16 Comments

Government funding appears to be doing to Canadian media what government funding has been doing to Canadian arts for decades - you end up with a bunch of people completely insulated from the market and the need to produce anything that connects to regular people forming into a bubble society where the only people consuming their work are other people in the bubble. So when a CBC columnist writes their 100th article on Decolonizing Cishetereonormative Systemic Genderqueer Black Bodies Appropriation there is not even the pretense of talking the general Canadian population - the purpose is to signal their correct politics to other journalists and establish their place in the pecking order to ensure they continue to receive funding. The only difference is that for the media the process is not yet complete as we're still seeing layoffs while the media landscape shrinks to the level of available government funding.

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Matt you mention the media and the arts tainted by government involvement, I also look at agriculture and the failed supply management system. I'm trying really hard to think of anything the federal government is involved in that creates value in my life rather than a deficit, any suggestions?

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Feb 11
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“For all its problems” this sounds like typical elite speak - read anything about CDN HC and you'll find it's nothing to be proud of - the impossibility of getting a family doctor - hours and hours long wait to be even seen at the ER - years long waiting lists for help - MAID as a solution for poverty and disability. While HC Is challenging everywhere it is uniquely bad in Canada

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Feb 11
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The biggest challenge in fixing HC is the fact we live next door to the US and vice versa for Americans - CDN would be far better off comparing it to European HC - it would be a much better debate

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That was excellent.

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I would suggest that you are optimistic because, while you questioned the actions of our ruling class, you weren't among the half of the country told you were too criminally stupid to make any of your own decisions, and then actively discriminated against by the government for years on end. The sad fact is that we in Canada have the luxury of obsessing over idiocies because we live on a continent with the United States. We are a token 51st state allowed a degree of autonomy to pursue our experiments in "democracy". One key thing about tokens. Their decisions don't matter, so they can wander around pursuing utopian lunacy, and experimenting with killing the elderly and unborn children. Step back and look at our society. Look at the values. Get rid of the children we don't want before they're born so we don't have to look them in the eye. Kill off the elderly who have served their purpose, and are no longer useful. They'll do it themselves if you create an atmosphere of despair. Win, win. The only thing that negates negativity is to spend time with small groups of real people with the old values of hard work and self respect. These small leftover communities work together in spite of the destruction of our rulers. We are coasting in a society built on structure created by the hard work of our ancestors as they struggled to establish a life and civilization. No I am not optimistic.

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Brokenness is a term that requires a great deal of consideration before we make our feeble attempts at defining it. I had a coffee cup that lost its handle. Though I used some super-glue concoction, I never trusted it again with a full measure of hot liquid. I also had, at one time (yes I am this old) a glass-lined thermos to hold coffee when I went to a construction job I held at the time. I bumped it against a structure, and the glass broke. There was nothing to do but throw it into the garbage can.

I sit here writing with a space in the upper plate of my dentures. I need to apply the right adhesive to reattach the tooth that fell out, or I run the risk of poisoning myself with some chemical.

All these things are broken. What we need to do is discern which “broken” Canada is. As an example (and there are many more), I will mention that there are many here in Alberta, where I live, who are convinced Canada has been broken since 1867. Having heard the political arguments, I can understand their position. I am unsure whether Central or Eastern Canada are even aware of their existence. They don’t talk a lot about it other than in derogatory terms against some perceived straw man. There is a dismissing wave of the hand to dispel all their collected rage and frustration.

In the Christian Worldview, there is a tenet that declares us all to be “broken.” This personal brokenness is the source of all the unavoidable conflict between us all as we pursue greater and greater measures of …something… to either hide or oppose our brokenness. It is always ineffective, and we descend into a continual downward spiral of despair, cloaked in forced outward joviality that evaporates in our more honest private moments. The efforts of the elites to make policies to pretend this away are epic and futile.

If that is so, there is only one applied conflict resolution mechanism that will be able to properly answer the widespread personal brokenness. It is found in Divine Intervention. Ridicule it if you want, but, in the end, there is good evidence of this reality, which, when presented rationally and respectfully, will make all the difference. Too many of the detractors of this idea are responding to a carefully built straw man religion.

I must admit that when I was a functional atheist, I didn’t see the value of such things. Now I do see and it makes all the world of difference to me. My brokenness has been addressed by none other than the Creator who made me., restoring me to the Manufacturer’s factory settings.

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I love your broken cup analogy. I have a favourite cup with a broken, crazy-glued handle, and now I’m anxious when I bring the cup with the first sip of hot coffee to my lips. The similar analogy is the beloved dog who gives a sudden nip. You never feel the same about that dog again. That is how I feel about Canada now. I would have given my life for the country but now I’d hide my boys if they were needed.

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Great column as always - as someone who follows CDN politics from abroad the biggest surprise to all of this is how little impact its had on political system . No Trump no Brexit no AFD giving the elite heartburn. PP for all his bluster is simply another career politician - THE PPC can't even win a single seat, much less even a close second. 🤷🏼‍♂️

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Thank you Tara, you have given me much to think about.

What is missing is ethics, morality, and a strong sense of right and wrong. If you think in evolutionary terms, we have evolved socially and this evolution was slow and a primary force moving humanity forward. Successful societies are conservative socially. Ten commandments, stable marriage between a man & a woman, focus on truthfulness, integrity, and good behavior. All the major religions come to similar standards, and that is because it works.

The biblical standard put forward by the Apostle Paul was the "fruit produced". In the Old Testament they evaluated Prophets based on if the prophecy came true or not.

Our intellectual and media elites are running wild with no consideration as to what the "Fruit" of their efforts are. The fruit they are producing is poverty, family breakup, homelessness, opiate addiction, overdoses, wars, social conflict, .....

When they see this, they blame everyone but themselves, as they know with the fanaticism of a religious zealot of their righteousness, so it must be everyone else who is not virtuous enough.

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Bravo Tara 👏🏻👏🏻 One of the best top-to-bottom synopsis I’ve heard that accurately describes the state and causes of unease and dysfunction in the country.

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Journalists are only objective when government censorship FORCES them to be objective. The Fairness Doctrine worked.

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I like this because you are trying to get at something very difficult. Difficult to understand and difficult to discuss openly. Power is not necessarily gendered. Nor do women necessarily do things that much differently, e.g, Margaret Thatcher, Angela Merkel. But the broader franchising of authority has had a very deep effect, as you say. My favourite example is in work. The idea of Equal pay for work of equal value failed to consider the reality of total household income. Second jobs like second cars were supplementary. Like many things in a well functioning society, value was based on need not the notion of "rights." Instead of households gaining double incomes, the inflated chicken of inflation has come home to roost, basically ruining things for everyone. Not even two incomes are enough. Consumerism, the commodification of everything is at the roof of it imho. Something that has been juiced like Frankenstein by the internet.

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I like a simple explanation for what is broken. The explanation is the rapid emergence of the educated female dominating parts of the economy and society. I write this knowing that there are educated females like Tara that are also looking critically at the "broken" indications, but I think unless we admit the true root cause of what is happening, we are only talking in circles.

There is no historical precedent in all of human existence were we see female domination of society. Even if this is a better way forward, there has not been enough learning (evolutionary) time to absorb the changes. Females process information and make decisions differently than do males. It is scientific. When you explode a change where there are more females in positions of authority, then the standards expected for decisions will change accordingly. It looks and feels like chaos because it isn't normal... it isn't rational... it isn't right.

I don't know how to fix what is broken, but I do understand the root cause.

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Politics has a lot in common with professional wrestling.

Just saying.

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The short answer is yes.

Going forward it will be like dealing with Vichy France.

Start making a list of the collaborators.

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