Socialists

h/t to Janet for the inspiration

SOCIALIST


Socialist


Socialist


socialist


SOCIALIST


Socialist


Socialist


And some people wonder why these people scare me.

Same Trough, Different Pigs

How is it even possible for something like this to happen? How many people see a contract like this before it is approved? Five, Ten or More?

Isn’t even one of them exercising due diligence on behalf of the Canadian Taxpayer? Is there no one outside of the Auditor Generals office that routinely establishes whether proper procedures and protocols have been followed in government?

Yes, Yes there is.

“The Procurement and Project Management Policy Directorate (PPMPD) is part of the Government Operations Sector within the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat. Its role is to provide strategic project and procurement management policy leadership to government departments, other central agencies, and other parts of the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat.”

The website says that they process about 500,000 transactions a year worth about 10 to 13 billion dollars. Hmmm, with that kind of money at stake you would think that we (the public) would have heard more about this obviously important player in the contracts process.

But then, would you admit to being the guy that let unscrupulous politicians rip us all off?

That’s what I thought…



RANT:

This issue has gotten me to thinking, a dangerous occupation to say the least, but here it goes anyway.

Since our society is advanced beyond the level of the dark ages it is not impossible, or even economically prohibitive (once the criminal cost of the status quo is factored in) to ensure that processes are followed and those in positions of power and influence do not have the opportunity or ability to easily cheat the system.

With this fact being patently obvious, the only plausible reason why things like this continue to happen is because they are permitted to. Now why is that?

Why, because at some level we all want it to continue! We as individuals are all rational actors, and if we think we can get away with cheating the system we will. It’s simply how the game is played.

Do you remember when Ontario was going to install photo radar? Remember the ruckus it caused? That little tempest in a teapot wasn’t brought on by some fear of “Big Brother” prying into the lives of law-abiding citizens as they cruised the 401. Not at all, the impetus for the outrage was that the government was eliminating the possibility of getting away with it. We (citizens) were outraged that the government was eliminating one of the prime components in our societies game, the ability for individuals to cheat “the system” by ensuring that anyone speeding at any time anywhere could be caught and would be ticketed.

Now nowhere near 1 in 103,896 of us have the ability to squeeze $25,000 out of the federal purse, but the principal is the same…

I guess

A Divergence of Thought

Although I do not ascribe my political ideology to anything as rigid as a political party it is quite obvious to anyone who is paying attention that my tendency is toward Classic Liberalism. This would seem to call into question my support for Canada’s role in the war in Afghanistan, indeed my acceptance and support of the “War on Terror” in general, but Foreign Affairs and Defence issues are where Libertarianism and I diverge.

First off, true Classic Liberalism forbids the existence of all but the smallest of standing armies, and demands that those armies exist only for the defence of the Nation. There would not even be scope within the Libertarian ideal for most peacekeeping missions, as those missions are usually focused on enforcing the will of the wider world upon the warring factions within a given territory.

In “On Liberty” J.S. Mill wrote “A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.” I would argue that this sentiment is doubled when the actor is a Nation.

This planet is composed of a community of nations. Each nation acts on its own self-interest but that self-interest does not stop at the border of the country. Nations of the world must be willing and able to defend not only their self-interest at home but interests abroad as well.

A perfect example of this is World War 2. Where would we be now if the nations of the world had held onto the myopic Libertarian ideal of national self defence? Germany, buoyed by its successes in Europe and gathering power as it went could have picked off the remaining nations one by one.

More recently in the former Yugoslavia could any human being embodying the liberal ideals of freedom and basic rights sit idly by and watch as entire races are slaughtered like farm animals? Could we as a Classic Liberal society sit back and watch, not daring to spend our own blood and treasure to stop it? Is it freedom to become a victim of genocide? Is it liberal to allow another human being to fall victim to it?

I can not advocate that we Canadians divorce ourselves from the problems of the world any more than I could, as an individual, watch my next door neighbour be raped and do nothing. There is too much evil in the world, too much tyranny. Edmund Burke said it best when he wrote “When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.”

Nations are no different from individuals; they have a responsibility to defend their ideals, even if sometimes they must fight to the death to do it.

With regard to foreign affairs, Libertarian thought allows for individuals to enter into “treaties” with foreign governments. The idea being that in order for a truly free market to exist, each individual or company must be free to do business with any person, group or government.

So in the context of today, Colt Canada, the makers of the C7 family of weapons in use by the Canadian Forces could enter into a contract to sell those same weapons to the Taliban. Although I would like to believe that based on liberal principal alone, any Company would refuse to sell them weapons, in my heart I know that there are those in this world unscrupulous enough to do it*.

*I am not implying Colt Canada is such a company!

Now a Libertarian would argue that any company that did make such a deal would be punished by the players in the market who, seeing this action as traitorous would themselves refuse to do business with the company. But that punishment would come too late for me. Too many Canadians and too many of our allies would already have paid for the company’s greed on the battlefield.

No, unlimited individual interaction within the free market can not always be permitted. In my mind, in cases of war, limited restrictions on trade can and indeed should be placed on the individual by government. That these special cases would be strictly controlled and bound by legislation is a foregone conclusion, after all, the tendency for government to creep into every aspect daily life must still be guarded against...

Must ALWAYS be guarded against.

Another doomed attempt at Democratic Reform.

Ontario, TAG! Your it.

Right off the bat I can see two problems.

QUOTE: "This isn't about what party you support, it's not about left versus right, cities versus rural areas, or Leaf fans versus Senators fans --

Waitaminute... If this isn't about hockey, how do they expect to get Ontarians to take their heads out of their asses and pay attention?

Then there's this...

Murray said his group can't afford a flashy television ad campaign...

Doomed! Doomed I tell ya!

There is no project however noble, necessary or urgent that will ever come to fruition without the help of television advertising. I'm sorry, but it's true. We as a society knowingly or not, tend to discount any cause that doesn't make it to the telly. If there isn't some notable celebrity or glitzy commercial on at prime-time trumpeting your cause, then it just doesn't exist.

Don't believe me? Think back, think way back to the days before the internet, before Youtube. There were environmental advocates then, way back in 1970's but they were a fringe. Very few people paid attention, and I would argue that few would be paying attention to Gore and Suzuki today if they were only handing out brochures. Because brochures, as everyone knows comes from the original Latin phrase for "please throw away".

Part 2: The caring part of I don’t care.

We’ve established that I don’t care, and as a result more than one of you probably believe that I have got to be the most self-centered, self-serving, self-absorbed, arrogant, ignorant bastard on the face of the planet.

But I’m not.

My not caring is not selfish protectionism but an expression my respect for the personal liberty of every person on this planet.

For example; If I tell you that I don’t care if you become a heroin addict that is just me advocating liberty. It is me acknowledging your personal freedom to make the choice to imbibe of the drug or not as you see fit. It also places responsibility for the consequences of that action squarely at your feet.

It does not mean that I approve or that I would not criticize, cajole or harass you for your addiction though. Nor necessarily does it mean that I would abandon you to fight any addiction alone because I'm selfish. My not caring if you become an addict certainly does not mean however, that I would support or facilitate your habit in any way.

My not caring places the responsibility for caring for your actions in your hands. It simultaneously prevents me from falsely accepting responsibility and acting as a moral crutch for you or shouldering a measure of your guilt and thereby delaying your acceptance of responsibility and your recovery. It also frees me to act in the most selfless and caring manner to help you, as any compassionate person would.

That is how much I don't care.

Part I: Truth be told, I really don’t care.

Yep, that’s a fact. I don’t care what you do, when, how, where, why or with whom, just so long as you don’t hurt anyone else.

I don’t care if you want to live in a polygamous relationship

I don’t care if you want to drink to excess, smoke pot, inject heroin or snort cocaine.

I don’t care if you and your homosexual or lesbian partner “marry".

Read my lips… I don’t Care!

What I cannot tolerate however, is the rejection of personal responsibility for any of these choices or my being compelled by an overbearing busybody government to support them.

If you snort coke and kill someone while in a drug induced rage then you should be punished to the fullest extent of the law for the crime of murder. The coke may be why you did it but it was you, and you alone that committed the crime.

If you run down a teenager in your Caddy because you’ve had one too many highballs at the office Christmas party then you, not the company or the bartender should be charged with vehicular manslaughter and go to jail for a very, very long time.

If you have 100 spouses, you and they must be willing and able to sort out the legal ramifications of custody, support and alimony should the whole thing go down the toilet.

So whatever decision you make, however you decide to live your life and however those decisions impact you, I would remind you of one simple fact.

I don’t care.

Full of sound and Fury...

All this recent attention being paid to the Green party is like the comedy channel… Time well wasted.

Come election night the Green's supporters are once again going to be left sitting in their parent’s basement, on Saltspring Island, red-eyed and confused, enjoying the best damn Kraft dinner they've ever eaten and wondering why other Canadians just don't get it.

The UN: a gift (to murderers and terrorists) that keeps on giving.

I spent the seven most frustrating months of my military career in Bosnia under command of the United Nations.

Ceasefire violations by all the warring factions, and threats of violence against UN peacekeepers were a daily occurrence. Srebrenica was merely the bloody icing on a UN cake made of bureaucratic incompetence and unrealistic restrictions placed on soldiers.

At least two of my friends who were there in Bosnia were not the same when they came home, not because they were exposed to the stress of battle but because they were not permitted to do the job they were sent there to do.

When NATO with the US in the lead wrestled that failing mission from its inept UN handlers one would have thought that the UN would sort it’s house out.

But that was apparently too much to hope for. Waste and corruption, still reign in those hallowed halls.

You have to ask yourself how an organization who’s mission it is to protect refugees can allow the presence of any weapons within a refugee camp, much less the number of weapons required to launch a full scale attack on a national army?

The headlines today are empirical evidence that the United Nations should be permitted to administer nothing more complex than sixth grade class tours of their headquarters in New York.

Even then, parents would be advised to chaperon such events.

Do you support the continued use of soccer stadiums as killing fields?

You have to believe them, because they haven't posted the questions yet.

Maybe I should ask the questions...

Do you believe in womens rights?

Do you like soccer?

Cut to the quick

Sometimes, just sometimes, someone in the Canadian media manages to look past the hype of Justin, King in waiting©, savior of Canada, and fruit of the loins of of his highness Pierre the Great.

When they do they see that what lies beneath is not the deliverer of a "just society" but a champagne socialist, a pampered academic.

He appears as ignorant of the terrible history of socialism and the dangers of the command economy as the average Canadian is of the theory of quantum mechanics

One can only hope that Justin Trudeau will follow the lead of another much hyped plitical "star" and his stay will be short.

Say it isn't so

This was a "study"?!?

What can I say... I'm shocked, shocked I tell you.

"The women said they engaged in the activity for fun, not as a means of developing relationships."

Nice. Unlike the men apparently, who are not hoping to have fun but to attract the future Mrs Caveman.

How's my sarcasm? Dial 1-800-get-real

Welcome

"Political correctness is a crutch for those who can neither say what they mean, mean what they say, or have the intestinal fortitude to back it up."
Yours truly: Zip

Welcome to uncommon sense, I encourage you to abide by the wisdom above during your stay. I know I will.

This blog will (hopefully) span a wide range of subjects, though I have a feeling it will end up focused primarily on Political theory, Canadian Politics, military matters and War.

So let's get on with it.