"shore up the barrier"

Interesting way of putting it.

Something like 70% of Spaniards supporting lifting the ban on gay marriage.

Franco destroyed Catholicism by forever tainting it with authoritarian dictatorship.

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A perfect illustration of why the Founders were so wise not to mandate a state religion.

Also a reason why the English Church is in decline.

It says something about the Church's value for Spain that the Spaniards happily tortured and murdered their priests.

Not a nice thing to do, but it does say something about public opinion.

Ali:

Had Franco not prevailed there'd have been no Church.

And their alliance with him wil cost them dearly now and in the future.

Spain has no future now, why would the Church there? But Franco offered it a chance at one.

Harry:

We tortured and murdered God--no one likes moral voices.

The most important reason why Americans are so religious is that we have never had a 'State Church.' It is truly a blessing or mitzvah depending on your language.

Bart:

That can't be the whole story. Neither did Canada or Australia and they aren't anywhere near as religious.

Peter :

So whay has political life in Canada trended leftwards while the opposite course has been taken in Britain, Oz and the US?

Ali:

Are you saying that Britain and Australia are conservative? Your kidding, right?

Compared to Canada.

New Zealand too reformed its welfare state.

Canada's problem is that the only thing anyone has ever noticed about it is National Health, so its identity is wrapped up in a drag on its economy and culture.

M Ali, I'm going to get hooted down here, but I wouldn't agree at all that Canada has moved more leftwards than Britain (post Thatcher). Britain and Australia have strong leaders, Canada doesn't, but I don't know why you think those societies generally are more conservative. They are more polarized in the sense that neither the Conservatives nor Labour (NDP) seem able to win here and so we get permanent soft-progressive mush with a fairly cautious approach to economics. But on most social and economic issues I would argue you are more leftist, on some matters by a long shot.

I'm talking more about the government than the country as a whole.

I don't see many Third Way type noises coming from Canada and from Mark Steyn's stuff you'd think the country was turning into North America's answer to France.

The Third Way would require acknowledging the Second Way hadn't worked--Canada can't do that.

Orrin, we never signed on to the second way the way Europe and Britain did--no socialist government. You know that. You are too spooked by medicare.

OK,if you define leftist as high tax, increasing public spending, dirigiste, statist policies with increasing government control, then we aren't leftist and haven't been since the early 80's. If you define it as socially progressive, judicially active, secular, interest group driven, tranzi, a new human right every day, etc. etc. then we are. Steyn's focus is generally on those.

Alberta now and Ontario for most of the 90's had provincial governments that would have fit nicely into the GOP.

M Ali, you don't hear many third way noises for the same reason you never heard many first and second way noises. We don't do ideology. We do regional alienation(Do you feel their pain?)and constitution-building, all the while trying not to fall too far behind the Yankee traders.

So why has the Canadian economy not matched America's? Is it the healthcare spending?

M Ali

That and a few of the other usual suspects like higher taxes, propping up chronically underperforming regions and industries, business confidence, etc. However, with others, like labour productivity, employee costs and benefits, hours worked, de-unionization and public welfare benefits, we compare very well. We used to be strike-addled and are no more, and much public debt has been retired since the 80's. We are also much more dependent on resources and trade than the States and so are affected more immediately by international events.

You are cheating a bit. We started by comparing Canada and Britain and now we are into Canada and the U.S. That is indeed the only comparison that matters because our economies are quite integrated and we have to keep them in range or die. So we sort-of try, fitfully and without much ideological discussion or consistency. I had never heard of the third way before coming here, but we have had generous self-funded, tax-sheltered retirement plans for much longer than the U.S. has had 401(k)s.

We have not done as well as the States, but most Canadians believe we have nonetheless just passed through a long period of prosperity. But most Canadians don't track Brothersjudd, so they wouldn't know. :-)

Compared to Britain what we don't have is: a)a hard, powerful left openly hostile to wealth and pushing income redistribution; b)an underclass problem with massive estate housing and all that goes with it;c) marxist or looney-marxist municipal governments,or; d)an influential protectionist constituency. Nor have we proven unable to cut back employment or public security benefits without marches in the street or huge political dislocations.

Outside of healthcare, I have never understood Orrin's statist accusation, unless he considers Maine and Massachusetts statist. He is on far more solid ground with his social analyses. We do have a soft-left, anti-religious Boomer generation running the shop with its head in the sand, a carefree attitude about social and family issues and a huge sense of entitlement.

Don't you just love this site? We start off with Franco and twenty posts later we are dissecting the Canadian economy!

Orrin:

"Canada's problem is that the only thing anyone has ever noticed about it is National Health, so its identity is wrapped up in a drag on its economy and culture."

That is actually very profound. I guess standing watch on the border every night while your loved ones sleep peacefully has taught you a lot about the enemy.

And tripping over them as they head to our hospitals here.

"You are cheating a bit. We started by comparing Canada and Britain and now we are into Canada and the U.S. "

David said Canada was the perfect control for the USA so that's why I asked the Q.

As for the UK, the situation is far improved from the Thatcher years when there was a serious leftist movement. Although who knows what will happen when Blair leaves.

"[S]ix good decades" might be overstating it a bit.

Birthrates have been falling in Spain since '75, despite official Catholic hostility towards birth control.
The fertility rate in Spain is now 1.26 children per woman, and by 2020, the population is expected to decline by 2%, as well as get much more grey.

Yes, but they weren't truly second rate until they scurried from Iraq.

They were a poor but fast-breeding democracy until Franco came in with his Moors and Germans and Italians.

Yes, but you think Leninism/Stalinism was good for the Russians, so of course you think a dose of it would have been better for the Spanish than preserving the nation. Of course, had your side won the Civil War Hitler would have been able to take the country and control the Mediterranean and the Jews Franco saved would have been murdered. The Spanish would have had the worst of all worlds.