This country locked in to the Liberal Party.
Well, Ontario and all points east. The rest just have to lump it.
I'll try and come back with a more constructive comment later.
We in Ontario are unlucky enough to get the Liberals because the Conservatives and NDP have yet to show themselves as a proper alternative. I'm still hoping the Greens pick up steam and fill the void of "practical alternative." The Progressive Conservatives would have filled the void quite well, if they still existed...
But I don't think that was the brunt of what this post was about, or at least the part on a liberal education, which really can be summed up by the following: (from the College of Humanities at Carleton University website)
"The humanities—history, philosophy, literature, religion, and the arts—from time immemorial have provided the ideals and the foundations for the education of a liberal mind. The Romans called them the studia humanitatis, the study of humanity—“nothing human is alien to me,” wrote the Roman playwrite Terence. Today more than ever, in an age increasingly dominated by machines, by impersonal and bureaucratic powers, and by the inhuman forces of mass marketing and mass media, the humanities offer to restore meaning and worth to our private lives and thoughtful reflection and civil discourse to our public.
A deep and intensive study of the humanities, then, will prepare you to take your place in the modern world. You will develop the understanding of the past and the experience of the present to enable you to seek human solutions to human problems. You will develop the ability to grasp and analyse difficult and complex ideas and the skill to speak and write with precision, clarity, and persuasiveness. You will acquire the breadth of mind and the refined sensibility to see all sides of a question with understanding and sympathy, and the judgement to know which side is right or better. And finally (we hope) you will gain the wisdom to choose the good and the true, the beautiful and the useful. These cultivated abilities are the best preparation for further, professional study in law, medicine, public affairs, business, and journalism; for further academic study in one of the humanistic disciplines for a career as a teacher, scholar, researcher, or professor; and for a career in business or as a writer, diplomat, advocate, or public servant."
Where as most alternative education is about the individual and most standard education is focused on direct results, a liberal education seeks to create, through instruction in the various disciplines, someone who can, themselves, bridge the gaps between the disciplines, connect the dots so to speak. Ultimately the goal is to, by teaching seemingly unrelated topics in the same curriculm, each class by an expert in that field, create minds capable of independant thought and interaction. This ignores the "aimless character-building exercise" of "leftist" education and the strict adherence to test results of more "conservative" methods.
It is very difficult to connect this to voting patterns, as, first off, we are not represented by the party with majo
....
It is very difficult to connect this to voting patterns, as, first off, we are not represented by the party with majority support (Liberals slip by with a plurality at best out here, rarely winning with majorities), and any kind of education system will merely prepare the electorate to make their own decisions based upon the data available. (Here is where many on the right, it seems, turn their anger at the Media which Andrew at Bound by Gravity has a post on.)
At the moment I don't think it is fair to say that the country is locked in the Liberal Party so much as the country is pushed from every other alternative, as none seem practical. The Conservatives appear too far right, the NDP looks too far left, the Greens are an unknown. We only know the Liberals, and they tend to show us the worst the Centre has to offer, but they are in the Centre, and that is what Canadians, as a whole, desire it seems...
Great stuff, Pete. I was thinking over this post that the very *idea* of the university is slipping away from us, and those institutions are becoming more and more like a technical school with a shriveled humanities wing stapled to it. The stuff those studies have to teach us seems to be brushed off by a lot of people as they rush by on their way to a power career. It's like a language they can't speak.
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As for changing things around here, if the Greens can get a few people elected canada can get a look at them and that will be that party's opportunity. It's certainly possible and I think Vancouver Island or the gulf islands are a prime place for them to try.
I don't think they will be to my taste, but even so it might help remind the electorate that it has to show that it is prepared to fire a government if they are to get any respect *from* that government. Otherwise they will be treated like a lame duck.
here are two left leaning Englishmen
While my nationalist critics might prefer to deny me the label, I'm a left-leaning Scotsman, conmrade 
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