I think a policy is wrong, even though I'm not personally that put out by it; it offends me on the grounds of fairness and logic. So I protest it, as is proper in a free and democratic society. Here's a question for you people - should everyone supporting free speech, or gay rights, or open immigration, etc. just "stop whining" or "feel free not to care" if they're not personally oppressed by a bad policy?

By the way, Mr. Gohier, if you're still reading - I'd appreciate feedback on this that's not just the "million billion" joking above. You've answered other comments here in good faith, so...what does the Maclean's web strategy have to say about my concerns, if I may ask?

I don't - I have thick enough skin to persevere while pseudonymous, even while rolling my eyes about it - but Rogers probably ought to, for the sake of increasing traffic and any subsequent return from the magazine's advertising/subscriptions/prestige/etc.

In explicitly political forums, I'd rather see no reputation function at all. The genuinely spammy CAPS and CONSPIRACY THEORIES posters should get moderated anyway, but when the battle lines are drawn between commenters, allowing the side with more posters to downvote to double-digit negatives solely out of spite just devalues the reputation function to being meaningless. Nonconformists are repelled from joining in the discussion if they know the commentariat-mafia is going to pile on regardless, even with sincere and non-spammy comments. If that's the case, why even have it?

Thanks, whoever downvoted the above not five minutes later, for proving my point!

Bad move. Allowing the echo chamber to punish anyone who steps outside the 'correct' opinion has only made commenting more partisan and acrimonious, and tends to reward content-free groupthink.

Which, I infer, is inconsistent, because obviously government employees should be in favour of the expansion of government, the necessity or utility of their jobs be damned. To which I say, you don't see any kind of moral cowardice in voting only for personal benefit, against the fiscal well-being of the country at large? That friend of the OP should be commended, not mocked for voting against his 'class interests.'

Also, this...

Finally, this election left homework on the plates of the capital’s political reporters...[Harper's] career is becoming a significant chunk of modern Canadian history. A greater effort to understand why he wins would not be a sign of journalistic weakness.

...is bang-on, and I would hope that the more reflexively snide Harper-bashing members of the PPG are appropriately berated by their organizations (I'm looking at you, Wherry). But they won't be.

As a professional culture, you tend to have the Apocryphal Pauline Kael problem - when few or none of your close acquaintances vote Conservative, you just can't understand why anyone would, or who such people might be. That shows, and is resented by the voters you're dismissing.

Agreed on the funny. Not sure about the debates; the only difference was that she imposed her unbearable, humourless ideologue thing on one riding rather than the whole country.

That it's delicious irony to repurpose an overly-precious hippie anthem as generic feel-good muzak?

No, you flipped out at the suggestion of recall elections. If such a thing existed for us at the federal level, then it certainly wouldn't be limited to weird placeholder candidates who won accidentally.