- Joined
- Aug 29, 2007
- Messages
- 398
[quote user=stephen]When you have people like JohnS demonizing Stephen Harper as if he is the most horrible thing that has happened to Canada, it makes you wonder if many voters like him are not using there IQ but succumb to there emotional knee jerk reactions.
I've got to say, I find this particularly amusing. Not that most here know me, but one of the biggest "complaints" about me from friends and family is that I live too much by logic, and I don't live enough by emotion.
That being said, I totally admit that I am emotional about Harper, and I strongly dislike him as a leader. But it's because of his blatant and many abuses of our system that I dislike him. I mean, I don't dislike his policies because they're from him. Rather, because of his inane and malicious policies, actions, and beliefs I dislike him. I wasn't always this way, and I actually have some very Conservative beliefs - some of them moreso than some Tory candidates, I'm sure, like my adamant belief that the only way to improve our health care system is to admit it's already two-tiered, and build off of it. But the longer he's been around, the more I get swung to being a Liberal.
But intellectually, I take some things seriously. Like lying to Parliament, and lying to the population. (See: supporting Oda, the 1997 video of him in support of coalitions and other forms of minority governments, the census, his constant attack ads on people's characters when not even in elections, the economic-report-that-wasn't, his "support" for environmental policies, to name just a couple of the top of my head.) Like continually sowing division amongst our citizens. (See: east vs west, anglophone vs francophone, the "elites" vs "regular Canadians", etc.) He campaigned on accountability and transparency, yet has taken the opposites to extremes. This doesn't mean that politicians from other parties haven't done the same thing in the past - of course they have. But as he's taken it so much further, I dislike it even more.
And, I can't understand people that blindly repeat his mantra that he's the only one that knows what's right for our economy. I mean, he's the one that didn't see the recession coming, he's the one that spent our reserve fund before it hit, and he's the one that government spending ballooned under. So many of his supporters just don't realize that he overspent any previous PM, and that's before the recession hit.
Now, I do give him a bit of credit for how we've come through the recession, but even The Economist (so, an internationally respected, external publication) has said that most of the credit isn't his. Rather, it's due to our resources (so, nothing to do with him), and our banking system (which he inherited, but was actively against, when he fought to make it more akin to that of the States).
So, do I dislike him? Absolutely, but with strong reasons behind my dislike. It's not an unthinking emotion, but rather one that's backed up by tons of evidence and reasons.
Have a good one, all!
JohnS
I've got to say, I find this particularly amusing. Not that most here know me, but one of the biggest "complaints" about me from friends and family is that I live too much by logic, and I don't live enough by emotion.
That being said, I totally admit that I am emotional about Harper, and I strongly dislike him as a leader. But it's because of his blatant and many abuses of our system that I dislike him. I mean, I don't dislike his policies because they're from him. Rather, because of his inane and malicious policies, actions, and beliefs I dislike him. I wasn't always this way, and I actually have some very Conservative beliefs - some of them moreso than some Tory candidates, I'm sure, like my adamant belief that the only way to improve our health care system is to admit it's already two-tiered, and build off of it. But the longer he's been around, the more I get swung to being a Liberal.
But intellectually, I take some things seriously. Like lying to Parliament, and lying to the population. (See: supporting Oda, the 1997 video of him in support of coalitions and other forms of minority governments, the census, his constant attack ads on people's characters when not even in elections, the economic-report-that-wasn't, his "support" for environmental policies, to name just a couple of the top of my head.) Like continually sowing division amongst our citizens. (See: east vs west, anglophone vs francophone, the "elites" vs "regular Canadians", etc.) He campaigned on accountability and transparency, yet has taken the opposites to extremes. This doesn't mean that politicians from other parties haven't done the same thing in the past - of course they have. But as he's taken it so much further, I dislike it even more.
And, I can't understand people that blindly repeat his mantra that he's the only one that knows what's right for our economy. I mean, he's the one that didn't see the recession coming, he's the one that spent our reserve fund before it hit, and he's the one that government spending ballooned under. So many of his supporters just don't realize that he overspent any previous PM, and that's before the recession hit.
Now, I do give him a bit of credit for how we've come through the recession, but even The Economist (so, an internationally respected, external publication) has said that most of the credit isn't his. Rather, it's due to our resources (so, nothing to do with him), and our banking system (which he inherited, but was actively against, when he fought to make it more akin to that of the States).
So, do I dislike him? Absolutely, but with strong reasons behind my dislike. It's not an unthinking emotion, but rather one that's backed up by tons of evidence and reasons.
Have a good one, all!
JohnS
