Tagged!
DazzlinDino over at The Blogging Party of Canada has tagged me with the Quote Meme. So here goes.
"Know your enemy, know yourself and in a hundred battles you shall not lose" - Sun Tzu The Art of War
Essentially, trying to solve a problem with out understanding it is stupid. Rushing headlong into something without knowing what you are capable of and your opponent is capable of is stupid. To do so courts disaster (see, Bush and Iraq). To follow Sun Tzu's advice means victory.
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere" - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Pretty much self explanitory, with the added note that Dr. King expect people to do this through non-violence.
"They that give up essential Liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve niether liberty nor safety" - Benjamin Franklin Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
Something to keep in mind when you call for additional police powers and think arbitrary, indefinite detention is ok as a means to fight terrorism.
"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg" - Thomas Jefferson
Best explanation of the reason for the separation of Church and State I have seen. And it nicely debunks the whole "US was founded as a Christian Country" myth.
"A movement without followers is irrelevant" - Mark[Section 15]
Hell, even one of us lowly bloggers comes up with an inspired gem sometimes. Apply to Al Queda and see how to really win the "War on Terra".
"You keep on thinkin' Butch, that's what your good at" - The Sundance Kid
Becasue I freakin' love that movie.
And lastly,
" 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you' - the rest is commentary" - Old Jewish folk tale
That pretty much sums up every religion on earth. If more of us followed this piece of advice we'd be better off.
So now I tag
Mark at Section 15
Andrew at BBG
And Skippy the Wonderdog, when he returns.
posted by Mike @ 10:09 AM
15 comments
15 Comments:
Mike, which aspect of the Liberal/NDP coalition do you find more attractive: the high taxes, or the low accountability? Please advise!
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Good God, who is this effin guy? Get a grip....
Butch and Sundance, GREAT MOVIE, think I'll watch it myself tonight.....lol
Well, my first SPAM!
Yeah, Good ole Butch and Sundance. I'm a huge fan of The Sting too.
Anonalogue,
Which part of the neocon agenda do you prefer - selling out our culture to make a buck or forcing back into feudalism to ensure only the rich can afford things. Please advise!
See two can play at the hyperbole game. So if you actually have anything intelligent to say, say it. Otherwise, go troll over at MyBlahg...
Oooooohh, someone needs to switch to decaf! It's a fair question, Mike. We do have high taxes, and the Libs do want to introduce not only their PATRIOT Act but other pieces of legislation that weaken our freedoms.
As ususal, your moral relativism is weak and deserves to be ridiculed: it is absurd to compare the REAL ACTUAL record of high taxes and low freedoms of the Liberals to the FAKE NEVER HAPPENING FICTITIOUS NEBULOUS "neoCon" MAKEBELIEVE "agenda" - THAT DOES NOT EXIST YOU FILTHY INTELLECTUALLY DISHONEST SOCIALIST - "selling out our culturezzzzzzzzzzzz" DUHDUHDUH.
I think the reason why you make so many intellectually dishonest arguments is necessity: the Martin/Layton coalition and new spending agenda cannot possibly be justified by reason. I look forward to testing that theory in the coming months.
Can you tell us about your policy to restore federal healthcare funding to your super magic arbitrary figure of 50% and how many extra billions that will cost and how much you plan on increasing taxes, or is this question too difficult and therefore trolling? Please advise!
Anon,
When was the last time taxes were raised? Which party is actually proposing raising taxes? Even the NDP does not have a tax increase in it's platform. The NDP budget deal get's its money from the surplus from taxes already collected (and the spending won't happen if there is no surplus and only happens after a debt payment. Yeah, that's fiscally irresponsible).
How about studies that indicate that, actually, unitl the $60 000 level (which covers about 75% of Canadians) our tax burden is equivilent to the US? naw, that doesn't fit in to your ideology that we are taxed too much! And never mind the array of service Canadians get for that money, that the US doesn't have.
Or how about the neocon agendas in Alberta and BC? You know, Alberta, where they have no debt, but there are still enourmous waiting lists for hospitals and roads and infrastructure have been negelcted for so long that people are actually dying on the highways becasue of it. But hey, its a great place if you are a big business, right?
If you think that the neocon agenda is a myth, you are the one being intellectually dishonest. Ask Cheney about it when he's in Calgary in a couple of weeks.
Healthcare? Reallocating funds from elsewhere, closing corporate tax loop holes and making sure that the provinces keep up their end of the deal - you know, so that when the feds give a province $1 billion for healthcare, the province doesn't turn around and take that same amount out of the healtchare pot from their revenues. Mike Harris love to do stuff like that.
We collect enough taxes. The money just needs to be spent more effectively, with diffenent priorities.
Maybe streamlining service deliver. There are lots of ways to improve healtchare without rasining taxes. What's you solution, letting the insurance companies run it?
"What's you solution, letting the insurance companies run it?"
Considering that only a few weeks ago we had the following conversation on health care
right here on your blog:
Anon.: "Allow me the indulgence, though, of pointing out that you, Stephen Harper, the CPC policy declaration, and I all agree in our support of universal healthcare, the Canada Health Act, and stable and transparent funding for medicare.
And if I may add one point: I'd rather see the federal government increase healthcare funding than starting a new childcare program or making asymetrical special side deals with vote-rich(tm) provinces and cities."
To which you responded:
Mike: "Anonalogue,
Thanks. I'm glad there is some common ground here. Perhaps that means a meaningful solution can be found."
I don't believe you're being terribly honest when you ask me if I think "letting The Insurance Companies run it" is my solution. Nice intellectual dishonesty. Nice.
Well, thank you for answering my question. I had forgotten about our little conversation, since I just returned from two weeks vacation.
So since we seem very close to agreement, how do you propose that the greater funding take place?
Actually an idea I had was having the Feds give the money to municipalities directly instead of the provinces for things like infrastructure and health. That might open a whole new ball of political wax, but it would likely be more cost effective and efficient. It would reduce a government beaurocracy level. there is nothing in the constitution that prevents the Feds from giving money directly to cities and municipalities.
What do you think of that?
We are almost in violent agreement. Do me a favour, talk to me sensibly and drop the condecending tone and I'll do the same. Your anger is palpable.
"We are almost in violent agreement. Do me a favour, talk to me sensibly and drop the condecending tone and I'll do the same. Your anger is palpable."
I tried dropping the condescending tone with you once and I think you mistook it for weakness and proceeded to make a very snotty comment on my blog. I went out of my way to try and find some common ground with you because I thought you might be a reasonable guy. I was wrong, and I won't make the same mistake twice.
You support a high tax low freedom regime which hits me personally in the pocket book, you give Martin and his band of thugs a free pass, and frankly the stunt you tried to pull with Poilievre makes me want to puke - such is the nature of my animus towards you at this time.
You call it attitude, I call it a rational response of a genuinely concerened Canadian fed up with a socialist with his hand in my pocket talking nonsense to justify a bad government. Others have said more hostile things to you right here on this blog recently, so I don't see why you find our dicussion "violent".
Welcome to the free market of the internet, where stupid socialist thought quickly perishes in the Darwinian wilds of rational thought and peer reviewed commentary.
"Others have said more hostile things to you right here on this blog recently, so I don't see why you find our dicussion "violent"."
Uhm, Anon, "violent agreement" is a figure of speech or turn of phrase meaning that two (or more) people are arguing so adamantly that they don't realize they actually are arguing the same point - that they actually may agree with eachother. I'm guessing you've never heard it before. I think it describes our exchange above on healthcare pretty well.
I'm glad the stunt with Poilievre made you puke. You now know the feeling I had with Jean in the days before the video came out. I certainly hope you were equally as upset by the undfounded allegations against her. I hope you read both entries and the comments to see the point.
As for whatever comment I made on your blog that upset you, please accept my apologies. You must understand, in the "free market of the internet" its hard to tell the purposely idiotic trolls from the genuine debate - especially when almost every blog entry you ever wrote in the first 2 months included the phrase "Ha!Ha! Silly Liberals!".
Having just searched your blog, I can find only one comment I have ever made there(about SSM back in June). Now, if you would be so kind as to tell me how it insulted you, I would be glad to try to make ammends. From my reading of it, it seemed pretty polite and innocous.
At any rate, I am still prepared to be civil if you are.
You bastard, you tagged me!
As for Anonalogue - it's best to leave him to ranting monologues.
On the tax issue, it is very much worth mentioning that the US tax rate is artificially low. They are in a long-term deficit circumstance, and also have huge, massive unfunded liabilities in social security and medicare.
I look forward to your links. did you notice YOU were one of my quotes?
Anon - that was my next step.
On taxes, that is why I think we are actually at the right level. Better management of the resources we have would be a good idea.
Mike: Based on my engagements of you in particular and Canadian "progressive" bloggers in general this summer I feel eminently and uniquely qualified to offer the following brutally honest but hopefully illuminating insights:
The immature level of outright hatred of anything Conservative, conservative, or Catholic, combined with the massive congitive dissonance which dwarfs that of Bush Supporters, exacerbated by fundamentally poor reasoning abilities and a perverse, exactly backwards morality (and not a "different" morality, it is critical to note, but a wrong, bad, evil morality), punctuated by a breathtaking lack of self-awareness, a well deserved reputation of smugness that permeates everything, self-loathing as fundamental to multiculturalism and Canadianism itself, with pretense as a cheap counterfeit for reason, all poisoned by consent-manufacturing absurdities like The Globe and Mail, make proceeding with any reasonable expectation of good faith from The Left a pretty shaky proposition. Hate to break it to you, but you guys are The Bad Guys. Seinfeld-wise, you have No Hand. Sun-Tsu-wise, you have form and we don't.
Maybe we have a "morality gap", but in this thread alone you've made a couple of intellectually dishonest arguments and breathtakingly non-self aware statements that I could live a thousand lives and never make.
Personally, I think it is critical that CPC and NDP supporters start building bridges now because despite the absurd conventional widsom of The MSM and The Blogsphere The Liberals and NDP, as a bloc, will lose seats, not win seats, next election. Bet money on it. I'll put this in language we both understand:
if (seats.getLiberalSeats()
+ seats.getNDPSeats()< 156){//must defeat liberals!
if (seats.getCPCSeats() + seats.getNDPSeats() >= 156){
formNationalUnityGovernment();
fixCountry();
}
else{
albertaSeparation();
}
}
While it may fit into some peoples' preconceived notions that I engage lefty bloggers because I'm a troll a big part of it is that I really do believe that there absolutely is a rational basis for the NDP and CPC to work together. Sometimes testing that theory out means getting my hands dirty. I'm not sure how realistic it is at this point anyway, though. Trust seems to be a big issue.
To sum it up, I don't think you in particular and The Lefties in general are willing/able to adpot the goodwill and level of honesty necessary for any kind of discussion to be productive. And you really need to get over the childish bloody hatred and 100% emotion-based rejection of Harper, the CPC, and anyting remotely Catholic. Just because you are left wing you do not get a free pass to spew hatred and/or lies about any of the above. Frankly, sometimes I think The Left feels they are entitled to act like jerks.
It is my strong suspicion that The Left habitually make really shitty arguments primarily out of necessity; I argue it is nearly impossible to rationally argue the case for the Lib/NDP coalition - not without building in a whack of unambiguously absurd - not different, but bad - assumptions into the equation, anyway.
Should you make an genuine and honest effort to engage me - btw, very few "progressives" drop by my blog, which I take as concurrence with my solid politics on their part - you'll find I'm quite a reasonable, moderate, and pragmatic chap. But I just don't have any more patience for left wing nonsense anymore. A few people have made the mistake of running Liberal smack on my blog; of course, their weak arguments were left more tattered than Ti-Guy's rectum after Leather Tuesday at Le Man Hole. In any case, my blogging activity isn't about me anyway; it's; about getting my ideas into your skull. With apologies to Woody Allen, you and I are too small; we are obscured by the shitty Liberal government.
Put as simply and as civilly as possible: You need to raise your game up - a lot.
One of the best lines from the West Wing over the years is similar to Section 15's comment that you liked:
"What do you call a leader with no followers? Just a guy out taking a walk."
Mike,
What are the rules for this quote meme thing anyway?
And, yes, I saw that I was quoted. It's a good quote, I must admit. However, I like the one James macduff posted better.
Of course, I could alter that one a bit to be more relevant:
Q: What do you call a leader with no followers?
A: A blogger.
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