all the major political groupings, from Republicans to communitarians, make an appeal to liberty, though they give it very different meanings.

Although Simpson recognizes the slipperiness of the concept, he sticks to his own ahistorical definition of liberalism. His final verdict is that liberalism is an essential guardian of our freedom but that it is currently in global retreat before evangelical religionno longer Protestant this time but manifested in the rise of populist religious forces in India, Algeria, Israel, and Turkey. Liberalism, he warns, has serious weaknesses. It can be ineffective, as in the United States, the land of the free but also the nation with by far the worlds highest gross and per capita prison population. Like the Puritan elect, liberals can be intolerant, virtue-parading, exclusivist, and identitarian. They, too, are subject to the logic of permanent revolution, for there is always a new cause that directs their energies away from the classical liberalism that Simpson regards as their core commitment.

However, liberals greatest mistake, he insists, is to regard liberalism as a worldview that, like Christianity or Marxism, can offer a guide to salvation. In his opinion, liberalism is merely a second-order belief system, designed to preserve a plurality of worldviews by reminding their holders of the constitutional proprieties they should observe when pursuing their goals. Just as early Protestantism caused so much pain by extending its all-embracing tentacles into domains unconnected with spirituality, so liberalism exceeds its brief when it attempts to reshape the world on what Simpson describes as the shallow grounds of abstract, universalist human rights as a set of absolute virtues, and he sees it as particularly odious in its more recent, militantly secularist form.

Implicit in this argument seems to be the notion that, provided all the worlds different cultures and religions tolerate minorities and observe democratic constraints, they should be respected, however much their cultural practices might pose threats to liberal values. This would not have persuaded the late philosopher Richard Rorty, who held that some cultures, like some people, are no damn good: they cause too much pain and so have to be resisted. Which of these views, one wonders, is the more liberal one?

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Does Liberalism Have Its Roots in the Illiberal Upheavals of the English Reformation? - The Nation

The American political system is broken It has been for nearly three decades. Extremism seems to have usurped pragmatism. The spirit of bipartisanship and compromise are not merely waning but, in many respects, dead altogether.

Politicians constantly warn of threats posed by the opposition be they militant socialists or right-wing tyrants conspiring among the shadows. However, the more likely cause of death will not be at the hands of some radical despot. Americas political system will fail only when its populace perceives it to have stopped working and, in turn, votes to dissolve it.

Democracy dies at the ballot box.

Since the end of the Cold War, most democratic breakdowns have been caused, not by generals and soldiers, but by elected governments themselves, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, co-authors of the prescient book How Democracies Die, wrote. Like Hugo Chvez in Venezuela, elected leaders have subverted democratic institutions in Georgia, Hungary, Nicaragua, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, Russia, Sri Lanka, Turkey and Ukraine.

In light of a devolving political life in America, one is not unreasonable to question the capacity of democracy to endure during hard times even despite the American varietys tenacity thus far. The depth of constraint and accountability imposed by constitutional order is ultimately dependent upon the willingness of its people to fight and uphold it.

For years, the guardrail sustaining American democracy was a collective, civic commitment to liberalism. As a nation, however, the United States is witnessing what seems to be the gradual death of liberalism and an attack on the ideals underpinning it.

The revolt represents a collective succumbing to those hardships inherent to human coexistence. In truth, liberalism to a degree unlike any principle or philosophy that previously governed society forces us to encounter those unlike ourselves while presupposing our capacity to overcome those differences. At its core, the liberal structure assumes that, more often than not and despite oftentimes vehement disagreement, citizens will come together bound by a human identity more alike than different in pursuit of higher ground.

But the liberal structure requires its practitioners to see more than demagoguery in their political opposition. It requires the type of coalition-building which molds seemingly contradictory truths into one mutually desired, higher truth no matter how divergent the paths were to arrive there. History suggests the reward for doing so has been, to say the least, worthwhile.

Yet, democratic governance is still failing to realize its own potential each day, whether warranted or not, taking on the manic whims of crisis and the American mediascape is partly to blame.

New technologies have radically expanded our ability to make and distribute a product, but the problem, the American novelist Salvatore Scibona writes, is that far too often the product is our judgement of one another.

Some argue these platforms social media and the 24-hour news cycle are the manifestation of a more direct democracy. But research suggests the impact of social media platforms are more complex.

A recent study by Pew Research Center found that 97% of tweets from U.S. adults that mentioned national politics came from just 10% of users. Additional analysis indicates that, on average, Twitter users are younger, more likely to identify as Democrats, more highly educated and have higher incomes than U.S. adults overall. This means, on Twitter, an increasingly prominent way for politicians to gauge public opinion, a disproportionate amount of influence resides with a relatively small subset of young, educated and wealthy users.

On Facebook, Pew finds that more online followers engaged when elected officials took sides, especially when opposing individuals on the other side. These findings flip the incentive structure for political campaigns, who increasingly capitalize on returns to dividing Americans as opposed to uniting them, which is why ever-expanding social technology presents a problem.

To sustain a liberal society, where order and freedom are held in delicate balance, democratic structures demand and therefore must be premised upon a certain objective truth. As the political philosopher John Stuart Mill recognized, a considerable weakness of democratic governance lies in that, inevitably, citizens will not have enough information to make informed decisions about political issues. Popular opinions, on subjects not palpable to sense, are often true but seldom or never the whole truth, he writes.

In its totality, the modern media ecosystem presents a far greater threat than Mill originally theorized, culminating in the rise of illiberal and revolutionary figures, nave to what springs from ideologies defined by zero-sum games, self-righteous indignation and leaders that lament becoming too big of a tent.

Akin to the revolutions of decades past, the revolutionary ethos, however morally valiant its cause, often lacks insight into the historical winds of change and foresight about how to recreate them. It is forsaken by the peril of its own ego, failing to accept that big ideas are usually the condensation of many breaths more than [they are] the wind that blows history forward, as the writer Adam Gopnik articulated in A Thousand Small Sanities.

Revolution, albeit at once a positive and necessary feature of history, narrows the mind so sharply toward a particular injustice, many of which are incurable within the span of a singular human life, that it renders the revolutionary unable to acknowledge the limit of their own power or to accept small steps when larger steps are out of reach.

Knowledge rests not upon truth alone, Carl Jung observed, but upon error also. Liberalism, and the diversity within it, necessitates a breadth of knowledge and error that inform one another so as to climb towards objective truth.

All this is not to mourn the death of liberalism but rather a contemplation on why it must persist and the potential peril if it does not. History doesnt repeat itself, Levitsky and Ziblatt wrote. But it rhymes. The promise of history is that we can find the rhymes before it is too late.

Hancen Sale is a senior majoring in economics. He can be reached athsale@vols.utk.edu, and you can follow him on Twitter @hancen4sale.

Columns and letters of The Daily Beacon are the views of the individual and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Beacon or the Beacon's editorial staff.

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As it Stands: In praise of liberalism - UT Daily Beacon

Local Conservative party associations are preparing to challenge the Liberal Democrats on the partys local spending during Decembers General Election, with the hope of overturning at least one result.

A case is being readied to challenge St Albans, where pro-Leave Conservative Ann Main lost to Daisy Cooper, according to sources close to the matter.

A number of Tories in parts of London and the South West have also said they are also toying with challenging the result, with meetings taking place both in Westminster and in local seats to discuss the issue.

However one MP said the plan was to focus our energies on a seat which could turn back to blue. Richmond Park, where the locally-popular MP Sarah Olney ousted Zac Goldsmith, who was sitting on a tiny majority, is not thought to be on the hit list.

Multiple Conservative MPs and their campaign agents have told City A.M. of unusually high levels of Lib Dem leaflets going out to constituents during last years campaign. There are instances where individuals have reported receiving nearly 30 pieces of literature.

I cant come up with a way that you can do that [within the rules], one party agent told City A.M. We probably put out about a fifth of the literature they did and we are close enough to limit that I would not want to go much beyond certainly not enough to to do four or five-times more.

Alec Campbell, who worked on Mains campaign, said: The challenge is always trying to understand whether every household in the constituency has got that level of literature or just isolated individuals.

Under Electoral Commission rules, updated in the wake of the Craig McKinlay expenses case in South Thanet, notional spending must be declared as an election expense in the candidates return even if the notional spending has not been authorised by the candidate, the candidates agent or someone authorised by either or both of them.

The rules stipulate that local or candidate spend is a maximum of either 6p or 9p per elector, equivalent to around 15,000 in St Albans. This includes advertising of any kind, unsolicited material sent to voters, transport costs, public meetings, staff costs, accommodation and administrative costs.

Party-level spend can include a local newspaper advert as long as it does not mention the local candidate or specifically targeted local issues.

A Liberal Democrat spokeswoman said: All local expenditure in the election was reported correctly and clearly identified in our election return which has been filed with the returning officer.

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Exclusive: Tories to challenge Liberal Democrats on overspend in St Albans - City A.M.

A new report from the Parliamentary Budget Officer says the federal government's tax cut will cost about $1.2-billion more per year than estimated during the election campaign.

The Canadian Press

The federal governments tax cut will cost about $1.2-billion more per year than estimated during the election campaign, according to a new report from the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

The Liberal Party platform said the tax cut would reduce federal revenue by $5.66-billion a year once fully implemented in 2023-24. However, in a new report released Tuesday, Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux said the estimated cost for that fiscal year is now $6.85-billion.

The government is planning to introduce legislation that would make the tax cut effective as of Jan. 1, 2020. The change would raise the basic personal amount a non-refundable tax credit that essentially sets the income threshold before owing tax from the current $12,298 for 2020 to $13,229, then gradually increase it to $15,000 for 2023.

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The latest PBO report appears to contradict the offices own costing, given that the Liberal Party platform relied on an independent estimate provided by the PBO. Last year, for the first time, political parties had the option of getting cost estimates from the PBO for specific campaign promises.

However, PBO officials say there are two main reasons Tuesdays estimate is higher. The first is that the Liberal Party asked the PBO to exclude the spousal and dependant benefits from the campaign estimate, but the government has included those in the proposed tax cut presented to Parliament. The second is that Tuesdays report is based on current data for economic growth and tax revenue.

Tuesdays report also provides new details about the distributional impact of the tax cut in 2023.

Couples with children will receive the largest benefit, $573, while a single-person family will receive $189.

Individuals with incomes between $103,018 and $159,694 will be $347 better off. Those with incomes between $51,510 and $103,017 will receive $337. People earning $159,695 to $227,504 are next in line, with a $257 tax cut. Those with incomes between $15,001 and $51,509 will receive $211, and individuals with incomes below $15,000 will save one dollar, on average.

The benefit of the tax cut starts to be phased out for individuals in the second-highest tax bracket and is fully phased out when individuals reach the highest tax bracket, which is estimated to start at $227,504 by 2023. As a result, the PBO said Canadians in the highest tax bracket will end up owing $11, on average.

The NDP has called on Finance Minister Bill Morneau to restrict the scope of the tax cut so that it no longer applies to individuals earning more than $90,000. The NDP said this would help pay for new social spending in areas such as dental care.

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Liberal tax cut will cost $1.2-billion more annually than promised: PBO - The Globe and Mail