| As you know, I read Howard Adelman. He is NOT an ‘expert’ on anything. He seems to be an expert on just about everything. Smartest person I know. He writes a lot on Middle East politics – especially about Israel, Iran and that sort of thing. He does a lot with the Hebrew Bible and the Torah, too. And he occasionally dabbles in politics….. He wrote a much longer piece on Trump’s followers which I have distilled into THIS: HOWARD: ‘Polling’ of Trumplican Believers has found that about 80 percent of the president’s voters are willing to believe that the election was rigged against him. They will believe anything he says even when the proven lies keep getting repeated, reinvented and the goal posts are changing daily. 71% of Republicans and 79% of Trump voters want Trump to run again. How does any of that make sense? It cannot be because of the lack of correct and official information. But, but, but….there ARE reasons why people believe lies. First, you must have one key ingredient, an authority figure/spokesperson who holds high office/status/influence/celebrity. They become the latest new idol. Who better than a golden, fatted, celebrity with money, babes and unusual charisma to spark a faith-based movement? Second, the believer has to be immune to irony and satire. They do not look beyond the image. Trumplican believers see and hear the first ‘believe-in-me’ message from their shiny, orange leader/idol claiming their holiness and then the followers take the second message – usually a total lie – not as false or ironic, but rather as a token of reinforcement for the leader – not as fact/information per se. Take it or leave it but do you believe in me? The lies about the Inauguration audience set the tone. The more outrageous the lie, the better. Why? Because the liar is selling the audience on him/her, their personality, their charisma, their ‘outrageousness’. “Believe in me or leave the tent!” The third requirement: a plausible mechanism to blame on any resistance – in the case of the alleged elections theft – lost ballots and faulty voting machines. On a more general basis, the media, the FBI, the Libtards and the Dems. The more ‘enemies’ identified, the better to cement your followers. “What unites us is our anger and hatred of the others!” There is a fourth important element to it all as well – the confidence/certainty/endless repetition of lies. It’s brainwashing, pure and simple. Lies stated with authority spread faster and stick harder. Even when proven false, it just becomes an issue of ‘keeping the faith’. Believe! Believe! Believe! It is no wonder Evangelicals flocked to Trump – he appeals to their faith-based follower instincts. Of course, fifth, there is an underlying self-serving purpose for the grifter/con-man, whether for or on behalf of the Republican congressmen, Trump cronies, Guiliani/Flynn/et al and, naturally, with Trump himself who is reaping in a fortune by promulgating the lie which keeps on giving. They all have their selfish motives. Sixth, we, the better-educated, are also at fault for dismissing such believers and we alienate them when we try to educate them. When we mix mockery with correcting the misinformation, we make it more difficult to be heard/believed especially when the lesser-informed are offered simpler, basic, alternative answers that are more easily and readily understood. Seven, there is serendipity. Luck played a role in Trump winning 2016 (he did NOT win the popular vote) and in his losing in 2020. He rolled 7’s to get in (2016). Covid came up snake eyes for him in 2020. Eight, again who else benefits from all the lies besides the primary liars? Who else is served who ‘goes with the flow’? Lawyers, newscasters, experts, intellectuals, mandarins, all live in a well-paid, rarefied world where expertise, where science, where knowledge, where skilled analysis, are all ‘news’ kings in the information age. They sell themselves into that world, too. They did OK even while the hoi polloi suffered. Trump boosted the NY Times, Washington Post’s and CNN’s revenues just to name a few. Carnage, chaos, mayhem, spectacle will do that for the careers of ‘experts’, talking heads and publishers as well as the crooks and the conmen. Plus there is the division created by the con and the media to help drive the wedge between those worlds all that much deeper. The majority of people do not benefit from that more privileged world so the division has been there for a long time. The majority are not so privileged in the new information age. They were really just hoping for new and different. They are the marginalized, the rejected, the dejected and the deplorables. They are, thus, much more susceptible to the con/grifter when the con artist uses the media to connect with the wanna-be-believers whose faith in the ‘establishment’ is already mortally wounded. Nine, and what if those elitist, privileged, self-identified defenders of truth are actively and obviously working against your new idol? When such an apparent battle/contradiction prevails, mutual and national trust/cooperation/unity is not easily recaptured but loyalty and faith are highly valued for ‘your team’. In the USA branding is perceived as a business having value. Trump himself has proved that. Ten, there is premise called the principle of falsifiability. It states: that something can only be claimed to be true if there is a way of disproving it. 100% conviction is not truth. A conclusion following a skeptical examination could/might be. With the epistemological odds loaded against the defenders of the principle of falsification, the following assertions of fact, that can be (and are) easily falsified are simply ignored or drowned in a river of lies. I doubt that I did Howard justice but there it is. Do I believe what he says? Yep. Mostly. If I have a problem with the article is that it is, essentially, a ‘hindsight’ opinion, a post-mortem almost. Do I really care what elements were engaged to create an Orange tyrant, a political Charlie Manson, a Bubba-oriented Jim Jones? Answer: not really. These celebrity ‘phenoms’ come along all the time. Most are harmless. Actors, rock stars…. Having said that, maybe if we understood the phenomena better, we could kill it off before it takes it’s second breath. |
Our Off the Grid Home
The life, times and opinions of a reformed urbanite now gone feral.
Our Off the Grid Home 
I mostly agree with Howard. The exercise of authority requires the consent of the governed. When the populist with draws consent then leaders sometimes resort to coercion to enforce their well.
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Sounds reasonable.
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I also agree on what is said…just proves again what a dangerous world we live in. sooner or later another lunatic has the office and pushes the wrong button….But we also have to blame ourselves, it is we who created the world we live in and we elected the people in office now. I am still reading Andy Brennan’s book “Uncultivated”, a lot is coming back in that book, though on a different subject. Makes you think and makes you want to get out 😉
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I agree. We have to blame ourselves. ‘Why?’ Because we CAN do something to change bad trends and worse politicians. But how? There really is no ‘we’, as in a collective mind or even a cohesive, cooperative group. Countries are different, cultures are different, even regions in the same province are different. I think and do different than Bubba but even if Bubba and I were the same, what are we gonna do together? What can two, old, white men NOT connected to the ‘establishment’ and without huge wealth actually do? I concluded over 15 years ago that the answer was, disappointingly, nothing significant. I write my stuff. Bubba shoots his gun. The more depressed OD and die. No one cares. I also moved OTG. Bubba let his beard grow and takes more Oxycontin. More people are homeless and addicted. And no really cares or even notices. I suppose I could try lighting my hair on fire but that’s been done and proven futile way too many times. My point? Yes, we have the power to make change – but we do not have a uniting leader. For a come-to-Jesus movement to happen, we need a Jesus or a Moses. Instead, that vacuum was filled by Trump. And Trump was the anti-Christ.
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Basically there appears to be several types of power evident in Trump’s leadership style. . My half baked surmise sees Trump as a type of charismatic leader for some followers and by others as a coercive type using personal influence to bend others to his will . As President Trump has certain authorities embedded in the Presidential jurisdiction which he used at times to pursue personal goals. Trump is difficult to deal with because he has charismatic power, authority as president and personal influence plus a coercive litigious personality. ‘’Joe Average” as you point out has few resources to stand up to a Trump. In the past the power of individuals protesting has had political influence. Such protests may take several forms so keep writing.
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The scary version?
Most of those traits of Trumps followers could be used to describe the rise of…….Hitler……..
Blind faith….in a grifter.
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Yup and blind faith in an economic system that favours grifters.
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Therein lies the essence of it…..the system. It was designed to make-a-buck and nothing else. Darwin-esque, maybe, but inhuman, too. And that is the conflict….
The system rewards sociopaths, grifters, liars, celebrities and dismisses the Disney-esque values it espouses. THAT has to change. Either that or one has to run away to a remote island….
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What! And run up against the likes of Nygard and Epstein? No thanks. Give me a home like Read Island, a case of ammunition and, when I’m taken out, I’ll go; reluctantly I’ve got my three score and ten locked up……..
Although I’d like to use my ammo effectively before I was taken out.
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Dave’s milita…..you are hereby mustered in…..Capt. Cauliflower. Hmmmmmmm……mustard in……..?
“Capt! Your mission is to capture, procure and exploit the flanks…..any position will do just so long as you both get there. If missionary doesn’t get the objective, improvise….just do not tell us about it. If you are compromised, we will, of course, deny knowing you. Or would you prefer being busted to private?”
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In some countries the system is evolving beyond a form of social Darwinism towards a system that has social programmes providing social safety nets to assist the less able among us; Pensions, healthcare and various programmes.
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How are those pensions, healthcare and “various programmes” paid for?
Oh, right…..
Higher taxes.
CPP contributions increase Jan1st from $2968 per year to $3,154.
uppa uppa uppa go the taxes to pay for our socialist “nirvana”.
Trudeau has added $400 BILLION dollars to a national debt that is so deep in the red……it will never be paid.
Mexico pesos soon to = Canadian Loonies
The Liberal way.
Well at least the starving masses in that socialist “utopia” Venezuela dont have to worry about Jenny Craig diet plans.
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Many types of pensions are not financed by the government. Not clear if you agree with universal healthcare? Do you fly, drive, take transit or take a crap so who pays for this infrastructure? It is far from user pay. Society is the result of a social contract that is partly paid for in tax revenue. So why all this venting about paying for a society that benefits you?
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Normally, I would agree. I am a pinko-bleeding heart mostly but a fiscal conservative who is critical of every dollar spent by government (mostly). Buying TransMountain, for example. Or buying submarines that sink but don’t float and helicopters that drop from the sky like granite. Gawd! They do a miserable job at public spending. But the $400B would have happened with any government. Covid made them do it. Admittedly, Trudeau would have wasted money anyway but not at that rate. That’s a pandemic talking. Was the $400B well spent? I do not know. I doubt it. But they needed band-aids and they needed a lot of ’em. Still do.
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WE as individuals should become more critical, like in NOT just believing and buying what the system is telling us. Social and other media make us believe that evrything has to be perfect, shiny, beautiful, preferably these days also organic, farm based, bio and so on. But big multinationals just spend millions of dollars on propaganda, making us believe that the beautiful things we see are real, so we all do our damn best to live up to the expectation, so we all (most of us), buy the perfect food, make sure we still look perfect at 60 (even the cauliflowers), drive a nice car, live in a perfect house in a perfect neighboorhood, we buy even what the big bucks and politicians are selling us as being “the truth”, we have stopped being critical, checking facts and accepting less perfect as being OK. But you guys and girls who went OTG, you at least accepted thet NOT evrything needs to be nice and perfect, so you are at least a few steps ahead of us. On the other hand, I think you partially gave up on being critical, because you are OTG . I see more young people being critical (like we were in our younger days), 30 years ago I also believe that I had the power to change the world….but after smacking into a wall once too many, I stopped being naieve (I am still a bit, deep down). So I’ll keep trying to being the small drop on the hot plate from time to time in my own little world
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I kind of agree….we SHOULD all speak up more for society as a whole (like Sid does) but, even if society worked better, it would NOT be to my liking. I hate conformity, schedules, calendars, meetings, groups, line-ups and the list of social conventions like those just goes on and on and on. I have lived in more cohesive societies and don’t like ’em. Germany. Hong Kong. Japan. Everything orderly, everything clean, everything efficient but, somehow…I dunno….’stultifying?’
It is also true that I have kinda opted out a bit by retreating OTG. But, but, but….smashing into walls, NOT making a big-enough difference and generally getting tired of it all would make most septuagenarians at least a bit reluctant to take up the lance again and tilt at more windmills. The Crusades – been there, done that. Plus I have come to the conclusion that making necessary changes in my own life is also important and, as a bonus, more immediately rewarding. Fixing an engine, repairing a broken high-line, helping locals, even cooking a new recipe with Sal just makes more sense now than it ever did and railing against the machine makes less. That’s why I say, “Get out. Get out NOW!!!”
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I’m reminded of a group of people at the edge of fog shrouded sea. They boarded a boat and set off into the unknown future. Each had a personal goal: some sought bliss, some sought solitude, others liberty and perhaps a few sought enlightenment. Their object was some distant place where each one’s nature might be realized. This voyage of discovery lasted years but finally the mists clear the fog lifted and it’s, “Land Ho!” Joy and delirium filled them, “At last journey’s end.” Their senses refreshed and they got their bearings and they realized that they are back on the beach they left long ago.
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My dear friend no one is asking you to conform. If you did that you would not be you. But would you consider dispensing with argumentation by ‘’glittering generalities?’ Such tropes usually begin with absolutes without exceptions such as ‘all, none, no.
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One thing they can’t take away is your sense of humor! Mustered in …….Cauliflower, Captain. I like it!
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I have heard that philosophy ..and variations on it…find your true self inside, grasshopper. A pleasant and colourful old trope. But I do not accept it. I DO accept that one takes a lot of personal baggage and personal demons wherever one goes but adventure and new discoveries are the REAL stuff of life-learning and sometimes the baggage and demons are jettisoned through new experience. It is much easier to get a new ‘attitude and mindset’ in a different place doing different things. Put another way: expecting things to be different by doing everything the same way all the time doesn’t work.
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Yes you are accurate it is one of the constructs of Buddhism. Some Buddhists surmise that one’s discontents lie within oneself as do one’s contentments. The amount of writing on this topic is broad and profound. Some seek their bliss in various forms but the feeling of satisfaction lies within oneself.
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I agree partially with this, but can one truly be content if the surroundings or the city he/she lives in is constantly bombarding you with all the things you don’t like? Seems impossible to me, unless you become completely self-centered and isolated. I guess that’s why a lot of Buddhists take refuge in secluded area’s I think
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Some suggest that contentment is not a destination or a place but contentment resides within us. Contentment may grow and fall with the rhythms of one’s thoughts towards one’s life. Highs and lows emerge over the passage of time. Momentous events and the deeply mundane…fall singly or collectively sometimes indifferently or portentously but each person attaches a meaning not always evident to others. Each person devises one’s narrative of one’s reality. We shape our contents and discontents personally.
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That may be a bit closer to the bone for me. I have difficulty ‘shaping’ my narrative if it is the same as the day, week, month, year before. My attitude is shaped by ‘different’ because different means learning. I have shaped my attitude to be happy when learning and unhappy when bored. But, to be fair, I am rather easily bored. And I have also found that NATURE with it’s attendant wildlife is NEVER boring! A huge part of my attitude to life was altered just BEING more in nature. It’s therapeutic and uplifting for me.
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I think many find solace in nature and enjoy its blissful exhilaration. Some poets write about nature as a tonic, a balm to sooth. Human beings might to ‘hard wired’ to experience more of ours senses while in nature. Standing on a promontory looking our over a vista all around. I understand clearly your connection with nature. Many feel its pull.
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“Many types of pensions are not financed by the government. ”
++++
EVERY public pension is funded by the taxpayer.
Or
Privately funded pensions like mine that the tax man will be coming for to pay for that political dilettante Trudeau and his “finance ” minister Freeland who couldnt balance a budget if they tried.
Speaking of budgets, Trudeau hasnt tabled a budget since March of 2019….getting to almost two years now….. even Brexit Britian passed a budget in 2020….whats Trudeau been doing at the “cottage” playing PS5?
That several hundred page tome of politically correct, gender equality loaded “State of the Economy” drivel Freeland proudly announced in November was “enlightening wasnt it?
It was quite a self promoting pile of manure full of socialist promises and zero specifics on how it will be paid for……….
“We will build in the spring and watch the economy grow”.
That plagiarized line was straight from the 1980 movie “Being There” starring Peter Sellers as a simpleton gardener who is eventually pushed by rich elites towards running for President.
The irony didnt escape me.
Oh well.
Trudeau’s fanciful dabbling of $400 billion taxpayer dollars IN ONE YEAR with his socialist, feminist ( Freelands words), non binary, equality for all ( except hetero men apparently) agenda is going to be alllllll his.
He USED the covid crisis to promote some crazy sophmoronic university theory and has dragged an entire country’s economy down with him.
No debate in Parliament, ……nothing.
Criminal
Oh and did I mention he was going to give his pals at WE “charity” $960,000,000 to hand out?
Until he got caught?
Criminal.
Trudeau isnt a saint. Far from it.
I fully expect ( as are a great many worried economists) that this recession will be deep, long and brutal…..a repeat of the great depression. With federal, provincial and municipal levels of govt staring at empty cupboards?
Guess where they’re going for MORE money?
Taxes, user fees, cuts to the beloved health care to pay for day care?
A brutally long recession eventually ending with a world war with China?
Well, I guess at least most people will finally learn gender equality doesnt matter to a bullet or a bayonet.
But I digress
Hopefully Trudeau will still be Prime Minister long enough to wear the outrage of the voters disgusted with his self aggrandizing, smug pseudo socialism wrapped in unaffordable cash handouts and the inevitable higher taxes.
Nothing is ever “free”.
His party will be banished to the nether regions of political obscurity for at least a decade or two as ‘Lyin'” Brian Mulroney’s Conservatives were when voters were fed up with his lies and corruption.
That is if Freeland or someone else in his party doesnt read the tea leaves and knife him in the back to save the party from a resounding defeat.
But.
Cry not for Trudeau, he has his grandfather and daddy’s inheritance to fall back on if things get really tough and his Pal Bill Morneau can put him up in that grubby mansion in the south of France for a few years to avoid the smelly proletariat back in Canada.
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Your world view might be a touch myopic but that might be the intention of your rant to be ironic. You forgot to mention the Canadian companies that got economic COVID-19 support and used it to pay dividends to its stockholders. Take the money and run grifters. Company employees laId off while stockholders go paid. Tough titty eh!
Or the provincial Premiers who took COVID-19 funding to fight the virus and used it to reduce existing before the pandemic deficits. You know these austerity hawks who take federal money with one hand and use the other to beat the government for deficit spending. This bad faith move by some provinces is seen by some as hypocritical and opportunistic. You might know that these Premiers continue to cry for more Federal money.
You might want to reconsider the use of the words “No debate in Parliament”! Most Canadians know but not all that the COVID 19 support bills were debated and voted into legislation unanimously! In your world this was without debate! Alternate realities and groundless opinions you are welcome to them but please do not make stuff up.
You might have noticed that the Canadian dollar is gaining in strength and the TSX is doing well. To you does the Canadian economy look like the economy of a failed state? ‘Canadian dollars will hyperbolically become on a par with the Mexican Pesos?’
I concede to you the major premise of your assertions which is that you are entitled to your opinion. Granted. But do you extend the same entitlement of ‘his opinion’ to Trump as he denies reality of his election loss. Or the opinion expressed in Parliament that Canada was at the end of the line for vaccines and would not get them them till 2030! Pure balderdash and claptrap.
You appear to perhaps possibly might conflate the Prime Minister to be in your opinion the leader of Canada. Okay this is a meme of yours to dis the PM. Why? The leader of Canada is not the Prime Minister. This is true in fact currently and in the also in the past. The Prime Minister is not the leader of Canada! Who leads Canada? All Canadians do with their values and beliefs and observances. Even the scofflaws, the tax cheats, the amnesiacs, the protesters, CERB cheaters the bullies, the Bart Simpson types and the cool-aide drinkers all build Canada’s leadership profile. Leadership in Canada is a collective responsibility and no one can deke out, ghost themselves or fail to take a moment to reflect upon our national work in progress and the necessity of our collective leadership. I hear the comments ‘not good enough’, ‘never enough’, not soon enough, too soon… all demonstrating…what? Perhaps a deficit in…! Perspective.
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Debate in Parliament ?
When did this happen?
Trudeau and all the MP’s scurried away as soon as possible back in March and then the $90 BILLION dollar CERB fandango was announced.
He was at the Cottage holding pressers on a daily basis and every time he opened his mouth it was another billion here another billion there.
And you drag that idiot Trump and his whining into it?
Lets stick with Canada and its massive, increasing debt and the idiots that continue to burn through billions at a horrifying, economy( and country) destroying rate.
Be that as it may.
Lets discuss how 400 BILLION dollars of MORE DEBT in one year is going to “fix” things.
Its kept the mobs with pitchforks and torches from storming Ottawa looking for heads.
They havent created anything with this money, just delayed the recession.
The nation debt $900 Billion( thanks to Trudeau’s 400 THIS YEAR) and climbing and the absolute lunacy of the Provincial and municipal debts have us circling the bowl at almost 2 trillion dollars of combined debt..
We….the ….sheeple will have to pay back.
Trudeau’s philosophy is the govt can just keep printing money…..
Until the foreign lenders say ….nope.
I noticed you criticize my rant yet ignore the tax implications.
Taxes are going up ( The new carbon tax increase from $30/ tonne to $170 over the next 10 years is but the start).
National Daycare? Pharma Care? Housing? Billions for indigenous programs? Billions more to “go green”.
And all you socialists think this money is magically going to appear for free?
Or the “big bad rich corporations ” can pay for it?
Newsflash.
Those companies will leave and take the jobs with them.
Blame Trudeau not the companies that have to answer to shareholders( insert govt employee pension plans here)
Talk about cutting your nose off to spite your face.
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Well, well…..it seems like now would be a good time to throw up another blog. Maybe keep it to ravens and squirrels for a bit?
As for the above ‘debate’, I find points of agreement on both sides. NO, I am NOT chickening out! I just see that NonCon is right with the accusation of ‘spendthrift’ for Trudeau and his government. Sid is right in that corporations seem to get a disproportionate amount every single time. But to my mind, it is NOT the right vs the socialist, it is rather mismanagement at all levels that irritates me. These people seem to have no long-term view, no real plan, no expertise at running things. I won’t rant but there is so much waste that whether it is spent in a Conservative or Socialist way is almost irrelevant. Sadly, making government smaller is NOT an option. Too many would have the other half drown. Still, giving free money away is NOT the answer because nothing is ever free.
On a side note, the world’s currencies are either way more volatile than ever before or else there is a ‘hint’ that they are all out of control. I am convinced the US currency is ‘out of control’. The crooks have managed to invent new ‘money’ all over the place (M1/M2/M3 etc.) as well as having precious metals and cryptocurrencies in the mix. The US admitted some time ago they had no idea how many US dollars were actually ‘out there’ in circulation and, with Quantitative Easing that just got way, way worse. The world’s economic engines are not in sync, not working together and not accurately reflecting the REAL economies.
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By the way my comment about mixed metaphors is for the edification of Noncom, It is not directed at you Dave. Not to you Dave. My position is not Socialist. Let’s dispense with labels of left, right or centre. These linear conventions are useless but are media terms to sooth the moribund. Think of this Stalin was a totalitarian leader and Hitler was a totalitarian leader. Totalitarian is neither left nor right. Furthermore not all Capitalism is run by grifters. This left, right, centre paradigm if applied distorts discussion. Capitalism is good to a degree but can create inequality. As are collective enterprises such universal healthcare, policing, firefighting, schooling thought by some to be Communist. So confusion reigns and thoughts are pigeonholed into left, right, centre thus mask use becomes an ideological issue. This left, right, centre political paradigm in my estimation, constrains reasoned and thoughtful discussion. So the nation is on the equivalent of a war time footing and the old slogans, the old tropes are trotted out. Deficits are bad, so if not a deficit now? When millions world wide are dead and dying? Come on people!
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You might want to dispense with mixing your metaphors it is unbecoming of a rational discussion. You talk about keeping the Americans out of this then you garble the beginning of the American Constitution with “…We the sheeple…” ha my wit faints. Stop, stop no more puns! The American Constitution does say in order to form a “More perfect union…” details, details eh!
As I said before you are entitled to your opinions. But consider this assertion, it is estimated that about 70% of the Canadian economy is driven by the service sector including retail of all types including food sales. Food for children, the elderly and others in the population purchased with CERB, the wage subsidy, OAP, CPP “ but …They have not created anything…” say you dismissively of programmes that have keep ‘’the wolf from the door.” You must be aware of the social Darwinism of the past with starving children doing their penance. I’m sure you are aware of the words,”Are there no workhouses, are there no prisons.” An exaggeration granted and an example from the Victorian era is a given but Canadian social programmes do produce something called “Human Capital.” Educating and feeding the youth of this country is vital. Are you suggesting that in the time of a PANDEMIC these programmes go unsupported by government spending? No of course not you must believe in keeping such programmes but what would you cut to keep them? Twelve thousand Health Care workers like Kenny cut in Alberta?
Not sure what you know about MMT(Modern Monetary Theory) personally I know nothing, but governments, as you are aware have many monetary instruments at hand. No disrespect intended but the Canadian economy is more complex than balancing household accounts. Canada has the capacity for spending beyond its tax revenues. Canada has assets as you know of various kinds including real estate holdings, mines, forests fisheries, also it is owed debts(Canada loans money) you know it has receivables, and most importantly it has a vast source of human capital. Given the wealth of Canada a 400 billion deficit is figuratively “A drop in a piss pot.” But a collapses of the social fabric of Canada would be far more devastating than ‘Oh, oh look and see Canada spend too much Canada very, very bad.
It would be unkind to extend this metaphor much further. To be clear deficits are good but must be reasonable (your point expressed hyperbolically) and so far the piss pot is not full. I wish you well, Seasons Greeting and if you are obsessing then stop it!
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So once again, you dance on the head of a pin and avoid discussing the tax ramifications of our “leader” spending 9 times in ONE YEAR what the worst conservative Prime Minister ever spent ( Harper $50 billion deficit on the bank crash of 2008-09).
If you really really believe that Trudeau’s cash give away of $400 billion in one year is nothing….. and wont have long term ramifications to this country.
Ther is no point of discussing this.
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It is not a cash give away. Before the cameras all parties are wisely supporting these measures they voted unanimously to support in Parliament. There is no head of a pin dancing here. You do not currently pay taxes equivalent to the value of the services you receive as a Canadian. All Canadians get hundreds of thousands of dollars in citizen benefits bestowed upon them by virtue of being Canadians. Elsewhere I suggested to you that Canada is not insolvent but you insist the taxpayer is on the hook for this PANDEMIC spending.Not so! No more than you are on the hook for the cost of services you get as a citizen. My brother recently earned a Red Seal. He worked his ass off, he paid tuition and completed his apprenticeship but he did not pay the true cost of his Red Seal. Some Canadian citizens pay more while others pay less in taxes. The average cost of a homeless person in services is more than I pay each year in taxes. But it is worth noting that Canada’s debt does not rest only on the tax payer but upon all sources of wealth held by Canada. At one time the BC government embarked upon a privatization spree to get rid of a tiny little deficit. They sold the BC owned gas utility not too smart. Once a revenue producing asset is sold there is are hmore trips to the well.
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No more trips the well!
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“Website crashes as BC Recovery Benefit opens for applications”
+++++
And with all the social programs and free this and free that…..we wonder why our Federal, Provincial and Municipal govts are raising taxes , user fees , etc
All while cutting services……
We’re broke and no amount of “Hocus Pocus” with the budget numbers will change the fact that you cant spend more than you have forever and you cant keep printing money forever.
Sooner or later the bills will be collected.
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The well can be drained in different ways than just debt and it is. For thirty plus years we have NOT invested in infrastructure. Longer, actually. Since the 60’s, I think. To me, that is the debt that will be crushing us. Jeez, think about it, we have one TransCan highway in much the same condition as a country road in Tennessee and we are driving an old car with a 500,000kms on it. AND we have debt. We were in financial trouble before Covid. Basically, we are poor white trash country. .
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Most people have huge debt.
I have a lot of money saved for retirement and no debt…..so when I hear the social justice warriors prattle on about how “the rich should pay their fair share” it make my blood boil.
I will pay close to 50k in income tax this year on top of all the other sales, enviro, business, whatever…… taxes I pay.
I dont have problem when the govt money is well spent but that seems to be less and less often these days.
WE Charity, SNC Lavalin corruption trial, Jody Wilson Raybould turfed because she wouldnt back off SNC.
The Liberals are the same lying , conniving scum as the Cons.
Only they blew $400 billion in one year to get there.
Impressive gall , if it wasnt such an economic disaster.
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A bit extreme but if you want to be white trash then so be it. This is like the old joke, “Call me a taxi” “Okay you are a taxi!” I realize that the improvements to the Trans-Canada highway have been poorly communicated but the present iteration of the Socreds have been doing paved road politics as usual. New bridges all over BC and wider highways too. Do not worry a bridge will be coming soon to your idle.
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My taxes over the last 40 years have paid a far far larger portion of each and every bridge, road, hospital, etc than the CERBian sloths and dreck that quit their jobs and stood with their hands out to suck on the govt teat this past year to the tune of 89 BILLION dollars.
I’m sure the tattoo parlors and pot dispensary’s did a booming business…… 🙂
I just cant wait for the backlash when all these lotus eaters decide they “deserve” more than the Trudeau govt can possibly give…….
Oh right.
Trudeau will blame the “rich” aka….anyone still working…….
Pathetic.
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Good news Noncom with all these satanic social programmes you will be able quit work and figure out how to get by on two grand a month. Be careful not to spill some of that gravy off your gravy train. You will be in clover. You will live the life of Riley. Ain’t this a great country! Damn straight it is!
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How many tattoos and pot can you buy for 2 grand a month?
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Or apply for the BC Recovery Benefit and get perhaps a one time tax rebate ah I mean benefit of up to one thousand dollars. My God this is one beauty of a country! She’s golden eh.
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ahahahaha.
Dats fer sure buddy.
BC has turned into Newfie-land with all them fancy named govt cash give aways…… and the Strathcona Park is still fulla homeless by the jayzus!
Wats up with dat?
We should be buildin free homes fer dem.
Its only money.
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Of course that will happen homes for the homeless.
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Quite an exchange 44 comments,
Sid since you seem most informed I want to ask you what your view is on an often used
Expression that I do not fully comprehend.
So pundits repeat endlessly that 1 in 5 children live below the poverty line, presuming many or most of these children have parents, my thot is that those parents must be living under the poverty line also.
Those parents lives are slipping away in poverty, why is the significance of that seemingly not an important recognition along with the “ 1 in 5 children live under the poverty line’
Would appreciate your thots and any others who might straighten it out for me.
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How to measure child poverty? Good question! One child in five is estimated to live in poverty or 20% in poverty but as a national average this estimate is probably too high but estimates vary widely.
But in some places child poverty is higher than 20%. It might be about eight percent on a national average but this poverty number does vary widely. What are the variables according to some reputed experts see the Fraser Institute or Statistics Canada or First Nations. Some factors might be the ethnicity of the child, the place of residence urban or rural, citizen status ie refugee, or…, marital status of the mother single or…, age of the mother, with or without a supportive family, the list of possible predictors or indicators is long. This issue highlights the problem with offering an opinion that can be applied in all cases. One in five Canadian children live in poverty…yes, no or maybe…poverty incidences of children in poverty are circumstantial, situational according to the point of view used or the perspective used. We hear about the ‘sixties scoop’ where alleged wrong headed decisions were made about First Nations children by non-indigenous people who surmised these children were in living in poverty. But according to whom by what criterion was this judgement made? This is an active debate.
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so….the short version…..you dont know either.
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Nonconfidence,,,great rejoinder, I laffed and told the story to my most pragmatic squeeze,
Her take is that the issue is headlined this way to kindle sympathy and that everyone knows the whole family is in poverty.
As cynical as I am it just did not occur to me that it is that simple and “everybody knows”
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Yes the semantic trap is please explain how an estimated average in an entire population applies to every specific community in that population. Short answer is it does not apply because averages are averages. In your community what is the percentage of childhood poverty?
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Maybe that question was not aimed at me but it is still kind of illustrative if I answer. I would opine that every kid in the local school would qualify as living in poverty. That would be 12 kids out of 12. Why? Because people out here are not as engaged in the ‘money-based’ society that most everyone else is. Average income out here maybe….$40K per household? ……and I know of several with less than half that. But the younger parents (with kids in school) earn more towards a lower amount. We maybe have half a dozen ‘rich folks’ but none have children in school. We have lots of old folks living ‘poorly’ but with no debt, great gardens, lots of land and a comfy cabin. Cars and boats are old but they have the skills to keep ’em going. They may be poor but they feel rich. They are sure as hell richer in my books.
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Yup You are correct! Note to self not to pull an opinion out of thin air and defend said of opinion to the death.
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Like you I’m deeply grateful to live in a great country like Canada and as you do pay more taxes than most. Taxpaying is my honor and privilege. I understand how some people are criticized by others who are disapproving of choices such as having a tattoo or smoking pot for personal reasons. I know that the prehistoric man found frozen in a glacier in the Alps had tattoos and carried medicine in a pouch. We all have different sources of comfort.
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No matter the metric child poverty requires more than sympathy it requires compassionate actionOf course
‘everyone knows’ child poverty involves a defective family unit of some form according to your ideology. If a child in poverty and is in a family unit then blame the family. The family that is failing to provide the necessities of life to the impoverished child must be blamed according to the philosophy of “personal responsibility”! Blame the parent with vices of various types, the teenaged mother, the battened mother, the mother that smokes dope and has tattoos, the single mother but for the impoverished child offer some sympathy to the one who had no choice to be neglected to be born. So you think it is a great rejoinder that Noncon makes, a witty little remark that mocks and dismisses childhood poverty and its pervasiveness. Good one let me laugh along with you yuck, yuck, yuck. I seem to recall that you also think there is no inequality. Well Merry Christmas to you and your family!
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I love it when someone comes to my defense. I often need that. All too often, actually. But this time it is my turn to defend Aldo. I think you misunderstood his comment (easy to do). Yes, he liked NonCons terse summary of the previous conversation but that is NOT an endorsement of the entire argument. Also Aldo was NOT dismissing child poverty, only his own mental acumen in figuring out what the term applied to.
I do not think that even the most ‘conservative’ amongst us dismisses child poverty or the situations that beget such tragedies. God knows I am a self-confessed pinko-socialist but I, too, have right-wingy inclinations. I really do not think that folks on welfare should smoke, drink or get tattoos, for instance. On the other hand, I think welfare is an inadequate stipend that only ensures a recipient remain a recipient. I should know. We were welfare-poor for most of my life at home. Then I got out and I have stories like this: ‘for the wont of a few hundred dollars, some guy was residing in an SRO in skidrow and HumRrsources would NOT consider providing that extra amount to get the guy out of town and back in the camp from which his long term bender plan was conceived. I gave him the money, bought the bus ticket and got his tools out of pawn. They would not. Three months later, he sent me a cheque for what was owed. He was back to work and not on welfare (altho another bender was likely in his future). That situation is more and more common. People slip onto the wrong side of ‘marginal’ and there they are stuck because is too much of a climb to get back out. Single mothers and the mentally incapable.
NonCon might place a bit too much blame/responsibility on every bum. Some are really trying hard NOT to be bums. If anyone work with ’em for awhile, you will conclude that. On the other hand, for some being a bum (plus what they can steal) is a way of life. Different people – different situations – different judgments. But they might all look very much the same…..
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Aldo needs no defence from you Dave however well intended. I value personal responsibility as much as you appear to do so. I understand that you came from a troubled background and were able to overcome many of the obstacles in your path but probably not all. Over the years I’ve enjoyed many of Aldo’s comments and at times I have responded seriously to his probing questions. His probing tends to have a subtext. For example it was not so much is the opinion or the extent or percentage of childhood poverty accurate but the subtext question is why is there child poverty at all? Why does child poverty exist it is implied because of the failure of the child’s family unit to act with “personal responsibility” and provide the necessities of life. This is a surmised by some. Therefore some blame the family.
Dave one of the guiding lights for your emergence from poverty was/is your intelligence. Back when I was a very shallow youth I more than once uncharitably thought that if I could break the poverty trap then why can’t many others do so too?
Onward soldiers of ‘personal responsibility’ hold your banners high. See my virtues; no tattoos, no drugs, a job and kept it, work hard, save money and so the virtue train is chugging down the track. Virtues are golden but success needs more than personal responsibility and a life filled with virtues. At this point I’m not going to pull a half formed opinion out of thin air and state if only this single teenage mother had kept her knees together, or not run away or if only…all this armchair philosophy is detached from the reality of each individuals circumstances.
No simple single cause can circumscribed child poverty. Child poverty is a burden carried by a child for his/her entire lifetime. It is offensive to suggest that those who have what appears to be a very glib idea about childhood and its long term consequences need defending. Child poverty is very complex and its effect can be life long. For all the little children let’s offer them more than sympathy.
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