Have you noticed what's been going on in Canada? It is now the right-most of any of the English-speaking nations, or the G-7 for that matter. It is also the only one whose head of government, Stephen Harper, is economically literate. Those aren't my words. They are the opening of a pithy email I got from James Bennett -- author of the important book "The Anglosphere Challenge" and one of Boulder's few resident conservatives -- after my recent column on the impending backlash to Obama's collectivist agenda. The shrug of Atlas may start, of all places, up north under the Maple Leaf flag and then spread to the US, Bennett believes. Here's the rest of his analysis:
Canada had no housing bubble and no housing crisis. (No Community Reinvestment Act, either.) No populist laws forbidding interstate banking, ever in their history, so they have twenty sound banks instead of thousands of ones in crisis.
Obama wants to introduce card check - - they have had it, and have gradually been abolishing it, provonce by province. Paul Krugman is saying we will have to go to a VAT -- Harper is phasing out Canada's. Our corporate income tax is higher than theirs, and Obama will soon have our personal income tax rates higher than theirs. Obama will introduce single-payer health care -- their Supreme Court has said they must start permitting private provision.
Their stock markets have been getting more and more American IPOs, because they avoided the nuttiness of Sarbanes-Oxley, the gift that keeps on giving to London and Vancouuver. And of course because they have "loser pays", no contingent-fee lawsuits, and no punitive damages, their legal system is far less shark-infested.
The biggest problem has been their lack of an effective Bill of rights. But that is starting to change as some people with guts have stood up against their "human rights" commissions. Meanwhile Holder is talking hate-speech laws.
Everything Obama wants to bring in here, has been tried in Canada, and is gradually being phased out. Maybe Alberta will be Galt's Gulch this time around.
James Bennett can be reached at jamescbennett@gmail.com