Conservatives can’t separate church and state, even in their personal, basic, socio-political beliefs.

It’s a mindset.  A cruel, mean, destructive mindset based on the Judeo-Christian foundations of reward and punishment, heavy on the punishment.

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It carries the belief that people are born sinners, born flawed, and left to their own devices, will steal, lie, kill, rape, and…well…just tear society apart.

This leads to terrible laws and legislation that are counter-productive, causing a great deal of harm and division.

Let’s look at a few of the harper policies and proposed changes.

Tough on crime:  this involved severely punishing people after the fact and leaves little room for consideration of special circumstances.  A crime is a crime is a crime (unless the privileged few commit it, then it’s a mistake).  Little focus is placed on preventing crime through education, through research that helps us understand why people commit crimes, on rehabilitation, on community programs to stave off crime by giving young people hope, alternatives, ties and investments with their fellow citizens.  Tough on crime, for the far right, is punishment, period.  You break god’s laws, you go to hell.  

Social services:  the conservatives preach caring for the disadvantaged, but since people are assumed to be sinners, who will invariably engage in corruption and laziness unless they are threatened with punishment.  So harper’s bunch treats citizens (except his favoured few) as such – scum that need to be watched every minute, and shackled by laws that not only limit their chances at receiving assistance, but labels them, in the eyes of the public, as lazy fraudsters.  There is little doubt that this is the thinking behind the changes to EI and the home invasions that are now part of their audit system.

Military image and spending:  crush your enemy.  Show him how strong you are.  Always do it in the name of your god, because your god validates your actions.  So harper spouts values as he justifies acts of aggression on other countries; he re-positions the military as the arm of international justice; he promotes the image of our military as a powerful force that must never be questioned on it’s missions or actions (because they are all so moral); he builds that image with slogans, cool photos, and binds himself to the military like a high priest does to god and church.

These examples, of course, play on the far-right belief that punishment is deserved, and compassion is weak.  The CONs derive many benefits from this as this approach allows them to crush resistance, silence questions before they are uttered, cuts spending on social programs, gives great opportunity to corporations as they build prisons, military equipment, gut labour laws, abuse workers for their own profit, and hamper and starve citizens so much they have little strength or will left to fight back.

And this all helps the CONs, god’s chosen, to keep a hold on power as they retain support of the wealthy and take away citizens’ basic rights to demand fair treatment.