Tildeb, we subscribe to common sources and to common thought. :-) My thinking (at least at the moment) is that Trump is screwing some things up while heading in a constructive and and positive direction. More screw ups to come, for sure, but exciting potential improvements.
I particularly appreciate your comment "the very real connection …
Tildeb, we subscribe to common sources and to common thought. :-) My thinking (at least at the moment) is that Trump is screwing some things up while heading in a constructive and and positive direction. More screw ups to come, for sure, but exciting potential improvements.
I particularly appreciate your comment "the very real connection between sowing and reaping". Canadians continue to have an increasingly passive and assumptive attitude towards government (63% voter turnout in 2021). Such "sowing" has brought us to the reaping of the "potential- takeover-candidate-of-the-year" that we now represent (in Trump's eyes). Massive debt, ineffective military, polarization amongst ourselves, eschewing of natural resources...and Canada as the ONLY BUFFER between the US and Russia. Were I an American, I'd worry about us too!
Please keep commenting. Those other guys were simply wrong.
When one supposedly tilts at windmills for decades as I have done about the very real negative consequences to the country - any liberal democracy - that teaches kids to either invert shared classical liberal values to authoritarian ones (the whole, I-believe-in-free-speech-but... crowd) and/or substitute divisive group affiliated identitarianism in their place (in the name of being 'kind' or 'on the right side of history') it's very frustrating to be proven so right so often about the earned negative consequences we must all face now when there have been so many ways and so many opportunities to alter course from this disastrous decades long path... to see the fire start and to watch it grow.
I've seen and delivered public curriculum at every level of education in Canada in different provinces that by stealth policies is very much intended to indoctrinate students with an anti-classical-liberal ideology that is now coming to fruition. This ideology - exchanging truth for narrative - is SUPPOSED to be divisive! Lo and behold. People - good people, often people who think themselves patriotic - actually clap when the national anthem is altered to 'our home ON native land' as if this demonstrates virtue and some magical path to 'reconciliation' that dispenses with the whole 'truth' aspect. These are the folk who remain oblivious to how this affects an dundermines and dismantles real patriotism, meaning love of country. Who'd-a-thunk turning love of country into a public display of shame and guilt to earn 'virtue' points for a blood-won inheritance might actually prove to be a problem later? What's surprising is how few!
It is also quite informative to have - and LISTEN to - both American and Canadian family members across the continent and on both sides of the rising partisan political divide who explain why they vote this way or that or have just given up. There are substantive reasons often buried under moralistic framing. This kind of framing is counterproductive. And it is SUPPOSED to be! I can appreciate how tiring it may seem to face and vote according to this ongoing losing battle on both sides about addressing common issues that truly matter but are framed by divisive identity politics for short term gain and privilege by those cash in on it. Problems without solutions. A Trump approach discarding this framing is a mighty breath of fresh air for many.
So I pay attention when Vance tells Europeans about what this shifting away from fundamental common values does to alliances very much based on them! Oh my. Who'd-a-thunk such a widening divide might cause division? Well... who wouldn't... at least among those that bother to think rather than just emote? Look at the widening voter gap between choosing political extremes of young German men and women! It's the loss of a common centre that should shock people rather than bicker over which extreme is the more 'moral' choice!
So how does Canada rank in this shifting landscape? Not well. And that's not good if improving relations based on common values between the two countries matter. And I think they do. Greatly. That's what is fast burning down. Once again, I think we've blown it. Adding Canadian tariffs fixes nothing. It only makes the matter worse!
So I marvel at the doubling down - the setting sun of Canada and all it once stood for - by remembering the modern version of today's opiate of the people: keep saying Orange Man Bad and do not buy American! Yuppers, that's sure to fix everything... with the singular exception of anything.
Tildeb, we subscribe to common sources and to common thought. :-) My thinking (at least at the moment) is that Trump is screwing some things up while heading in a constructive and and positive direction. More screw ups to come, for sure, but exciting potential improvements.
I particularly appreciate your comment "the very real connection between sowing and reaping". Canadians continue to have an increasingly passive and assumptive attitude towards government (63% voter turnout in 2021). Such "sowing" has brought us to the reaping of the "potential- takeover-candidate-of-the-year" that we now represent (in Trump's eyes). Massive debt, ineffective military, polarization amongst ourselves, eschewing of natural resources...and Canada as the ONLY BUFFER between the US and Russia. Were I an American, I'd worry about us too!
Please keep commenting. Those other guys were simply wrong.
When one supposedly tilts at windmills for decades as I have done about the very real negative consequences to the country - any liberal democracy - that teaches kids to either invert shared classical liberal values to authoritarian ones (the whole, I-believe-in-free-speech-but... crowd) and/or substitute divisive group affiliated identitarianism in their place (in the name of being 'kind' or 'on the right side of history') it's very frustrating to be proven so right so often about the earned negative consequences we must all face now when there have been so many ways and so many opportunities to alter course from this disastrous decades long path... to see the fire start and to watch it grow.
I've seen and delivered public curriculum at every level of education in Canada in different provinces that by stealth policies is very much intended to indoctrinate students with an anti-classical-liberal ideology that is now coming to fruition. This ideology - exchanging truth for narrative - is SUPPOSED to be divisive! Lo and behold. People - good people, often people who think themselves patriotic - actually clap when the national anthem is altered to 'our home ON native land' as if this demonstrates virtue and some magical path to 'reconciliation' that dispenses with the whole 'truth' aspect. These are the folk who remain oblivious to how this affects an dundermines and dismantles real patriotism, meaning love of country. Who'd-a-thunk turning love of country into a public display of shame and guilt to earn 'virtue' points for a blood-won inheritance might actually prove to be a problem later? What's surprising is how few!
It is also quite informative to have - and LISTEN to - both American and Canadian family members across the continent and on both sides of the rising partisan political divide who explain why they vote this way or that or have just given up. There are substantive reasons often buried under moralistic framing. This kind of framing is counterproductive. And it is SUPPOSED to be! I can appreciate how tiring it may seem to face and vote according to this ongoing losing battle on both sides about addressing common issues that truly matter but are framed by divisive identity politics for short term gain and privilege by those cash in on it. Problems without solutions. A Trump approach discarding this framing is a mighty breath of fresh air for many.
So I pay attention when Vance tells Europeans about what this shifting away from fundamental common values does to alliances very much based on them! Oh my. Who'd-a-thunk such a widening divide might cause division? Well... who wouldn't... at least among those that bother to think rather than just emote? Look at the widening voter gap between choosing political extremes of young German men and women! It's the loss of a common centre that should shock people rather than bicker over which extreme is the more 'moral' choice!
So how does Canada rank in this shifting landscape? Not well. And that's not good if improving relations based on common values between the two countries matter. And I think they do. Greatly. That's what is fast burning down. Once again, I think we've blown it. Adding Canadian tariffs fixes nothing. It only makes the matter worse!
So I marvel at the doubling down - the setting sun of Canada and all it once stood for - by remembering the modern version of today's opiate of the people: keep saying Orange Man Bad and do not buy American! Yuppers, that's sure to fix everything... with the singular exception of anything.