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Friday, November 29, 2013
Is Harper Psychotic Or Just Bent? Rick Mercer Wants to Know.
Rick Mercer reduces the Senate expenses scandal, the PMO scandal and the Senate corruption scandal into one conclusion - Harper was in on it all along.
8 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Harper needs a full mental evaluation. I was shocked when Harper tuned his, hate, spite and malice on Trudeau. Trudeau wasn't leader of the Liberals for two days, before Harper began attacking him. Trudeau wasn't even the official opposition. He still isn't. Harper's own team refused to send out, Harper's hate literature on Trudeau.
Harper is no Conservative either. He was Policy Chief for his, Northern Foundation of 1989. That was enough to, scare the hell out of me. Harper's bizarre behavior, is pretty hard to miss.
The people that need an evaluation are the buffoons that keep thinking he's a decent, honest person.
I mean, c'mon people: how many lies, crooked acts and other fraudulent activities do the Cons have to commit (at any level) before we shove them all out the door?
This has to stop. The only way to get rid of them is to change our voting system.
I'm with you on changing our voting system-- absolutely important. The question is, will the LPC/NDP work together to make it happen? or will they attempt to score political points while each pushing forward their own vision of what voting system reform looks like, and get nothing done in the end?
I'm a late convert to electoral reform/proportional voting but I have come to accept the obvious, that we are not apt to restore our nation to a functioning, effective democracy until we do that.
If we simply institute ranked voting to require a majority win instead of a plurality I think that would have a meaningful impact, and it is the only real change that can be made easily that I can see. All the others have farther reaching impacts to how our political systems work, which means there is a lot more involved in making the changes, and selling the wider public on the changes, as well as the politicos. I was once in favour of proportional voting until I really sat down and thought about how to implement it, at which time I came to realize that it is barring a much broader movement of fundamental change not a feasible solution.
If we rank our choices though we don't change anything except the need for the winner to have that majority finish. We don't alter anything else, we don't alter how candidates are chosen, we don't alter the power balance between representative and party that is inevitable with PR in my opinion. We have a simple change that does not require massive change nor risks Constitutional challenge.
Something certainly has to change, that much is clear. The question is what has the best chance of getting done, what has the best chance of working, and for that I am not sold on PR at this time. Now, if the ranked ballot option doesn't produce significant change after implementation and use for a couple/few elections then I would say it becomes worth trying for the harder to enact changes like PR. I am the son of an engineer though, and I learned the value of minimalism a long time ago when making fundamental changes to something. That's my take on this issue these days.
Politicians have stepped down for a lot less. Why won't Harper? Probably because he is a power hungry psycho.....
I do think Harper knew all about this from the start. The cover up and scapegoat 'plan' never worked out as planned. Nothing gets by him and he knows 'everything'. He runs things with such a tight ship and his mp's can't breathe without him knowing or say so.
Scotian, I know there are a few alternative options for electoral reform and I'm not sufficiently informed to weigh those. I understand the basics of weighted and proportional voting concepts but I can't opine much beyond that.
Now I feel dumb.
CL, I don't know if you heard about Harper's revision of the notion of 'responsible government.' It used to be that ministers and, in some circumstances, the prime minister were supposed to take responsibility for what was done in their name, on their watch, even by their aides.
Harper abolished that democratic tradition. Now a minister need only resign once an officer of the law slaps the cuffs on.
I'm one of those process geeks remember? *LOL* So I've considered the various forms of electoral reform, and for me I have to go with the ranked ballot approach as the first step approach. The problem with the others is that they need much more changes to the current system to implement, which raises multiple difficulties. Not least the difficulty of the entrenched interests wanting things to stay the same, the need to conform to statutory and Constitutional requirements, the need to sell a majority of the public on the method and its worthiness, and in the case of PR for example the power of parties in our system is already high so how do you prevent it from getting even worse with PR.
What makes the ranked ballot so attractive to me is that it requires only a simple change of legislation. It is easy to explain, does not change the current balances of powers between MPs and parties (which is a nasty can of worms to open, and while I am not blind to the arguments for it have seen over the last three decades how hard a sell it is to Canadians, especially as a starting point for reform), yet still does make a significant change. If people felt that their ability to vote allowed them to not just pick their favourite but also to make clear who their least preferred option is so to block them instead of allowing the ability to run up the middle as our current set-up allows that may well help bring some back to thinking their votes actually can matter.
It is also as I said a minimalistic change, and when you play with fundamental powers and structures I favour either starting with the minimum and working forward, or going all-in and revamping the entire thing. Doing only half way measures strikes me as the worst of both worlds, and it increases the risks of new and more dangerous exploitable loopholes and weaknesses. We need to always remember that we are talking about changes that will have profound impacts on real life, and what may sound good in theory, or in a classroom can be very different when real life puts it to the test. Engineers have to think this way, that is why Murphy's Law is the cornerstone of their way of looking at things, and for me that is squared or cubed when we talk about things like fundamental political processes/structures. In this respect I am very much of a conservative mindset in the non-political sense of the word.
II would close with this as well...too many people seem to have equated PR as the only "real/true" electoral/democratic reform, and I've had a few bad disagreements because of that mindset. PR has been tried for in this nation and the federal and Provincial level for decades and it has never gone anywhere outside of a tiny fraction of hard core followers. The one time I am aware of that it was put to a Provincial consult it failed on the grand scale to gain support from the public. So I just don't see it having much viability, while the ranked ballot I think has the best chance since it requires next to no changes to how we already vote and tabulate votes. Which is why I think it is the best first step for electoral reform.. As I said before, if after a few elections it doesn't appear to have helped then it becomes time to try for the harder fixes, but I prefer to remember that the perfect is the enemy of the good where this issue is concerned.
8 comments:
Harper needs a full mental evaluation. I was shocked when Harper tuned his, hate, spite and malice on Trudeau. Trudeau wasn't leader of the Liberals for two days, before Harper began attacking him. Trudeau wasn't even the official opposition. He still isn't. Harper's own team refused to send out, Harper's hate literature on Trudeau.
Harper is no Conservative either. He was Policy Chief for his, Northern Foundation of 1989. That was enough to, scare the hell out of me. Harper's bizarre behavior, is pretty hard to miss.
The people that need an evaluation are the buffoons that keep thinking he's a decent, honest person.
I mean, c'mon people: how many lies, crooked acts and other fraudulent activities do the Cons have to commit (at any level) before we shove them all out the door?
This has to stop. The only way to get rid of them is to change our voting system.
Anon 2:20,
I'm with you on changing our voting system-- absolutely important. The question is, will the LPC/NDP work together to make it happen? or will they attempt to score political points while each pushing forward their own vision of what voting system reform looks like, and get nothing done in the end?
I'm a late convert to electoral reform/proportional voting but I have come to accept the obvious, that we are not apt to restore our nation to a functioning, effective democracy until we do that.
MoS:
If we simply institute ranked voting to require a majority win instead of a plurality I think that would have a meaningful impact, and it is the only real change that can be made easily that I can see. All the others have farther reaching impacts to how our political systems work, which means there is a lot more involved in making the changes, and selling the wider public on the changes, as well as the politicos. I was once in favour of proportional voting until I really sat down and thought about how to implement it, at which time I came to realize that it is barring a much broader movement of fundamental change not a feasible solution.
If we rank our choices though we don't change anything except the need for the winner to have that majority finish. We don't alter anything else, we don't alter how candidates are chosen, we don't alter the power balance between representative and party that is inevitable with PR in my opinion. We have a simple change that does not require massive change nor risks Constitutional challenge.
Something certainly has to change, that much is clear. The question is what has the best chance of getting done, what has the best chance of working, and for that I am not sold on PR at this time. Now, if the ranked ballot option doesn't produce significant change after implementation and use for a couple/few elections then I would say it becomes worth trying for the harder to enact changes like PR. I am the son of an engineer though, and I learned the value of minimalism a long time ago when making fundamental changes to something. That's my take on this issue these days.
Politicians have stepped down for a lot less. Why won't Harper? Probably because he is a power hungry psycho.....
I do think Harper knew all about this from the start. The cover up and scapegoat 'plan' never worked out as planned. Nothing gets by him and he knows 'everything'. He runs things with such a tight ship and his mp's can't breathe without him knowing or say so.
Scotian, I know there are a few alternative options for electoral reform and I'm not sufficiently informed to weigh those. I understand the basics of weighted and proportional voting concepts but I can't opine much beyond that.
Now I feel dumb.
CL, I don't know if you heard about Harper's revision of the notion of 'responsible government.' It used to be that ministers and, in some circumstances, the prime minister were supposed to take responsibility for what was done in their name, on their watch, even by their aides.
Harper abolished that democratic tradition. Now a minister need only resign once an officer of the law slaps the cuffs on.
That is the act of a tyrant and nothing less.
MoS:
I'm one of those process geeks remember? *LOL* So I've considered the various forms of electoral reform, and for me I have to go with the ranked ballot approach as the first step approach. The problem with the others is that they need much more changes to the current system to implement, which raises multiple difficulties. Not least the difficulty of the entrenched interests wanting things to stay the same, the need to conform to statutory and Constitutional requirements, the need to sell a majority of the public on the method and its worthiness, and in the case of PR for example the power of parties in our system is already high so how do you prevent it from getting even worse with PR.
What makes the ranked ballot so attractive to me is that it requires only a simple change of legislation. It is easy to explain, does not change the current balances of powers between MPs and parties (which is a nasty can of worms to open, and while I am not blind to the arguments for it have seen over the last three decades how hard a sell it is to Canadians, especially as a starting point for reform), yet still does make a significant change. If people felt that their ability to vote allowed them to not just pick their favourite but also to make clear who their least preferred option is so to block them instead of allowing the ability to run up the middle as our current set-up allows that may well help bring some back to thinking their votes actually can matter.
It is also as I said a minimalistic change, and when you play with fundamental powers and structures I favour either starting with the minimum and working forward, or going all-in and revamping the entire thing. Doing only half way measures strikes me as the worst of both worlds, and it increases the risks of new and more dangerous exploitable loopholes and weaknesses. We need to always remember that we are talking about changes that will have profound impacts on real life, and what may sound good in theory, or in a classroom can be very different when real life puts it to the test. Engineers have to think this way, that is why Murphy's Law is the cornerstone of their way of looking at things, and for me that is squared or cubed when we talk about things like fundamental political processes/structures. In this respect I am very much of a conservative mindset in the non-political sense of the word.
II would close with this as well...too many people seem to have equated PR as the only "real/true" electoral/democratic reform, and I've had a few bad disagreements because of that mindset. PR has been tried for in this nation and the federal and Provincial level for decades and it has never gone anywhere outside of a tiny fraction of hard core followers. The one time I am aware of that it was put to a Provincial consult it failed on the grand scale to gain support from the public. So I just don't see it having much viability, while the ranked ballot I think has the best chance since it requires next to no changes to how we already vote and tabulate votes. Which is why I think it is the best first step for electoral reform.. As I said before, if after a few elections it doesn't appear to have helped then it becomes time to try for the harder fixes, but I prefer to remember that the perfect is the enemy of the good where this issue is concerned.
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