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Mendalla said:
I'm cynical enough to not count on that. A party in fourth or fifth place can be a very different beast once they are in power. Being in power, or even in contention for power, requires the leader to keep a stronger reign to avoid blow-ups that could hurt the party at the polls. Look at how Harper has come down on some of his more right-wing MPs and candidates at times even though he likely agrees with them personally.

I feel the same way about the current Grits. Trudeau talks a good line about being more open and accountable while he's in third place but his father and Chretien were hardly that so I'm not counting on it once he's in power. Relative to Harper, maybe, but that's the most I'll give him until I see him in action.
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Trudeau is playing to win (so is Mulcair but for more objective reasons). He is siding with the PCs on some very serious history changing legislation so as not to "make political hay" and I am not happy at all with him about it. It makes me wonder if he'd take a principled stand on anything else, or would just capitulate lest he sinks in the polls. I feel similarly about Mulcair, although I really do feel that Mulcair is worried about Canada's future more than he is just making the election about himself - which is why he brought up a liberal/ ndp coalition. May, is the most straight forward and easy to read of all of them but I regret that she doesn't have enough support to take a chance on slitting up the votes on the left too much. I believe if she were in power, she's the most likely to stick completely to her platform.
 
Kimmio said:
May, is the most straight forward and easy to read of all of them but I regret that she doesn't have enough support to take a chance on slitting up the votes on the left too much. I believe if she were in power, she's the most likely to stick completely to her platform.
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I do not rate a party on whether they stick closely to their platform, but on how they govern. The platform is a starting point, an indicator of what they value, but reality may dictate changes to the specifics once they are in power. A financial crisis or other event could upset apple carts and prevent some of those specifics from being safely and sanely implemented and I would expect any party in power, including the Greens, to both have the flexibility to adapt to that and the ability to sell their reasons for diverging from the specifics of their platform.
 
Mendalla said:
I'm curious to know, too, because I've found their actual platform to be a fairly reasonable middle ground (given their odd political orientation, there are likely candidates in there with questionable views but you can find those in all of the three major parties, too). Heavy on the environment and on focussing health care towards prevention and health-maintenance rather than the current reactive break-fix system but also with an eye to keeping the books balanced. That said, I have not read their current platform documents (I will before the election) so maybe they are leaning heavily to naturo- and homeopathy or something? Which does not matter much because nothing can be done in health care without provincial support/consent since it is constitutionally a provincial, rather than federal, matter. Even the Canada Health Act had provincial buy-in at the time, though that has slipped somewhat over the years.
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It affects health care though. As it is, I think Health Canada is too supportive of homeopathic remedies, I don't think they should be in a pharmacy. Giving these things the ok means that people are not taking care of a problem, which can result in a higher level of care later on.

There are also aspects of health care that are not provincial and have a direct effect on me. Ie. CBS
 
Mendalla said:
I do not rate a party on whether they stick closely to their platform, but on how they govern. The platform is a starting point, an indicator of what they value, but reality may dictate changes to the specifics once they are in power. A financial crisis or other event could upset apple carts and prevent some of those specifics from being safely and sanely implemented and I would expect any party in power, including the Greens, to both have the flexibility to adapt to that and the ability to sell their reasons for diverging from the specifics of their platform.
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I mean that more in the sense that she'd be the least likely to promise one thing and venture to do the opposite behind closed doors after she's elected.
 
That said, domestically I think she'd be a good leader but I really can't see her speaking her mind to and being really forthright internationally with people like Putin. I could be wrong. I can't see Trudeau doing that either. I can see Mulcair doing that. Mulcair seems to me to be the one, out of himself, May and Trudeau, who'd be strongest internationally.
 
I have voted NDP (or CCF) all my life with only one exception. I voted for a Lberal (Warren Allmand, Solicitor General under Trudeau) because I knew him, and admired him for his principles. (He was very active in Catholic Social Action). I cannot possibly vote Liberal or Conservative now. Neither party has any social principles so far as I can determine. I would rather waste my vote than give it to either of them. I expect I shall vote NDP, though I wish it were the CCF.
 
It does matter what any Canadian prime minister says to Putin. We are irrelevant on the international stage because we have made our selves an American puppet.
 
Graeme Decarie said:
It does matter what any Canadian prime minister says to Putin. We are irrelevant on the international stage because we have made our selves an American puppet.
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If so, if we were to undo that reputation then I am not sure if May could handle swimming with the big sharks. She's a very nice person, and if she thinks the PCs are nasty to deal with she might have a really hard time internationally. Maybe not. But that's my impression.
 
“In a society where those who always work never have anything, while those who never work enjoy everything, solidarity of interests is non-existent; hence social harmony is but a myth. The only way organized authority meets this grave situation is by extending still greater privileges to those who have already monopolized the earth, and by still further enslaving the disinherited masses. Thus the entire arsenal of government—laws, police, soldiers, the courts, legislatures, prisons,—is strenuously engaged in "harmonizing" the most antagonistic elements in society.”
― Emma Goldman, Anarchism and Other Essays
 
I think May would do fine internationally. She's a quick-witted, thick-skinned lawyer.

I think one of the platform points which indicate a certain lean to the right from the Greens are their economic policies; I've heard several candidates express some vaguely anti-union rhetoric.
 
Harper, for all his TV appearances has had no impact whatever internationally. And I can't imagine that Trudeau would. The last prime minister of any impact we had was Lester Pearson. That was due to his deep understanding of the field, and his leadership in peacekeeping (which we've thrown away.)
 
Pr. Jae said:
Polity should be driven by mission.
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Some believe in the route of road rage ... missals are beta than missions ... and thus they expound with blessings mistaken for curses ... but in the KISS Prin. ... some error may be made by emotions ... that simulate road rage ... MacPherson's Rant?
 

Pat Martin, NDP MP ... Calling for Civil Disobedience ... saying that the Canadian government is basically no longer operational?

"Brothers and sisters, it falls to you as civil society if we’re going to stop Bill C-51. Harper has undermined the ability of your elected representatives to act on your behalf in the House of Commons. You have to take it to the streets. Sometimes civil disobedience is civil defense. Brothers and sisters, there has never been more justification in this country to show civil disobedience!”
 
"Give me ten years' time and you will not recognize Germany anymore."--Adolf Hitler, 1933
  • Reichstag (government building) is attacked in Germany, 1933.
"You won't recognize Canada when I'm through with it." -- Stephen Harper, 2013
  • Parliament (government building) is attacked in Canada, 2014
"An evil exists that threatens every man, woman and child of this great nation. We must take steps to insure our domestic security and protect our homeland." --Adolf Hitler
  • Enabling Act is enacted (1933)
"Evil comes in many forms and we will take all necessary steps to identify and counter threats in order to insure security and keep Canada safe here at home."--Stephen Harper
  • Bill C-15 is enacted (2015)
 
Santayana wrote (in The Life of Reason, 1905):

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
 
and according to Nietzsche, we're to live life knowing that it will be repeated again and again in the exact same way

woot!

talk aboot fun :3 i get to discover WC: Original Recipe again!
 
O Friedrich, how could you...?

O Friedrich, how could you...?

O Friedrich, how could you...?

O Friedrich, how could you...?

O Friedrich, how could you...?

O Friedrich, how could you...?

O Friedrich, how could you...?

Ad nauseam...???
 
CARPE CARPE CARPE!

breaking through all cynicisms, dark glasses and nihilisms since BEFORE THE BIRTH OF TIME ITSELF
 
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