An Inconvenient Form Of Democracy

In all of my years, I don’t think I’ve heard or seen as much talk about democracy as I have over the past couple of years. Even my ancient history prof didn’t talk as much about it when he was droning on and on about the ancient Greeks and he was very good at droning on and on.

Everybody, well almost everybody, seems to have an opinion about democracy and those opinions, often including my own, are about how it’s being undermined. In Canada, the liberal media are positively beside themselves over how the Conservative government is a threat to democracy and people on social media are positively poetic (in a very loose definition of the term) in their outrage about it.

At its simplest, democracy is simply government by the people for the people and government is formed based on elections where the majority rules. This, of course, is agreeable to everyone until their particular candidate, political party or issue loses and then democracy becomes quite inconvenient.

At that point we start hearing phrases like “tyranny of the majority” and accusations of undermining the democratic process. When those fail to work out to well for those who have their underwear in a twist because their side lost the election, an allegation of political corruption or electoral fraud always seems to gather some momentum.

It is no secret, if you are a regular reader of this blog, that I have very little respect for the political process in general and politicians and their strategists in particular. I consider political parties to be the greatest threat to our democracy because they are not about governing; they’re about winning and holding power.

But, we the people are willing contributors to the erosion of our democracy because we the people don’t respect the democratic process any more than political parties and their Slick Willies working the phones in the war rooms out back. We the people prefer a convenient form of democracy; one that gives us what we want and screw everyone else.

Unfortunately, democracy is a messy business and it’s hard. It takes effort and, sad to say, more than just a little thought; more thought than many are willing to bring to the table. Consider these two examples.

In the United States, a recent poll clearly showed that more than 60% of Americans believe the United States is on the wrong track and it needs to change direction in order to recover. One would tend to believe that would be a pretty strong indictment against the current administration, whatever administration that might be.

You’d be wrong.

In fact, the latest electoral polls show the current administration leading in popular support and that would be a basis for criticism of the American system if it wasn’t for the fact that Canadians are even more confused.

The current Conservative government was elected with less than 45% public support and is routinely attacked in the media and online for being undemocratic and a threat to the fabric of Canada (whatever that might actually mean). This despite the fact that:

This government has piloted the country through the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression landing Canada at the top of the G7 in terms of economic stability and prosperity

Canada is ranked #2 in the world in terms of wellness, health and satisfaction according to   Deepak Chopra's  latest Gallop study

Of the ten cities in the world with the cleanest air, eight of them are in Canada

Despite allegations of electoral fraud, the only charges that have been laid for breaking the rules were laid against the opposition parties. The Conservative government has been charged with nothing.

Introduced a motion to recognized Quebec as a nation within a nation and not only restored the cuts to health care funding by the former Liberal government but has provided a long-term guarantee of annual payment increases.

A majority of Canadians are quite unhappy with their government nonetheless and continuously castigate it for its nefarious ways even though they are living in the most stable country in the world because of that government and there really aren’t any nefarious ways over which to be all that upset.

It is democracy, however, and we the people are entitled to voice our displeasure, no matter how irrational that displeasure may be. It appears that both Americans and Canadians never seem to have time to step back and actually consider the contradictory nature of what they want and what they say they want before they form their opinions or vote.

A majority of Americans don’t believe they have what they want or need but appear to be doggedly determined to on voting for more of it by supporting the administration that provided caused that dissatisfaction. Canadians, for the most part, have pretty much what they want and need but would like a different government anyway.

I believe this is what happens when thinking is replaced by feeling; when the ability to think critically, objectively or analytically is overruled by emotional knee-jerk reaction. Feeling is easy because it happens naturally. Thinking is hard because you actually have to make an effort.

Sometimes it's the result of focusing on a single issue without any understanding that in today's economy, all issues are inevitably linked at some point.

Americans like Barrack Obama. He’s charming most of the time, somewhat hip and cool, fairly intelligent, witty and he’s African-American. He’s stands as a symbol that their country has finally overcome the racial divide, at least politically and that anyone can, indeed, become president. The fact that he is an incompetent leader who has put America on a track with which a majority of Americans disagree is irrelevant to how the majority seem prepared to vote.

Canadians do not like Stephen Harper even though he is competent, focused, reasonably intelligent and efficient. He has provided solid leadership on most files anticipates events well and is consistent. But, and there is always a but, he isn’t very friendly, can be quite vicious in his attack on his political opponents, has the charisma of a tax auditor and his hair never blows in the wind. If Canada were a two party system, Mr. Harper would lose the next election despite his good governance and solid performance.

We don’t stop there, however, in our never ending search for convenient democracy. The definition of the democracy we want shifts from issue to issue.

We all claim to want our elected representatives to vote their conscience and that of their constituents rather than the party line but, as we saw recently with the vote in Canada on a motion to examine when life begins, that idea of democracy becomes quite inconvenient.

Rona Ambrose, the Minister for the Status of Women, voted her conscience. She voted in favour of the motion. This has outraged the Sisterhood who, even though the motion was soundly defeated, are calling for the minister’s head or at the very least, her resignation from cabinet. Winning the vote wasn’t good enough, the mere fact that Minister Ambrose voted in favour of something with which the Sisterhood disagreed is sufficient to toss the idea of democracy aside and gather the lynch mob together for a hanging.

It's pretty confused democratic activism that fights for the rights of women and then get's it's lingerie in a twist when one of them actually exercises that right and votes against how the Sisterhood thinks they should. The fact that the Sisterhood doesn't speak for all women, let alone all Canadians and that this is a democracy, is quite irrelevant to them. It is democracy at its most inconvenient so just grab the rope and find a tree.

Teachers’ unions in Canada and the United States have thrown their support, sometimes quite aggressively behind this this political party or that, in order to provide better education for the children through higher salaries and benefits to teachers. When the cupboard is bare and the existing government they supported introduces the concept of economic reality to them, teachers take to the streets and then throw their support to the next party only too willing to promise them a piece of the moon if they’re elected. What the government may have done in a broader sense is irrelevant. Teachers vote en mass against the government that is now undermining the classroom by freezing teachers' salaries or not providing them with the raises they want.

And that, Kids, is what we call convenient democracy. The idea of we the people agreeing on something by majority rule is only convenient when our team wins, or in the case of issues like ‘when life begins’ not even when our team wins. Then it isn’t enough that ‘our side’ won the day, there has to be repercussions against those who exercised their democratic right and voted against us.

Even children have a better understanding of democracy than we do but then, children aren’t as sophisticated as we are and they have too much integrity to understand the intricacies of the real world. For kids, it’s about forming a consensus, making a decision and getting on with playing; either that or simply throwing a hissy fit in order to get their own way.

And doesn’t that last bit sound like a lot of what the big folks do these days?

For grown up kids now, it’s about throwing a hissy fits when we lose the vote and then hammering away at every issue until the resolution is convenient for us. The problem, of course, is that when that happens it becomes quite inconvenient for someone else and so we start the silliness over again.

Perhaps one day we might learn that democracy is at its best when we recognize that it is not always convenient but that the decisions taken by the majority are necessary to move us forward as a nation. Until then, I’m afraid that for many of us, democracy will be little more than a hammer to try and force others to our way of thinking at worst and a parody of a results show for American Idol or X Factor at best complete with screaming fans, lots of television coverage but unfortunately without the charm of Simon Cowell.

© 2012 Maggie's Bear

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A President's Words. A President's Actions

"...true democracy – real freedom – is hard work.”

-President Obama

On September 11, 2012, violence directed against American diplomatic missions in Egypt and Libya erupted without warning or at least, that was the official position of the Obama administration. It is now clear that there was not only reason to anticipate something happening on the anniversary of 9/11 but there were warnings as much as 48 hours in advance.

Four Americans, including the American ambassador to Libya were killed; an unnecessary loss of life due to nothing more than careless indifference to the safety of diplomatic staff in this troubled region.

On September 11, there was no statement from the White House regarding the attacks and indeed, later in the evening while appearing on the David Letterman Show, the President was mute about what was happening in North Africa and the Middle East. Mitt Romney spoke out against this silence and was criticized by the administration and the mainstream media for politicizing the issue.

Politicizing the issue?

I think there has been a great deal of politicizing of this issue but it hasn’t come from Mitt Romney or his campaign.

On September 12, President Obama gave a short, terse statement denouncing the attacks and showing firm resolve at bringing those who had committed the attacks to justice. He reiterated that these were spontaneous, random attacks that had nothing to do with terrorism and took no questions. President Obama is very good at the delivery of wonderfully crafted statements but has been proven time and again that he isn’t very good at living up to his words.

Subsequently, violence erupted across the Muslim region with protests and demonstrations against the United States. There were even demonstrations in Australia and other democracies. The cause, the world was assured, was a fourteen minute video that ridiculed the prophet Mohammed and which offended Muslims. Even if that were true and it now appears that it is not, so what? There are millions of Muslims around the world who did not riot, protest or threaten the lives of Americans. They accept, like most civilized people, that freedom of speech includes the right to offend.

President Obama has devoted much of his response to the attacks to apologizing for and condemning those who offended Muslims but it was only in his speech to the United Nations that he ever made reference to all of the offense directed at other religions by others, including his own supporter Bill Maher.

In a democracy, freedom of speech means exactly that; the freedom to speak your mind and voice your opinion even if it offends others. The President felt it necessary to apologize rather than defend that basic American right until it became clear that Americans were outraged.

The video was a convenient excuse for both those who consider the United States an enemy and who are constantly looking for a reason to attack it, as well as, for the administration itself.

By blaming the video, the administration did not have to take responsibility for either its lax security arrangements or having ignored the advance warnings it received from governments in the region.  It didn’t have to acknowledge that it didn’t put any particular plan in place to increase security at is embassies in anticipation of potential threats at its missions in the Middle East and North Africa on the anniversary of 9/11.

Instead, the President and his administration blamed it all on a crudely produced video and characterized all of the violence as nothing more than a spontaneous event. Blaming others is something at which this administration has become quite accomplished.

Nothing is ever this administration’s fault. The economy is the fault of the previous government or the recession. The unconscionable increase in the budget deficit, indeed the lack of a budget in four years, is strictly the fault of Congress despite the fact that the President had a Democratic majority in the senate for two years. Neither the President, nor his supporters, gives any consideration as to whether or not the President had a responsibility to lead and build consensus rather than throw up his hands and simply point fingers at others.

The administration takes no responsibility for anything except what it perceives to be popular successes and then, they are only due to the courageous leadership of the President.

Since September 11^th, that courageous leadership has run television ads in Pakistan apologizing for the independently produced video, denied intelligence information to the house committee for national security that it had in its possession and has yet to send in the FBI to undertake an investigation into what happened in Benghazi. Indeed, so much time has passed since the attack that the FBI no longer sees the value in going to Benghazi as the ‘crime’ scene has been so tainted it will tell them virtually nothing.

So much for the firmly spoken commitment to find those responsible and bring them to justice.

Now, it appears that despite public pronouncements to the contrary, the administration knew within 24 hours that what happened was a planned, terrorist attack and it wasn’t the only one. Attacks took place in other places including America’s largest military base in Afghanistan. It was a coordinated effort by Al Qaeda and its supporters including the Taliban which the administration denied publicly until yesterday.

None of this information has been forthcoming from the President or the State Department but rather from media who are on the ground in the region, doing the job the administration should have ordered done two weeks ago. It is the media who for once are doing their job that forced the administration to admit the truth. I doubt the whole truth has yet emerged but clearly it will and this pitiful attempt at covering up the truth lest it interfere with the President’s reelection will be exposed for what it is.

Recent polls show that support for Barrack Obama’s reelection is increasing which is a tragic and dangerous endorsement of style over substance. Considering his ineffective leadership in every area of the presidency but in particular in foreign policy and national security, it amazes me that he has any support at all.

I can only attribute the President’s success in the polls to the dismal campaign being run by the Republicans.

The President has failed to demonstrate the leadership that would find agreement with Congress on fiscal matters, has defended the only Attorney General in American history to be found in contempt of Congress over the Fast & Furious scandal which cost more Americans their lives and has implemented a mandatory health care plan that is so poorly conceived that it has divided the nation and requires  taking $750 billion from Medicare to properly fund it.

The President’s redistribution of wealth now appears to include taking from the elderly to give to others.

Jimmy Carter did far less and accomplished far more than this president and yet remains mocked and vilified for his presidency by Democrats and Republicans alike. The fact that so many have refused to consider what their support of the past four years will provide them over the next four if they continue that support is a telling indication of just how little thought is being applied to this election campaign.

Many may discover too late that emotion is a poor substitute for analytical thought when it comes to deciding the future government that will decide your personal future and that of your family.

There is an old saying that the people get the government they deserve but once reality hits after the election and the debt, unemployment and confused foreign policy continue, it will be too late for anyone to change their mind. If the past four years are not enough to make people stop and consider the record of this administration, surely to God it’s performance and response to the attacks against Americans and American diplomatic missions in the past two weeks should at the very least give them pause for thought.

If not, God help them.

In his speech to the United Nations, President Obama said, “...true democracy – real freedom – is hard work.” Yes it is. We can agree on that. It is unfortunate that for this president they are too often only words; words that many cling too in the hope and failed belief that this time he will follow through on them.

© 2012 Maggie's Bear

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A Democracy of Trivial Pursuit

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent

about things that matter." 

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Some days it is difficult to believe that thousands of men and women have given their lives to protect the freedoms and rights we have. Day after day during various election campaigns, I watch pointless polarized arguments over trivial minutia rather than serious debate about the real issues that we face and that are of concern to us all.

The mainstream and social media become aflame with opinion, most of which is unencumbered by something as inconvenient as facts or analytical thinking. It is noise and buzz and chatter that is passed along as if it actually meant something.

It doesn’t!

The presidential election in the United States will cost upwards of $10 billion and has already consumed the better part of a year. It is an obscene expenditure and parody of democracy and for all that time and expense, what have we really learned?

Not much. People have lined up to support the President or the challenger with mindless partisan rhetoric they parrot endlessly. When confronted with real facts, they spin, dodge and weave with more dexterity than an NBA point guard.

For months, for example, the left has been whining about Mitt Romney’s tax returns and they were finally released; more than 550 pages of them in fact. The documents even included returns for the past few years which was over-kill but nonetheless, it didn’t stop the hyperbole or even slow it down. Instead, people now criticize how much Mr. Romney actually paid or talk about his off-shore accounts or, if you’re a Democratic U.S. Senator, accuse Mr. Romney of falsifying his returns.

It’s almost as if people can’t think for themselves any more. They’re just ventriloquist dummies with a political party’s hand up their ass making their mouths work.

Even sheep think more independently.

I had a comment left on my blog yesterday that referred to Mitt Romney’s tax rate as a joke. I’ll tell you what's a joke. It’s people who can’t think beyond their bias, people so bereft of the ability to think critically and so unwilling to examine facts objectively, they’d rather sink with the ship than let go of whatever opinion they cling to so desperately.

Let’s look at the facts, not the spin from either side, just the facts of Mitt Romney’s tax returns.

Mitt Romney’s income is primarily investment income which is taxed differently than salaried income. There is a reason for this. Investment income has already been taxed once. Consequently, just as all Americans who earn investment income, Mr. Romney received a rate reduction under the tax code because of the nature of his income. Barrack Obama, by contrast, earned most of his income in the form of salary which is taxed differently but in the end, it all amounts to the same thing. 

Both men followed the tax code as it is written into law. Because of his sizable donation to charity, Mr. Romney earned a very large tax deduction which reduced his tax rate to 14%. That charitable tax deduction is available to every American citizen and is in place to encourage people to contribute to their communities through charity.

It should be noted that Mr. Romney did not take the full allowable charitable donation tax deduction even though he was fully entitled to do so.

In 2011, Mitt Romney earned $42 million. He paid $6.2 million in taxes, donated $7 million to charity and another $4.1 million to his church. In other words, far from being the greedy, evil 1% money-grubber that the Democrats were desperate to paint him, Mitt Romney paid taxes and made donations  equivalent to 41% of his income. 

The national average for charitable donations is approximately 3% of income. Mitt Romney donated slightly more than 26% of his income.

Those are simple facts but it won’t stop the left from accusing him of not paying his fair share. They will whine that he should have paid more in taxes rather than give to his church and to charity. Don’t try to make sense of that attitude. I’ve wasted too much time trying to figure it out and the logic escapes me.

So how does the evil capitalist stack up against others with a dog in this race? Let’s take a look at some of his critics and supporters.

In 2011, Joe Biden and his wife donated $995 to charity on income of just over $300,000. At 0.3%, that doesn’t come close to the national average even though it is a significant increase for the Biden’s over previous years when they donated less than 0.1%. It doesn’t, however, measure up to former Vice-president Al Gore who, along with his wife, donated 7% of their income to charity during his last two years in office.

To their credit, President Obama and his wife have increased their charitable donations as their income increased. In 2011, the President donated 5.7% of their income to charity and the President took 100% of the allowable tax deduction as is his right under the tax code. Senator John McCain, another right-wing capitalist pig, donated 25% of his income. Newt Gingrich donated less than 3%.

How much a politician, or anyone for that matter, contributes to charity is a personal decision and has nothing to do with whether or not they are capable of governing and leading the country. But look at all the time that has been wasted and that will continue to be wasted on this non-issue. There was no smoking gun in the Romney tax returns but consider how much time and energy were squandered over it to the point that it was like watching a dog worrying a bone. There was no meat left but that dog just kept on gnawing anyway.

There are people across America right now and, indeed, around the world asking a far more serious question than how much tax did Mitt Romney pay. The question many are asking is:

What in the hell happened to the United States and to Americans?

The United States used to be a nation that applauded success. It celebrated initiative and achievement. Much of the world's great industrial and technological advancement came from Americans like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Henry Ford and countless others. Along the way, they created hundreds of thousands of jobs and provided significant prosperity for people across the country and around the world.

It was called The American Dream; a nation where anyone could rise up from nothing and become successful.

Americans were an innovative, creative and positive people. Now it’s all whining and accusation; a negativity that borders on manic depression. Success is vilified and accomplishing wealth has become an evil thing. It’s sometimes seems like America’s best days are behind it and the country we once knew and admired no longer exists.

Even the President demeaned the idea of individual accomplishment and success with his “you didn’t build this” comment. That statement is so unlike the attitude that built the United States, that it is astonishing that any American politician would actually think it let alone say it out loud.

It wasn’t so long ago that America was the strongest nation in the world and the president was considered the world's most powerful leader. It wasn't strong simply because it had a large standing army and enough nuclear weapons to destroy the solar system. It was attitude and character that made America strong. There was a national pride and confidence that is long gone.

If other nations didn’t always agree with U.S. foreign policy, they respected the focus and strength of American resolve and determination. Now, teenagers and thugs with guns, rocks and homemade bombs attack American consulates and terrorists kill its diplomatic staff without reprisal.

Where once America stood strong against those that threatened it's security, it now apologizes for having offended those that attack it.

The nation’s economy is in the toilet, unemployment is a disgrace, poverty is on the rise, random violence is breaking out in cities across the country, the country’s foreign policy is a confused mess and through it all, Americans are arguing about a candidate’s tax returns or the president’s birth certificate, the latest Romney foot in the mouth gaff or how often the President has played golf.

Give me a break!

While I grant you it would be a wonderful thing for a nation to only have to worry about trivia like that, the simple reality is that they are not only unimportant, they are inane in context of the state of the union and the world today.

There are 23 million Americans unemployed and more than 26 million who go to bed at night not knowing from where their next meal will come. Half of those people, 13 million, are children. The true unemployment rate is over 10%, the national deficit has jumped from $10 trillion to $16 trillion in just four years and neither Congress nor the White House showed enough leadership to have come together and successfully passed a budget during this administration.

Despite that, those who support the President are more focused on accusing anyone who doesn't of being a racist.

Despite a fast approaching deadline that will see program spending slashed by $1 trillion and taxes increased by as much as 5% unless Congress and The White House arrive at a solution, Congress has adjourned until after the election season and the President was too busy chatting on The View and David Letterman to attempt to negotiate a deal. This despite the fact that the bond rating agencies have issued a strong warning that the United States is facing another downgrading of its credit rating. That will result in even higher interest payments on the national debt, further depriving the government of much needed money to fund its operations.

America has lost its influence in the world. Despite entreaties from the President to not attend, 127 countries attended a conference in Iran this past week. So little influence does the U.S. now have, even the Secretary General of the U.N attended despite a request from the President that he not.

Two men are running for president. It is probably the most serious responsibility in the developed world but very few, including the candidates themselves have offered serious and informed debate on the real issues. It’s all attack, spin and counter spin. Anyone who believes that approach to selecting a world leader will provide a future guarantee of prosperity and security for the nation is seriously deluded. It is a circus of misinformed, polarized opinion and nothing more and which will accomplish even less.

I have always liked and respected the United States and I particularly like Americans. I have always found them a friendly, compassionate and dynamic people. If they were sometimes arrogant and opinionated, they were also fiercely loyal and invariably the first to arrive with aid at the scene of a natural disaster somewhere in the world. We could always count on America and Americans to be among the first to offer a helping hand to those who needed it.

We now live in a era when it is more important than ever before to know who your friends are and upon whom you can depend. It wasn't so long ago, we all knew we could depend on the United States as trading partner, friend and ally. Today nobody, including some of America's closest allies like Canada and Israel, really know where they stand with the United States. If your closest allies are scratching their heads in wonderment, you can only imagine what those, who didn't like you to begin with, are thinking. 

It makes me wonder what happened to this great nation and I’m not alone. People around the world, including many Americans are asking the same question.

And that, my friends, is a far better question to ponder than Mitt Romney’s tax returns or all the other trivial nonsense being screamed across the mainstream and social media these days. If Americans want to regain the country they once had, they need to examine both the record of this President and the campaign platform of his challenger with an objective and critical eye before making a decision when they go to cast their ballot.

The simple truth is that in this new and very dangerous world, Americans can no longer afford the luxury of mindless partisanship and ill-informed debate.

None of us can.

© 2012 Maggie's Bear

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The Power Of Silence

Every day, without exception, social and the mainstream media offer up reasons for voting against Barack Obama or Mitt Romney; the same reasons over and over and over and over again. God! It is so tedious and inane most of the time that it leaves me with the same disgusted shiver I get when I hear someone drag their fingernails down a blackboard. 

Most of them are tweeted or posted by people who have never looked beyond their political bias at simple things like facts, political records and the real details being promised by both party platforms. Indeed, some of the most strident comments come from people who haven’t got a clue what is being offered by either party. They never allow objective analysis of the country’s economic or foreign affairs situation to get in the way of what they tweet or even what they believe.

Obama is black and cool, therefore he should be president. Romney is conservative and has nice hair; therefore it is he who should be president. The country would be no worse served if both names were simply put in a hat and one drawn to become president.

The rhetoric and hyperbole has has gone beyond partisanship and become blind fanaticism in many cases.

There are plenty of reasons not to vote for Barack Obama but these aren’t them even though they are the most often offered up by Twitter:

- He wasn’t born in the United States and is not an American

- He is a Muslim agent of Iran

- He is secretly gay and has had gay affairs while in the White House

- He’s stupid

There are also plenty of reasons not to vote for Mitt Romney but none of these are any of them even though they are offered up daily but those who support the President.

- He is wealthy and earned his money by raiding companies and firing people

- He wants to give more money to the rich at the expense of the middle class

- He has initiated a war on women

- He’s a racist

What a crock this stuff is. None of it is true for either candidate and none of it is relevant to deciding for whom to vote. It is noise and invective that is designed to bolster weak and prejudiced opinions that have no factual basis or to distract the opposition from exposing the weakness of the candidate they support and, quite frankly, there are more than enough weaknesses to go around.

Barack Obama is an intelligent, well-intentioned person who has simply failed to deliver on the promises he made in the 2008 campaign. The American economy is a disaster that can no longer be blamed on the previous administration, recent events in the Middle East and North Africa have underscored the weakness of his foreign policy and the country has become more divided and angry under his administration than under any that went before it.

Unemployment is too high, America’s credit rating has been downgraded again, and the national deficit has increased by $6 trillion in four years compared to the $4 trillion over the eight years of the Bush administration. In other words, it is accelerating.

Mitt Romney is an intelligent, well-intentioned person who stumbles from one gaff to the next. He is caught between the radicals and the pragmatic within his party and hasn’t figured out quite what to do about it. His approach to leadership is timid and weak. He lacks vision. Consequently, his policy initiatives also lack clear direction or consistency which becomes clear every time he opens his mouth. His economic policies are as rooted in the failed ‘trickle down’ theories of the past as Obama’s are rooted in some fuzzy concept of redistribution of wealth.

Neither candidate is Satan but neither is very good. It’s amazing to me that a few billion dollars in campaign funding can’t produce better than what either the Democratic or Republican parties have offered to the American people this year.

I’m conservative and I make no apologies for it but I am not an idiot nor am I so partisan that I would rather sink and drown because I voted a failed conservative ticket than voting for a liberal ticket that actually made sense. The problem in this election is that neither platform makes much sense nor is either candidate offering much hope for the next four years.

The Obama Administration is a record of failure and lack of direction and is offering a continuation of the policies that created that failure. The Romney platform is a confused mish mash of economic and social policies that are out of date and will simply continue the downward slide of a great nation. 

Neither party is addressing the real issues facing the United States today.

More than 26 million Americans go to bed hungry or without knowing where their next meal will come from. Half of them are children. Where is the candidate who has a plan to deal with that level of poverty in America, let alone even thought about it?

More than 23 million Americans are unemployed. That is 2/3 of the population of Canada. Where is the plan to stimulate economic growth to produce jobs and not the low income and part-time jobs that have been produced over the past three years but real jobs; jobs that can sustain families?

Where is the commitment to reform taxation so that all pay their fair share? Both candidates are promising to tinker with taxation again but it will only add more complexity to the already 22,000 tax regulations that exist at the expense of one or another group of voters over another. It isn’t tax reform; it’s the same political pandering that has been going on for decades.

Where is the focused and comprehensive approach to foreign policy that goes beyond dreaming about past glories and continuing to make the same mistakes over and over again at the expense of American prestige and the lives of American citizens? How much longer will the leadership of the United States continue to pour billions of borrowed dollars into countries that have no respect for America and wish it harm? Where is the candidate who recognizes the failure of that stupidity?

The American people were promised change you can believe in during the 2008 election. What they got was more of the same confused leadership that bounced from issue to issue without much thought or direction and obstructionism from the opposite party at the expense of the people.

The simple fact is that American politics are now more about elections than governing. More effort, money, time and energy is spent getting candidates elected than in having elected candidates do their jobs. The President of the United States has spent more time traveling to and from campaign events this past week than in leading his people through the chaos of the latest radical Islamic uprisings.

For his part, Mitt Romney has criticized to varying degrees (depending on the latest news commentary) the actions of the President but always from some campaign event and never with any hard-core, specific alternatives offered.

It’s small wonder that those who would harm America don’t take the country seriously. They see a weak, confused leadership regardless of who gets elected. They see a super power that conducts itself like an adolescent with a huge military at best or standing like deer caught in the headlights at worst. 

More than a decade has passed since 9/11 and all that has changed is that Americans are subject to more intense security at their airports than is seen in many American embassies and consulates around the world.

All of that makes me wonder why so many people spend so much energy and are so aggressive in trying to prop up one or the other candidates for president. It seems to me that the nation would be better served by Americans, regardless of political affiliation, coming together and demanding better from the two main parties rather than supporting one of them as they are now.

And I do mean demanding.

How? What if they held a campaign rally and nobody showed up to cheer and chant? What if they asked for campaign funding support and nobody wrote a check?

What if they held an election and nobody showed up to vote?

What indeed! Revolutions don’t always have to involve guns and guillotines. Sometimes the most revolutionary acts are a simple refusal to continue to play the game or to be pawns in the games being played by others.

Every time someone supports their candidate by calling supporters of the other candidate a liar, a racist, a fascist, a homophobe or any one of a hundred other ridiculous and inaccurate labels that I’ve seen on social media over the past week, they support the game and perpetuate the downward slide.

Every time marauding gangs of virulent supporters try to shout down or overpower legitimate criticism of their preferred candidate rather than engaging in a reasoned and informed discussion, they only support the further decline of their government leadership.

It’s like cheering for cancer rather than working to save the patient.

Imagine what would happen at both campaign headquarters if Twitter and Facebook suddenly went silent about the election. Imagine what would happen if people just stopped talking about the candidates and refused to publicly take sides.

Imagine what would happen if Americans refused to tell pollsters how they were going to vote or the mainstream media who they were supporting. Imagine what would happen if Americans simply refused to play the game anymore and stood silently until the political class took its head out of its ass and finally came to its senses.

Imagine what would happen if nobody showed up to vote because they were so disgusted by the alternatives being offered to them they refused to participate or be treated like morons as they are to a great extent now.

Imagine what would happen if people suddenly realized that freedom of speech include the freedom to say nothing at all.

It won’t happen, of course, but just imagine how much power there would be in that for the people compared to how little power is in all this absurd bickering, accusation and noise. Silence isn’t just golden…..

......it often has far more power than noise ever will.

© 2012 Maggie's Bear

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The content of this article is the sole property of Maggie's Bear but a link to it may be shared by those who think it may be of interest to others

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Considering The Constant Threat From Radical Islam - How Was This Even Possible?

Since the attacks on the American Embassy in Cairo and its Consulate in Benghazi on Tuesday, the mainstream and social media have been working overtime to accuse or defend, understand or spin, every comment made by politicians and government officials up to and including the President. For all that chatter, very few are willing to ask the hard questions starting with, how is it possible to be here again?

On Wednesday, the President ordered heightened security at all American embassies and deployed two warships to the region to give the Obama administration flexibility for any future action against Islamic extremists, as the Defense Department put it.

That’s all well and good but why was that even necessary?

How is it possible that with the anniversary of 9/11 this week the order for heightened security at embassies in the region had not already been given? 

How is it possible that this administration could be caught so off-guard by the eruption of violence against its diplomatic missions? How is it possible after providing upwards of $30 billion in annual foreign aid to countries in the Middle East and North Africa, the American government did not have stronger intelligence links with those very governments?

How is it possible that after spending billions every year for intelligence, the United States had no idea that these attacks and demonstrations were possible let alone going to happen? There have been allegations that the State Department had a 48 hour advance notice that something was going to happen but took no action and issued no warnings to its embassy staff. If that is true, how is it possible that the President wasn’t informed? How is it possible that the government was so inept at best and callous at worst that it didn’t move quickly to protect its various embassies and staff?

If it is not true, how is it possible to station diplomats in one of the most turbulent and unstable regions of the world and yet still be so unprepared?

How is it possible that there is no single, consistent and strong message coming out of what was once considered the most powerful and decisive nation on earth?

The first public statement was issued through the American Embassy in Cairo and amounted to an apology to Muslims for a film made by an Egyptian Coptic who was living in the United States. The Obama Administration had denied authorizing the statement but that stretches credulity. It’s simply not how government works.

No embassy, no government department ever releases a statement on administration policy without first running it by head office. To do otherwise is career suicide. At best, if the President was personally unaware of the statement before it was issued, the State Department certainly was and approved it. How is it possible for them to put the United States into a position of apologizing for something the government didn’t do and which resulted from the ugly side of freedom of speech?

Now, we are watching the spread of confrontation and violence even as the Administration trips and stumbles its way through this crisis.

First it apologizes and then retracts the apology. Egypt is not an ally and then is an ally. The attack in Libya was planned by al-Qaeda, and then it was not. The State Department was warned 48 hours in advance then there is a denial that a warning was received. It is a horrific amateur-hour show with terrible and tragic consequences and which have seen the expansion rather than the containment of the situation.

The violence has now spread to nine countries in the region and even the Swiss Embassy in Iran, which handles American diplomatic contact in that country, is now finding itself threatened.

This is not a political issue; it is an issue of national security and national defense. It is astounding that the intelligence community with all of its resources and as connected as it is to other intelligence services worldwide, had no inkling that something might happen or if it did then did nothing about it. It is even more astonishing that no one in the highest levels of government considered the possibility of a potential threat on the anniversary of 9/11 and took no action to prepare for any eventuality.

Think about that. It is the anniversary of September 11 the region is dangerously volatile. It is well established that Iran, al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas and countless other groups are constantly agitating and working to undermine their own governments or those of their neighbours while constantly looking for reasons and ways to attack the United States. How is it possible that the Administration didn’t at the very least, anticipate the possibility of a potentially serious threat and at a minimum take the necessary precautions to protect their embassies and staff?

It strains belief that the Defense Department hadn’t put its marines serving at embassies on heightened alert as a precaution of some demonstration or possible terrorist action against American diplomats and embassies. It's all well and good to state that protecting embassies is the responsibility of the host nation but surely to God, the American government would take steps to protect its own people regardless of the host nations duty.

Is it really possible that absolutely nothing has been learned since the Iran Hostage crisis, the bombing of the USS Cole or any of the other attacks by Islamic extremists, including 9/11? How is it possible that in this time of instability, with Syria in the middle of a bloodbath, Iran working feverishly to develop a nuclear weapons capability and other countries in the region so unstable that violence is almost an everyday occurrence that nobody from the President on down thought it might be possible that American embassies could potentially be targeted on September 11?

How is possible, that given the ongoing instability in the region, the President felt it unnecessary to attend more than 60% of his daily intelligence security briefings in 2012 and hadn’t attended one since September 5 before the attacks? How is it possible that a President wouldn’t feel it necessary for some face-to-face, hands-on security discussions leading up to the anniversary of 9/11?

How is it that given the crisis in the region, the President cannot find the time to meet with the prime minister of Israel, America’s only real ally in the Middle East, who will be in the United States later this month to attend the United Nations General Assembly?

How is it possible for the Consulate in  Benghazi not to have had any marines stationed to provide security, especially this past week?

How is it possible for any Administration to rebuff the concerns of the only democracy in the Middle East over the Iranian build up of weapons-grade uranium while rationalizing attacks against its embassies in other countries in the region?

Harry Truman had a sign on his desk that read, “The buck stops here” and he lived that simple message, taking full responsibility for the actions of his administration. Love him or hate him, he was a leader with principle and character. Where does the buck stop with this Administration? Who is responsible for the security of the United States? Some would say the President but while it is clear that President Obama has much to answer for in this crisis, it is not simply the fault of one man.

I have purposely avoided using profane language in this blog since I started it a year ago but this crisis is a cluster-fuck of unbelievable proportions and there is no other word for it.

From the White House to the State Department,  the Pentagon and the CIA, how is it possible for a nation to spend billions on national security, employ thousands to conduct intelligence, diplomatic and security functions and still be caught flat-footed on a day that should have clearly been tagged as a potential red flag day? 

How is it possible for what was once the world’s most powerful and well-equipped country to be so ill-prepared for potential threats and so anemic in its responses to them when they occur? 

How is it possible for the mainstream media and supporters of the administration to be more focused on defending the administration than on asking the tough questions that led to this terrible circumstance?

How is it possible that attacking the Romney campaign for being critical of the response by the administration is somehow more important than taking a hard look at the lack of preparedness and leadership that led to this situation in the first place?

Romney is irrelevant in this crisis and can be ignored. It is the administration that should be having its feet held to the fire. How is it possible for the fourth estate to have so completely lost its sense of responsibility and objectivity?

How is it possible that people on social media cannot get past their particular partisan politics to realize that this is not a political issue, it is not about being Democrat or Republican. but an American issue? How is it that they don’t understand that when an attack comes, the attacker doesn’t ask to see which party you have registered with before deciding whether or not to shoot you?

Billions wasted. Time wasted and once again, Americans under attack and being killed because all that money and time accomplished nothing. It’s a disgrace and I don’t care what side of the political divide you support, nobody is covered in glory by the lack of anticipation, planning, security and response to what has happened this week.

It’s a cluster-fuck with terrible consequences that have already occurred and with more on the way. It is unbelievable that all Americans, regardless of political affiliation, aren’t united in demanding better than this from their government and its political leadership.

How is possible that the so many fail to understand that the greatest threat to America comes from within and that it is the nation's own leaders and government agencies who are the reason that a great nation's prestige, reputation and security have been so undermined?

How indeed!

© 2012 Maggie's Bear

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The content of this article is the sole property of Maggie's Bear but a link to it may be shared by those who think it may be of interest to others

Aliens Walk Among Us - They Are Called Bureaucrats

After many years of thought, I have come to the conclusion that government is only good at two things; regulation and collecting money. I know some of you are thinking they’re really good at spending money too but I think they spend money poorly but boy do they know how to find more of it and how to extract it from even the most reluctant of us.

Government has figured out how to tax everything and when all that tax money proved to be insufficient for what they were spending it on, they invented user fees for things our taxes had already bought and paid for. They created fees for permits, licenses and the documents they require us to have and they have built a bureaucracy to control it all.

Canada’s GDP is estimated at $1.74 trillion annually. User fees, income and capital gains taxes alone take more than $299 billion out of the economy (source: Canada Revenue Agency and Stats Canada). Add to that consumption taxes which include the federal Goods and Services Tax, provincial sales taxes, excise taxes, school taxes, municipal property taxes, provincial income taxes and my particular favourite, the Welcome Tax in Quebec. (Home buyers pay what is referred to as a welcome tax on the purchase of a home as a way of making them feel welcome in their new community.

Overall, all levels of government combined take approximately 50% of the income earned by Canadians in the form of taxes or user fees and that, my friends, is greed at a level that would make the guys from Enron drool and Bernie Madoff positively slap his forehead and ask himself, “Why didn’t I think of that?”

They use that money to provide services, many of which we never hear of or see. Why? Because they turn the money over to the bureaucracy and the bureaucracy is quite simply a world of its own. In fact, I actually believe that government bureaucrats are the direct descendants of a race of aliens who came to earth eons ago after their home planet became so weighted down by red tape and regulation, it imploded.

I also believe that politicians are the descendants of the cross breeding between the ancestors of those bureaucrats from another planet and human beings.

They look like us. They walk like us but they don’t think, talk or live like us. They have no soul. That is how we know that they are not from around here. They are like ants living in a colony. They each have assigned tasks and go about those tasks like robots and because of that single-minded focus they now control everything.

Bureaucrats exist to regulate and control Politicians exist to spend money. That is their only purpose in life. They were bred  by bureaucrats to feed the bureaucracy. Without the politicians, bureaucrats would have nothing to do and all that money they collect so industriously would sit in a big room somewhere collecting dust. They are like bees who collect pollen every day, it has to be used or sooner or later the hive drowns in it.

Initially, politicians weren’t very good at spending money. Some, in fact, were downright frugal which really tended to gum up the works so bureaucrats had to come up with additional ways to spend money and they did. They invented regulations and they found that it was good. This had the advantage of not only increasing cost but it also helped to teach their political offspring new ways to spend money. This allowed bureaucrats to find new ways to target the collection of money.

They have become so good at imposing regulation that nothing escapes them; nothing is too small or insignificant for some form of government control. They regulate everything.

They regulate traffic with signs instructing us to follow the rules: stop, no parking, no stopping, no turns, right turn only, left turn only, do not enter, no left turn, no right turn, yield, merge and my favourite, proceed with caution.

If it moves, they license it including; boats, cars, bikes, dogs, motorcycles and aircraft.  If it’s fun they require a permit be purchased. Bureaucrats are suspicious of fun and so charge citizens to hold parades, community sports events, festivals, outdoor concerts and to make a few bucks as buskers on our streets.

If it is stationary, they tax it and have developed property taxes, agricultural taxes and marketing boards, parking fees and fines for non compliance.

They have effectively squeezed the mob out of the distribution and control of cigarettes, booze and gambling and soon will have pushed them out of illegal drugs. The bureaucracy and their political offspring is considering ways to legalize drugs which will lead to a whole new group of regulations, fees and taxes. Soon, the mob will be reduced to holding garage and bake sales and no one, not even Francis Ford Coppola will want to make movies about them anymore.

If you buy it, you pay a consumption tax. If you sell it you pay income tax on the money you made over a certain amount. If you die, they tax the pennies on your eyes.

They regulate safety, health, transportation, communications, education, the environment, infrastructure development, hunting, fishing, professional and amateur sports and business. In fact, they regulate everything except credit card interest rates and gas prices. 

They impose costs on manufacturers with ridiculous labeling restrictions and delay new product development with endless assessments, reviews and licensing processes. The bureaucracy lives for process. It is their oxygen.

The list is endless and even as I write this, somewhere in Canada….perhaps in many somewheres….there are government bureaucrats developing, refining and considering new regulations and planning the number of new bureaucrats it will require to monitor and enforce those regulations.

The simple fact is that the single biggest industry in Canada now is government. When you add all governments together, government employees more people than any other industry. It touches more lives than any other industry including technology. In fact, government touches pretty much every Canadian’s life from birth to death and then, of course, they don’t want anything to do with you although in some jurisdictions you are still permitted to vote after you die .

And that, my friends is the real problem. Government is not an industry. It produces nothing and creates no wealth. It erodes it. Government takes wealth from its citizens and the more wealth it takes the more it threatens the prosperity of every individual and the nation as a whole.

I believe we should all contribute our fair share to provide the common services we need as a society. I even believe in a responsible social safety net but when government is taking half of the wealth generated by a people, it’s starting to cross over into Marie Antoinette territory and that creates unrest that didn’t end well for anybody, especially Marie and many of her friends.

In the United States, the situation is not much better as exemplified by the 22,000 income tax regulations that country's bureaucracy has developed and by the current presidential election campaign. Both candidates are offering government in one form or another as the solution to the problems our American friends are facing but just as it is in Canada, and every other country in the world, democratic and totalitarian alike; government is the problem.

How do I know this?

I ran this post by someone who works for government at a fairly high level and he told me that he agreed and wanted to work towards bringing about real change to government…….and he was prepared to hire as many people as necessary to make that happen. 

I could almost hear the mechanical voice inside his head  whispering over and over and over again , “this does not compute”.

© 2012 Maggie's Bear

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The content of this article is the sole property of Maggie's Bear but a link to it may be shared by those who think it may be of interest to others

Government Has Discovered The Organic ATM Machine.- We're Screwed!

I stumbled over an interesting tidbit yesterday. The Parliamentary Budget Officer released a report that shows the federal government is now raking in some $10 billion in user fees. It was a striking number that made me ask a simple question. 

For what?

Aren’t government user fees sort of the same things as having your own employees charge you for using the facilities and services for which you already paid and own? Where’s that money gone for Pete’s sake? It’s like having your kids charge you for the hug you want to give them and thought the new iPhones you bought them last week had earned you.

It was mildly annoying but I thought I’d let it go because I’m feeling pretty magnanimous this week and decided to cut the government a break but…..I couldn’t let it go and ended up doing a little research.

Guess what?

User fees have become a major windfall for governments at all levels. In fact, the combined amount of user fees charged by all levels of government in Canada is more than $60 billion. I will repeat that for you, my fellow gentle, organic ATM machines. Our governments are charging us $60 billion to use the services and facilities we paid for out of our tax money.

Municipal governments charge user fees to use ‘our’ sports facilities even though we paid to have them built and pay the salaries of those who operate them. They charge for permits that they require us to have and that’s an excellent racket if I ever saw one. Make it mandatory to get a permit and then charge to supply it. Only two organizatons could come up with an idea like that; the government and the mob.

They even charge to park in our parking lot at City Hall when we go down to interact with our municipal government. I’m thinking of requiring them to come to my home where I can park for free the next time they want to interact with me.

Provincial governments also charge user fees for things like parking at hospitals and provincial offices and copies of our records like birth certificates. They charge user fees to use the parks we paid to build and pay to maintain. Many schools now charge users fees for extracurricular activities that were once free and for specialized courses like French, art and music. Imagine that; charging a user fee to learn one of Canada’s official languages in a school.

In Quebec, where I live, the government actually charges a $2.50 fee if you show up at the license bureau to pay your registration in person rather than mailing in a check. Unbelievable; a user fee for the privilege of paying another user fee in person. I'm thinking that next year, I'll bury the money for my registration in the front yard and sent them an email treasure map where to find it.

Government, of course, justifies this by telling us that we must pay these fees if we want to benefit from and continue to enjoy these services and facilities. I think, however, that what we need is some fresh blood in government because I tend to believe that government has lost its sense of perspective at best and its collective mind at worst.

Let’s back up just a bit. We agreed to pay income tax, property tax and school tax to provide certain fundamental common services. We’ve even, reluctantly at times, agreed to increases in those taxes to offset the rise in the cost of living. Government, for its part, took that money and spent it. To be fair, some of it was used for its intended purposes but much of it went to bloated bureaucracies, extravagant facilities we didn’t need or ask for and, of course, entitlements that are very handy things to offer at election time.

Government further compounded the situation by managing to find the most complex and expensive method of doing anything while at the same time reducing the pool of tax payers by handing out tax breaks to political parties, charities, non-profit foundations and unions which pay no tax at all on the membership income they take in and use to support their political campaigning and activism.

This meant that government didn’t have enough money to do everything it was supposed to do so it introduced other taxes including: consumption taxes like the GST and provincial sales taxes, health taxes, excise taxes and capital gains tax among others. Of course, once that money started to flow, government came up with new things to spend it on.

The bureaucracies grew, the entitlements expanded and public sector compensation packages became a thing of beauty.

More money was needed, so after raising the taxes on sin products like cigarettes and booze, the government took over the mob’s old rackets and got into the Numbers Game with lotteries of all shapes and sizes. Of course, that necessitated even more administration so some governments expanded again and opened up casinos. 

In Quebec, where I live, there is a lavish casino that makes about 10% profits. Imagine, a casino that only made a gross profit of 10%. How is that possible when you are the only casino in the region? It’s possible because government knows as much about running a casino as it does about managing health care services in an efficient manner.

Now governments are charging us user fees for the very things all that tax money paid for and continues to pay to maintain. Somehow, this makes sense to government but it doesn’t to me. They seem to believe that we are nothing but organic ATM machines and to be very blunt, I don't much like where they insert their debit cards in order to make withdrawal. 

I think we’ve reached a stage where we should just send all of our money to government and live for free. Government can buy our food, pay our mortgages, and give us weekly spending allowances to use for clothes, gifts and entertainment. We will pay for nothing. Government will pay for it all. When we need a new car, we’ll just call the car department of the government, give them the style and colour we want and they will send one right over.

It will be less expensive than what we’re living with now. At least we won’t need all those bureaucrats and tax departments who collect the taxes, user fees and other income now. Of course, now that I think of it I realize that they won’t actually get laid off. They’ll just get transferred to new departments in the bureaucracies so maybe that idea won’t work either.

Perhaps we should just bend over and kiss our asses goodbye or in the alternative bend over a little farther stick our heads up our asses until we can’t breathe and just suffocate ourselves to death so that we don’t have to live with this inanity any longer.

Of course, government will probably have a user fee for that too.

© 2012 Maggie's Bear

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The content of this article is the sole property of Maggie's Bear but a link to it may be shared by those who think it may be of interest to others

The Day After The Quebec Election

We were up and at ‘em this morning. Maggie had an early meeting and after I dropped her off at the big government office, I headed over to Reno Depot to pick up a some things I need for couple of small projects on which I’m working.

Reno Depot is a box store much in the same vein as Home Depot and Lowes. It carries pretty much all the same kind of stuff from tools to lumber, hardware and electrical to gardening supplies, paint, tile and plumbing fixtures and materials. It is Quebec-based and coincidentally a perfect symbol for Quebec.

Reno Depot takes great pride in promoting its custom project service, a service in which they will plan and implement renovation projects for your home or office. The first thing you notice when you walk into the store (which is huge) is that there are a series of large white plastic buckets strewn along the main aisle in front of the cashiers. They are there to catch the water dripping down from the leaks in the ceiling.

Apparently they can handle any project, large or small, for you but are unable to repair their own ceiling. It tends to undermine confidence a wee bit.

Recently Lowes made an offer to buy Reno Depot and the Quebec government immediately responded to indicate that it would move to protect Quebec companies from foreign investment or take over. Almost simultaneously during the recent election, that same government announced it would facilitate Quebec companies investing in or outright purchasing foreign companies in other countries.

And that is the perfect definition of Quebec, a society in serious need of renovations and repairs with a schizophrenic approach to business and investment. It is at the same time protectionist and expansive which means it is pretty much running in circles.

For decades the predominant focus of Quebec politics has been on two things. The first is language and sovereignty (separation from Canada) and the second is lavish entitlements that the province cannot actually afford. While various Quebec governments and special interest have focused on these two primary areas, some serious things have been happening that have gone unattended.

Quebec has the lowest rate of applicants for post secondary education in the country and the highest college/university dropout rate. It has the lowest median income in Canada and the highest debt to GDP ratio. It’s worse even than that of Ontario and you really have to work at it to put yourself in a worse position than what nine years of  Ontario Liberal government has done to what was once Canada’s economic powerhouse.

Per capita provincial debt in Quebec is higher than that of Greece and we all know how well that’s been working out for our Mediterranean friends. The only reason Quebec isn’t suffering the way Greece is suffering is because Quebec receives in excess of $17 billion in equalization, health care and other social transfer payments from the federal government. Without that annual infusion from Ottawa, Quebec would make a banana republic look prosperous.

On top of this, Quebec is the highest taxed jurisdiction in North America and the new government is already talking about tax increases.

I don’t say this with any rancor or satisfaction. I live in Quebec and I love living here. The people, for the most part, are a generous and happy people. They are creative and have a joie du vivre you won’t find in places like Toronto.

The French culture has a rich heritage and it is celebrated by French and English alike, when they aren’t squabbling over the size of different languages on signs. I believe Quebec has everything it needs to be one of the world’s great cosmopolitan societies but is being prevented from achieving that opportunity by a small percentage of narrow-minded bigots who focus on restricting the lives and rights of others instead of expanding the society’s potential through the diversity of its people.

The great contradiction of Quebec, however, is not language or culture; it is entitlement. At precisely the same time that governments, particularly former PQ governments have demanded more political independence for Quebec, they have made the province economically dependent on Canada. Many of the social programs, including $7/day day care and the second lowest university tuition in the country would not be possible without the money Quebec receives from Ottawa.

Quebec is not failing because of its people; it is failing because of the weakness of its political leadership.

That was abundantly clear during this last election which should have been about the economy and political corruption but wasn’t. Once again, language and demanding powers from Ottawa became a central theme and once again, the people of Quebec said they are not interested in those issues although they do want change. Once again they refused to give the separatist party a mandate to pursue separation from Canada and once again, the politicians refused to listen.

The rest of Canada, of course, simply dismisses all of Quebec as being the problem but it isn’t. It’s the 30% of the population that are hardcore separatists who cannot accept that their day has come and gone. Most Quebecers have moved on and believe that Quebec belongs to all Quebecers, not just the pur laine French and that the future prosperity and success of the province lies in uniting Quebecers rather than dividing them or suppressing the rights of some over others.

The new government is already talking about demanding more powers from Ottawa when it should be focusing on its debt, corruption and expanding economic opportunity by encouraging investment in Quebec. It has been like this for a very long time. Promise much, demand more from Ottawa and then mislead the people that this is the road to a strong and independent society while blaming the rest of Canada for your own political mistakes.

But there is hope even if one day after the election not much has really changed.

One government has been traded for another which at the end of the day will do pretty much what the former government did, the media will continue their absurd post-election commentary on unity but the people of Quebec have shown they are not fooled by any of it. They voted and they voted as Canadians primarily. They voted for change and if they don’t like the change they are about to get, they voted in a minority government to give themselves an opportunity to vote for change again…….and sooner rather than later……if need be.

It’s time for the politicians to catch up to the people instead of continuing to pretend they are leading them. It's time for politicians in Quebec to stop sowing the seeds of discord and start focusing on the real job for which they were elected. It's time for real political leadership and not this ongoing and destructive nonsense that has been part of our society for too long. (and while we're at it, perhaps the media could start actually covering the real issues instead of droning on and on about a crisis that only exists in their minds.)

The people have spoken!

© 2012 Maggie's Bear

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The content of this article is the sole property of Maggie's Bear but a link to it may be shared by those who think it may be of interest to others