"damn liberals... oh wait"
I was taking a closer look at the poster for the UBC Sikh Student Association's Annual Conference on Leadership, when I saw underneath some other writing, a quote by Rosalynn Carter, the wife of one of the most incompetent US Presidents in history...
The quote was something like "A leader takes people where they want to go... a greater leader takes people where they don't want to go, but ought to be" or something like that.
My first reaction was simply to think, "damn elitist liberals... always imposing their crazy views and "values" on the people"...
And then... I thought, maybe my reaction was unwarranted. Yes, of course, most liberals are elitist and hope to impose their far-left ideology on the masses, but I'm sure that quote can be applied to conservatives as well, right?
One of the most repeated criticisms of Trudeau, is that he was such a left-winger, and because of his unchecked power, he forced Canadians to accept a lot of things that they weren't otherwise ready to accept. Legalizing abortion, "official bilingualism", statutory supremacy to the supreme court through the charter, etc. So in that sense, the notion of a liberal ideologue imposing his values on an unexpecting nation holds true for Trudeau... and it holds true for lots of other liberals too...
However, I think it holds true for a whole bunch of conservative politicians too, right? America was never as conservative as Reagan himself. He helped conservatize much of America, especially the south. He (along with many other US presidents--Truman especially) forced his nation to 'fight' communism. So does that make him a value-imposing elitist as well? I don't think so. George W. Bush is 'forcing' his nation, through his decision to go to Iraq to 'democratize' the Middle East. He's doing exactly what Rosalynn Carter described as leadership... taking his nation where they would otherwise be too reserved or too cautious or too scared to go.
The quote was something like "A leader takes people where they want to go... a greater leader takes people where they don't want to go, but ought to be" or something like that.
My first reaction was simply to think, "damn elitist liberals... always imposing their crazy views and "values" on the people"...
And then... I thought, maybe my reaction was unwarranted. Yes, of course, most liberals are elitist and hope to impose their far-left ideology on the masses, but I'm sure that quote can be applied to conservatives as well, right?
One of the most repeated criticisms of Trudeau, is that he was such a left-winger, and because of his unchecked power, he forced Canadians to accept a lot of things that they weren't otherwise ready to accept. Legalizing abortion, "official bilingualism", statutory supremacy to the supreme court through the charter, etc. So in that sense, the notion of a liberal ideologue imposing his values on an unexpecting nation holds true for Trudeau... and it holds true for lots of other liberals too...
However, I think it holds true for a whole bunch of conservative politicians too, right? America was never as conservative as Reagan himself. He helped conservatize much of America, especially the south. He (along with many other US presidents--Truman especially) forced his nation to 'fight' communism. So does that make him a value-imposing elitist as well? I don't think so. George W. Bush is 'forcing' his nation, through his decision to go to Iraq to 'democratize' the Middle East. He's doing exactly what Rosalynn Carter described as leadership... taking his nation where they would otherwise be too reserved or too cautious or too scared to go.
posted by Japnaam Singh at
12:01 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home