The 'Harper Government' Secret Playbook - Extract

And out of good still to find means to evil,
John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book I, Line 165

The Oracle of Ottawa has, as you know, been watching the 'Harper Government' very closely. I watch them on the old vulgar media, in committee, in the House, and especially during Question Period. The Oracle has noticed that the Tory Bund is sticking to a script or rather an algorithm when dealing with questions of their dubious actions of late. As I was pondering the pattern in my secure bunker, somewhere in Ottawa South, my reverie was ever so slightly disturbed by yet another brown envelope sliding under the door. The envelope contained one sheet torn out of some kind of publication. It contained essentially the top ten methods for dealing with any kind of opposition to the changes that will and are being introduced as of late. I have decided to list them with links to Wikipedia for further information. It is the Oracle of Ottawas fondest hope that the Opposition and the media will pay close attention and with any hope will eventually "up their game" to better fight this reign of recent evil.

The Secret Play Book?

1./ Ad Hominem /  Genetic Fallacy: This is essentially attacking the man and / or his parentage and / or ideological purity. You see this one employed the most from Question Period, committees and a lot of times on Sun News TV.

2./ Straw Man: This is the negative spin ploy. Or blow up with as much distortion as you can muster. This is quiet popular with the Ministers of the Tory Bund front bench and Krista Erickson of Sun News TV.

3./ "Argument" from Outrage: Several members of the Conservative Party of Canada are extremely good with this ploy. They are usual failures in what they are supposed to be good at. Again you can also see this regularly on Sun News TV, Fox TV, or most any Sun newspaper.

4./ Scare Tactic: This is the ploy by trying to scare the member, reader, or listener. Did you watch any of the shortened debate regarding the strike down of the long gun registry?

5./ Hasty Generalizing: Having more confidence in a conclusion that you are not innately intelligent enough to understand. A perfect example of this is Gerry "The Ditz" Ritz talking about all the advantages of killing the Canadian Wheat Board. Perhaps finishing high school and at least an undergraduate degree in something agricultural would be much more intelligent!

6./ Groupthink: Now everyone knows that this is religion in the Conservative Party of Canada! Only about four ministers out of a caucus of near 170 can say anything they nearly want to....

7./ Red Herring: This is commonly known as the attention span fallacy, and well, the Tory Bund still needs some practice with this one. Especially the back bench members from the Ducks Ass Alberta region...Perhaps practice with the teacher holding shiny objects and plenty of food awards. Jason Kenny responds very well to this.

8./ Wishful Thinking: This is simply the refusal to acknowledge the truth in average thinking intelligent people. In the Conservative Party of Canada sense it is the refusal to even hope that you will ever be able to understand the complex issues and arguments pro or con. For parliamentary secretary's of the wizened and burnt out types of the Conservative second row, wishful thinking is saying the hopefully right thing so that that NDP youngster will just shut up and quit scaring me!

9./ Argument from Popularity: This is used quite skillfully by Conservatives, especially in Question Period where at the end of every answer an appeal is made to the Opposition to come and help on this issue. The majority of Conservatives do not identify this as a ploy. They truly believe to the marrow of their worthless hides the truth of their insane bullshit..

10./ Post Hoc, ergo Proter Hoc: Essentially; "after this, therefore because of this". But this is still yet to catch on in the Conservative Party of Canada, most of the lads don't speak French....