I’ve been listening for weeks now as Liberals defend their party as though theft was simply a policy issue to debate on its merits – a small part of a larger, more important national picture, sometimes marketed as the Greater Good[tm].
These Liberals seem to genuinely believe that systematic dishonesty is just a point of disagreement for which a sensible compromise could be found, if only both sides would be civil.
“Compromise” is defined by Websters in this way:
“An amicable agreement between parties in controversy, to settle their differences by mutual concessions. “
Well, therein lies the rub. Conservatives aren’t wired the same way as you Liberals. As we are so often reminded, we tend to view the world in terms of “black and white”.
This Ayn Rand quote is illustrative of this uniquely conservative character flaw, the unreasonably rigid fixation on notions of right and wrong as though they are, you know – meaningful.
“In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit. In that transfusion of blood which drains the good to feed the evil, the compromiser is the transmitting rubber tube.”
Stupid woman. Rand should have known that so-called “poison” can be ingested safely if dosage remains within limits of toxicity. Lives are saved through chemotherapy every day by the very pharmaceuticals that would kill you instantly if administered in overdose. The grey area between safety and toxicity is scientific fact – a property of every chemical substance on earth, with the exception of agricultural pesticides, growth hormones and fertilizers.
Still, hard wired as the conservative that I am, I can’t help myself. I can’t quite resolve a middle ground between good and evil. While on some intellectual level I’m sure I know better – I cannot shake the belief that beaurocratic corruption is an institutional character fault so grave that it should disqualify those afflicted from any position of power. In the case of the Liberal Party of Canada, I believe the party should be deregistered. I know this is harsh, but that’s how I think. Black. White. Crime. Punishment.
It’s not as though the question of corruption remains in dispute. An announced $750,000 trust fund indicates that Mr. Martin’s Liberals have moved past denial and presumption of innocence, and have entered the plea bargain phase.
While I acknowledge this is progress of a sort, in the greater scope of events, it’s pretty clear that my outdated “conservative” definition of justice, a justice that includes punishment, will not be realized. Having admitted guilt, there will be no penalty outside of “community service”.
The Liberal Party will not only continue to exist, they shall continue to govern and enjoy the privilage of stealing from me for the greater good.
So, to my fellow moderate, mainstream, compromising Liberal Canadian citizens so tolerant of the mischievious ways of our political masters – today I concede.
You win. I lose. You are right. I was wrong. You were always right, and I was always wrong.
Having broken the shackles of black and white, I’m ready to venture into this brave new ethical world of “Grey” and work with you. I can’t say I understand it, but nonetheless – it’s time to adapt.
As my first step, as a show of good faith, I’ve arranged a compromise with you. We will find a middle ground between “honesty” and “dishonesty”, a happy litlle grey parking spot between “respect for property” and “systematic theft”.
In my previous life in the world of black and white, “fairness” would demand participation of two consenting negotiators to arrive at “mutual concession’. I’m glad we can dispense with that outdated notion.
I’m going to play by your rules. Just as I had no place at the table when you were conceding the fundamental honour and integrity of the political system I must live under, you’ll surely understand this compromise that I have chosen for you.
You get to keep your Liberal Party and then some – you may also keep your Liberal government in perpetuity.
Easy? Easy.
In exchange I am going to impose a similar system of institutionalized theft on you, but in a more streamlined version. (Some conservative habits die hard) .
While your political party is stealing my money to fund their own election campaigns and in turn, reward their supporters (which would be you and the others who vote for them), in my parallel system, we’ve cut out the middleman.
I’ve made a deal with your bank. They have agreed to allow me, at the time of my choosing, to dip into your personal account and take a few dollars when I need them. Or alternately, when I want them. It’s nothing to get worried about, because the amounts I take will be such a tiny percentage of the bank’s overall holdings.
I won’t be telling you when I’ll be accessing your account, how much I’m going to take or how I will spend it. (I negotiated that, too.)
Because this is a democracy, you will have the right to complain just as much as you wish – so long as you remain civil. No anger allowed, because I really am uncomfortable – distrustful really – of angry people. They scare me.
If the tone of your complaint meets with my approval, I will go back to the bank and we shall sit down and discuss your grievance. The process will be completely democratic. You may watch and you can comment, and you will even cast a vote. You, me and the banker all cast votes.
Majority rules.
Then, after the majority has ruled, I’ll admit that maybe I took some of your money, look you straight in the eye and tell you I’m very, very sorry about the mess and give you my solemn pledge – let me be very, very clear about this – not to steal from your personal account until next time.
Then, I’ll instruct your banker to increase your account fees. We shall then distribute the extra revenues to the bank accounts of your like-minded mainstream Liberal Canadian friends.
They, in turn, will remind you that we do not live in a world of black and white.
You rock, Kate. Way to spell it out.
I know this comment is rather simplistic, but I bet people that vote Liberal will also spend an hour screaming on the phone with the bank when their fees do go up by a few dollars. Funny that.
That just about sums the whole ugly condition up. Did you draw it from the Blackberry (maybe instructions to BS, likely quoted from “Libranoism for Dummies”)!
Kate, thanks for quoting Ayn Rand. But you forgot to tell them who she was. I’m sure most of them don’t know.
Very funny post. But the best way to de-register a corrupt Liberal government is to, well, just walk away, and take all the oil, crops and trees with us.
Last week I didn’t paint at all, hoping for something good to come of this. Now all I want to do is paint. But everything is coming out dark. I think I’ve re-entered my minimalist stage of many years ago.
Wow. Great Post! That really says it all..
Good point. I’ll add a Randian link. Call it Moonbat Fertilizer.
Please get involved in your local riding and GET YOURSELF ELECTED.
You would make an AMZING MP !!
If you don’t do that let’s start a campaign to get Kate hired by the CPC ottawa as a spokesperson . . . . We neeed this kind of storytelling to be available on mainstream TV as a pundit. Something even people in the GTA can understand
Your story has made my day & started of the long weekend on a happy note !!
How can anyone explain this any better?
I doubt anyone can.
Keep writing.
cheers 🙂 majere
This passes the Department of truth!
Double plus good!
No offence to Kate, but our MP Carol Skelton is excellent, the best I’ve ever had.
Now, when she decides to hang it up, and if we haven’t separated yet (here’s hoping) . . . .
Cheers,
lance
I haven’t yet figured out how to make Trackback work on my Blogspot blog. In lieu of that, here:
http://robot_guy.blogspot.com/2005/05/makes-perfect-sense-to-me.html
Moral relativism: stealing is okay as long as it is for the Liberal cause. Libranos rule!
You can check out Pope Benny, as he has written quite profusely on this concept.
If your not persuaded perhaps the Joe Morsellis of the world can induce one to change their mind.
Congratulations!! Right and wrong do matter.
What the Libranos have engineered is the divorce of voters from their public institutions. Their tainted authority from stolen elections is an insult to all voters. “Get ye gone” ye Parliamentary brigands!!
Well said, Kate. I’ve never been able to see things in black and white, myself, but I sure admire a fine etching. I’d say this post belongs in the Best of SDA.
Kate, I agree with you completely. And you know, some of us Americanos got pretty caught up in this thing ourselves, and I’m very disappointed with the way things have gone.
I think I have an exact perception in respect to the way the Libranos see the world. It even basically originates from the context of their own business partnership.
“It is me and Lefty Guns [Lefty Ruggiero] in a hotel bar in Miami Beach. Tourists, tacky decor, and women with scary tans. Lefty is my Mafia mentor, the Bonanno family soldier who is educating me in the conduct expected of a mobster. Me, I’m a good listener. So we’re sitting there having a few drinks and talking about this and that, when it occurs to me to ask Lefty what I think I a pretty good question.
‘Hey, Lefty? What’s the advantage for me in being a wiseguy?’
“Lefty looks at me like I’m the world’s biggest moron. He gets excited and jumps out of his chair and starts yelling and waving his arms. ‘What are you, fucking crazy?’ he says. ‘Are you fucking nuts? When you’re a wiseguy, you can steal, you can cheat, you can lie, you can kill people — and it’s all legitimate.’
“That, in a nutshell, is the way of the wiseguy: Whatever crazy stuff you do, whatever racket you are into, it is all legitimate. The wiseguy does not see himself as a criminal or even a bad person; he sees himself as a businessman, a shrewd hustler, one step ahead of ordinary suckers.”
— from The Way of the WiseGuy, by Donnie Brasco
I think that Brasco (Joe Pistone who infiltrated the Bonanno crime family) sums it up succinctly. If there is any distinction between the Librano$ mindset and that of their business partners, it is a distinction too fine to bother try to discern.
Kate, you really know how to say it. Have you ever considered publishing some of this stuff, maybe a column in a newspaper?
Keep up the great work, you’re a credit to Canadian conservatism. Hopefully, someday, that won’t be an oxymoron.
R. King
A good effort, but again misses analyzing the premise.
Kate, I can’t make put much simpler.
People pay taxes
Government collects a lot of money from taxes
Government spends a lot of this money
Organized crime likes money
Organized crime sees government programs and politicians as easily corruptable/blackmailable.. do I have to continue?
The people stealing our money are CRIMINALS. They are being INVESTIGATED by the RCMP.
Kate, why do you hate the RCMP so much? Why are you trying to minimize the investigation, and dismiss it as blanket party corruption? Do you know something the RCMP doesn’t?
Corporations steal and steal every day – they are very creative at hiding it too. Look at WorldCom, Enron, even our own Nortel to name a few. I expect our police to catch those responsible when they do break the law. We cannot take away their ability to operate (delist them) until they are tried. They are judged and punished accordingly, and shareholders can decide whether to sell the stock (and maybe buy some of the competition’s) based on their assesment of the company as a whole.
Anyway, your comparison doesn’t hold. Governments work for the people, while people work for corporations. I can trust the government to protect me from dangerous corporate practices such as environmental poisoning, as they are not solely profit motivated. I cannot trust corporations to do the same. I cannot trust private individuals to manage my money as much as you would. Your argument is appropriately absurd, because the premise it is based on is similarly absurd.
excuse me.. “put it” not “make put”.. funny as it sounds.
Another salient post Kate….but it only appeals to those not of dogmatic liberal ilk. A bit of singing to the choir as it were. The message is wasted. Explaining the absolutism of ethics to a liberal is like explaining quantum math or astral physics to a sand flea….both are done in hopes of breaking through a geneticly programmed barrier to more evolved values and higher knowing.
Good luck all the same, miracles sometines occur.
Killer speech Kate, as always. There is no rest until the Evil Empire is destroyed or isolated to there own Dark Kingdom.
Thank you Kate. I really appreciate your way with words. I too was raised to think in Black and White. Even my 2 year old granddaughter can understand right versus wrong in “the Fierce Bad Rabbit” by Beatrix Potter!
KATE!!! DON’T DO IT!!! You’re going to the “Dark Side”. I KNOW you think it’s the way to get unlimited financial power but it will corrupt you and steal your soul. Stay with us and be our friend. Fight the good fight for justice and all that is good. Stay in the light (helps to keep the tan). Besides, heavy breathing sound effects aside, you won’t look good in that black plastic helmet, mask and cape!
The world can be more black and white, Kate. As some corny green creature with Grover’s voice said: “DO….OR DO NOT!” It’s our choice…
So don’t be such a Darth Martin.
Remarkably well-drawn analogy – loved it! Keep up the good work!
mockpuppet, you forgot the UN. $40 Billion stolen and climbing (after we scrape of the cockroaches).
Continue your progression, mocky …..
Corporations work for their stock holders. If the stock holders don’t like what they do, they make changes in the board. And stock holders are anyone with stock. The more stock the more influence. So cororporations listen to those with the most influence.
The government is staffed by the civil service. The civil service works for politicians. In order to get elected, politicians require influence. Anyone providing the more influence gets the most attention from a politician, and thus gets the most say in what the politician is going to do.
See the similiarity.
But here is where it ends….
Corporations are required to be audited. If the auditor finds criminal activity, someone goes to jail.
If the government auditor finds criminal activity, who get to decide the action. The same entity that was involved in the criminal activity.
Que ipsos …..
Black and white are shades of grey. Good and evil are two sides of the same coin. You continue to try to call out Good! Evil! all the time not understanding that there is such a coin.
Your dualist arguments are incapable of solutions. If you cannot see this way, then you will be wrong in your characterizations of Black and White.
That’s where I was going with that
“If the government auditor finds criminal activity, who get to decide the action. The same entity that was involved in the criminal activity”
The people do in the election. Which we did, and Conservatives lost to a minority Liberal gov’t backed by the NDP. Or did you forget that part?
Now.. if you want to keep calling elections and disintegrating parties every time a politician, group of them, and/or organized crime finds a way to steal from us and it is exposed – who’s going to be able to do anything around here? I don’t feel like living in a police state.
Are you one for torches and lynchings like the old days of your party, or will you be civil, and let the RCMP do their job.
If it’s a systematic problem then neither party is immune. Civil servants can also be corrupted, we will then need to engage in better accountability for all parties.
Don’t get me wrong.. I’m pissed at the gun registry money, the UN money, the airbus money, the hotel/golf course money,sponsorship money it goes on and on. The solution is not to switch one set of dead spark plugs for another.
or in your case.. small dead animals.
hmmm…mock puppet must be tired of the drivel handed out at the wingbat sites and desperate for some intelligent conversation.
Brilliant analogy, Kate.
mockpuppet,
The relative merits of free enterprise versus socialism.
You sound confused.
I trust you have books on this subject in your library,if not I will with all sincerity send you one of mine to shed more light on the subject if you wish.
doug
I always here the Librano$ say they are a “Progressive” party and have come to take it as “We will Progressively lead you into Socialism”
Therefore following that analogy Liberal=Socialism
So based on history Socialism=Corruption
Which gives Liberal=Socialism=Corruption
Yea, that’s got to be right, all sides of the equation balance.
“Democracy”, hows that quote go?
“THE WORST FORM OF GOVERNMENT EXCEPT FOR ALL THE REST”
very well turned. the only thing i would add is the fact that, should the Liberal Canadian object, they will automatically be branded as hostile toward the banks very existence, and precluded from even discussing how you’re continuing to steal their money.
“The solution is not to switch one set of dead spark plugs for another.”
Quite so. Perhaps an entire new car is in order. Now how does that analogy work? Or an engine overhaul?
you still can’t get past your black and white analysis. Socialism vs. Free enterprise.. grow up already. I have plenty of books on compassion and fraternity, care to read one?
conservatives have a good part in what built this car.. we should look at a new mode of transportation altogether. Something like this, but more like http://www.dailykos.com
Kate: That is the best post I have seen and one of the best you’ve done here at SDA.
I hope Andrew Coyne has a heads up on this one.
Mockpuppet: The liberal government IS corporate thievery. They are stealing from the “corporation of Canada. US. OUR tax dollars and they use it like their own. Know your enemy. Then go for ’em.
Damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead.
If I told you that Iraq had WMD’s and were going to attack imminently, would you also “damn” the torpedoes!
Trigger happy chickenhawk. I’d like to see you confront the mob leaders in person yourself and tell them you are angry and want them to stop.
Stop trying to fornicate with everyone else’s privates! Put your money where your mouth is Snowbunnie.
Go get a law degree, or become an RCMP. Fight corruption from somewhere else than hiding behind your keyboard, then come to me and whine about how much you hate it ok?
(I keep my f-ing promises)
Democrats=Liberals No difference, equation balances.
Clinton/Belindarella/Dithers = same shit different day
(Belindarella is the pig in the middle)
Down with Liberals
Down with Democrats
mockpuppet could be Warn, Red-Green, Abnormal, Bill Ckinton, maybe.
For the scoop on mockpuppet and his comrades visit:
http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog
Looney moonbats from the left are welcome there.
Just like a typical Conservative bully. Confront them head on, and they back down – then watch them resort to discrediting the source and ignoring the problem..
how about it? are you going to Iraq to die based on an inquiry.. oops.. apparently the reform party has just done that.
First they sneak into federal politics on the coattails of a discredited conservative party. then they fail to get a national mandate even in the face of obvious massive corruption scandals. then they try and try to take down parliament any way they can – even siding with the Bloc, to no avail. Get the message – the right has no place in governance. (opposition maybe.)
mockpuppet is trying to swing the thread totally off topic. He accepts corruption, he condones mob tactics, a party with no ethics or integrity. His head is totally grey and can’t see black from white, good from evil.
Sympathy must be the order of the day for mockpuppet, as he will be isolated as we proceed into a number of nations. Quebec being first, 2009, Alberta second, and whom ever may follow. Pasports required to go from country to country, apply now.
Real compassion and fraternity are private functions, not mandatable by the state as a way to relieve certain individuals of having to ever offer another thought to the conditions of those less fortunate.
And where’s all the money your Martinites promised for tsunami relief? Still in Desmarais’ bank?
The money our parish raised in one weekend’s collections has long since been sent over, the purchases from those proceeds distributed, and a thank-you letter received. I can assure you that it was much less than the nine-figure amount Mr Martin promised to send.
(sliding slightly off-topic, but FTW, it seemed to fit).
“the right has no place in governance”
what about George W Bush?
Wowser!!!!!
Check out:
http://www.harperliberals.ca
The light is getting brighter.
Come to the Light.
Liberals are moving to the right/light.
Go, Stephen Harper.
Fuckpuppet,
I’ll come and see you, tough guy.
GODDAMNITKATE! For the first half of that I was ready to come home(back to the gap between AB and MB) and kick your butt! Very well put. lol
Libpuppet, one doesn’t have to have a law degree or be an RCMP to fight crime. You can vote the crooks out. Or you can start a blog to get the word out, as Kate has done.
But instead, you like to troll and call people names. You shouldn’t be so full of hate.
maz2,
A convert, one of many, the walls are crumbling, and the occupants are scared. The mob (not the librano mob) is coming to the gate demanding justice.
Where is our MONEY!
Lock the CROOKS UP!
Throw away the KEY!
Down with the Librano$, and give us our damn money back!
Did somebody just call Bush a righty? Dude – give your head a shake.
what’s that I hear Harper saying now? He wants to WAIT a while and build NATIONAL support?
That should keep him busy for a while, as the more evolved go back to work, and leave the whining for the greedy jealous type.
Canada is a great country, if you don’t like it.. the borders are wide open, be my guest!
jhuck,
“I’ll come and see you, tough guy.”
No worries there mate, mockpuppet is a socialist worm to afraid to use his real email address so he can’t be traced.
I here Kate starting up her Dodge, he better crawl back into the sewer quick.