Laws For Liberals

Just a summary of what we've learned so far. I plan to keep adding to this.

1. The State Is God.
-The government represents the only absolute, perfect authority.
-All other authorities are to be subjugate to government. They can exist, but are subject to the whims of government.
-Only government can solve problems.
-Only government can protect people.
-Problems like bullying in schools exist because there is insufficient regulation. ORNGE and eHealth, for example, happened because there was insufficient government oversight and "private money" was allowed to taint the process in both cases. On the other hand, LHINs are public, so if they waste money, nobody cares.
-Once regulation is brought in to deal with a problem, people decide that the problem is solved, even if it isn't.
-Criticizing a regulation is the same as saying we were better off when the problem was not being regulated. Saying you cannot legislate homophobia out of existence is the same thing as saying that you are OK with homophobia.

2. A Liberal majority is the only legitimate form of government in Canada.
-A Conservative or NDP government that could pass for a Liberal government is good, and a Liberal minority is better still, but neither of these things are really government. If the voters reduce a Liberal government to a minority, it is a "major minority", and the attempts of other parties to get leverage in this minority situation are "partisan games."
-Opposition MPPs must be courted to cross the floor, and when that doesn't work they must be bought off in an attempt to byelection their way back to a majority, and when that doesn't work the Premier is entitled to quit and close down the Legislature, because not having a majority is exhausting, you guys. 
-Lip service to former PC leaders like Bill Davis must be paid, because it makes the more conservative PC MPP's look foolish, even though none of these Liberals would have ever voted for Bill Davis.
-Stephen Harper's majority is not a real government because he cheated, even though no evidence of cheating has been found yet. Accomplishments made by Conservative or NDP governments are not accomplishments. Better yet, these governments accomplished nothing and are the cause of the problems that the Liberal government must solve i.e. "Mike Harris did (insert terrible thing here)"

3. Liberals feel threatened by the expression of conservative ideas. 
-Because Liberals are supposedly much, much smarter than us, you would think they could easily debate our ideas into the ground without even trying, but instead they'd rather call us stupid, racist, and homophobic.
-Liberals will read this blog and post passive-agressive comments about how nobody cares what I am writing, even though they care enough to post passive-agressive comments.
-They will claim that the media in this country is reflexively and overwhelmingly pro-Conservative while Tim Hudak can't even get into one of the big four papers most days.
-If a Republican from the United States- that is to say, someone who doesn't even live in this country- says or does something stupid, that reflects poorly on Conservatives in Canada. When it comes to foreign threats, Liberals are more preoccupied with Republicans in the United States than they are with people who actually would cause harm to Canadians, given the chance.
-Even though Conservatives are widely mocked and despised, and are usually brought to their knees by Internet memes about binders full of women, the presence of their ideas still constitute a major threat to whatever it is Liberals are protecting. Entire books are written on this subject.

4. Evidence based policy is only useful insofar as it advances the Liberal agenda.
-Liberals will push for handgun bans, will lower class sizes, refuse to create safe-injection sites and ignore the Drummond Report while insisting that they govern on the basis of evidence-based policy.
-Evidence that any Liberal initiative, such as the Green Energy Act or the 30% tuition cut, isn't working is to be dismissed out of hand.
-Things like Auditor General reports or Ombudsman reports are also to be ignored. Sometimes the Ombudsman is to be attacked personally, even though that's the sort of thing no Liberal would ever tolerate from Rob Ford.

5. Only a Liberal government can legitimize behaviours, opinions, and ideas. 
-Unions will only become a government target when Dalton says so and not before. When Tim Hudak complains about unions, he's compared to Chris Christie.
-The NDP can bleat about taxing the rich all they want. It's not a good idea until Dalton adopts it as part of his budget.
-Cancelling the power plants was "the right thing to do." Dalton said so, and people believed him.
-Paul Litt's "Elusive Destiny" tells the story of how, back in the Trudeau days, the country was basically agreed that homosexual acts should be decriminalized, and nobody could really think of a reason why they should stay criminalized except that Catholics wouldn't like it. When it was clear Trudeau was serious about this, everyone except for Dalton's dad dropped their opposition. Something similar happened with Gay-Straight Alliances this year. Everyone outside government can agree that something should happen, but until the Liberal government legitimizes it, it won't happen.

6. Other parties are to blame when Liberals do something wrong.
-Dalton prorogued the legislature because the opposition was opposing, not because his Energy Minister was about to be found in contempt.
-ORNGE was caused by Conservatives, not Liberals.
-The deficit was caused by Conservatives, federal (Harper) and provincial (Ernie Eves), not Liberals.
-The G20 debacle was Harper's fault. McGuinty had nothing to do with it.
-Caledonia was Harper's fault. McGuinty had nothing to do with it.
-Because the PC Party of Ontario was in power for most of the 20th century, everything can be blamed on them.

7. True Liberals maintain the status quo.
-Christy Clark isn't a true Liberal because she has current and former CPC people working for her.
-Jean Charest tried to crack down on student protesters and develop northern resources. Au revoir, Jean.
-Stephane Dion had too many big ideas. Paul Martin tried to make the Liberal Party less top-down and paid the ultimate price. Michael Ignatieff didn't have deep enough roots in the Liberal party. John Turner wasn't the true heir to the Trudeau legacy.
-Liberals talk about how inequality is awful, but don't do much to fix it.
-Liberals like Justin Trudeau promise an end to cynicism in politics, then cynically don't tell us how they'd do it.
-Justin Trudeau is to become Liberal leader because of his last name. Dalton McGuinty being Liberal royalty didn't hurt him either.

8. Liberals are aware of their own wrongdoing but will actively seek to avoid acknowledging it.
-Basically all of the above. Anyone who's tried to get a given Liberal to defend Dalton's lousy record will get some version of this.
-Dalton's caucus will complain about him behind his back but not to his face. Now that he's gone, Kathleen Wynne is suddenly actively distancing herself from Dalton's track record. I'm sure that'll get her real far.
-Lip service to progressive ideals is usually enough to quiet their own pangs of conscience.

9. Shame is the most powerful of all Liberal weapons.
-Nobody ever asks just how personally committed most Liberals are to ending sexism, racism, homophobia, inequality, etc. The fact that they say they are, and we don't say that we are, is enough. The NDP might be nuts enough to pass laws banning inequality, but the Liberals never would. If there is no inequality, there's nothing to pay lip service to. And because we are less likely to pay lip service to stopping inequality than the Liberals, that opens the door for the Liberals to say that we don't care about inequalities.
-When Rob Ford ran for mayor the Liberals thought that he could be shamed in this way. It didn't work. Because Ford didn't blink. When he didn't blink, the Liberals had nothing left.

10. Conservative errors make Liberals correct by default.
-If Tim Hudak gets something wrong, you'll read all about it in the papers. If Dalton gets something wrong, you have to come here to read about it.
-Someone used CIMS improperly in the last federal election and robocalls went out. We don't know who this was, but the CPC is guilty anyway. Frank Valeriote, a Liberal MP, got caught making robocalls himself, but nobody cares about this.
-There is more evidence linking Dalton to ORNGE than there is linking the CPC to the robocalls. Oh well.

11. The deficit is a small price to pay for social progress.
-Liberals actually do believe that test scores going up and the fact that hospitals aren't closing justifies the presence of the deficit. Even though the deficit is the fault of Conservatives as per #6.
-If you listen to the NDP, there actually hasn't been that much social progress in Ontario. The Liberals respond by saying there is "more to do", which justifies more spending and growth in the size and cost of government and which keeps the NDP quiet for a while.
-Any reports that the unemployment rate has gone down, hiring is up, the deficit is smaller, etc. is evidence that the Liberal approach is working and must continue. But of course, there is "more to do", so don't complain if you don't see any net benefit to yourself.
-More to the point, don't complain at all if things are lousy for you because "we're all in this together" and your complaining is just making it worse for everyone. Your complaining could jeopardize whatever social progress has been made.

12. Bad behaviour by Liberals can be justified because it's done in the name of making things better.
-Adscam. Just Adscam.
-Nobody likes having to outsource attack ads to the Working Families Coalition, but it's a necessary step to protect social progress.
-Ontario is Worth Fighting For. So don't trouble yourself about what you might hear about the OLP.
-Whenever possible, Liberals must distance themselves from disreputable behaviour, but they will never condemn it.

Anyone out there got any suggestions for rules I can add?