Commercial Politics

Recently, I gave up on a local business (a musical instrument store) that I have dealt with for over a decade.  I walked in and saw a 'Black Lives Matter' sign.  I don't support BLM because their methods are uncivilized and their guiding ideology (Marxism) is anti-human.

I communicated my disapproval of the sign.  My problem is not just the message contained in the sign, but with the notion that it is wise to alienate clientele.  I communicated my consternation with the President of the company and in the end, he admitted the error and indicated that the sign will come down in keeping with the policy that his chain will endeavour to be apolitical.

To my delight, the competing business I went to had no signage of any kind and already had a policy affirming an apolitical stand.

I don't have the time here to articulate a full and nuanced argument about how problematic and ironic it is for a commercial entity to be unnecessarily political.  It is problematic because it is anti-business, and it is ironic, because it the politics being expressed seems to always be on the Left.  And among the suite of Leftist 'causes' is anti-capitalism.  I have never seen a business express 'conservative' or 'libertarian' politics, probably because to do so would be...redundant. 

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Now another local business, (this time an independent movie theatre) has done the same kind of thing.  In the past it has been political with signage signalling its 'guilt' at being situated on land allegedly promised to a particular Indigenous tribe.  Nevermind that the land is now in a city founded over 200 years ago.  This was self-serving virtue-signaling as the choice to be in business was just that, a choice.  They have been political in their e-mail subscription too.  Today I had enough.  Today they advertised a screening of the coverage of the upcoming American election, but it was all moaning about how the Americans made a bad choice in 2016, and the resulting 'damage', blah, blah, blah.

So I unsubscribed and sent the following in the 'Tell us why you want to unsubscribe'.  To be sure, they wouldn't offer to have us come and see coverage of Canadians changing government from the collection of corrupt incompetents we have now.

"I'm tired of the politics.  I'm all for free expression, I really am.  But I just can't understand it when a commercial entity, especially one that must be having a hard time, feels that it can afford to alienate its clientele.  Doing so demonstrates immaturity and a lack of understanding of capitalism.  Each and every commercial entity is a testament to the wonder of capitalism.  Why is it that every commercial entity that feels the need to be political is on the Left?  Does the irony of hating the very system you choose to operate under bother you?  It should.  The remedy is to stop doing one or stop doing the other.  Or, you can do one well enough and the other becomes impossible."

Ruth Bader Ginsburg's Dying Wish

This post will be relatively short.

I refuse to believe that Ruth Bader Ginsburg (RBG) made the 'dying wish' that she allegedly made.  Nevermind the fact that dying wishes are not binding.

By all accounts, RBG was a brilliant jurist.  She worked very hard to get to the top court.  And while many might have disagreed with her politics, myself included, no one seems to have a negative thing to say about her dedication to the law and to the office she held.

The main document, indeed the ONLY document she was to use to guide her legal decision-making was the Constitution of the United States of America. She took an oath to protect and defend it.  Presidents too take the same oath.  She had as much reason as any to know what was written in that document.  That document instructs Presidents to nominate members to the Supreme Court.

Why then, as her dying wish, would she suggest that someone else, specifically Donald Trump, ignore what the Constitution instructs him to do?

It can't be because there isn't enough time.  Three Justices, RBG included, were nominated and confirmed in a length of time shorter than the time remaining before election day.  Even so, the questions about time are not the concern of the Supreme Court.

And it can't be because it's an election year.  RBG said in 2016 that Presidents are elected for four years, not three.  She even warned against the danger of a Supreme Court that could deadlock on questions about the election.

No, I don't believe that, at the last minute, RBG would be interested in tarnishing a stellar career and her decades of public service to make a politically explosive final wish.

 

We Had A Dream

In words that still move me today, the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King defined racism by defining what it would look like when an individual does not behave in a prejudiced way towards another individual.  He suggested that relating to people according to their character rather than the colour of their skin was the way to be.

"I have a dream that one day out in the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by their character."

This put the onus on the individual, and rightly so, because racism is an individual choice and an individual act.  Racism, where it exists, resides in the heart of the individual.  Where else should we try to fight it?

Then Critical Race Theory came along.

This new model is incompatible with MLK's message because it seeks to define racism and its impacts at the group level.  To do this, it has to blame racism on white people as a whole, ignore experiences of other races who failed to be victimized, and absolve Blacks and others of any responsibility from any combination of individual choices or culture in the aggregate.  Like a superhero movie script, this theory requires ample suspension of belief, and has a caricatured villain and a monolithic hero.

Never mind the old lessons our parents taught us, we are to learn a new lesson.  We are to learn that racism is to be defined in myriad new ways.  We are to learn that racism is only practiced by Whites and that most of that is directed at Blacks.  We are to learn that ALL Whites are racist and that even Whites who have neither the power to nor the interest in oppressing others are guilty.  We're not supposed to get hung up on how well such an assertion would fit the old definition of racism.

In the past, some Whites (pre)judged Blacks, and now, to reach some cosmic equilibrium in time and space, Blacks and anyone else who wants to must now be allowed (pre)judge all Whites.  We're not to point out the irony when 'enlightened' Whites insist that they are needed to build this new framework.  Indeed, if these enlightened Whites were forced to see this irony it would undermine their opportunity to virtue-signal or flagellate like only Leftists do.

We are now to understand that we are racist, yes, racist if we subscribe to MLK's message.  To these new 'anti-racists', MLK's simple idea is outmoded because it abstracts out race from one side or the other.  MLK's model is problematic because it could be 'misused' to define racism in forms inconvenient to a new narrative in which racism only flows in certain directions.  To determine that misbehaviour and maltreatment can only be 'racism' when it flows in certain directions, the correctness of behaviour has to be defined in terms of race.  If that feels backwards, it's because it is.

Critical Race Theory provides a bottomless well of grievance. This means that the son of former slaves doesn't have to think or do anything but feel.  He doesn't have to forgive and doesn't have to disconnect the sins of the former slaveowners from the sons of former slaveowners.  And thus he doesn't have to sit at the table MLK implored him to sit at.

George Floyd, Rayshard Brooks, Jacob Blake, Michael Brown and others were elevated to Sainthood before the truth of their crimes and personal responsibility for their own injury or death could define the narrative.  In each case a preemptive double-down based on race alone (and the automatic assumption of racism) was employed.  It is a signature play in the Leftist playbook and the Media have it down to a 'T'.  It is perverse that men like this are hailed as paragons of the Black community while black individuals who achieve, and especially those who excel, are ignored or disparaged.  For the Left, the best thing a black man can do is get himself shot why a white cop.  The circumstances of such a shooting don't matter at all.  The Media will do the rest. 

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Individualism destroys this model, so individualism must be destroyed first.  

We are supposed to understand that differences in individual outcomes have nothing whatsoever to do with individual choices and the culture in which one is steeped.  (The extent to which an individual steeps themselves in any culture is a choice too.)  We are supposed to understand that individuals, especially Blacks, have no agency and that the world is a place where white racism is hip deep and only Whites have canoes.  Whites aren't granted much agency either presumably because they might try to take steps toward being better or to fool themselves and others into thinking that white people can be good at all.  In this new model, Whites have a choice: admit to being mostly racist, or confirm their absolute racism by asserting that they are not.  You needn't bother trying to please these people.  Your racism is unforgivable and you are irredeemable anyway.  The better to keep all Whites in their place.

It's simple, really.  Whiteness is a new 'original sin'.  And, like so much else about the Left, they offer guilt without the possibility of redemption. The best a white person can do is to grovel and scrape and expend energy helping to build a racial framework that infantilizes, disenfranchises, dehumanizes and dis-empowers Blacks with a litany of excuses like candies from a PEZ dispenser.

Jews and Asians have better lives than Whites in the West by the very same metrics these 'anti-racists' lament in the Black experience.  This is an inconvenience to be ignored lest it destroy the preferred narrative.  But for baseline antisemitism accepted and even perpetuated in the same circles as these cultists, there is little talk of Jews or Asians being the 'alpha-victimizers'.  Such talk would lead to inconvenient questions about how these groups somehow oppress Whites (and Blacks) and do so so disproportionately.

For some, this cultish enslavement of the mind is appealing.  It is easier for some people of all races to accept or assert 'white guilt' rather than think critically about the individual behaviour of the supposed victimizers or victims.  For many, this provides fertile soil for blame-shifting.  This new-age secular religion with its message of indelible guilt without any chance of redemption is a real turn-off for some; and for others its a real turn-on.

Like an economy, a society is made up of billions of interactions between individuals.  These 'anti-racists' try to reason away the individual elements of these interactions so they can instead manufacture a world view animated by the scourge of racism.  Like a hammer looking for a nail, these cultists see racism everywhere.  I fail to see the point of imagining a monster so large that it cannot be slain by mere humans.  The Left has a habit of redefining something to the point or normalizing it.  (ie. rape)  They overplay their hand again here by defining racism as something so insidious and intractable as to be understood as 'normal' in the human experience.  Why then, should we not be tempted to throw our hands up and resign to the 'truth' of it all?  For the Left, a problem that can't be solved is a gift that keeps on giving.

The circular logic of Critical Race Theory is that it only makes sense if you are first prepared to redefine racism in a way consistent with Critical Race Theory.  Otherwise, Critical Race Theory is...inescapably racist.

Critical Race Theory is a creed of hate and a framework for intolerance and paralysis.  Hate and intolerance can never do any good.  Effective 'anti-racism' cannot be built on a racist foundation like this because it only outlines blame and victimhood and engenders tribalism. 

I choose to live in a world where the teachings of MLK are not old-fashioned.  I choose to live in a world where my behaviour as an individual matters.  I choose to live in a world of grace, forgiveness and civility.  

I have a dream...

What's Old Is New Again

 

 

I gave up on Mainstream Media a long time ago.  It's been over a decade since I sat down to watch 'the news'.  Even then I was wondering how I was being manipulated.  Large market, corporate journalism is largely dead.  Entities used to provide news AND opinion and make the distinction between the two. Now they only provide opinion animated by a political ideology and call it news.  The line between news and opinion is not blurred, it is obliterated.  Ezra Levant calls these entities collectively as the "Media Party" in Canada and the name is not inapplicable to the Mainstream Media in the US.  But for the few outliers like the Wall Street Journal and Fox News, we differentiate these entities by how far down the Leftist rabbit hole they have gone.

I haven't posted in a while because Twitter had allowed me to follow and respond to events of the day.  Like Facebook long ago, Twitter has become a cesspool of Leftist nonsense where the lowest common denominator prevailed.  So a month ago I gave up on Twitter and deleted my account.  I joined Parler and I'm waiting for it to catch on as I am sure it will.  For now, it is largely an American platform, meaning that it has been taken to mainly by Americans.  I say that I'm waiting for Parler to catch on but I wonder if many, or any, on the political Left will muster the courage to join a platform that doesn't have a Jack Dorsey type ready to ban people to save their feelings.

I can't respect political views held by people too cowardly to even articulate them.  On Twitter, Leftists barely had that courage even though Twitter shadow-banned, suppressed, suspended and outright banned many of their most problematic opponents.  Perhaps Parler will serve as a right-wing echo chamber.  That would be unfortunate.  But it will take the Left to grow a spine to keep that from happening.

I need a new (or old) outlet for my opinions to be expressed.  I hope to re-ignite this blog.  Let's see how it goes.

 

Michelle Obama Is Clueless

Michelle Obama yesterday said 'Any woman who voted against Clinton voted against their own voice'.

So, did white people do the same when they voted for her husband?  Was she upset when whites voted 'against their own voice'?

Alternate Budget

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives is 'an independent, non-partisan research institute concerned with issues of social and economic justice', or so says its website. In practice, while its not affiliated with an established party its really a front the NDP; an attempt at 'fiscal legitimacy' if such a thing can truly be achieved by Canada's far left.

One of their favourite things to do is to trot out an 'alternative budget' ahead of the Government.

As you might guess, its full of guilt-money initiatives, social engineering, and mechanisms to make government even more bloated.

http://www.policyalternatives.ca/

Very few people have the intestinal fortitude to slog through a budget document, myself included. So I'm looking at the 'Budget in Brief' as many would.

I notice that Canada's debt from this budget's projections would go up about $88B from 2011-2015. To start, I expect better from my current government.

In the 'Aboriginals' section (first in the alphabetical list) I see a program called 'Urban Aboriginals'. This program is costed at $122M. I wonder what why it would cost $122M to have some Aboriginals live in urban centres. While they lived in urban centres might they be there to work in mainstream society (as opposed to reservation life) and hence cost at least no more?

In the Agriculture section I see something unexpected. This 'budget' cuts Biofuel subsidies by $200M a year. Biofuels, of course, are not a panacea, but that doesn't stop the granola-eating, tree-hugging, Kum-ba-ya singing environmentalists from thinking it is.

Carbon taxes start in 2011 and go from $9.6B to $14B the following year. Guilt money; a tax for a problem that doesn't exist. Moreover, its a tax that wouldn't do anything to fix the 'problem' its for.

There is $1B for 'Recession Relief for Non-Profits' for this year only. This is actually agreeable, in principle. Its not hard to imagine that many non-profits are struggling because the donation base has tightened its purse strings and/or been asked to give more to more charities. And as non-profit agencies often use funds more efficiently than governments through their programmes, it makes sense that we want to keep them viable and effective.

On the matter of Employment Insurance, the CCPA wants to make qualification criteria the same across the country. I think this is a step backwards. The criteria was adjusted to make things more fair as job markets are not the same nationwide.

On the topic of Post Secondary Education, there are a bunch of programmes (RESP) and tax credits cancelled and in its place is a $2B programme called 'Income Tested Grants'. So, instead of having the current ones administered through Revenue Canada with various lines on our tax returns, presumably we get a bloated, wasteful bureaucracy that decides who gets how much based on perceived need.

On taxation, I see some curiosities too.

Research on CRA (Canada Revenue Agency) tells me that the highest federal income tax bracket is 29%. The CCPA's budget would increase that to 31.5%. Given that in two years the added revenue is only $1.7B, perhaps it accounts for those who are in the highest tax bracket and might choose to leave, taking their skills, education and job-creating money abroad.

They also want to cap Tax-Free Savings accounts and RRSP contributions, and fully tax capital gains and stock options. These are fine ways to discourage saving and investment. Given that in this country its best for an individual to not save at all for their retirement than to save a little, discouraging RRSP contributions would seem to already be the wrong answer.

Due to time constraints, I can't polish this now or expand on these points any more than I already have.

'Discriminating' does not equal 'discrimination' every time

I recently had a (leftist) friend on Facebook tell us that he'd just made his 72nd blood donation. He lamented the 'discrimination' at play. I don't think it had to do with the rules regarding recent tattoos or piercings or recent travel, or medications used, previous disease, hospital stays or any of the myriad reasons why a blood donation may be refused. It was in regards to the rules around gay men.

A few people piped in, supporting the friend's notion that the system discriminates. Of course, as a I am what I am and as the resident Conservative amoung his 'friends', I had to stick my oar in.

My post follows:

Perhaps we can consider that the rules are there not for political or personal reasons but for reasons of safety and after cost-benefit risk analysis AND considering the perception of the public for whom the blood system is for. Even if AIDS infection rates were the same with gay men as with the rest of the public, (I don't claim to be an authority on such things) the perception that it might not be might compel people to not accept donations or worse, not donate at all. Like many things, perception IS reality. Sorry, but the viability of the system is more important than some ruffled feathers. Why is my right to safety less important than someone else's 'right' to not be offended? 'Political Correctness' be damned. Not EVERYTHING is supposed to be a Charter Right.

Now, if there is no higher risk by allowing gay men to donate, then great! Educate the public, then change the rules. We CAN be an enlightened bunch. I suspect that in this era of falling all over ourselves appeasing special interest groups, we'd have done this already if the stats told us to or even if the stats could be distorted enough to tell us to.

'Discriminating' does not equal 'discrimination' every time.