…Democracy is based on the idea that a million idiots can make a better decision than a single intelligent person.<\/p>\n
I suppose the obvious rejoinder would have something to do with sour grapes. Still, the following facts are not in dispute: this is the first government in Canadian history to have been found in contempt of Parliament. It is led by a PM so hostile to facts that he tried to end the collection of demographic data vital to informed policy decisions.\u00a0 Federal scientists1<\/sup> are forbidden to talk publicly about their research. This is a PM so indifferent to science that he chose as his Minister of Science and Technology a man who regards evolution as a religious issue<\/em>, a PM who urged voters to “question their leaders” while refusing to answer more than five questions per public appearance. It is a government which, while in opposition, fought tooth and nail against Liberal measures to regulate the financial industry, then took credit for those measures when they shielded Canada from the worst of the meltdown. This is a prime minister who retains the services of convicted fraudsters, whose ministers are facing charges for breaking election spending rules, whose foot-dragging on climate change is so egregious that it has provoked an international call to suspend Canada from the Commonwealth. A PM who has mandated that he and his cronies no longer be known as “The Canadian Government”, but rather, “The Harper Government” (which is, at least, a distinction that distances the rest of us a bit from his actions). And let’s not get into the greatest suspension of civil rights in Canadian history, back at last year’s G20.<\/p>\n None of these facts are in dispute; and these arrogant, corrupt initiatives were undertaken when the Harper Administration was in the relatively weak position of minority rule. Canada has just rewarded that behavior with a majority<\/em>. Even Beverly Oda retained her seat: Bev fucking Oda<\/em>, the Not<\/em> Girl, caught red-handed. Re-elected.<\/p>\n What a bunch of ignorant, shortsighted fucktards we are. What a great downhill ride we’re in for.<\/p>\n There’s not much to do, now. Just buckle down and hang on, and hope that four years down the road there’ll be something left worth salvaging. And maybe remember the words of Kara Thrace, as she watched the endless ranks of centurions clanking down the muddy streets of New Caprica: “We do what we always do.<\/p>\n “Fight ’em ’til we can’t.”<\/p>\n \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n 1<\/sup>I know one federal biologist, charged with monitoring wildlife populations over time, who was actually told by a Harper flack: you collected data last <\/em>year. Why do you need to waste taxpayer money collecting it all over again?<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" …Democracy is based on the idea that a million idiots can make a better decision than a single intelligent person. I suppose the obvious rejoinder would have something to do with sour grapes. Still, the following facts are not in dispute: this is the first government in Canadian history to have been found in contempt […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rant","category-scilitics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2073"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2086,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2073\/revisions\/2086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}