Fools on all sides

Over a number of years, as it relates to political debates (between the elites, not between the common folk), I've subscribed to perhaps an unreasonable and even irrational view that people on the right side of the political spectrum tend to be more intellectually honest and more rational than their counterparts on the left side of the political debate.

My view in this respect has been lessened (though not eliminated) recently, especially after observing recent debates in America concerning immigration and national security in general.

I've already expressed my disgust over the reaction to the Dubai Ports deal (a deal that was unreasonably attacked by all sides) last month, so I'll just move on to the topic of immigration.

There's been some major uproar about a bill that passed the Senate judiciary committee yesterday. The bill itself is completely reasonable.

A friend just sent me a link to a post which details how reasonable the plan actually is.

Unlike what many of the critics have suggested, this plans offers no "amnesty" and it puts forth a number of reasonable proposals.

Social security benefits would not go to illegals, employees would be required to only hire legals, those who wish to stay after a six-year period would be required to pay their back taxes, learn English, undergo a health exam and educate themselves about American civic and history.

And yet, the reaction to this bill, a bill that would improve America's problem with illegal immigration, has been greeted with hostility by most conservative institutions and publications. It boggles the mind.

The National Review, the American conservative magazine that I most closely associate with common-sense, practical, level-headed conservative thought has come out as opposed to the bill, calling it "reckless". They build up such a pathetic straw man and then routinely attack it. They keep referring to amnesty, but the bill does no such thing. The editorial is completely blind to America's need for workers (unemployment already being below 5%) and does not appreciate that the bill tries to provide a legal framework that requires the integration of Mexican immigrants if they do indeed intend to stay. So what exactly are their concerns then? If the Mexicans are integrated and have jobs and contribute to society more than they take away (as nearly all people with jobs do)? They didn't list any of those concerns or arguments, probably because they didn't have any good ones.

Tough to watch

Political concession speeches of incumbent Prime Ministers.

Kim Campbell

Paul Martin

CBC Archives doesn't have Turner's 1984 speech...

It's interesting to look back when examining the archives that CBC puts up and making judgments as to which points in history had Canadians making the right decisions when it came to electing governments and Prime Ministers.

I'm very much someone who does not think that the people always make the right decision. I cringe when politicians say those words. The people make stupid decisions ALL THE TIME!, in every country of the world.

From watching various clips and based on my own opinions/knowledge, here's what I think:

1957 - Wrong Decision. Louis St. Laurent was a good Prime Minister. John Diefenbaker was not.

1958 - Diefenbaker wasn't all bad and Pearson's reign as Liberal leader was the start of the Liberal Party's transformation into a statist/leftist party... so this judgment is somewhat hard to make. Still, I would've probably voted Liberal in 1958. I still can't see what allowed Diefenbaker to go from minority to landslide majority so quickly. What exactly did he accomplish between 1957-58? So again, wrong decision.

Canadian electoral history post-1958 is dominated in my mind by the inability of the Progressive Conservative Party to elect effective leaders. The PC party made the right decision in dumping Diefenbaker, but who did they go to? Robert Stanfield, another uninspiring and not very conservative choice.

Still. Stanfield wasn't nearly as activist and arrogant as Pierre Elliot Trudeau. And so it was very much a shame that Stanfield was not able to defeat Trudeau in 1972 or 1974.

Continuing the theme of being unable to find an effective leader, the PCs chose Joe Clark, a man similar in incompetence to John Diefenbaker. Being able to defeat Trudeau wasn't all that impressive in 1979 (beating anyone after they're in power for 11 years is fairly easy), but the real and inexcusable error of Clark's leadership was obviously the idiotic move to put forth an unpopular budget, thereby allowing Trudeau to come back in 1980, instead of having Trudeau go off into history as one of the most unremarkable and inconsequential Prime Ministers in Canadian history. (Who would seriously remember Pierre Trudeau if he was not able to repatriate the constitution in 1982? That's right. No one. But now, we're left with a bunch of CBC miniseries chronicling the greatness of someone who was in large part responsible for a series of economic legacies that Canada is only recovering from now.)

1984 and 1988: Brian Mulroney wasn't great, but he was better than anyone since St. Laurent. So, right decision.

1993 to 2000: The enduring question of whether the Reform/CA party was worth creating. It probably wasn't. Taking over the PC Party from within and influencing it to elect actually conservative leaders would've been a more mature course of action. Chretien probably deserved to win in 1993, and it was probably good that he did, considering that sometimes it takes someone from the opposite political party to do necessary things when it comes to the size and scope of federal spending and regulation (Mitterand in France during the 1980s is another example of this). In 1997 he probably deserved to win again. In 2000, he deserved, at best, a minority government that was not prop-up-able by the NDP. The growth in federal spending since 2000 would have likely been restrained if there was some gridlock in Parliament.

2004, 2006 and into the future: The Conservative Party is actually somewhat conservative... and so it's unlikely that the Liberal Party will ever be worthy of support going into the future, but it's impossible to predict that with absolute certainty. For example, if Peter MacKay were to ever become leader... someone like Michael Ignatieff wouldn't look so bad, but then again, I don't consider that matchup to be all that likely.

Goodbye Paul Martin

He's officially resigning.

Fortunately for him, he'll probably go down as the greatest Canadian Finance Minister ever (although whether he was is very much debatable). Since Canada will continue to experience surplus budgets for some time into the future, no Finance Minister will likely ever be able to claim that they transformed the budget from deficit to surplus.

He'll also go down as a fairly idealistic, although deeply flawed Prime Minister. Someone who wanted to be popular at the expense of being respected. As his father is still remembered for being a great External Affairs and Health Minister (again, very debatable), his son will provide competition when it comes to rating the greatest (non-PM) cabinet ministers in Canadian history.

The shamelessness of the US Congress

While they ranted and held daily press conferences and interviews about standing up for national security, according to new reports, they actually gave up a golden opportunity, in the form of the Dubai ports company, to get a hold of port security:

The Dubai port saga is not quite over. The Wall Street Journal reports that two days before the Administration asked Dubai Ports World to transfer its U.S. operations to a domestic firm, the company presented top Republican senators with an "extraordinary package" of security measures it was prepared to take to get the deal through Congress. The proposal included state-of-the-art screening devices (installed at company expense) at all of its 51 ports around the world and giving DHS the right to disapprove its choice of "all senior officers." Deeming the offer too late, the senators dismissed it.

The irony here is indeed bitter. Congressional leaders, positioning themselves as the true champions of national security and protectors of all things American, rejected a deal that would have markedly increased port security at no expense to the country. No American company will come close to matching this security offer, even as they seek massive federal subsidies for far inferior security systems.

Yup. Further evidence that the US Congress was acting only on a desire to appeal to the ignorance, xenophobia and/or bigotry of millions of American voters. Elected officials are supposed to be more informed, more mature, more thoughtful, but not in this situation.

I recently saw some polling information that showed how Americans are downright hostile to the idea of foreign investment and ownership of their economy. And when that foreign element is Arab or something else that's "extra foreign", it makes the situation all the worse.

Because of the US Congress, not only has America scared away billions of dollars in foreign investment, it has also given so many people around the world an actual (recent) example to point to when talking about American (institutional) racism. How unfortunate, especially when the person that most foreigners tie to supposed American racism was the most cool, calm and rational person during the entire process (President Bush).

"Yeah, that's him"

A friend of mine was just watching over my shoulder as I was checking my e-mail and he saw that at the top of my inbox was a message from "David Frum", and naturally my friend asked if that David Frum was the same David Frum who is the noted author and former Bush speechwriter, I casually and almost dismissively replied "Which other David Frum is there?"

And so the impression was created that I regularly correspond with David Frum - or something like that.

In actuality, his e-mail was about 2 sentences long, acknowledging an e-mail I sent to him yesterday urging him to make note on his blog of the Prime Minister's recent visit to Afghanistan.

Since Frum's blog is probably read by a number of powerful people in Washington (congressmen, senior white house aides, etc.), I thought it would be really unfortunate if Harper's visit wasn't communicated to that audience.

And fortunately, today he mentioned it! All because of me!

(In actuality, my e-mail was either just a coincidence since he was going to mention it anyway, or on the other end, it could've been a small part of a larger chorus of Canadian e-mails urging him to mention the trip.)

NOOO!

You can almost sense the collective panic amongst Conservative supporters when they read the article written by Larry Zolf on CBC.ca today.

Today he confidently predicted that "Undoubtedly, victory at the polls will be the ultimate result of Harper's mission to the war-torn country."

UNDOUBTEDLY!

This is from the same Larry Zolf whose amazing political insight caused him to predict last fall right after the fall of the government that "the Liberals are headed for a majority government."

Again, today he said that "Harper's visit to Afghanistan may just be the dramatic spark that will guarantee him a chance at a quick snap election and a majority government whenever he wants to call one."

Why again does CBC employ such a senile and confused man to write the political column for CBC.ca?

Besides offering some of us insight into what will NOT happen, what useful purpose does this man serve?

I fear

I've said many times before that I fear for America in January 2009, when President George W. Bush will leave office. My fear might turn out to be unjustified, since there do appear to be a small handful of reasonable candidates in the running for the American presidency, but I think it is most likely (though again, not a guarantee) that whoever replaces President Bush will be deeply inferior in almost every important way.

Earlier today, in the face of a veto threat from a President who was sensing an immature, unreasonable, xenophobic revolt from within his party, the House of Representatives appropriations committee attached a "kill amendment" by a vote of 62-2 to a crucial national defense bill in a bid to hault the sale of commercial activity at six American ports to a United Arab Emirates owned company.

Democrats, in their bid to seem strong on national security are only likely to take action on symbolic "national security" issues like this one. They have refused to take up an opportunity to stand up and oppose efforts to essentially legitimize the demonization of an entire group of people since the blocking of the deal is based on bigotry and nothing more (the politicians themselves are not bigots, but they hope to play on an unhealthy combination of bigotry, xenophobia and ignorance in order to secure political advantage). People in government, people in power should be wiser and more mature than this, especially since they are privy to much more information than the average voter. Based on my observations of the American Democratic Party, I can safely say that no other political party disgusts me as much as they do. It started with their attempt last year to kill President Bush's attempt at entitlement reform without offering any alternative of their own, but it extends so much further and deeper. Most Republicans have been making me sick lately as well, especially those who are willing to ditch their president in an unwise and futile attempt to help a) their presidential ambitions or b) their electoral chances come November. Instead of showing a united front, Republicans in Washington are looking amateurish and unfit to govern. Now that there is a united Conservative option in Canada and since the Liberals have enjoyed power for so many years, that same immaturity I sense in Washington does not appear to be as evident in Ottawa. Both parties generally seen intent on seeming capable of governing. Neither party looks that way in Washington.

I'm one of the only people I know whose opinion of the American people has lessened while my impression of their President has increased. Every time I see one of those approval rating polls at 40% or less, I shake my head and think about how much worse the Americans will likely have it in 2009.

It's funny

When our new Prime Minister does something as *seemingly* authoritarian as wanting to remove Parliament's ethic's commissioner, I just chuckle, and think to myself how cool it is, that a Conservative, instead of a Liberal, is flexing their muscle in Ottawa with such *seemingly* cavalier disdain for Parliamentary institutions.

Of course, nothing is ever that clear-cut. Even with Paul Martin, I was rarely outraged at most of his seemingly undemocratic actions. You can't be as immature to criticize everything that a person in power might do. They're real people making real decisions, and almost all of them are there for their perception of the public good. Only when Martin (and his lackie, Valeri) took the line that he was going to organize the Parliamentary calendar in such a way to avoid the defeat of his government was I offended and saddened by the state of democracy in our country.

And if Harper ever says something as outrageous as that, I'll be offended then as well.

Depressing

It was sad to see a few different online polls, all showing the public's seemingly strong disapproval of the Supreme Court's ruling yesterday, allowing Sikh students to wear the Kirpaan to school.

I spent most of my school years at Khalsa School, but I also spent a couple of years (Grades 11 and 12) at Magee Secondary School, a school that had at most, a half dozen Sikhs, none of whom (besides myself) were baptized or otherwise "orthodox" in their views. I always generally knew that Canada was the country that had the least racial problems in the world, but it was only at Magee that I grew to appreciate the teachers' and students' tolerance and lack of thought to religious or racial considerations when viewing their students and classmates. (And it's not like I went to some far-left school either, in our mock election held at the same time as the 2000 Federal Election, my school voted for the Canadian Alliance.)

I wore a big kirpaan to school everyday; it was worn on the outside too. No one cared because no one saw it as an offensive or aggressive weapon. Everyone with half a brain knew that it was obviously a religious symbol. I remember the school principal asking me about it once, he had absolutely no problem with it once I explained its religious significance and how it was simply not an option to part with it, even for a moment. And so I wore it. Besides a few people commenting on how cool it looked, barely anyone even mentioned it.

I don't think people realize the significance of the kirpaan and how important it actually is. Everyone who wears one, wears it due to a sincere religious belief. This is a politicized way of getting my point across, but often a friend of mine asks me silly theoretical questions like: "If Stephen Harper did so and so, would you still vote for the Conservatives?" And usually, I say "yeah, I probably still would" or "no, then I'd probably vote for the Greens or not vote at all", I answer his questions simply because they're hypotheticals and not because I think many, if any of them are at all likely to happen. Anyways, that friend of mine asked me again yesterday, "What if Stephen Harper invoked the nothwithstanding clause on this like some crazy right-wingers are suggesting in the feedback portion of that news article?" And I responded that while I'm completely certain he would do no such thing, but if he did do such a thing, I said that not only would I not vote Conservative, I would have to vote Liberal.

Taxes, spending, corruption, etc. - all of that is secondary to matters of dignity, matters of self-respect. No self-respecting baptized Sikh would ever agree to removing his kirpaan, as if he or she was some sort of irresponsible threat to his or her fellow classmates.

The Toronto Star had a good editorial up about the decision in today's paper, however, I would change the title of the editorial to "A ruling for fairness":

A ruling for tolerance

Mar. 3, 2006. 01:00 AM

For nearly five years, Gurbaj Singh has argued that he has a legal right under religious freedom to wear a ceremonial dagger to school.

The Supreme Court of Canada now agrees with him.

In a unanimous 8-0 decision yesterday, the top court sided with Singh, now 17, that a Montreal school board went too far in banning his wearing of a Sikh kirpan, stating that it is an infringement on religious freedom that "cannot be justified" under the Charter of Rights.

The school board claimed it was concerned about student safety.

The ruling is significant because it could impact other disputes, such as the ban at some schools on the traditional Muslim head scarf for women.

The kirpan is one of five sacred symbols of faith worn by all who are initiated. Orthodox Sikhs, such as Singh, must always wear a kirpan, according to their religion. Orthodox Sikhs comprise about 10 per cent of the 250,000 Sikhs in Canada.

In the judgment, Justice Louise Charron wrote that "religious tolerance is a very important value of Canadian society." She added that a "total prohibition against wearing kirpans to school undermines the value of this religious symbol and sends the message that some religious practices do not merit the same protection as others."

The court concluded Singh "genuinely believes" he would not be honouring his faith if he wears a wooden or plastic kirpan in place of a metal one. It also noted there is no evidence of any violent incidents with a ceremonial dagger in a school.

But the Supreme Court also sounded a wise note of caution by saying it was not unreasonable that restrictions be put on the wearing of the kirpan, such as limiting the length or ensuring it was sheathed and secured under clothes.

Such conditions are acceptable to most of Canada's orthodox Sikhs and are already in effect in schools in Ontario and several other provinces.

Such sensible rules should ease concerns of parents who believe that allowing kirpans into schools represents a danger for their children.

This ruling should not be viewed, as some might suggest, as one that allows Sikhs to force their religious beliefs on other Canadians.

Rather, it should be considered as an opportunity to show tolerance and respect, qualities that make this country a shining example for people around the globe.