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As the afterglow of forming a new government in British Columbia begins to wear off, the provincial NDP still has a problem on its hands: who will be in the Speaker's chair the next time the legislature meets?

It's a dilemma, but not an insoluble one. All three parties have an interest right now infinding a solution short of an election; B.C. voters have made it clear in polls that they have no appetite for another election immediately. If an early election comes, the party deemed responsible may well suffer a penalty at the ballot box, much as we saw in the recent U.K. general election. The Liberals should do their part to avoid an immediate election by offering up one of their own for the job of Speaker.

Arguably, the Liberals have a greater need to appear co-operative now given the way the party lost power. Premier Christy Clark went against both precedent and her own previously stated intentions when she asked Lieutenant Governor Judith Guichon to dissolve the legislature. Had Clark's request been granted, the province would be gearing up for an unwelcome summer election right now.

The other two parties might try to exploit the resulting vulnerability. Suppose no NDP or Green MLA stands for Speaker, perhaps citing deference to the convention of Speaker impartiality in doing so. Should no Liberal volunteer to stand for the job either, the party risks appearing serially uncooperative and election-seeking, more interested in the pursuit of power for its own sake than in the good governance of the province.

Beyond such tactical considerations, the Liberals have more fundamental problems. Most notably, they are in an ideological no-man's land right now. Having campaigned on its centre-right platform, the party not so much pivoted as cartwheeled to an entirely different agenda in their recentthrone speech.

If there's one thing that can derail a party for a couple election cycles, it's throwing into question its fundamental identity. Not knowing what the party truly stands for, many voters will be unwilling to trust any promises it makes. Even some core supporters may decide to sit out an election or two if they come to feel sufficiently alienated.

NDP takes power in British Columbia1:42

Accordingly, the party could use some time to get its house back in order. The clearest way to turn the page would be to find a new leader.Questions about Clark's have been swirling since her party's defeat in the legislature. No definitive answers have yet emerged, though some party supporters have expressed frustrations with the way in which the post-electoral situation played out.

That leads us back to the Speaker question. So long as the party remains on a war footing, it will be effectively impossible to carry out a leadership or thorough policy review, let alone a new leadership campaign.

If some faction of the Liberal party concludes that such reviews are in order, it could buy time to carry them out by putting forward a nominee for Speaker. There are other ways to accomplish the same effect negotiating Liberal support for certain bills and motions on anad hocbasis for instance but none with the same simplicity, freedom and predictability for the Liberals in opposition.

Certainly, there is ample precedent for an opposition member serving as Speaker when the situation calls for it. Long-time Liberal MP Peter Milliken served as Speaker for two successive federal Conservative governments, from 2006 until his retirement in 2011. He received widespread acclaim for his role in steering the Commons through a number of difficult situations.

Some Liberals will resist the idea of giving an inch to the new Green-supported NDP government, preferring instead to oppose everything right up to the point of election. Such obstruction comes with costs, however.

First, the Liberals will lose the chance to appear conciliatory in the eyes of the electorate, potentially undermining the party's pledge in the throne speech and elsewhere to cooperate in light of the close election. Such opposition would require them to somewhat awkwardly vote against other ideas they just proposed in their throne speech as well, deepening their ideological quandary as a result.

Perhaps most importantly, so long as the situation remains uncertain in Victoria, the Liberals must remain disciplined and loyal to their leader. They will lose the chance to engage in either a frank discussion of policy or a leadership review.

Simply put, the Liberals face a choice: obstruct or reorganize. They cannot do both simultaneously.

If a Liberal did stand for Speaker, the party would gain a measure of leverage over the government with the ever-present threat of withdrawal. Solve the NDP's problem in the present, and gain the ability to create a new headache for them down the road one that could well trigger an election at a more convenient time for the Liberals, or force the NDP down the contentious and potentially costly road of Speaker partisanization.

Call it a win-win-win. Everyone stands to benefit in the short term from the stability provided by a Liberal Speaker including the Liberals themselves.

This column is part ofCBC'sOpinion section.For more information about this section, please read thiseditor'sblogandourFAQ.

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The BC Liberals should offer up one of their own for the job of Speaker - CBC.ca

The silence in the liberal space over the spate of communal violence in West Bengal is getting deafening. Civil society members, who were out there last week holding #NotinMyName protests against the lynching of Muslims by extremists from the majority community, have turned blind to the riot in Basirhat, which is the latest in a long line of communal conflagrations directed against Bengals Hindus by radicals from the minority community. In fact, in what is now an established practice in Bengal, a large section of the local media even blacked out the Basirhat violence in order to maintain communal harmony. To talk about violence against the majority community has become politically incorrect in this country since the 1950s, courtesy the strange version of secularism cooked up by the so-called liberals. So hearts bleeding for Junaid, and rightly so, do not want to know about the young girls in Bengals Tehatta who were brutally thrashed by the police for protesting the minority-inspired ban on Saraswati puja in their school. These people do not seem to care that similar bans are becoming commonplace in Bengal, or that the majority community needs to go to court just to be able to immerse Durga idols on Bijoya Dashami, as else the government would postpone the immersion because it is taking place a day ahead of Muharram. They refuse to believe that demographic changes in the border districts of Bengal due to illegal infiltration and the resultant radicalisation of a section of the states minority population have created a tinderbox situation, which is a security threat to the entire country.

If all this sounds oh-so-communal to polite ears that differentiate between communities while shedding crocodile tears, lets secularise the issue by asking: why werent there any #NotinMyName protests against Akhilesh Yadavs government in Uttar Pradesh when the minority community came under attack in Muzaffarnagar in 2013? Voices were raised aplenty against the saffron hand behind the riots, but why was Yadav spared? Where were these protests when, in 2012, Assam under Tarun Gogois Congress government witnessed a bloodbath of Bengali Muslims? Why did the people who suffered, those who died, become forgotten statistics? Is it because governments run by a secular Samajwadi Party and Congress cannot be berated for their inability to control violence against the minority community? Just as a liberal Mamata Banerjee cannot be censured for her brand of politics, which protects and promotes a particular section of the population at the cost of another for the sake of votes? Must outrage be politicised to the extent that it appears inhumane?

What about beef lynching, you ask? There cannot be any justification of any lynching, either perpetrated by a mob fighting for train seats, or another bunch hunting for people carrying or consuming beef. Its unacceptable. Violence cannot be allowed to be mainstreamed, normalised, or made par for the course. No amount of statistics about lynching then and now, or these being stray incidents, can justify something that is monstrous and should not have happened.

Liberal outrage is selective in nature primarily because its rooted in politics, although claiming to be apolitical. The main aim is to retain power and controlof the narrative, among various other thingsthat they lost to the man they repeatedly describe as the fascist facilitator of right-wing violence, Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Of course the government has to be shaken up to act against what is barbaric, but then questions arise about the intent of the outrage, when it becomes obvious that the leading lights of the liberal order are also known Modi baiters, who thrive on abusing the PM and have been raising the bogey of minorities under siege for the last three years, generally without the backing of facts.

At the same time, the government cannot be absolved of responsibilities in these few lynching cases. Law and order may be a state subject, but it is incumbent on the Centres part to ensure that the states implement on the ground the strong message given by the Prime Minister against cow vigilantism. There must be stricter enforcement of the law on the ground. It is time to disabuse the vigilante groups of the notion that they can get away with murder, just because their government is in power. In a democracy, the government always belongs to the people, and lets keep it that way.

In what is now an established practice in Bengal, a large section of the local media blacked out the Basirhat violence in order to maintain communal harmony.

Truth be told, Indians are tiring of the cacophony over cow and beef. It is distracting them from the narrative of development that PM Modi wants to build. Personal spaces are sacred, where freedom of the individual is paramount. Dress and food habits are areas where there should not be any government intrusion. If we truly believe in democracy, if we want to emerge as a world power, that space is best left untouched. A nations greatness is measured by the way government treats its people, and curbs on food habits, in this case, impact them directly and sometimes violently, as evident through the lynching cases, so are unacceptable. We are neither China nor Pakistan.

As for the upholders of the liberal order in this country, their secular credentials will not be damaged if they speak up for the victims of Basirhat for a change, even if these people are Hindus. We are waiting.

Read more from the original source:
Silence of the 'liberals' - The Sunday Guardian

A fresh battle looms in the Victorian Liberal Party, with Opposition Leader Matthew Guy facing internal divisions over his election plan to scrap the Safe Schools program.

Twelve months after Mr Guy announced he would replace Safe Schools with a "genuine" anti-bullying initiative if he winsgovernment next year, some Liberals are angered there has been no policy work on an alternative to help LGBTI students.

The issue has become such a sensitive topic within sections of the party that a new Liberal Pride gay group headed by federal Minister Christopher Pyne's adviser, Rory Grant recently met with state education spokesman Nick Wakeling to raise concerns.

But at the same time, conservativeLiberals are holding "information forums" to attack Safe Schools and drum up further opposition among community and ethnic groups in the lead up to next year's state election.

One such forum was recently held with the Chinese community at the Victorian Liberals' Exhibition Street headquarters, featuring presentations from federal MP Michael Sukkar and state president Michael Kroger. Another recently took place in Cranbourne, with upper house state MP Inga Peulich as one of the key speakers.

The divisions are another example of internal tensions that continue to simmer within the Liberal Party, but could prove sensitive for Mr Guy as he attempts to woo voters in the political middle ground against the socially progressive Daniel Andrews.

At the federal level, a broader cultural war exploded in the past fortnight when Mr Pyne was secretly recorded at a bar with factional allies claiming that same-sex marriage could happen "sooner than everyone thinks".

While the Opposition will abolish Safe Schools,Mr Wakeling has also confirmed that the Liberals will not go to the election with a policy outlining what sort of anti-bullying program will replace it.

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"The Victorian Liberal and National Parties committed last year to scrapping the Safe Schools program and replacingit with a comprehensive anti-bullying program thatfocuseson respect and tolerance for all people. This new program will be developed upon the election of a Coalition government," he said.

However, some Liberals are concerned thatLGBTIstudents could suffer without a comprehensive plan, with one source telling Fairfax Media:"The last thing we want to see isLGBTIstudents being placed at risk."

Safe Schools was piloted in Victoria in 2010 after teachers asked for a specific set of resources to help them support students who were "coming out" as same-sex attracted or gender diverse.

But despitereceiving bipartisan support from the Baillieu/Napthine governments, the program became a political powderkeg last year after Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull ordered a review at the behest of right-wing MPs who claimed it was "indoctrinating children" and pushing a "radical Marxist agenda".

While federal funding ceased on July 1, the Andrews government remains committed to rolling out the programto every public school, with Education Minister James Merlino telling Fairfax Media this week:"All government secondary schools will be Safe Schools by the end of 2018."

However, some changes have quietly been made since the Education Department took over running Safe Schools this year from itscontroversial founder, Roz Ward. Among the new requirements, schools must now have a statement reflecting their commitment to creating an inclusive and safe environment for all students, an "action statement" outlining how they will do this, and they must also identify the intended outcomes they expect to achieve.

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Victorian Liberals face internal divisions over Safe Schools ahead of election - The Age

Police in West Hartford say a Connecticut man wrote threatening anti-Trump graffiti on an elementary school with the hope it would look like liberal hate speech.

The Hartford Courant reports 32-year-old West Hartford resident Steven Marks has been ordered to stay off Morley Elementary School property.

Hes charged with third-degree criminal mischief and breach of peace, and a judge will hear his case Aug. 2.

Police say Marks wrote several phrases threatening President Donald Trump and praising the left on areas of the playground June 15.

Police say Marks told officers he vandalized the school in West Hartford out of anger toward liberals.

Marks previously told the Courant he was sorry, saying it was a stupid thing.

He declined to comment after his recent court appearance.

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Man writes anti-Trump graffiti hoping 'liberals' would be blamed - Wisconsin Gazette (blog)

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Donald Trump's presidency is a disaster. But it's a disaster that may teach liberals a valuable moral lesson.

Most liberals tend to view morality in horizontal terms as a matter of securing and protecting the rights of free and equal individuals. This leads liberals to emphasize procedures and processes that ensure fairness for all. Many other liberals, especially those primarily concerned about issues wrapped up with identity politics, highlight another horizontal aspect of morality: recognition of the value and worth of different groups. This goes beyond equal rights to demand that fellow citizens and the government itself actively affirm the goodness of different ways of life. People don't merely have rights that give them the freedom to live as they wish. They actually deserve to enjoy positive affirmation in the public square.

Leaving aside the very real and important conflicts between these two constellations of liberal moral concern, they both presume and seek to enforce equality or egalitarianism. That's why I've described them as fostering a horizontal vision of morality.

But egalitarianism doesn't exhaust moral experience. On the contrary, morality also has a different dimension one having to do not with equality but with inequality, distinction, nobility, elevation, sanctity, excellence, and virtue. This vertical aspect of morality is absolutely crucial for understanding politics, but liberals tend to neglect it or at least took it for granted until Trump became president.

Trump morally offends liberals in many ways. A number of them have to do with horizontal concerns: offenses against the rights of various individuals and groups, such as the poor, minorities, immigrants, and Muslims. The liberal response to these offenses is to reaffirm the transgressed rights and attack the president for his divisiveness, cruelty, and failure to affirm equality for all.

Then there are Trump's myriad offenses against the rule of law. In response to these, liberals reaffirm the principle and insist that the president be held to the same exacting standards that have applied to his predecessors. Again, equality is the norm and the measure, across presidential administrations over time.

But there's another way that Trump offends liberals (as well as many on the center-right): with his angry and insulting tweets, attacks on the press, and continuous stream of lies. What makes this behavior so bad? Charles Blow of The New York Times spoke for many in a recent column that used a series of terms one now regularly hears tripping from liberal lips: "We must remind ourselves that Trump's very presence in the White House defiles it and the institution of the presidency. Rather than rising to the honor of the office, Trump has lowered the office with his whiny, fragile, vindictive pettiness."

Every italicized word is a term of distinction, referring to and presuming the possibility of making vertical moral distinctions: pure and defiled, rising and falling, honorable and dishonorable, higher and lower. The same kind of distinctions are implied every time someone describes Trump's actions or statements as "unpresidential." Since he's the president, the claim would seem to be self-refuting unless, that is, we believe that the office of the presidency itself, apart from the behavior of any particular president, is honorable, noble, elevated, exalted, something to which we rightly look up and from which a particular president can diverge or fall short.

There are many ways to conceive of and think about such vertical moral distinctions. Aristotle treated them as woven into the fabric of political life and because human beings are political animals, he also assumed they were woven into the fabric of human life, where they could be studied to teach us crucially important lessons about the longings that most powerfully move the human soul. Meanwhile, the political-theological traditions within Judeo-Christianity appeal to the God divinely revealed in the Bible to explain, limit, and complete these vertical moral intuitions. In our time, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has devised his own empirically grounded theory of moral foundations that gives vertical moral distinctions their due.

The liberal political tradition from Hobbes to Rawls, by contrast, has always been suspicious of the vertical dimension of morality, worrying that it fosters aristocratic and illiberal passions that decent politics must constrain, thwart, or channel into less publicly dangerous pursuits. Yet the most thoughtful liberal thinkers have also understood that decent politics necessarily presupposes that citizens affirm the reality of such distinctions.

For those liberals inclined to forget the need for them, or to complacently assume that they will always be there to draw on and elevate public life, the jarring experience of living under President Trump is a potent reminder of just how crucially important (and fragile) vertical moral distinctions really are. It also demonstrates that transgressions of vertical ideals can feel just as wrong just as much a violation of an intrinsic standard of right as transgressions against horizontal-egalitarian notions of equal dignity before the law.

If the nation's bracing experience of life with a profoundly unpresidential president manages to open liberals to the importance of the vertical dimension of morality, it will have had at least one positive result.

See more here:
What liberals can learn about morality from Donald Trump - The Week Magazine