Someone from the Canadian federal Tories called me the other day to find
out whether or not I supported P.M. Harper and the Tories.
I told them I leaned towards conservatism, but said that her party was
not living up to that position and that, among other things, because of
the Tory lies and about-face concerning taxation of Income Trusts I
could not support them, as her party had cost me many dollars of my
retirement investments despite the fact that leaving Income Trusts
untouched would not have deprived the government of tax revenues they so
desperately wanted.
As I talked to the phone minion I got angrier and angrier, ultimately
saying that politicians were scumbags, liars and scoundrels and that I
could not support any of them. The minion could not hang up the phone
fast enough to get away from my rising level of vitriol.
Why has the gulf between politicians, political parties, and many
Canadians who are not party toadies, or left-wing ideologues, become so
wide?
I confess that I come from a politically active and involved family, but
have swung around to despising politicians of all parties and stripes.
Perhaps aging has something to do with it - there is some benefit to
having gained lots of experience - but that is not the real answer.
Many of my past colleagues and friends on the left of the political
spectrum have retained their collectivist and business-hating attitudes,
and are firm supporters of NDP or left-Liberal politics, despite their
advancing ages. So, wisdom does not necessarily come with age.
Nevertheless, union bureaucrats, union members, academics, students,
career politicians and others who have never had to build anything, or
to take entrepreneurial initiative or to risk both their assets and
their personal efforts in economic endeavours, are always quick with
advice to, directions for, criticisms of or outright condemnation of
those who do. Union bureaucrats, once lodged in their positions,
organize everything in order to perpetuate the security of their
positions; union members seek security from being fired for laziness and
incompetence and higher and higher pay for less and less work; academics
demand and get high pay and tenure, so as to protect their cushy places
in the ivory tower; career politicians vote themselves higher and higher
pay, outrageous early retirement pensions, and other perks too numerous
to detail; and students, with nothing to risk and nothing to give,
demand more and more.
Many parents in our society have become managers and directors of their
childrens' lives, including their play, to such a degree that children
have less and less experience of making decisions on their own. This is
combined with demands on the education system for feel good curricula;
teaching self-esteem without teaching self-reliance or responsibility;
the validation of "everyone's" opinions without teaching real values,
resulting in moral relativism and no values; with every child being a
success and none being a failure; and resulting in fewer and fewer being
truly educated.
Is it any wonder that many young adults enter the work-force
ill-equipped for work, for relations with fellow workers and their
employers or bosses, and demand wages, benefits, recognition and
positions they have not earned nor are capable of earning?
Who is responsible for this state of affairs? Certainly parents must
bear much of the blame. But, they have also been misled and misinformed
by the hordes of government bureaucrats, academics, self-proclaimed
experts and "activists" and politicians who have laid the ground-work
for our failing educational system and our grossly over-regulated
society. In this their ever-vigilant co-conspirators have been the
so-called "news" media, the journalists and editorialists, who carry the
message through sensationalism, misinformation and half-truths.
It is often these same people who clamour for a collective solution,
such as more and bigger government, more regulation, more intervention,
permitting less and less individual responsibility for our own lives.
The world over, every experiment with collectivist government has led to
economic failure, even stagnation and disaster. Government intervention
in our daily lives has often led to a reduction of freedom and our
ability to manage our own lives, despite the fact that some government
programs, such as health care, and many government activities, such as
the building and maintenance of infrastructure, are of benefit to most
people, despite gross failings and much waste. Where governments and
their advocates go wrong is in adopting the idea that every last little
human activity must be regulated and that government agencies can take
the place of market capitalism as the engine of growth and economic
progress. The rigidities of bureaucratic thinking and the inevitably
corrupt nature of political power and decision-making can only stifle
economic progress. This is the experience all over the world.
But, are these failings the only ones? Unfortunately, big government
and regulation, often tramples individuals into the dust. In the old
Soviet Union, voicing criticisms of government often led to psychiatric
imprisonment and involuntary chemical and electrical shock "therapy" for
critics, who "must have been insane" to challenge "government by the
masses". Today, in Germany, as in some other so-called democracies,
"slandering" the state is a criminal offense. In Canada, speaking out
concerning the dangers presented by some extreme forms of fundamentalist
religious behaviour is prosecuted by Human Rights Commissions as
"hate"-mongering and racism. Some Canadian cities have created a bylaw
offense of bullying: - "objectionable or inappropriate comment, conduct
or display by anyone which is "likely to intimidate, humiliate, ridicule
or isolate a person or is likely to cause that person physical or
emotional distress" - that is so comprehensive that it proscribes any
statements that might be critical of anyone.
These examples merely scratch the surface.
I am sure you know that Muslim fundamentalist extremists have murdered
people for making publicly critical statements about some Muslim
attitudes, statements and behaviour. No Canadian government or agency
has taken such extreme action, but in the context of a modern state
which trumpets its democratic traditions and freedom of speech protected
by a Charter of Rights, such government actions as outlined above are in
the same ball park.
Who is it that supports such undemocratic agencies, such failed
policies, such interventions, such excesses, such fanciful notions? It
is those same government and union bureaucrats, union members,
academics, students, career politicians and others of similar nature.
And to tie it all together: the Ottawa Tory regime has been rushing
pell-mell to curry favour with a misinformed public and a venal media
horde by adopting some of these same failed policies.
Labels: politics
